An appeal to preserve antique foundation stones from the Liverpool King David schools has been launched.

The stones — some dating back to the city’s first Liverpool Hebrew School, which opened in 1842 — were discovered in storage at the Childwall campus during its rebuild three years ago. One 1893 stone was installed by David Lewis, founder of Liverpool’s Lewis’s department store, who gave £500 to cover the building of several classrooms.

A £12,000 project will see the installation of fibreglass replicas of the originals, which are too heavy to use, in King David’s main assembly hall. Local Jewish historian Michael Swerdlow, who is fronting the project, said it would bring the story of the schools to life.