CHAPTER III

OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER

Owens College had its origin in a bequest of John Owens, a merchant of Manchester, who left the bulk of his fortune to trustees to found a collegiate institution in Manchester, open to persons of every variety of creed and free from every religious test. He was born in 1790, the son of Owen Owens, a Flintshire man, who settled in Manchester in early life and established a small business as a hat-lining cutter and furrier. Some time after 1815 Owen Owens took his son into partnership, when the firm extended the scope of their business and became general merchants, shipping calicoes and coarse woollens to China, India, South America, and New York, and importing hides, wheat, and other produce in return.

John Owens was described as possessing a good deal of hard-headedness and practical common sense, a keen buyer and a good payer, very methodical in his habits and operations, and who acted up to his favourite motto, _Honestas optima politia_. He was a staunch Dissenter and a “stalwart” Radical, a shy, silent man, known only to a few intimates, a misogamist, if not actually a misogynist, of no great intellectual ability, and with few cultured tastes, nor, so far as can be gathered, particularly friendly to learning. There is reason to believe that his first intention was to leave the greater part of his fortune to his lifelong friend and former schoolfellow, George Faulkner, a well-known and prosperous Manchester merchant, who in declining it appears to have suggested the idea of founding a college in Manchester. The suggestion took root. In developing it Owens seems to have been mainly moved by a feeling of bitterness against a system which imposed subscription to articles and creeds on a young man before he could be admitted to the ancient Universities.

He was determined to break down this injustice so far as he was able; he therefore made the trust subject to “the fundamental and immutable rule and condition … that the students, professors, teachers, and other officers and persons connected with the said institution shall not be required to make any declaration as to, or submit to any test whatsoever of, their religious opinions, and that nothing shall be introduced in the matter or mode of education or instruction in reference to any religious or theological subject which shall be reasonably offensive to the conscience of any student, or of his relations, guardians, or friends, under whose immediate care he shall be.”[3]

John Owens died, unmarried, in July 1846, at the age of fifty-five. Mr. George Faulkner, who had been named as one of the executors, proceeded to carry out the provisions of the will. The estate took some years to realize, and the accounts were not finally closed until 1857, when the total sum received for the purposes of the college amounted to £96,942—not a very large amount considered as endowment, but still sufficient, viewed from the standpoint of the middle of last century, to enable a modest start to be made, with prudent management on the part of the trustees, and a reasonable amount of sympathy and goodwill on the part of the community that was to be benefited.

The executors, without waiting for the complete realization of the estate, proceeded to execute the provisions of the bequest as regards the projected college. In the selection of the trustees appointed to carry out his intentions John Owens acted with sound judgment and a wise liberality. It is evident from the terms of the will that he had given considerable thought to the character of the institution he wished to found. But in spite of all his care and of the legal skill with which his wishes were expressed, the theological difficulty managed to creep in, and ingenious casuists raised doubts and differences of opinion concerning the interpretation of the testator’s will in regard to religious instruction. This occasioned delay, and a certain amount of sectarian jealousy and unfriendly feeling was stirred up which acted prejudicially against the new institution for some years after its establishment.

The College was formally opened in March 1851. Its first Principal was Mr. A. J. Scott, who was Professor of English Literature in University College when Roscoe studied there. In addition to being Principal he was appointed Professor of Logic, Mental and Moral Philosophy, and English Language and Literature. The circumstance that he undertook, with the consent of the trustees, to give courses of lectures on “The Influence of Religion in Relation to the Life of the Scholar,” was one cause of the hubbub which was raised in the town and which brought the Church party to the support of the trustees who had sanctioned these courses. Other teachers were Mr. J. G. Greenwood, Professor of the Language and Literature of Greece and Rome; Mr. Archibald Sandeman, Professor of Mathematics; Dr. Edward Frankland, Professor of Chemistry; Mr. W. C. Williamson, Professor of Natural History, Botany, and Geology; Mr. T. Theodores, teacher of German, Hebrew, and Oriental languages; and M. Podevin, teacher of French.

