OWENS COLLEGE: A. J. SCOTT AND
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
'PRODIGIOUS ANTAGONISTIC FORCES'
COLIN LEES AND ALEX ROBERTSON
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
The death of John Owens in 1846 and its commemoration this year
provide an appropriate opportunity to re-examine the foundation of
the College which bears his name during the first years of its
existence. The two historians who have analysed this period were
respected members of the College and had access to all extant
records, so little new information has subsequently come to light. 1 In
his magisterial study, Thompson, writing in 1886, presented a
remarkably full and skilful narrative derived closely from the Trustees'
Minutes. Fiddes, who took the story to 1914, closely followed
Thompson on the early period and the similar conclusions to which
both came have not been reassessed as Charlton in 1951 chose an
impressionistic format, heavily dependent on the former work. 2 The
conventional interpretation which has emerged is that after an
auspicious launch in 1851 and a period of growth until about 1856,
an apparently terminal decline set in. The unworldly A. J. Scott,
incompetent both as teacher and administrator, relinquished the role
of principal on health grounds, and was replaced by Greenwood
under whose skilful guidance the fortunes of the College recovered,
particularly after the appointment of Roscoe in 1857. From this
point chemistry and science created a new dynamic, associating the
College with the commercial and industrial community with a
corresponding rise in local support and interest.
In the light of recent research in the history of education and
with the benefit of a longer perspective, the present writers decided
1 All references, except books and journal articles are to deposits in the University
Archives in the John Rylands University Library.
J. Thompson. The Owens College: its foundation and growth and its connection with the
Victoria University, Manchester (Manchester: J. E. Cornish, 1886) and E. Fiddes, Chapters in
the history of Owens College and Manchester University, 1851-1914 (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1937). The most useful modern study to set the College in context is D. R.
Jones, The origins of civic Universities (London: Routledge, 1988). The background is
explored in C. Lees, The development of adult education in Manchester from the 1830s to 1914
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 1994).
2 H. B. Charlton, Portrait of a university (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1951).
1 56
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that it would be worth looking again at these early years. In
seeking to understand innovation, earlier historians were more
inclined than those of today to focus extensively on individuals,
so the present paper places more emphasis on the national and
local context. However, the first principal must come under
scrutiny, particularly when his reputation has been left
ambiguous, so Scott will be the pivot of the study. Among so
small a group, his four professorial colleagues must have been
very influential and Greenwood appears to have taken over many
of Scott's administrative duties during his frequent bouts of
illness, and became closely associated with College policy and
administration long before he became principal. The Trustees'
Alinutes3 indicate how significant Frankland, in particular, and
Williamson were in ensuring that science was to be significant
from the beginning, despite the impression that little more than
the humanities were taught, but in so doing stretched the
College's meagre resources to the limit. The title of this article
was taken from the principal's lecture, 'On University
Education' 4 intended to open the College in March 1851, but
given later due to his indisposition. The charge has been made
consistently that the College struggled because it failed to adjust
to the Manchester industrial and commercial context, mainly
under the principal's influence. This is a misunderstanding of
the intention of the trust and of Scott himself, who did not
underestimate the challenge of bringing university education to
'the metropolis of the world's industrial activity'. 5 Recognition of
this caused him to adopt the metaphor of struggle against those
'prodigious antagonist forces'6 which, as identified by Arnold in
Dover Beach and Culture and anarchy, appeared hostile to 'a
definite conception of the culture which such an education is
designed to bestow'. 7 Unlike Arnold, Scott was not pessimistic
about the outcome and recognized the new industrial and
commercial order as 'for the most part intrinsically noble or
needful' 8 and there was no necessary conflict between that world
and the 'serene and ideal attractions of the intellectual life'. 9 On
the contrary, the two in 'friendly opposition and healthful
counterpoise' 10 would complement each other. In fact, the
address was an ambitious attempt to create a college which Scott
claimed later was unique: 'Few are aware how novel is the
experiment here of making a College entirely unprofessional in
3 The first meeting was 13 June 1848 and volumes 1 and 2 cover the first decade.
4 A. J. Scott, 'On university education', in Introductory lectures on the opening of
Ozi-cns College, Manchester, 2nd edn (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans,
1852) 2.
5 References 5 to 10 are all from the above lecture, 1-26.
OWENS COLLEGE
157
its provisions .... In England Owens College stands alone in
this respect . . .' n
This somewhat startling statement deserves analysis,
particularly in the light of Charlton's dismissive view that Scott was
a moralist who believed that advanced education was exclusively 'to
lift his pupils to a higher plane of spiritual well-being by inducing in
them the habitual practice of an intellectual discipline'. 12 It will be
the argument of this paper that, despite unremitting ill health and a
certain flamboyance, even eccentricity of manner13 which some,
perhaps scientists in particular, misinterpreted as unworldliness or
lack of clarity of mind, Scott was a shrewd analyst of the
educational situation whose diagnosis coincided closely with that of
his colleagues and who recognized the special circumstances of the
first university college in an industrial city. He asserted 'we do not
renounce the belief that the great manufacturing and commercial
classes of this country, and especially of this district, [will] demand
for their successors a higher general education'. 14 It is necessary to
understand what Scott meant by a 'general' education in the
Manchester context, and we can set aside as a common factor the
conventional - if deeply held - contemporary view of the spiritual
and ethical aspects of university education. Charlton, stressing
Scott's religious preoccupation, did not refer to the fact that
Frankland emphasized the understanding chemistry brought to the
'greatness and goodness of the great Creator' and its value as an
intellectual discipline and 'medium of elevating and refining the
intellect of man', or that Williamson attributed similar qualities to
natural history and believed such study would help destroy 'that
Pantheistic philosophy which would put an imaginary power, called
Nature, in the place of God', while Sandeman claimed that of all the
justifications for mathematics, 'the highest undoubtedly is ...
