Manchester University and the City: Aspects of Policy-Making in Higher Education, 1900-1930

COLIN LEES AND ALEX ROBERTSON School of Education, University of Manchester

It is generally agreed that the most characteristic aspect of the new 'civic' university colleges of the second half of the nineteenth century was involvement in the life of their community. 1 There can have been no better example of this than Owens College, the first of the civics in 1851. Until the re-foundation of 1871 the trustees were closely involved in the political, commercial and industrial life of the city and, by John Owens's will, they were required to live within a fifty-mile radius. Also by a clause of the will students were to be recruited as far as possible from the parliamentary borough. The first generation of professors, including the unworldly first principal, Alexander Scott, were acutely aware of the necessity of acknowledging the expectations and needs of those social groups without which the college would not survive, and the Science Faculty, in particular, spearheaded by Henry Roscoe, engaged in local consultancy work and shaped courses to local needs.2 More dramatically, for many years the college absorbed or co-operated with local institutions. In the early years the Lancashire Independent College sent its theological students to the Classics Department and evening work for elementary school teachers formed the basis, almost from the beginning, of the remarkable evening classes which gave access to higher education to Mancunians from many walks of life until the end of the century. In 1861 the Working Man's College merged after three years of

1 S. Alexander, A plea for an independent university in Manchester (Manchester: 1902); W.H.G. Armytage, Civic universities (London: Benn, 1955); D.R. Jones, The origins of civic universities (London: Routledge, 1988). 2 C. Lees and A. Robertson, 'Owens College, A.J. Scott and the struggle against "prodigious antagonistic forces'", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester (B.J.R.U.L.M.), 78 (1), 1996; R.H. Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester (Manchester: University Press, 1977), chapters 4,5. 85 86 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY shared administration and teaching and in 1872 the Manchester Medical School was incorporated, enhancing immediately both the college's size and local reputation. The important Manchester Natural History and Geological Societies became part of Owens College in 1868 and 1872 respectively. In 1883, after an ambivalent relationship since 1878, the Manchester and Salford College for Women became the Department for Women. With the increase of interest in adult education and what became known later as extra mural work, individual staff and later the college itself, gave much support to such national initiatives as University Extension and the local Ancoats Recreation Movement. This demonstrates the closeness of the college to the locality without any reference to the most intimate relationship of all, that of finance. Until small-scale government grants began in 1889 and for years after, the college was dependent on bequests and gifts and until well into the present century appeals were made intermittently to Manchester and its region, particularly as students began to increase from neighbouring districts. There is no doubt, therefore, that the college was one way or another an integral part of its civic community.3 There is, however, a different aspect to the community relationship which is much less well understood and has been little researched. Writing of developments before 1914, Thompson and Fiddes would not have felt it proper to expose the details by which the events they recorded and had participated in, had been shaped, and Charlton in 1951 was not in a position to explore the intricacies of policy-making.4 Manchester City Council with its independent Manchester School Board after 1870 and Technical Instruction Committee from 1890, had been pace-setters in educational provision and when the 1902 Education Act abolished technical instruction committees and school boards and amalgam­ ated them in local government through the medium of powerful education committees, a new relationship with the local university was bound to evolve. The writing had been on the wall for some time and there is evidence that from as early as the 1890s the University was experiencing competition from dynamic educational initiatives outside its control. 5 This was an uncomfortable experience, for when Owens College had negotiated mergers or was even in a state of financial dependence, its decisions on how

3 For details see J. Thompson, The Owens College: its foundation and growth and its connection with the Victoria University, Manchester (Manchester: Cornish, 1886); E. Fiddes, Chapters in the history of Owens College and Manchester University 1851-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1937). 4 H.B. Charlton, Portrait of a university (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1951). 5 Particularly from the evening classes provided by the Manchester School Board and the Technical Instruction Committee of the Council. See the annual Prospectus of Evening Classes.