The College was located in what had been a private house, formerly the residence of Richard Cobden, and situated in a dreary and somewhat disreputable neighbourhood in the vicinity of Deansgate, one of the main thoroughfares of the poorer quarters of the city. This building was purchased from Mr. Cobden by Mr. George Faulkner, the chairman of the trustees, and was subsequently conveyed by him to the other trustees as an absolute donation for the benefit of the College. As it was unsuited for the provision of a chemical laboratory, the trustees determined to erect at the rear of the house a building specially designed for the purpose; but as they were precluded from using any of the corpus of the estate for building, they raised a sum of nearly £10,000 for the installation of a chemical laboratory and lecture theatre, the formation of a library and for general purposes. The chemical laboratory, which was planned under the direction of Dr. Frankland, could accommodate about fifty workers; it was conveniently arranged, and was indeed one of the best of its kind at the period of its erection.

The College made a fairly auspicious start as regards numbers, but for various reasons such popularity as it had rapidly declined, and each succeeding session saw a diminished entry. At the time Roscoe joined the students numbered only thirty-five, of whom fifteen were working in the chemical department.

We gather from the reports of the professors to the trustees that many causes contributed to retard the progress of the institution. Curiously enough, one of the chief of these was what was subsequently considered the chief glory of the foundation, namely, its unsectarian character. But another and more practical reason was that the generally unsatisfactory character of the school work of the students prevented them from obtaining full advantage of the College courses. In fact, the training afforded by the College was beyond the desires of the people. Higher education was not considered by Manchester as requisite for the accumulation of wealth. In those days lack of education had little or no effect on the social position of its moneyed men. They were inclined to think that a highly educated youth was unfitted for the routine work of a counting-house and was of little use as a salesman on the floor of the Exchange.

But there were doubtless other causes of a different nature. It was unfortunate for the College that the days of its infancy should be cast in the troubled times of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny—events which dislocated trade and affected the prosperity of the district.

It was significant of what the town thought of the financial outlook of the College that the new professor should be refused the tenancy of a house when the landlord learned that he was one of its staff.

Its ill-success was the subject of leading articles in the local press. The _Manchester Guardian_ of July 9, 1858, wrote: “Explain it as we may, the fact is certain that this College, which eight years ago it was hoped would form the nucleus of a Manchester university, is a mortifying failure.” And Professor Roscoe was blamed for not awarding the Dalton scholarship because he had the hardihood to say that none of the laboratory students was sufficiently qualified to be worthy of it. The _Manchester Examiner_ was somewhat more appreciative of the efforts of the little band who were gallantly striving to raise the very low standard of middle-class education in Manchester at that time.

We are compelled (it said) to look for the causes of non-success elsewhere than in the collegiate machinery. If an objection can be raised against the College at all, it is that such an institution is either in advance of our felt wants, or altogether unsuited to the economical conditions of Manchester life. Still, this is the fault of the community, not of the College. The worst that can be said of it is that it is too good for us.

This might certainly be said, in a certain sense, of the first Principal of the College. Excellent in many respects as a man, and inspiring as a teacher, he was altogether unfitted to direct the development of the young and struggling institution in such a community and at such a time.

Principal Scott, whom Mrs. Oliphant described as “a man whose powerful, wilful, and fastidious mind has produced upon all other capable minds an impression of force and ability which no practical result has yet adequately carried out,” had little constructive or directive power. Earnest, upright, and conscientious, he was essentially an idealist—almost a visionary—a man of words—forceful and even eloquent at times—but with no capacity for action. As a thinker he lived a strenuous and exhaustive life. Although only forty-six at the date of his appointment, his constitution, never very robust, was already undermined and his nervous energy impaired. He was frequently ill, and his repeated absences from the College necessarily interfered with his administrative work. After struggling for six years with the duties and responsibilities of a position for which circumstances and the times in nowise fitted him, he tendered his resignation as Principal a few months before Roscoe was appointed to the chair of Chemistry and was succeeded by Professor Greenwood.