throwing light on our own nature and on the principles of our
knowledge'. 15
It is true that Scott was a deeply spiritual man and came from a
background of intense religious debate and controversy in the
Presbyterian Church, from which he was increasingly excluded. 16 A
reputation as a controversialist preceded him to Manchester and
contributed to the considerable concern in the city that Owens's will
was being distorted to add theology to the College curriculum, but
11 A. J. Scon, Annual Report of Owens College, 1852-1853 (Manchester: 1853), v.
12 Charlton, Portrait, 55.
13 See G. Hanvood in C. Rowley, Fifty years work without wages (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, n.d.) 22.
14 A. J. Scott, Annual Report of Oicens College, 1852-1853 (Manchester: 1853), v.
'* Inaugural lectures of Frankland, Williamson and Sandeman, in Introductory lectures.
" See Thompson, Ouvns College, Chapter 6, A. J. Scott, 164-93.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
this was a characteristic scare of an intensely sectarian period and
even the Manchester Guardian,, which had taken a leading role in
criticizing the possibility, had to admit that fears about Scott had
been unjustified. 17 It is a misrepresentation to see Scott as a
religious mystic remote from the life of the city. He was one of those
for whom religion provided a radical element to his Christianity and
led him towards the Christian Socialism of Maurice and Kingsley
and the social idealism of the Pre-Raphaelites. Maurice publicly
acknowledged 'how much he owed him, and what a part he had had
in his (Maurice's) mental education'. 18 It is characteristic that when
addressing a meeting to honour Dalton, Scott chose to highlight
that Dalton's poverty as a young man was mirrored in the lives of
many aspiring young Mancunians who could not afford the high
cost of chemistry laboratory fees and related expenses. This was
part of a sense of concern about a growing divisiveness in society
which he articulated in 1841 when discussing Christianity, society
and socialism - 'there is a great gulf, I fear, widening, between the
different classes of society . . . and one of the results is that their
voice is becoming . . . more and more inaudible across this abyss'. 19
He was a committed supporter of the Working Men's College
Movement and an activist for the foundation of one in Manchester,
giving the inaugural address in January 1858. 20 This paper was a
lucid mix of the inspirational, showing how Livingstone, who had
been enthusiastically received in Manchester, had exploited
opportunities for education while a mill worker; the socially
challenging, in characterizing the London College as teachers and
students 'mingling . . . not on a footing of condescension on the one
hand, and of an expected servility on the other'; and, most
important of all, recognizing that in Manchester, 'the industrial
capital of the country . . . how the experiment turns out may be of
greater consequence than elsewhere'. But the achievement would
not be easy, and he alluded to the 'astonishment and apprehension'
induced locally by the distress caused by the recent economic
slump, the Russian War of 1854 to 1856, and the Indian Mutiny,
which he believed diverted attention from the still weak interest in
advanced education. Nationally, only the Factory Acts impinged on
education and at the very time that the College opened, Manchester
17 Manchester Guardian, Leading Article, 8 October 1851.
18 F. D. Maurice to his son, Manchester, 9 June 1868, in Memoirs of John McLeod
Campbell, D.D., ed. D. Campbell, 2 vols (London: Macmillan and Co., 1877), vol. 2, 211. See
also Thompson, Owens College, 192.
19 Manchester Guardian, Memorial meeting to raise a subscription for a testimonial to the
memory of John Dalton, 2 January 1851. The 1841 lecture at Chadwell Street Chapel,
Pentonville, London, is in A. J. Scott, Discourses (London: Macmillan, 1886).
20 A. J. Scott, Address at the inauguration of the Manchester Working Man's College,
January 1858. Report of his address in Manchester Guardian in Cuttings Book of J. H. Nodal,
Secretary, Manchester Central Library, Local History Section.
OWENS COLLEGE
159
was seeking permission through legislation, to rate itself in order to
encourage education. It failed in a welter of sectarian suspicion and
government indifference. This is a valuable point, as any
institutional history must take account of the contemporary social,
political and economic contexts, particularly in such a complex
society as Manchester in the 1850s.
