640 



NATURE 



[October 24, 1907 



SOME SCIENTIFIC CENTRES. 



XI. — The Physical Laboratories of Manchester 



University. 



SIXTY years ago John Owens, fine-spinner of 

 Manchester, left 97,000/. " for providing or 

 aiding the means of instructing and improving young 

 persons of the male sex in such branches of learning 

 and science as are usually taught in the English 

 uni%'ersities, but subject, nevertheless, to the two 

 following fundamental rules and conditions, that the 

 students, professors and teachers . . . shall not be 

 required to make any declaration as to or submit to 

 the test of any of their religious opinions. ..." 

 The trustees rented for the purpose of the college 



In 1873 the college was removed from the city to 

 its present site in Oxford Street, to the fine new 

 building erected from the designs of Mr. .'Alfred 

 Waterhouse, R.A. The accommodation assigned to 

 the physical laboratory consisted of three small rooms 

 in the' basement, quite at the back of the college. 

 With the addition of a private laboratory for the 

 professor, and a workshop, these constituted Prof. 

 Stewart's quarters for experimental work up to his 

 death, which occurred in 1SS7. Though much of 

 Prof. Stewart's work while at Kew, such as his 

 classic research on the air-thermometer, was of an 

 experimental character, after he came to Manchester 

 he seems to have devoted his attention more par- 

 ticularly to the theories of terrestrial magnetism and 

 of the sun, rather than to laboratory research. The 



, F.R.S., in his laboratory. 



X" Brookes, Matli hcster 



a large private house in Quay Street in the city, 

 formerly inhabited by Richard Cobden. The college 

 was opened in 1S51, with a staff of five professors, 

 among whom appears the name of Edward Frank- 

 land as first professor of chemistry. 



Though the chemical laboratory became almost at 

 once very successful, a special fund of io,oooZ. being 

 raised for its development, it was not until much later 

 that the chair of physics, or, as it was then called, 

 " natural philosophy," was founded. Prof. A. Sande- 

 man being its first occupant. He was succeeded by 

 Prof. R. B. Clifton, F.R.S., now of Oxford, who 

 was again succeeded in 1866 bv Prof. William Jack. 



On Prof. Jack's removal to "Glasgow, Dr. Balfour 

 Stewart, F.R.S., was called from Kew Observatory, 

 where he was then superintendent. A small physical 

 laboratory was opened by him at Quay Street in 

 1871, when eight students' attended for instruction. 

 NO. I9S2, VOL. 76] 



writer, who attended his classes in 1SS7, remembers 

 how Prof. Stewart displayed an almost affectionate 

 interest in demonstrating the use of certain instru- 

 ments, such as, for example, the magnetometer, in 

 which he always showed an especial delight. 



On Prof. Stewart's death, after an illness brought 

 on by an extremely rough sea voyage from Ireland, 

 Prof. Arthur Schuster, F.R.S., who then occupied 

 the chair of applied mathematics in the college, was 

 called to succeed as Langworthy professor of physics 

 and director of the physical laboratories. 



Although from time to time the quarters assigned 

 to physics had been considerably enlarged, the demand 

 for a larger laboratory soon became very urgent, 

 and, a generous donor having promised a large sum 

 for the purpose, the council decided to build a new 

 physical institute on a plot of ground close to the 

 main buildings. 