The public criticism to which the College was subjected was not altogether without a salutary effect on its policy. It must be remembered that it was the first attempt of the kind to bring the higher training, and something of the spirit of collegiate life, directly within the reach of the middle-class youth of a great business community, and it was necessary to have some regard to the conditions of the district and its special requirements and, it may be added, even its peculiar prejudices.

Roscoe’s antecedents, his associations with Lancashire, and his knowledge of and sympathy with what is strongest and best in the Lancashire character, made him quick to realize the factors upon which the ultimate success of the institution depended. It was no use for it to set itself athwart the economical conditions of the community. Young as he was—he was then twenty-four—he was perhaps more alive to the practical necessities of the position than the majority of his colleagues.

He quickly revealed himself as the man of the hour. His accession to the College at this crisis was the turning-point in its career. He brought new vigour and a fresh spirit into its policy, and from that time forward its fortunes began steadily to mend.

As regards his own department, it was his ambition to establish at Owens College a school of chemistry which should worthily serve the interests of the great manufacturing district of South Lancashire—the largest and most important seat of chemical industry in the kingdom. Associated with him in this effort, he had as assistants Frederick Guthrie, who, on his appointment to the chair of Chemistry at the Royal College in Mauritius, was succeeded by Dittmar, and afterwards by Schorlemmer—all men of originality and admirable teachers. Schorlemmer spent the greater part of his life in Manchester, and died in the service of the College, latterly as Professor of Organic Chemistry—the first to be so designated in the kingdom. His connection with the institution is commemorated by the association of his name with one of the chemical laboratories of the Victoria University. His co-operation with Roscoe in the production of the well-known treatise which bears their joint names will be referred to later.

Roscoe from the outset threw himself heartily into the educational and scientific activities of the community in which he was to make his home for the next thirty years. He joined the Philosophical Society of Manchester—so honourably associated with the name and fame of Dalton. Founded in 1781, the Society has played a worthy part in the intellectual life of Manchester. In the second year of its existence one of its members—the Rev. Dr. Barnes—drew up “proposals for establishing in Manchester a plan of liberal education for young men designed for civil and active life, whether in trade or in any of the professions,” which may be said to have anticipated the foundation of Owens College. The management was to be free from sectarian exclusiveness. “A plan formed for public utility should be generous and enlarged, so as to extend itself as widely as possible for the common interest. Science and arts are of no political or religious party.” These liberal sentiments commended themselves to the Society, who ordered that the paper should “be printed and offered to the consideration of the public.” The seed fell on stony ground at the time and made only a feeble attempt to germinate; two generations had to come and go before it definitely took root.

Roscoe quickly acquired an influential position in the Philosophical Society. He served for many years as its secretary, and ultimately became its president. He was the first recipient of its Dalton medal, awarded to him in recognition of his efforts to throw light upon the reasoning which led Dalton to the formulation of his great generalization, by the publication in association with his friend and former pupil, Dr. Harden, of “A New View of the Origin of Dalton’s Atomic Theory” (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.), based upon Dalton’s manuscripts and laboratory note-books in the possession of the Society. The book will be referred to at greater length when considering Roscoe’s contributions in general to the literature of chemistry.

In the Society at the time Roscoe joined it were several men of scientific eminence, or who played notable parts in the industrial life of the district—among them Joule, Schunck, Fairbairn, W. C. Williamson, Angus Smith, and Crace Calvert. Joule, a pupil of Dalton, a shy, retiring man, was several times President of the Society, and Roscoe, who greatly admired his character and powers as an original thinker, became one of his most intimate friends. In the later years of his life Joule, who was a member of a brewing firm at Stone in Staffordshire, suffered great reverses of fortune, and was only saved from actual poverty by the grant of a Civil List pension, which Roscoe, with the help of Tyndall, Huxley, and other friends of science, was instrumental in obtaining. A letter which Roscoe wrote to the _Times_ resulted in the creation of the Joule Memorial Fund, administered by the Royal Society. It takes the form of an international studentship or grant to assist research in those branches of physical science more immediately connected with Joule’s work. With the assistance of Lord Kelvin, he secured the placing of a tablet to Joule’s memory in Westminster Abbey.