It is appropriate to note that J. H. Nodal, the Secretary of the
Manchester Working Man's College, 21 pointed out to his
Committee that the College was making little impact on the town
or even on the students. With regard to the latter point, this was
partly because of the demands of 'a certain amount of steady and
regular mental labour', but mainly because of the lack of collegiate
ethos - 'it is a mere assemblage of classes composed of members as
much strangers to one another as if they had no common object or
bond of union'. Even the enlightened decision by the staff to
encourage the formation of a Students' Committee encountered
difficulties at first, as 'they are almost wholly at a loss' to know what
to talk about, Nodal noted, and though confidence was gained, this
demonstrates understandable uncertainty about the expectations of
academic life and parallels the situation at Owens College. In
addition to this work and lecturing at the Y.M.C.A. and the new
public library in Campfield,22 Scott was known in London as a
protagonist of women's higher education and had been involved in
the foundation of the Ladies' College, Bedford Square, in 1849. 23
Of much interest is his attempt to continue his work in Manchester,
and in the-Trustees' Minutes for 3 February 1857 is an entry
approving 'the evening classes as advertised to be delivered by Mr
Scott, Mr Christie and Mr Williamson being open to the attendance
of ladies . . .'. 2* A manuscript list of students for 1856-57 contains
the names of twenty-seven women out of a total for that year of
sixty-nine students. Among these are names of families to be
connected with the women's movement of the future: Darbishire,
Behrens, Herford, Winkworth and, most intriguing of all, the
trustee Samuel Fletcher, his wife and two daughters. 25 This is the
first reference to women in relation to Owens College and
represents evidence of a demand much earlier than previously
identified in Manchester. It was not to be repeated for nearly thirty
years, for no subsequent list includes women and it is impossible to
21 J. H. Nodal, Secretary, Manchester Working Man's College, Notes for the Annual
Report 1859-1860, MS collection, University Archives, John Rylands University Library.
22 The only attempt to form a bibliography of Scott's writing and addresses is in
Thompson, Owens College, Appendix 5, 652-4.
23 H. H. Bellot, University College, London 1826-1926 (London: University of London
Press, 1929) 368.
24 Minutes of the Trustees for educational purposes, Meeting of 3 February 1857.
25 Manuscript list of evening students, 1854-61, known as 'Henry Brierley's List'.
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BULLETIN JOHN RVLANDS LIBRARY
know, in fact, if they attended and whether the trustees were
accused of breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of Owens's will;
Greenwood would certainly have opposed it, but the Minutes are
wholly silent on the matter. 26
The question of Scott's competence as a lecturer is a difficult
one and needs care in the interpretation of the conflicting evidence.
He apparently extemporized and it has been claimed that his diffuse
style deterred the unsophisticated students. Surviving evidence of
other College addresses and general public talks, including four
lectures in London in 1841 on 'The Social Systems of the Present
Day Compared with Christianity,' which included the controversial
subjects of Chartism and Socialism suggests they were carefully
thought out. 27 G. Harwood, Q.C., M.P., a former student, regarded
Scott's appointment as bizarre as appointing 'a dreaming poet to
manage Marshall and Snellgrove', and Roscoe dismissed him as
'wordy' and does not hesitate to blame him for failing 'to put the
young institution on the right lines, or to impress the public of
Manchester with the importance of the experiment'. 28 But Roscoe
has to be treated with care, as in the same document he
unashamedly associated himself with a supposed change of fortune
of the College from 1857. A testimonial29 to Scott from students,
including Richard Pankhurst, is very complimentary but whatever
the truth of the matter, it is highly unlikely that the teaching style of
a lecturer had any significance on recruitment.
In seeking to account for what has been seen as the slow
development of Owens College, earlier historians have not taken
sufficient account of the effects of the rudimentary provision of
elementary education and the total lack of government-coordinated
secondary education. For another twenty years from 1850
elementary education was to remain church controlled and
compulsory education was thirty years distant. Manchester
Grammar School was only then emerging under F. W. Walker from
years of stagnation and litigation, and was tied by tradition to the
old universities, while most middle class parents sent their children
to private schools of very dubious value. 30 The 1839 Chorlton High
School and the 1846 Stretford Road Commercial School were
26 For Greenwood's attitude to women entrants see M. Tylecote, The education of women
at A Manchester University 1883-1933 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1941) and A.
B. Robertson, 'Manchester, Owens College and the higher education of Women: 'a large hole
for the cat and a small one for the kitten', Bulletin of the John Rylands L'nn<ersity Library,
77(1), 1995.
27 A. J. Scott, Discourses.
28 G. Harwood, Letter to C. Rowley, in Rowley, Fifty wars. 21-7; H. Roscoe to C.
Rowley, ibid., 14-21.
29 Testimonial to Scon from students, MS, no date, possibly 1856.
30 A. A. Mumford, Manchester Grammar School 1515-1915 (London: Longmans, Green,
1919), Chs 11-13.
OWENS COLLEGE
161
distinguished forerunners of a new interest in middle class
education, and adopted the College of Preceptors' examinations and
Oxford and Cambridge 'Locals', but had made little impact by the
1860s. As late as 1858, Principal Greenwood, comparing national
results in the 'Locals', found that Manchester had by far the lowest
percentage of senior candidates. 31
In 1856, when presenting the annual report to the Trustees,32
Scott referred again to the 'experiment' of higher education at
Manchester - 'not popular lectures, not an education of the school,
or of the work shop, but a College education'. What he meant is
much less imprecise than has been implied. In his inaugural lecture
he accepted that universities had evolved as organizations preparing
students for a particular role in life, but argued that they had
developed in parallel an enlarged intellectual function, attracting men
who wished to increase their knowledge through study. Despite
efforts by the church to prevent this, 'the secular spirit' survived.
