no LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



new college buildings in the Oxford Road, designed 

 by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, was laid, on the 23rd of 

 September, 1870, by the Duke of Devonshire. 



In addition to the ordinary work of my professor- 

 ship I was much engaged in executive work connected 

 with the new building committee, especially in design- 

 ing the laboratories. Principal Greenwood and I had 

 visited a large number of the University laboratories 

 abroad, during the summer vacation of 1869, for the 

 purpose of obtaining ideas respecting the building, and 

 the results of our visit were communicated to the 

 committee and to the late Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., 

 who adopted such of them as were found feasible. 

 And here I must bear testimony to the abilities of my 

 late distinguished friend as an architect for buildings 

 for scientific purposes. He at once understood the 

 special requirements of a laboratory, and as a result 

 those which he built in Manchester, Liverpool, and 

 Leeds are, each of its kind, a model of what such 

 buildings should be. In my own case, those which 

 I designed for Owens College 1 (see photograph), 

 were copied far and wide not only in this country 

 but abroad, and especially at Munich, where Baeyer 

 (Liebig's successor) based his new buildings on 

 the plans which I sent to him. But plans and 

 elevations do not convey to some minds any idea of 

 how the building when complete will turn out. This 

 was the case with Sir Joseph Whitworth, a generous 

 contributor to the funds of the college, and it was only 

 when a model to scale of the proposed building was 

 made that he gave his consent to its erection. 



To speak of the development of Owens College 

 without mentioning Thomas Ashton, of Manchester, 



1 I am indebted for this illustration to my friend, Mr. P. J. Hartog, the 

 editor of the history of the Owens College, published by J. E. Cornish, 

 Manchester, 1900. 