In the vestibule of the Manchester Town Hall a life-size marble statue by Gilbert of the discoverer of the Law of the Conservation of Energy stands opposite to a statue of the author of the Atomic Theory. It was unveiled in 1893 by Joule’s most intimate scientific friend, Lord Kelvin. Concerning this unveiling, Roscoe could occasionally be induced to tell a story. In proposing a vote of thanks to Lord Kelvin, he stated that one inducement that drew him to Manchester was that he might sit at the feet of Joule, whose name was as well known on the Continent as that of Newton, but he found that all that the Manchester of that day knew of Joule was his Stone Ales. One of his lady auditors, in complimenting him upon his little speech, observed: “Of course I quite understood your remark about sitting at Dr. Joule’s feet, but why make allusion to his _toe-nails_!”

The visit of the British Association to Manchester in 1861, when Roscoe served as one of the local secretaries, afforded him an excellent opportunity of showing his organizing powers and business aptitudes.

These were still further demonstrated in the winter of 1862, during the memorable cotton famine in Lancashire, when he acted as one of the secretaries to a committee created to provide some form of intellectual occupation for the thousands of operatives thrown out of employment by the stoppage of the staple industry of the district. He gave lectures, illustrated by experiments, on subjects likely to attract a working-class audience. These were highly popular, and undoubtedly awakened a general interest in scientific matters in quarters which knew nothing of science. Their success encouraged him to institute the series of Science Lectures for the People, which he began in 1866, and carried on for eleven consecutive winters. In this movement he secured the co-operation, amongst others, of Huxley, Carpenter, Tyndall, Huggins, Lord Avebury, Abel, Stanley Jevons, Clifford, and Spottiswoode. The lectures were given in some of the largest public halls in the city, and were attended by thousands. They were published week by week as delivered, and were sold for a penny all over the world.

In 1874 the writer, then recently appointed to the newly founded Yorkshire College at Leeds, had the privilege of taking part in these courses, when he undertook to give some account of the life and work of Joseph Priestley, the chemist, who, as already stated, was a colleague of Dr. Enfield at the Warrington Academy.

Mrs. Roscoe, the mother of the subject of this memoir, then an old lady of seventy-six, who had shown the writer many kindnesses during his student-days at Owens College, was pleased to interest herself in this lecture and, unsolicited, to write the following characteristic and charming little sketch of Priestley and his wife as a contribution to the subject.

10 YORK PLACE, OXFORD ROAD, _November 12_ [1874].

MY DEAR PROFESSOR,

I have a few particulars at your service for your lecture on Priestley if you intend to sketch his character, which was a fine example for working-men. I should be glad to send you the papers if you will return them. You of course have Huxley’s enlarged notice in the _Contemporary_, which is very good and full.

His poverty, energy, and extreme industry raised him from the humblest condition. His first place of Christian ministry for three years was at a small chapel at Needham, and his stipend only £30 a year, to which he added a small school. Here he bought a pair of globes (made by John Senex, F.R.S.). When he removed to Nantwich, where he was minister for three years, he took the globes with him, and also kept a small school. There he bought a small air-pump and an electrical machine and a few books, going on with preaching, teaching schools, and learning himself. He says: “I was barely able, with the greatest economy, to keep out of debt—but this I always made a point of.” (The globes and the first electrical machine belong to friends of mine.—M. R.)