Universities should not be narrowly defined, therefore, as places of
professional training only. Rather, they should encourage, 'the
transcendent part which solitary and abstract study, not immediately
directed to any outward result, bears in the history of practical
improvement'.33 Charlton interpreted this as advocacy of a solitary,
almost monastic, life of self-improvement for the scholar and
adversely compared it with the Roscoe-Ward paradigm, 34 but Scott
argued that in the universities men could study, detached from the
pressures and deadening activity of the commercial world and
develop that lively intelligence which would lead to discoveries which
would filter into many aspects of practical life. 'The more of free and
animated scholarship there exists anywhere, the more will it
assuredly diffuse itself ... to those engaged in practice,'35 and in
memorable phrases, referring to Kepler said 'in the commerce of all
our ports is Kepler living, thinking, working, even now' and of James
Watt, 'it is the pulse of his brain that now throbs in all your
engines'. 36 In 1851 at the public meeting to honour Dalton which
resulted in the Dalton Chemical and Mathematical Scholarships,37
Scott admitted that chemistry was at that time the only course
'directly and immediately' appropriate to the industrial life of
Manchester, but assured the audience that it was not the intention of
the trustees or professors that it should remain so, as 'they valued
practical pursuits, they valued the relation between science and
31 J. G. Greenwood, Annual Report of Owens College, 1857-1858 (Manchester: 1858),
vi-viii.
32 A. J. Scott, Annual Report of Owens College, 1855-1856 (Manchester: 1856), v.
33 A. J. Scott, On university education, 23.
34 Charlton, Portrait, 55.
35 A. J. Scott, On university education, 23.
36 Ibid.,9-10, 10-11.
r Dalton Testimonial Meeting. See above, n. 19.
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practice'. He envisaged that 'courses of commercial knowledge,
political economy, of the arts in their relation to the sciences' would
be provided as means allowed. By the end of his principalship, with
only one extra professorial colleague, R.C. Christie, three 'faculties'
existed, General Literature and Science, Theoretical and Applied
Science and Commerce and Civil Service. His observation that the
more obviously vocational subjects 'were not proper courses to give
young people in the first place'38 was less a defence of traditional
classical education or a misunderstanding of the needs of a college in
an industrial environment, than a perception of what was to emerge
slowly as accepted thinking later in the century, that a good general
secondary education followed by increased specialism was the proper
basis for university entry. It was also wholly in keeping with the
intention of the trustees as set out in their report of 1850. In
addition, it was orthodox belief in the 1850s that some subjects were
of greater educational value than others, and it should be
remembered that the role of science in the curriculum of secondary
schools remained ambiguous until the beginning of the present
century. It is interesting that Greenwood chose to open the 1858
session with a theme 'School and College Studies', similar to that of
Scott in 1851,39 and argued: 'that primarily the subjects taught our
students are taught for discipline's sake, and that subjects which do
not contribute towards, or which prove obstacles to, that discipline
are better left for future pursuit. This is the distinction between
liberal and professional education'. But like Scott he took a
pragmatic view of the world. There were studies, he accepted, 'which
cultivate the powers of scientific observation and induction - the
progressive sciences . . . and in the choice of these it is obviously
proper that the exigencies of the future career should not be
neglected . . .'. What impelled Greenwood to discuss the nature of
college education at this time was not a redefinition of Scott's vision,
as his successor, but a response to the intention of the University of
London to permit examination of students not in an affiliated
institution. This caused Greenwood to reassert views about
collegiality and stress the need for the coherence of method and
discipline - 'the process is the result' is the interesting phrase he
used40 - which were identical to those of Scott as expressed in 1851
and later to the Working Man's College, and reflected normal
educated, liberal opinion for the rest of the century.
Mention of London is an apt reminder that Owens College was
not alone in its struggle to make an impact on society. Instead of
crowning an edifice already in place, the university colleges had to
38 Ibid.
39 J. G. Greenwood, 'School and college studies, 1858', Introductory lectures.
40 Ibid., 6.
OWENS COLLEGE
163
await developments from below. M. H. Bellot, in his study of
University College, London, identifies so many problems since 1828,
that had the venture collapsed in the 1860s, historians 'might not
unreasonably have read the story as one of slow decline'.41 Here one
sees the problem of a short perspective. For Owens College and the
two colleges in London, difficulties were no more than the growing
pains of institutions not yet of their time. The situation at the
University of Durham was not dissimilar. Formed in 1832, there were
about sixty students by 1835; by 1840 there were thirty-one in Arts,
thirty in Theology and twenty-one in Engineering; in 1850 there were
seventy-three in Arts and forty-one in Theology; in 1860, thirty in
Arts, twenty in Theology and one in Medicine; and in 1862 there
were forty-six students in total.42 In his study of mid-Victorian
England from about 1852 to 1867, W. L. Burn identified the dilemma
of the colleges - 'what I sought was a generation in which the old and
the new, the elements of growth, survival and decay, achieved a
balance which most contemporaries regarded as satisfactory'.43 No
reference is made in the book to the university colleges, for they had
not in that period achieved an accepted role in society.
