According to Gore's Liverpool Directory for 1913, the first 118 houses in Wavertree Garden Suburb had attracted 16 clerks, 10 printing workers, 7 schoolteachers, 5 commercial travellers, 4 joiners, 4 managers and a wide variety of other occupations including an analytical chemist, a musician, a shipwright and a tram-driver. They included some interesting characters, pen-pictures of whom were published in the residents' fortnightly magazine 'The Thingwallian'.

For example at No.15 Wavertree Nook Road - then named 'Paxhaven' - lived Mr Albert Mann, the local secretary of the National Anti-Gambling League, and a supporter of the Peace Society (though in everyday life a Post Office telegraphist). Clearly, some of the early tenants were attracted by the political ideals of the Suburb's founders, though others complained (again through the columns of 'The Thingwallian') about the 'compulsory Communism' which used part of their rent to pay for recreational and other social facilities.