In 1761 he removed to Warrington, where he remained six years, connected with the Academy there. Here he married his wife—a most admirable woman—who excelled so greatly in ruling the home that “it allowed him to give his whole time to the prosecution of his studies and other duties.” Her behaviour during the Persecution and Emigration to America was above all praise. She said of herself: “There is something inherent in me which always makes me swim to the top of affliction, so that I am ready to pop out to the first friendly hand that offers assistance—otherwise I am surprised at myself that I have borne it so well, and greatly rejoiced that Dr. Priestley has kept up under all the malignity that attended the riots. Our property may be said to be entirely destroyed, the few remains that have been picked up so demolished as to be of little value.” The loss of books, MSS., and instruments was valued at £10,000.

There is an interesting chapter on visiting Priestley’s grave in Harriet Martineau’s “Retrospect of Western Travel,” vol. i. pp. 175-90. Also a poetical account of the uses of oxygen by George Dawson of Birmingham, which I cut out for you. The list of all Priestley’s works and portraits, medallions and engravings, as well as remains of other kinds, is given by Rev. James Yates, and appended to the Life of Priestley by Hutt.

Priestley was driven from England in 1794, and Lavoisier was guillotined in the same year at Paris after confiscation of all his property; and it was in 1874 that Birmingham was “made to eat humble-pie” by erecting a statue to Priestley’s memory on the centenary of his great discovery.

I hope you have made a good beginning at Leeds and will nevertheless not be too busy to read this note and to excuse my troubling you.

Very truly yours,

MARIA ROSCOE.

Of the stimulating influence of these Penny Lectures Roscoe received abundant testimony: in after-life he frequently met persons, some occupying a high and responsible position in commerce and industry, who informed him that they were indebted to them for their first interest in science. One such person was the late Mr. Thomas Parker, a self-made man, and founder of the well-known electrical firm of Elwell-Parker.

Services such as these, combined with Roscoe’s growing popularity and influence, necessarily reacted favourably upon the fortunes of the College, and it steadily grew in favour. The chemical department especially increased in numbers, and the laboratory soon became inadequate to accommodate the students, who came to it from all parts of England, attracted by its fame as a chemical school.

The prospects of the College were now so well assured that in 1865 the governing body and the professors began to consider the desirability of extending its scheme of studies, and, what at the moment was even more urgent, providing new and greatly increased accommodation. Owing to the adverse state of trade at the time, no immediate steps were possible; but in 1867 a town’s meeting resolved “That the time had come for the public of the district to unite for the purpose of developing the College on a more comprehensive scale, and in appropriate and convenient buildings.” An executive committee, on which Roscoe was placed, was appointed to carry out this and certain consequential resolutions. He was also required to serve on various sub-committees, dealing with the new site, buildings, extension and rearrangement of courses of study. It says much for the influence and weight he had now acquired in the counsels of the College, and for the confidence reposed in his judgment and business capacity, that no other member of the staff was called upon to take so large and so responsible a share in the extension movement.

The new Constitution as settled by the extension committee, to the extent that it modified or enlarged the original scheme of the founder, necessitated an application for a Bill in Parliament. The action of the Governing Body in enlarging the scope of the College was generally approved and was warmly supported, amongst others by Mr. Freeman the historian. He considered that the members of the two ancient Universities ought to feel, and he was sure that they largely did feel, a special sympathy in the planting of an institution like Owens College in such a city as Manchester.

It was called a college, but it had really much more of the character of a university; and it was as a new university in Manchester that he was ready and delighted to welcome it. It was a great and noble work which had been begun in their city.… He looked then upon Owens College as a university rising in a great city; neither did he look on a great city as an unfitting place for a great university. As a rule, the ancient universities of Europe had arisen in great cities. Owens College, unlike most modern institutions, did not begin with a building. Here was a college which had been at work for a good many years, and the common academical buildings were only now being planned. This was just as it should be; at any rate it was just in the spirit of the old founders. They got their men first, and let the buildings come afterwards. If Owens College had hitherto to do with makeshift buildings, it was just what the old colleges of Oxford did for a while, and in both cases for the same reason, because the college itself, the living members of the college, came first in the ideas of the founders, and the material house existed for their sake only.