The finances of the college, despite excellent data, were not
examined by Thompson and Fiddes in any detail because of their
nearness to the events, but there are issues worth identifying. The
figures given in the following table, drawn from the annual statement of
account for Owens College from 1851 to 1860 show how serious was
the financial situation.44 By far the largest single item of expenditure
each year of the first decade at the College was that of professorial
salaries. The trustees were in a dilemma, having to try to balance the
books with regard to income and expenditure, while at the same time
offering sufficiently attractive salaries to be successful in recruiting the
calibre of appointee necessary to make the reputation of the College.
year
dividends
on stock
1851-52
1852-53
1853-54
1855-56
1856-57
1857-58
1858-59
1859-60
2543
2619
2829
2664
2694
2815
2822
2779
total
fee income
698
811
960
601
603
519
833
882
total
all sources
prof'l
salaries
3557
3716
3827
3533
3673
3759
3951
3930
1650
1650
1700
1887
1900
1942
1900
1900
share of
student fees
397
484
578
443
459
387
634
647
41 H. H. Bellot, University College, London, 249.
42 C. E. Whiting, The University of Durham, 1832-1932 (London: The Sheldon Press,
1932), 97.
43 W. L. Burn, The age of equipoise (London: Alien and Unwin 1964), 17.
44 Figures are derived from the very full financial record in the Trustees' Minutes.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
The maximum professorial salary was £350 per year, plus a
proportion of student fees, with an annual payment of £200 to the
principal of the College. This compared unfavourably with Durham
where, some twenty years earlier, the Professor of Divinity had
received £600 annually plus fees and the professor of Greek, £500
plus fees. 45 University College also had a stronger base for
development. 46 In the College's adverse financial circumstances,
salaries which took up 48% of total income, compared with only
20% of total income from fees, demonstrate how dependent the
College was on investment income from the Owens bequest, which
could not be used for building, and seriously circumscribed the
trustees' ability to respond to internal and external demands for
greater flexibility of curriculum. It also explains the quite
unsatisfactory double and triple professorial responsibilities which
were necessary in order to move towards the blueprint of 1850.
Even the £30 spent on prizes in 1854-55 was a considerable sum in
such circumstances. 47 The idea of differential fees to encourage
students from the Lancashire Independent College to attend was
turned down though a favourable rate was judged wise for the
schoolmaster classes.48 At Owens College, other significant items of
expenditure included advertising, the purchase of chemicals,
specimens for natural history and money spent on library books.
While the device of using class fee income to supplement
professors' pay was understandable, it was not desirable,
particularly at the rate of two thirds to the lecturer and one third to
College. 49 Nor was the expedient of paying Williamson and
Falkland on a half-time basis satisfactory, which given the expense
of the materials and equipment for their subjects, and dissatisfaction
over pay, led to the regular expedients and adjustments chronicled
in the Trustees' Minutes, and as well as creating tensions, sent quite
the wrong signals to critics. 50 While there was individual generosity
in subscribing, for example to the Auxiliary Fund, there could be no
expectation of regular contributions from Manchester and it was far
too early, despite the naive attempt in 1853, to get a government
grant. 51 The fact of the matter was that the Owens bequest was too
small to give any security and it is impressive to see what the
trustees and staff achieved in these circumstances.
45 C. E. Whiting, University of Durham, 63.
46 This comparison is used by Scott, Annual Report, 1855-1856, v.
4~ J H Nicholson, clerk to the College, MS book, 'Notices etc'.
48 Owens College, Trustees' Minutes, 11 December 1851
49 Ibid., 6 January 1854.
50 It is clear from the Minutes that the financing of Chemistry, and to a lesser extent
Natural History, were the most demanding areas of growth, and any hesitation was financial,
not from reluctance to develop science.
51 Owens College, Trustees'Minutes, 18 October 1852.
OWENS COLLEGE
165
Closely related was the question of student numbers. Owens
College in the first decade should not be seen as engaged in a life
and death struggle with a potential collapse in 1858. If the criterion
of success was perceived as the 'regular', possibly degree students,
the numbers remained surprisingly good, and two years of decline
can be accounted for by random fluctuations in student supply or
by changes in course provision, particularly when those years are
followed by a return to recovery. 52
year
day
evening
total
1851-52
1852-53
1853-54
1854-55
1855-56
1856-57
1857-58
1858-59
1859-60
1860-61
62
71
71
58
52
33
34
40
57
69
28
73
69
65
121
59
107
77
92
62
99
144
127
117
154
93
147
134
161
The evening classes were buoyant, with a rise in 1856 with the
temporary addition of women, and a fall back when they did not
reappear. In addition, a well subscribed course did not run in 1857. 53
The combined total of both types of student is surprisingly
high for so small an enterprise in that period, though of course
many of the students would be transitory. It is not necessary to look
at towns beyond Manchester to see that attendance was difficult to
maintain at anything more demanding than the occasional lecture,
however prestigious or well-intentioned the organization, for
example, the Manchester Royal Institution. A visitor to Manchester
in 1846 who admired the Manchester Athenaeum, noted regretfully
that 'the delivery of lectures being a new feature in this town, it was
found exceedingly difficult to engage lecturers who would
command even a fair audience, excepting upon music'.54 During its
first decade, Owens College examined the possibility of
amalgamation with other institutions which were experiencing
difficulties. In December 1851 at a special meeting of the trustees of
Manchester New College, a Nonconformist Academy, the question
of establishing a connection with Owens College was raised. 55 This
52 Figures from a table in Thompson, Owens College, 153.
53 The Evening Classes were of great significance to Owens College, both financially and
as part of its mission to the local community. Thompson, Owens College, devotes Chapter 8 to
their development. The diagram is based on Thompson, 153.
