A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



pcrley Park was opened in Dr. Gow's time, and 

 he also established the cadet corps. When in 

 1901 he left Nottingham for the head mastership 

 of Westminster, amid many demonstrations of 

 gratitude and goodwill, he could look back on an 

 immense deal of good solid work. He had won 

 for the school a distinguished place among the 

 grammar schools of the country and an enduring 

 popularity and respect in the city of Nottingham 

 itself. He has since been elected a Governor 

 of the High School, Nottingham. 



On i July 1901 George Sherbrooke Turpin 

 was elected head master. He was an old Not- 

 tingham boy, born in the town, who entered the 

 school in 1874. In 1882 he won a leaving 

 exhibition and a Gilchrist scholarship, and in 

 1883 a scholarship in physics at Owens College, 

 Manchester. Thence he went with a major 

 foundation scholarship to St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, where he was in the first class in the 

 Natural Science Tripos, Part I, in 1886, and in 

 Part II in 1887. Spending a year at Berlin 

 University, he was made Doctor in Science of 

 London University in 1 889. He became lecturer 

 in chemistry at Cardiff University College in 

 1890. After being in succession principal of the 

 Storey Institute, Lancaster, and of Huddersfield 

 Technical College, he became in 1895 head 

 master of Swansea Grammar and Technical 

 School. He has engaged in researches on the 

 ignition of explosive gases. 



There were on the school list for September 

 1909 371 boys, including the preparatory school, 

 in which the smaller boys are under the charge 

 of two mistresses. 



The Classical Sixth contained 1 1 boys, headed 

 by one who had gained a scholarship at St. John's, 

 Cambridge, while the second had won one at 

 Selwyn College, Cambridge, and the third an 

 exhibition at St. John's. The Mathematical and 

 Science Sixth consisted of 12 boys, of whom the 

 second had also got a scholarship at St. John's, 

 and the Modern Sixth of three boys. The 

 Classical Sixth drop science and the Science Sixth 

 eschew Greek. 



NOTTINGHAM UNIVERSITY 

 COLLEGE 



This college is unique in England as being 

 thef product and possession of a municipal cor- 

 poration. When the University of Cambridge 

 started its first University extension movement, 

 in no place were its lecturers received with 

 greater fervour or by larger and more enthusiastic 

 audiences than in Nottingham. Moved by their 

 success and desirous of placing them on a per- 

 manent basis, a donor, who still remains anony- 

 mous, in 1876 offered to the Town Council of 

 Nottingham 10,000 on condition that they 

 should provide buildings for University extension 



to include a lecture room capable of holding 

 400 persons. The Town Council resolved at 

 once to erect buildings for the scientific and other 

 higher education of the town and include the 

 Free Library and Natural History Museum. A 

 site of two and a half acres in the centre of the 

 town in Shakespeare Street was given by the 

 Town Council in 1877, and 60,000 out of 

 funds under the control of the Corporation, 

 besides 10,000 spent on the splendid pile of 

 buildings erected on it. The buildings front on 

 Shakespeare Street, with a tower and spire 1 20 ft. 

 high above the principal entrance. The centre 

 or main building is occupied by class-rooms and 

 laboratories, including the stipulated lecture 

 room for 400 people. The west wing is 

 occupied by the Natural History Museum, re- 

 moved from Wheeler Gate, where it had been 

 formally inaugurated in 1872, and technical 

 schools. The east wing is devoted to the Public 

 Library, removed from Thurland Street, where 

 it had been opened in 1868. The college was 

 opened by Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, on 

 30 June 1 88 1. William Garnett, scholar and 

 fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, fifth 

 wrangler in 1873, was appointed to organize it 

 in 1882. When it was reported on by the 

 Royal Commission on Technical Education in 

 1884,* he informed them that 'to attract students 

 he had been willing to start classes for even a 

 single individual.' There were in day classes, 

 which represented the higher teaching, 7 students 

 in electricity, 10 in mechanics, 30 in elementary 

 mathematics, 3 in intermediate arts, and I in 

 intermediate science. The evening classes of a 

 more popular character contained 40 students in 

 electricity, and 4 in theoretical mathematics. 

 In 1890 Cooper's devisees gave 5,000 for 

 engineering workshops, to which the Drapers' 

 Company of London added 4,000, and the 

 Nottingham Town Council 6,000 in 1891. 

 A Heymann scholarship of 25 a year was 

 founded the same year. In 1898 there were a 

 principal, 6 other professors, and 52 lecturers, 

 the bulk of whom were ' visiting,' and 1,879 

 individual students, of whom about 1,400 were 

 evening students only. Only 216 students 

 received more than 20 weeks' instruction. 



The college, till then managed by a com- 

 mittee of the Town Council, was incorporated 

 by charter of 27 August 1903, and is governed 

 by statutes approved by the Privy Council 

 6 May 1904. The government is still prac- 

 tically vested in the City Council, as the Court 

 of Governors consists of the President, now the 

 Duke of Portland, some V ice-Presidents, and the 

 Corporation ; and the Council, of President, 

 Vice-Presidents, two representatives each of 

 Oxford and Cambridge and thirteen represen- 

 tatives of the City Council. 



1 Rep. i, 477- 



238 