The draft of the new Constitution was prepared, under the direction of a sub-committee, by Mr. James Bryce, now Lord Bryce, then Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, and formerly Professor of Jurisprudence and Law at Owens College. A Bill was next drafted to enable the College to procure modifications of certain features of John Owens’s foundation, and Roscoe was requested to sign as one of the promoters of the petition for the Owens College, Manchester, Bill, 1870. This Bill met with a certain amount of parliamentary opposition, mainly in the House of Lords, where it was first introduced. It was alleged that it was a Bill for incorporating a non-existent charity, enabling it to annex the property of another charity and to set aside to a great extent the expressed intention of the founder. Objections also were raised in Manchester itself by the executor of the late chairman of trustees, on the ground that it was proposed to include females as students of the College. The promoters met both the parliamentary and local opposition with skill and judgment. The Lords passed the second reading by a majority of nearly six to one, and as no petitions were lodged against it after lying on the table for forty days, it was read a third time and passed. In the Commons the Bill was read a first and second time without opposition. A difficulty was threatened in Committee in regard to the inclusion of the words, “A college wherein young persons, including if and when the proper authorities of the College so direct, persons of the female sex, may receive instruction.” This was stayed by the promoters agreeing to accept in lieu the words “such young persons as the proper authorities of the College may from time to time direct”—a sapient amendment which made little or no essential difference when the inclusion of women came to be dealt with as a practical question. The Owens College Extension Act received the royal assent in July 1870.

The foundation-stone of the first block of the new buildings was laid by the Duke of Devonshire, the first President of the Owens College, on September 23, 1870. The design of the chemical laboratories was wholly inspired by Roscoe, after a careful examination of every continental example that might furnish suggestions concerning internal arrangements and fittings, the details being admirably carried out by the late Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A. It is not too much to say that these laboratories have served as models for practically every chemical laboratory which has been subsequently built in this country or abroad.

Roscoe’s interest in the new buildings was not by any means exclusively confined to his own department. As a member of the building committee he took an active and leading part in its work generally. The position he thus acquired may be illustrated by the following story. When Principal Greenwood was asked how many master-keys would be needed by the staff, he replied: “Three: one for me because I’m Principal; one for Ward as Pro-Principal, and one for Roscoe because he is Roscoe.”

The actual incorporation of John Owens’s trust within the scheme of the extended College could only be effected with the sanction of the Charity Commissioners. There was no difficulty in the trustees of the original College and the governors of the enlarged institution coming to an agreement. The difficulty was raised by the Charitable Trusts Commissioners, and it again arose on the question of the “eternal feminine,” the inclusion of women being held to be a departure from the expressed objects of Owens’s foundation. After a lengthy correspondence this and certain other points raised by the Commissioners were adjusted, when a Confirming Bill was introduced into Parliament; it passed through both Houses and received the royal assent in July 1871.

The Owens College was now free to develop towards that consummation to which all friends of education desired it should proceed.

It had gradually enlarged the scheme of its studies so as to include nearly every department of learning, other than theology, professed at the older universities. It was inevitable therefore that sooner or later it should seek for university powers. That this was to be its goal was clearly foreseen by all who were actively engaged in its extension. The main difference of opinion was as to whether the time was opportune. Many distinguished friends of the College, who had watched its development, were of opinion in the late ’seventies that it had already attained a university position, and that steps should then be taken to make it the university of Manchester.

The idea of a Manchester university was not by any means new. It was as old, indeed, as 1640, when Henry Fairfax, Rector of Ashton-under-Lyne, moved his brother, the second Lord Fairfax, to petition the Long Parliament

“for an university to be erected at Manchester, as the want of an university in the northern parts of this kingdom, both in this and former ages, hath been apprehended a great prejudice to the kingdom in general, but a greater misery and unhappiness to these countries in particular, many ripe and hopeful wits being utterly lost for want of education, some being unable, others unwilling, to commit their children of tender and unsettled age so far from their own eyes, to the sole care and tuition of strangers.”