5-4 'Two Days in Manchester' (anon.), Chambers Edinburgh Journal, 1846.
55 Annual Report of Manchester New College, 1852.
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Academy had operated in Manchester from 1786 to 1803, had
removed to York between 1803 and 1840 and had subsequently
returned to Manchester. In 1851 declining recruitment prompted
the committee to consider the possibility of relocation in London
and association with University College. An alternative proposal was
the possibility of amalgamation with Owens College. After
considerable discussion agreement could not be reached and in
December 1852 it was decided not to proceed. 56 Some of the
problems had been similar to those of Owens College. It had to rely
upon the professional and manufacturing class and as a seminary
had restricted appeal, which intensified more characteristic
difficulties. For financial reasons it was compelled to take lay
students, hence the possibility of contact with Owens, but as a
religious foundation this would have entailed risks. The most
natural merger for Owens College would have been with the
medical school in Manchester and a proposal from it was received
in 1855 and very carefully discussed. 57 Despite Scott's public
comment that it would have distorted the 'general' work of the
College, the real reason for a rejection was the very considerable
financial demands made by the medical school. 58
Many attempts had been made to reach the 'respectable'
working class and none had really succeeded. Attempts to
establish working class initiatives in adult education in Manchester
in the 1830s and 1840s did not enjoy any lasting success. The
New Mechanics' Institution, formed in 1829, had closed in 1835.
The ventures undertaken by the Owenites and the Chartists at the
end of the 1830s in the shape of the Manchester Hall of Science
(c. 1839-51), which aimed to educate mainly through a concentration
on rational recreation, and the more politically oriented Carpenters'
Hall (c. 1838-44-45), faded rapidly. The Lyceums, formed in the
Manchester area in the late 1830s, which combined education with
popular lectures and social events, flourished in the following
decade but were in decline by the 1850s. The Manchester
Mechanics' Institution, by far the most ambitious experiment,
which on its formation in 1824 had aimed to 'impart to the
operative a knowledge of the general principles which are illustrated
in their daily occupations',59 had largely failed to achieve this ideal
and survived through the 1850s and early 1860s by placing
increasing emphasis upon public prestige lectures, popular
entertainments and social events.
56 Ibid., 1853.
57 Owens College, Trustees' Minutes, vol. 2, 1856.
58 Ibid., 4 March 1856; Thompson, Owens College, 150-1.
59 J. Davies, An appeal to the public on behalf of the Manchester Mechanics' Institution
(Manchester, 1831).
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167
Against this background, Scott and his colleagues were
engrossed with the challenges of creating a collegiate ethos, in an
unsatisfactory building and in an unsalubrious part of the town, that
would symbolize the seriousness of purpose and high standards to
which they were committed, as well as finding a way to integrate
into the College students, some as young as fourteen and with wide
disparities of ability and seriousness of purpose. How to create a
community permeates the annual reports and the trustees'
discussions, but has been rather minimized by Thompson and
Fiddes, who in keeping with the tradition of the time, concentrated
on constitutional and institutional issues, with little focus on the
students. In the first Report Scott pointed out that no attempt had
been made even to estimate so basic a matter as who might be
interested in such a college - at least in respect of taking a degree and concluded, "this is not a numerous class.'60
He was to be proved right, for in the years 1851 to 1860 twentyeight graduated, of whom twelve were from evening or schoolmaster
classes and six from the Lancashire Independent College.61 This
was 3.8% of the 700+ students who passed through the regular and
evening classes of the decade, and, in fact, represents a considerable
achievement. The surprisingly high number from the evening work
implies greater maturity, and access from a place of work rather
than a school. There appears to be no way to analyse the patterns of
work of the hundreds of other students, as only the statistics in the
annual reports exist and these give total entries to the College and
individual courses and never record length of study or identify
which students joined more than one class. By good fortune the one
insight which has survived is in Nicholson's 'Notices' book, and is a
short statistical analysis of attendance and age of the regular
students, asked for by trustee James Heywood, for the session
1854-55.62 One student had attended for five sessions, five for four
sessions, eight for three sessions, nineteen for two sessions and
twenty-five for one session. The average age was eighteen, perhaps
higher than might have been anticipated, particularly as the survey
excluded evening students. This may reflect the determination of
Scott to persevere with an entrance examination and the active
discouragement of younger students. The average number of classes
attended was 2.67. Judging from the frequent references by Scott
and others to lack of self-discipline, it is a reasonable inference that
most students found difficulty in adjusting to regular and
60 A. J. Scott, Annual Report of Owens College, 1851-1852 (Manchester, 1852).
61 Accurate details of University of London graduates are sparse in the Manchester
records and the few manuscript lists conflict slightly.
62 J. H. Nicholson, 'Notices etc', 'Extract from a report made for James Heywood, Esq.
M.P., 15 October 1855, relating to the attendance during the Session 1854-1855'.
