The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S. / A Biographical Sketch

by T. E. Thorpe

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.