Lord Fairfax replied that this could not be done except by a Bill in Parliament, “which will be a charge of one hundred marks at least [£66 13s. 4d.], too much to be hazarded on so great an uncertainty.”

The successive stages in the growth of this conception are given in Mr. Joseph Thompson’s “History of Owens College.” These can only be shortly indicated here.

The establishment of a university at Manchester was boldly advocated in 1829 by Mr. W. R. Whatton, who contemplated the alteration and extension of the plan of the existing Royal Institution for the purpose, and drew up a scheme of higher education on a wide and liberal basis. Mr. Whatton combated the objections which were raised with considerable skill, but the “religious difficulty” got mixed up with the controversy: it proved insurmountable and nothing came of the project. In 1836, Mr. H. L. Jones read a paper before the Manchester Statistical Society on a plan of a university for the town of Manchester, which was subsequently published in pamphlet form at the expense of the late Mr. James Heywood, F.R.S., a well-known Manchester worthy. Mr. Jones, who was a member of the University of Cambridge, was a strong advocate of university reform and of the principle of introducing university culture into the larger industrial centres, in a form suited to the intellectual needs of modern life. An attempt was made to put the scheme into effect, but it died of inanition in a few months. It is, however, interesting to note that many details of Mr. Jones’s plan foreshadowed what were subsequently adopted in the arrangements of John Owens’s foundation. Naturally the idea eventually centred itself in this institution. The language of the local newspaper Press in the early days of the College, even when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb, clearly indicates what was the hope and aspiration of the more public-spirited and thoughtful of the community. As the College grew and prospered, their hope was strengthened and their aspiration encouraged by friends of education from the older universities like Freeman the historian, by men of science like Lord Kelvin, Huxley, and Brodie, and by public men like Lord Bryce and the late Lord Avebury.

With the provision of new buildings, spacious class-rooms and admirable laboratories, designed by an artist who has left the impress of his genius upon some of the most noteworthy architectural features of the city, Manchester now realized that it possessed a temple of learning of which it might well be proud. And there can be little doubt that this fact quickened the local feeling in favour of the realization of that hope which, however faint at times, had persisted, in spite of many disappointments, for more than two hundred years. A few months after the College had been installed in its new premises, Roscoe and his colleagues, Professor Ward—now Sir A. W. Ward, the Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge—who was then Professor of History in Manchester, Principal Greenwood, and Professor Morgan, took the first effective steps towards this consummation. The historian of Owens College thus testifies to their action:

It is to the zeal and untiring devotion of these four gentlemen (wrote Mr. Joseph Thompson) that Manchester owes its university; others cordially supported the movement, but they, through five weary years, placed their case before the public, removed prejudices, advanced good arguments, and lived down opposition.

Roscoe has himself told the story of how he attempted to move Lancashire through the local Press, and strove to create a public opinion in favour of the project, for, as he clearly recognized, without public support nothing could be accomplished. He sought to show how the establishment of a new university in the North would benefit the great middle classes of the community in which it was placed, and what its influence might be expected to be upon the great hives of industry in the most densely populated districts of the kingdom. It was, he said, to be “The University of the Busy,” as distinguished from the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge—“The Universities of the Wealthy.” He pointed to the existence of the Scottish universities, and explained what their influence had been for generations back on the middle and poorer classes of their country. Was not Lancashire, with its many populous manufacturing towns, as fully entitled to the advantages of a university as the cities over the Border? The time had passed for imagining that Oxford and Cambridge, rich and powerful though they were, could do all that England legitimately required in the way of the highest academic culture. Where was the evidence that the establishment of provincial universities would lower the tone of higher education, or that the creation of new avenues to degrees would injuriously affect the reputation of those symbols of culture? That “many ripe and hopeful wits” among the youth of Manchester were well qualified for and desirous of receiving university training, but who, for a variety of reasons, could not go to the older universities, was no less true now than in Cromwell’s time. Moreover, it must be admitted, there is a great deal in the _genius loci_. That spirit had succeeded in developing John Owens’s foundation into a splendid institution suited to the local life and requirements. They in Manchester knew what the busy North wanted, but they were not quite so sure that the Dons of Oxford and Cambridge knew it as well as they themselves did. They asked to be allowed to work out their own salvation in their own way. They were already to all intents and purposes a university; their students were university students in age and education, and their courses of instruction were fully up to university standard, and their yearly entry would compare not unfavourably with that of many universities in our own and other countries.