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demanding study, for it is not without significance that also in
Nicholson's book were carefully recorded attendance details of the
subject examinations. Scott noted in 1854 that the growing
reputation among parents that the work was demanding was 'by no
means an unmixed evil'. 63 The most urgent problem in the short
term was how the students could be induced to stay on the premises
between lectures and be encouraged to work in the library. Many of
them were, after all, little more than schoolboys and it is difficult in
a thoroughly schooled modern society to understand the absence of
a suitably trained and tamed body of students. During Scott's
principalship a variety of initiatives were introduced or sometimes
mooted unsuccessfully, as in the case of making provision for
boarding, at first with a professor but with an 'Owens Hall'
envisaged.64 Even the modest boarding idea came to nothing despite
much pressure from Scott and support from some trustees, but, of
course, there was no chance of a hall of residence with the straitened
finances. The introduction of a midday meal was successful and is
an example of an attempt to encourage students to linger in the
building. By the generosity of James Heywood a gymnasium was
constructed and an instructor hired. There is some evidence of an
attempt to initiate a literary society and the students expressed a
wish to wear academic gowns.65 Rather more formally, rules were
evolved which would support the desired ethos of the College, some
rather strict, a report was kept on students in class and a digest
made available to parents, and routines for handling misconduct
were worked out, with suspension a possibility. 66 As early as 1853
Scott proposed a tutorial system to be piloted in mathematics
during Sandeman's illness, and the unpaid helper was to be
available for student supervision. It was not until 1856 that the
scheme was formalized and an attempt was made to identify the
students who intended to remain for several sessions and to provide
for them voluntary tutorial supervision and support, if their parents
wished it. We learn in the early years of Greenwood taking over that
the scheme collapsed as no parents chose it for their sons. 67
It is dangerous to hypothesize about the principal's competence
on the basis of records that are not extant, but it is surprising that so
little administrative evidence survives outside the superbly
63 A. J. Scott, Trustees' Minutes, 7 November 1854.
64 Scott advocated residential support for students as early as 1852. Trustees' Minutes,
18 October 1852 and subsequent references.
65 Trustees' Minutes, 11 December 1851; 18 October 1852. On 11 December 1851 Scott
reported the request for a Literary Society, a gown was referred to on 15 December 1854.
66 Trustees' Minutes. The problem, which permeates the Minutes in the first decade, was
less a matter of unsatisfactory conduct, than a complete lack of understanding by students of
what was expected of them, inside and outside the classroom. An early reference is 1 April
1852 when the powers of the principal in respect of discipline are defined.
6"J. G. Greenwood, Annual Report, 1857-1858 (Manchester 1858), v.
OWENS COLLEGE
169
maintained Trustees' Minutes, from 1851 until the setting up of the
monthly College Meeting of professors in 1857. 68 The most
important item is a roughly kept register of evening students, but it
does not always coincide with the official figures in the Annual
Reports, and it is possible that Scott's reputation for poor
administration derives from reluctance, or inability through chronic
ill health, to maintain routine records, even for so small an activity.
Certainly his failure to meet formally with his colleagues seems to
have caused anger, at least in the case of Frankland, who got the
College Meeting established and seems to have been responsible for
persuading his colleagues to induce Scott to relinquish the
principalship.69 On the other hand, from the survival of the well
kept manuscript book, 'Notices etc' from 1853, there is some
evidence of an organizing hand in the background after the
appointment of the future Registrar, J. H. Nicholson, as clerk and
librarian. Whatever the level of Scott's administrative competence,
this cannot reasonably be adduced as a major explanation for the
slow start of the College or its apparent decline. There can be little
doubt, though, that the extensive absences of the principal caused
inconvenience and perhaps some irritation to his colleagues.
Scott maintained firmly that the College would not undertake
rudimentary school work, but the need for a good preparatory
school as was associated with both London colleges, was agreed by
all the professors in their review of the current situation in 1856,
and it is interesting to speculate how many of the trustees were as
convinced as Scott that what was needed was 'steady perseverance
on the part of the governors and the instructors in discharging in
Manchester the true vocation of a college till its value becomes a
matter of experience and a demand is created. . .'. 70 In his
unpublished report to the trustees he gave a critique of the situation
of Owens College in comparison with the work of the old
universities, where the 'procedure of multitudes of schools is almost
entirely adjusted to it', and showed that there was no such tradition
in Manchester. 71 He also pointed out that the professors had been
resigned to weakness in classics in a mercantile area, but were
surprised at the poverty of elementary mathematics as well. This
presented a practical problem, as the trustees' curriculum plan of
1850 had advocated these subjects as a basic test of proficiency for
entry. Greenwood, Sandeman and the principal were appointed a
68 Volumes of the Minutes of the College Meeting, a rudimentary senate, are extant until
1870 and are mainly concerned with academic matters.
69 See his reccommendations to the trustees in the evaluation each professor gave of the
College problems, Trustees' Minutes, 20 May 1856. See also W. C. Williamson, Reminiscences
of a Yorkshire naturalist (London: Redway, 1896), 139-40.
