NATURE 



385 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1887 



THE OWENS COLLEGE 

 The Owens College : its Foundation and Growth, and its 



Connection with the Victoria University, MancJiester. 



V>y Joseph Thompson. (Manchester: J. E. Cornish, 



1886.) 

 'T'HE future historian of the progress of education 

 in England during the nineteenth century will 

 regard the foundation of the Owens College, Manchester, 

 as an event of the first importance. The idea of esta- 

 blishing, in the midst of our great manufacturing towns, 

 institutions devoted to the higher learning was not new. 

 The e.xperinient had been tried in various forms in Man- 

 chester itself but had always failed. A College of Arts 

 and Sciences was founded in 1783 by some of the leading 

 men in the town and county, but, owing to " a super- 

 stitious fear of a tendency of a taste for knowledge to 

 unfit young men for ordinary business, this excellent insti- 

 tution had not a long existence." In 1836 meetings were 

 held, and a scheme was drawn up for the establishment in 

 Manchester of a College for general education. In the 

 spring of 1837 it was proposed to elect a Medical Faculty 

 in connection with the College ; but, before another year 

 passed, the scheme was abandoned, as very few pupils 

 came forward. 



Institutions which aimed chiefly at the preparation of 

 candidates for the Nonconformist ministry were more 

 successful. The Manchester Academy, and the Lanca- 

 shire Independent College, founded in 17S6 and 1S40 

 respectively, are active now ; but while the latter is in 

 close alliance with the Owens College, the former has 

 migrated to London. It was not the desire of business 

 men for culture or for technical education, but a demand 

 on the part of Nonconformist professional men for a train- 

 ing which the tests imposed by the older Universities 

 debarred them from obtaining there, which enabled these 

 institutions to survive when others failed. Nay, more ; 

 the strongest argument which George Faulkner brought 

 to bear on his friend John Owens, to persuade him to 

 alter the will by which he had made him his heir and to 

 found a College, was " that as he had such strong pre- 

 judices against the tests imposed at the older English 

 Universities, he could enable young men to obtain an 

 education equal to that of the favoured institutions, 

 without these hindrances." 



But, whether or no Owens was influenced mainly by 

 a feeling of indignation at an injustice which has now 

 been long removed, his benefaction has produced re- 

 sults even wider than those which have followed the 

 abolition of the tests he disapproved. The Owens Col- 

 lege was the first example of the successful establishment 

 in a manufacturing town of an institution which gave to 

 all comers a University education. When Manchester 

 had proved that success was possible, others were not 

 slow to follow where she had led. The Owens College 

 was opened in 1851. For some years it seemed that it 

 was to share the fate of its predecessors. At length the 

 tide turned, and the passing of the Owens Extension 

 College Act in 1870 marked the attainment of assured 

 success. In that year Newcastle established a College 

 VcL. XXXV.— No. 904 



of rhysical .Science, the Yorkshire College was founded 

 in Leeds in 1S74, and now no large town considers its 

 educational equipment complete if it cannot point to a 

 " Uni\-ersity College " in its midst. The importance of 

 this result can hardly be exaggerated. In the midst 

 of a great democratic movement, it has been prac- 

 tically proved that culture and learning need not be 

 the exclusive property of the few. The provincial 

 Colleges have made it possible for the young artisan 

 to obtain instruction from, and to test his own abili- 

 ties by contact with, teachers who are masters of the 

 subjects they profess. The Owens College is, no doubt, 

 as fir as its day classes are concerned, a middle-class 

 institution. But its authorities have also developed a 

 system of evening lectures, by means of which many a 

 working-man has made his first step upwards from the 

 ranks. 



.•\t first, the Council and Staff of the College had to 

 face the difficulties which beset pioneers. The religious 

 difficulty met them at the outset. An early attempt at 

 amalgamation with the Medical School failed. The Pro- 

 fessors one and all complained that, through lack of a 

 sound elementary training, their students were unable to 

 profit by the instruction they gave. " The worst that can 

 be said of [the College]," remarked the Manchester Ex- 

 aminer of July 20, 1S58, "is that it is too good for us. 

 It is out of place here, just as a missionary may be said 

 to be out of his place on the coast of Africa. He offers 

 the Gospel, and the people want Sheffield blades. . . . 

 The crowd rolls along Deansgate, heedless of the prox- 

 imity of Plato and Aristotle. . . . And where is poor 

 learning all the while 1 Going through its diurnal mar- 

 tyrdom of bootless enthusiasm and empty benches." 



The men who had the fate of the College in their hands 

 were not, however, daunted by cold comfort such as this. 

 Gaps in the Staff were promptly filled up. Principal Scott 

 resigning on account of ill health, his place was filled by 

 Prof Greenwood, and Mr. Roscoe was selected to fill the 

 vacant Chair of Chemistry. Nor was this confidence 

 misplaced. Almost contemporaneously with these ap- 

 pointments, the dwindling number of students began to 

 increase, and within some half-dozen years the difficulty of 

 preventing failure was followed by the difficulties of pro- 

 viding for success. In 1S64 we hear of the "insufficient 

 or unsuitable accommodation furnished by the College 

 buildings." In 1865 Prof Clifton reported that the per- 

 centage of carbonic acid in the air of his lecture-room at 

 the conclusion of a lecture was more than four times the 

 maximum consistent with health. Students of the bio- 

 logical sciences complained of the difficulty of finding 

 admission to well-arranged and complete collections of 

 natural history. 



It would take too long to follow step by step the ad- 

 vance of the College, but in reading Mr. Thompson's full 

 account of the way in which each difficulty was over- 

 come, the reader cannot but be struck with the fact that 

 the work of the Council and Staff was essentially that of 

 pioneers. Everything had to be discussed ; nothing was 

 determined by precedent. In i860 it was decided that a 

 Professorship of Physics should be founded, but before this 

 step was taken it was thought necessary to inquire not 

 only whether the students were numerous enough and 

 the College rich enough to warrant the change, but 