Other arguments were adduced, possible objections were anticipated and met, and a strong case was established. The senate, however, moved cautiously. They proceeded to collect and circulate opinions on the propriety of seeking a university charter, and eventually the matter was brought before the court of governors, who appointed a special committee, on which Roscoe was placed, to consider and report upon the whole subject. A considerable number of persons, heads of colleges, university teachers, and others eminent in the educational world, or who had identified themselves with educational movements, were consulted, and with the consent of the writers their replies were collected and distributed to the leading newspapers and journals with a view to elicit public opinion. An analysis of the general feeling so far as it could be ascertained from newspaper and other criticism was made by Roscoe in concert with Principal Greenwood and Professor Ward, and laid before the special committee. The _Liverpool Daily Post_ was adverse to the project, for reasons which will appear subsequently. The late Lord Sherbrooke, who, as the Rt. Hon. Robert Lowe, at that time represented the University of London, was equally condemnatory in the pages of the _Fortnightly Review_. But the preponderating opinion was undoubtedly favourable.

The committee reported, some six months after its appointment, to a special meeting of the governors, when it was resolved, with practical unanimity, that it was expedient to take such steps as might be calculated to promote the success of the proposal to seek for the Owens College a charter as a university granting degrees. A memorial was presented to the Privy Council through the Lord President of the Council (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon), praying for the grant of a charter to the College conferring upon it the rank of a university, to be called the University of Manchester, with power to grant degrees in arts, science, medicine, and law. The memorial was influentially supported by eminent men, who recapitulated the arguments which had led the governors to their decision; it was further supported by memorials from the corporations of the chief towns of Lancashire (Liverpool excepted), and from a number of public bodies and educational institutions in the county.

The very success of Owens College as an educational agency in the town and district in which it was situated was, for the moment, the cause of opposition to its attempt to obtain for itself university powers. Other towns, conscious of the benefit of such institutions, were seeking to establish colleges of the type of Owens College, and which it was hoped might ultimately develop into universities. Leeds had founded the Yorkshire College in 1874. Originally started as a science college, and with special reference to the educational requirements of the industries of the district, its scope had been rapidly enlarged so as to include arts and languages. It had already established relations with the local medical school, and its development as a college was not very dissimilar from that of Owens prior to the extension movement. At that time it had upwards of four hundred students—registered occasional, medical, and evening—with some eighteen professors, instructors, and assistants, and an income from fees of about £1,500. The governing body of the Yorkshire College, and others interested in its progress, therefore viewed with some apprehension the establishment of a degree-granting body so close to its own area. The majority were not opposed to the creation of another university in the north of England, provided that the interests of their own college were safe-guarded. They desired that the charter of the contemplated university might be so modified as to admit of the inclusion of other institutions of collegiate rank which might be able to fulfil the conditions of incorporation as constituent colleges with a definite share in its government. This, indeed, was actually contemplated by the promoters of the Manchester University, but the terms of incorporation were, in the opinion of Yorkshire, not sufficiently well defined, and there were other conditions which failed to satisfy local aspirations. The friends of the young College were keen and active; the Leeds Press took up their cause, and public opinion in the district set strongly in their favour.

As the action of the neighbouring county was successful in effecting certain fundamental modifications in the Constitution of the proposed new University, it may be desirable to give some account of the origin and growth of the Yorkshire College up to the period with which we are now concerned, and to point out the reasons which seemed to its friends to justify their efforts to safeguard its position in the interests of the higher education of an industrial community hardly less populous than that of Manchester and its immediate vicinity.