70 Ibid., Scott's contribution to the analysis.
71 Report of A. J. Scott on the Session 1851-1852, Trustees' Minutes, vol. 1.
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sub-committee, trying to implement the trustees' report but had
decided that in 'a field of operation so new and peculiar' 72 it was
better to proceed slowly and monitor the level of student attainment
coming forward, before making final decisions about the character
of the courses. It was decided, however, in what can be seen as an
act of faith, and was much condemned by critics, to institute an
entrance examination to exclude 'ignorance of a certain degree'.
Unless such minimum precautions were adopted Scott forecast
unambiguously that 'if the students can work only under the eye of
the professor ... he becomes a schoolmaster ... or else he does not
demand work of the student and becomes a mere popular
lecturer'/ 3 In a letter to the Guardian, W. B. Hodgson, second
headmaster of the Chorlton High School and beginning a
distinguished career, praised the need to be selective as a signal to
schools, despite the difficulties. 74 He pointed out that while
Edinburgh High School flourished the Rector's class languished,
affected by 'the onward rush of competition' and the 'prevalent low
estimate of the objects and nature of education'. Increasingly, 'the
raw material of humanity must be worked up into fitness for office
use. All tendency and faculty not distinctly bearing on this is
ignored as non existent. It may be deprecated as superfluous or
even unsafe'.
The trustees had established a clear blueprint of how they
believed the College should develop, with preference for the broadbased Scottish plan of different entry routes and goals, and they
were determined to protect the core of classical literature which they
judged the testator had intended 'for the general cultivation and
discipline of the mind'75 and which should be preparatory to all
other study. Classics was not grudgingly admitted, but was a mental
discipline for students which, in an industrial area 'may counteract
their tendency to limit the application, and eventually the power of
applying the mental faculties'. 76 On the other hand, there was
recognition that there would be many who because of age or
circumstances would not be able to take such a course, and King's
College and Durham University were cited where alternative
provision was made. There was no inherent intellectual conflict here
between liberal and professional studies, or between the trustees and
the professors, but there was a serious logistical problem for a
college which was in a financially precarious situation. The trustees
72 Ibid.
^ Ibid.
~4 Manchester Guardian, 16 March 1850, Address to the local branch of the College of
Preceptors on access to the proposed Owens College.
75 A sub committee of the trustees was set up at the meeting of 30 January 1849 and
reported early in 1850, Trustees' Minutes, vol 1, 47-74.
76 Ibid.
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171
admitted they could not formalize a dual track approach at first and
if choices had to be made 'should deeply deprecate the sacrificing of
the general to a particular course of instruction'. 77 This effectively
bound the hands of the professors and no doubt caused some strain
among Frankland, Williamson and Scott, and perhaps with the
trustees themselves. The financial problem was intensified by the
fact that chemistry, which was in the 'regular' course, and natural
history, were the most expensive components, and under two able,
energetic and ambitious professors, were a constant challenge to the
trustees. It is quite clear that Frankland, with much difficulty, had
already given the College a good and widespread reputation in
chemistry. It is not the case that Scott resisted such expansion. He
made it clear in 1851 that 'Manchester should have a great school of
chemistry'.78 Almost at once an Auxiliary Fund was opened, as the
foundation money could not be used for building, and eventually
contributed £9,550 in amounts ranging from £500 to £5 to
provide a chemistry laboratory and library.
This probe into the first years of John Owens's foundation in
Manchester cannot conclude without a reference to the Manchester
Guardian's famous comment in 1857 that the College was a
'mortifying failure'.79 The Guardian had welcomed the foundation
in 1851 and had been generally supportive afterwards. It is not now
possible to explain the extent of its dissillusion, though its chief
leader writer, H. M. Acton, was noted for robust criticism.80 What
is more important, is to account for the sense of disquiet which
seems to have arisen at that time and was shared by the trustees.
The present review suggests that this was a natural response to the
investment of much capital, human and financial, and a national
and local context which discouraged high level education. There is
little evidence of the 'watershed' inherent in earlier studies, marked
by the advent of Greenwood and Roscoe. While there is no doubt
that science was to become of great importance in what was to
become the University of Manchester and efficient administration
became more important with growth, the weight of evidence leads
to the conclusion that because the policies of the first decade
established a genuine university college with high standards which
was at the same time generous in its welcome to students from the
community with a wide variety of interests, it was in an excellent
position to capitalize on the more congenial circumstances of the
77 Ibid. Although financial difficulties made a formalized division of student study routes
impossible before the end of the decade, Scott began implementing the evening classes as
early as 1853.
78 Manchester Guardian, 2 January 1851.
79 Manchester Guardian, 9 July 1858.
80 D. Ayerst, Guardian: biography of a newspaper (London: Collins, 1971), 123.
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late 1860s and the 1870s. Speaking at the end of year meeting on 2
July 1856, when the proposed merger with the medical school had
failed, itself perhaps a cause of dispondency, Scott looked forward
without any hint of regret or failure, 'Manchester needs greatly . . .
men grounded in the scientific principles and methods which it is
the business of a College to afford. One day perhaps, she will thank
us for having persisted, contrary to our own obvious interest and
credit, in adhering to our true vocation'.81
81 A. J. Scott, Annual Report of Owens College, 1855-1856 (Manchester, 1856), vii.