This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Royal Engineering College, Cooper's Hill (1871-1906) : a case study of state involvement in professional civil engineering education. Cuddy, B P The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 08. Oct. 2021 THE ROYML INDIAN ENGINEERING COLLEGE, COOPER'S HILL, (1871-1906) A case study of State involvement in professional civil engineering education. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Education of London University, (Chelsea College, Centre for Science Education) 1980. Brendan P. Cuddy. 2 Brief Introduction to Sources The Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill, is one of the most neglected Institutions in the History of' English Education.+ This scholarly neglect of Cooper's Hill is all the more perplexing in view of the unique character of the institution, representing as it did the first case of State participation in professional civil engineering education in Britain. The question of its neglect by historians may be answered partly in terms of incomplete sources, and partly because the writing of histories of defunct institutions has always resembled a cottage industry. In this study an attempt is made to remedy that neglect by examining in detail the case for State involvement in engineering education. The records of the College were transferred to the Public Works Department of the India Office in 1907 and consist mainly of correspondence which was made up into subject files from 1882. Altogether there are some 408 separate files in this series * but the other Public Works, Military, Accountant General and Surveyors records, as well as the Minutes of the Council of India and the Papers of individual Members of Council and Secretaries of' State for India have proved invaluable, In consequence all India Office Records are prefixed with bR! and the appropriate India Office Classi- fication is used. A second collection of College Records exist at Cooper's Hill (now Shoreditch College, Brunel University) and consists principally of photographs and other mementos of life at the College. These are housed in a special room in the College , Library, but as they are not as yet classified, they are referred to as the Cooper's Hill Society Papers. The location of all other sources is given when such sources are considered difficult to locate but, in general, Newspapers, Contemporary Periodicals, Parliamentary Papers, etc., are referred to only by their title, date and page numbers. + One of the College 'Old Boys', J.G.P. Cameron, produced "A short history of the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill" (Cooper's Hill Society) in 1960, amounting to 38 pages. * "The Records of the East India College, Haileybury, and Other Institutions" (India Office) 1976, by Anthony Farrington, pp.135-153. For a useful guide to this classification see "Archives" - the Journal of the British Records Association, Volume IX, No.43, April 1970. "The India Office Records" by Joan C. Lancaster, Deputy Keeper of the Records. 3 Acknowledgements I wish to record my indebtedness to Chelsea College for the opportunity for research which the College Post- graduate Studentship afforded to me, and most especially to my supervisor, Or. Tony Mansell, for his unfailing wisdom, encouragement and guidance throughout the project. Special thanks are also due to my family for their continued support and understanding during what must, of necessity, have been a prolonged intrusion into family life. I shall always remain grateful to those who have put at my disposal the collections in their care. To the staff at the India Office, the Institution of Civil ' Engineers, and other record offices for their understanding help, and particularly to Ilr.Haywood at Cooper's Hill (now Shoreditch College, Brunel University) for giving me the 'free run' of the Coopers Hill Society Records, and for his permission to reproduce the photographs enclosed. Finally, my warmest thanks to Mrs. Shirley Ryall for typing this thesis with such remarkable willingness and accuracy. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 The Profession of Civil Engineering in Britain in the 19th Century 7 Chapter 2 Civil Engineers for India (1850-1870) 39 Chapter 3 The Origin of the Royal Indian Engineering College 85 Chapter 4 The First Ten Years 147 Chapter 5 Reorganization and Consolida- tion 200 Chapter 6 The Struggle for Existence 243 APPENDICES Appendix A Secretaries of State for India 1868-1906 304 Appendix B Academic Staff of the R.I.E.C. 306 Appendix C Students of the R.I.E.C. 310 to 337 5 Illustrations Students Study-Bedroom 170/171 View of the Chapel (1900) 200/20 1 Staff of the R.I.E.C. (1882) 224/225 Cooper's Hill Football Team (1871-1872) 2 34/2 35 Bal Masque (1898) 236/237 Mechanical Workshop (1902) 263/264 The New [lectro-Technological Laboratory 28 4/28 5 Staff of the R.I.E.C. (1902-1903) 29 1/292 6 i\bbreviations I.C.E. Institution of Civil Engineers. :i .ri.c. Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Min.Proc. I.C.E. Minutes of Proceedings of the Institu- tion of Civil Engineers. P.P. Parli amentary Papers. Trans. I.C.E. Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers. R.I.E.C. Royal Indian Engineering College. 7 CHAPTER 1 The Profession of Civil Engineering in Britain in the 19th Century The Royal Indian Engineering College was established in 1871 for the purpose of supplying engineers for service in the Indian Public Works Department. Its establishment represented a triumph for progressive forces concerned with civil engineer- ing education and it is significant that such forces were largely to be found outside the Institution of Civil Engineers, the professional body representing civil engineers in Britain. The Colleges foundation occurred during Gladstone's reforming Parliame'nt of 1868-1874, whose other major educational innovation lay in the Education Bill of 1870. Those arguing for systematic, scientific forms of education for engineers found an ally in Gladstone's Secretary of State for India who was receptive to scientific ideas and eager to see them applied in the service of Britain's Imperial role. This thesis is ( devoted to an examination of the roots of the College, its years of existence and its ultimate eclipse but we shall begin by considering the nature of civil engineering education in Britain, as it was accepted by the Institution of Civil Engineers. The Institution of Civil Engineers (I.C.E.) was established on the 2nd January 1818 at a meeting held at the Kendal Coffee House in Fleet Street, and attended by the eight founders, James Ashuell, Charles Collinge, Joshua Field, James Jones, John Thomas Lethbridge, Thomas Flaudsley, William 11audsley and Henry Robinson Palmer.1 2 In the course of an Address to the meeting, H.R. Palmer cogently argued the urgent necessity for a source of information- or instruction for persons engaged in Civil Engineering and emphasised the great advantages to be derived from recorded experience and the interchange of knowledge bearing on the actual circumstances found in practice. In consequence the 8 founders described the object of association as "for facili- tating the acquirement of professional knowledge and for promoting mechanical philosophy".3 The motivation for establishing the Institution came from young engineers not yet established in their careers who were predominantly engaged in the construction of' machinery, and their use of the term "civil engineer" served principally as a distinction between "civil" and "military" engineering. These men were disenchanted with the then existing "Society of Engineers" which had bren founded on the 19th march 1771 and which included some of the most eminent men in the profession. The Society of Engineers originated in the occasional contacts of civil engineers who drew up the plans deposited with Canal Bills in the Houses of Parliament and the Courts of Justice, "each maintaining the propriety of his own designs without knowing much of each other". 5 It was proposed by one engineer ' to John Smeaton, "that such a state of 'the profession', then crude and in its infancy, was improper; and that it would be well, if some sort of occasional meeting, in a friendly way, was to be held; where they might shake hands together, and be personally known to one another:— that thus the sharp edge of their minds might be rubbed oft, as it were, by a closer communication of ideas no ways naturally hostile; might promote the true end of the public business upon which they should happen to meet in the course of their employment without jostling one another with rudeness too common in the unworthy part of the advocates of the law, whose interest it might be to push them on too far." 6 From its commencement the Society of Engineers (also known as the "Smeatonians" or the "Engineers") became a highly exclusive club serving the needs of only the most distinguished members of the profession.