The work of the Board up to the period of which we write had been mainly concerned with the provision of science classes and science teachers, in connection with mechanics’ institutions working in conjunction with the Science and Art Department.
In 1869 a meeting of the General Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education was held at the Town Hall, Leeds, with Lord Frederick Cavendish in the chair. It was attended by representatives of the more important industries in Yorkshire, as well as by persons interested in higher education. A resolution was carried “That in the opinion of this Council it is desirable that a College of Science should be established in Yorkshire”; and a committee was appointed “to investigate, consider, and propose the best means of carrying out the proposal.” Members of this committee naturally visited, in the first place, the neighbouring Owens College, and gained valuable information concerning its rise and progress and the nature of its operations, much of which was embodied in their report; others visited King’s College, London, in order to inspect its Department of Applied Science and Engineering Workshops. Correspondence was also entered into with the Endowed Schools Commissioners, who held out prospects of assistance for Exhibitions in Physical Science and in the Secondary Education of Girls.
The Committee presented their report in 1872. Their suggestions were limited by the probabilities of realizing them. Too ambitious a scheme would overreach itself: public support would probably be deterred by the very magnitude of the effort needed to give effect to it. On the other hand, no attempt would be worth making unless it afforded reasonable assurance of practical benefit. After full consideration the Committee recommended the establishment of the following professorships: (1) Mathematics and Engineering; (2) Chemistry; (3) Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology; (4) Experimental Philosophy; and they came to the conclusion that the minimum sum required for a beginning was £60,000, which they apportioned as follows: site and buildings, £25,000; endowment, in addition to students’ fees, £25,000; establishment expenses, £10,000.
The Council accepted the report, and at once appealed for subscriptions. Sir Andrew Fairbairn headed the list with £1,000, followed by like amounts from the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Titus Salt, Bart., Messrs. Beckett & Co., the Lowmoor Iron Company, and Messrs. Hargreave and Nusseys, members of which firm had started “The Leeds Art and Science Institute.” The project, however, made but slow progress: pecuniary support was difficult to secure, and the Committee were forced to realize that if a start was to be made something less than the £60,000 would have to suffice. It was therefore resolved to postpone all building operations and, when a sum of £20,000 had been raised, to make a beginning in temporary premises.
In April 1874 it was reported that the subscription list amounted to £25,000, and on the 30th of that month a meeting of the subscribers and donors was held in Leeds for the purpose of defining the Constitution of the proposed College and electing a Board of Governors. Lord Frederick Cavendish presided, and Dr. Heaton made a statement explaining the progress of the movement, and the steps it was proposed to take in order formally to constitute the College. In addition to the amount subscribed, the promoters were able to announce offers of help in money, as well as in science exhibitions, from the Endowed Schools Commissioners. The Clothworkers’ Company of London promised £500 a year to found a Chair of Textile Fabrics. But Dr. Heaton went on to remark:
The work is far from being completed; it may be said to be only commencing. The governing body have an arduous task before them, both in organizing the College and in still prosecuting the canvass for subscriptions. £20,000 neither represents the amount to be expected from the large and wealthy West Riding of Yorkshire, nor does it approach to the amount necessary to give permanency and full efficiency to the institution which we desire to establish. Although it is proposed to commence operations in a rented building, both because our present means would not permit of the purchase of a site and erection of buildings thereon, and because of the long delay which would be occasioned by waiting for the completion of a building yet to be erected, it is most desirable, indeed essential, that the College should ultimately possess its own buildings, appropriately constructed and arranged for carrying on its work with the greatest efficiency and convenience. We have often been asked if Government should not assist the work we have in hand. Continental Governments do provide for scientific teaching as applied to industry, and it might be well if our own Government did more to promote this great national work. In this country we have always been left to do more for ourselves by individual action and by voluntary benevolence; and our national self-reliance and powers of organization and practical benevolence are no doubt strengthened and developed by our people being left to their own resources. But inasmuch as all are interested directly or indirectly in the commercial prosperity of the nation, this does seem to be an object towards which (when it is once commenced by private exertions) some assistance and encouragement by the Government would be peculiarly appropriate.
In the early autumn of 1874 the Council proceeded to appoint the first professors of the College. The committee which drew up the scheme of instruction had recommended the inclusion of the subject of Engineering, with which should be associated the teaching of Mathematics by the same professor. However desirable it might be to make provision for instruction in the principles of Engineering—especially in Mechanical Engineering, in view of its bearing upon one of the most important industries of the town and district—the Council, for various reasons, were unable to give immediate effect to this particular recommendation. The subject of Mechanical Engineering, to be properly taught, requires the provision of workshops, laboratories, and an installation of costly plant. Even if the limited resources of the College had been sufficient at the time to make the most modest of beginnings, the temporary premises which had been leased would have been unsuitable for the purpose. Accordingly the authorities, with that characteristic Yorkshire caution which takes nothing on trust, goes no further than it can plainly see—nor, in the common phrase, puts out its hand further than it can draw it back again—decided to limit their appointments, to begin with, to Professorships of (1) Experimental Physics (with which they associated Mathematics); (2) Geology and Mining; (3) Chemistry. To the first Chair they elected the late Mr. A. W. Rücker, Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, and a Demonstrator in the Clarendon Laboratory—afterwards Sir Arthur Rücker, Sec. R.S., Professor of Physics in the Royal College of Science, London, and subsequently Principal of the reorganized University of London. To the second they appointed the late Mr. A. H. Green, formerly Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and a distinguished member of the Geological Survey, who subsequently became Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford. For the third appointment the Council selected the present writer, who had been a pupil, assistant, and demonstrator under the subject of this memoir at Owens College, and who, prior to his selection, had held the Chair of Chemistry in Anderson’s College, Glasgow, now merged into the splendidly endowed and equipped Royal Technical College.
The premises in which the College was first housed consisted of a disused Bankruptcy Court situated in Cookridge Street, one of the main thoroughfares leading out of the town. After a somewhat chequered career the building had been partially used as a school of cookery, with the unfortunate result that it had been largely consumed by a fire just prior to being taken over by the College authorities. Although not so spacious as Richard Cobden’s old house in Quay Street, Manchester, in which Owens College first started, the Leeds building, in some respects, was not ill-adapted to the purposes of the limited professoriate with which the Yorkshire College of Science began its operations. At all events, it accommodated without the slightest difficulty all the students who sought admission to its classes on its opening day.
The College began its work of teaching on October 26, 1874—somewhat later than the normal time of opening a session—owing to delays in completing the necessary structural rearrangements. But as there was no yearning anxiety on the part of anybody to learn, no special inconvenience or disappointment resulted. There was no preliminary flourish of trumpets; hardly so much as an opening speech. The initial ceremony was as simple as the appointments of the College were modest. Each of the three professors in turn gave an introductory lecture to an audience consisting of the members of the Council and such of the friends of the embryo institution as cared to attend. Some encouraging remarks were made by the Chairman, and so the College was launched. But for a time the students were few and their advent as far between as the visits of angels.
Still, as the session progressed and the existence of the place became gradually known the numbers slowly crept up, and by the end of the summer term they had reached twenty-four and the students’ fees had amounted to about £150. The authorities now determined to open the next session with an Inauguration Ceremony. October 6, 1875, is a red-letter day in the history of the College, for on that date one of the most notable and helpful gatherings ever held in honour of the College took place. The proceedings began at noon, when the College buildings were inspected by a specially invited company; thereafter there was the inevitable public luncheon and in the evening a general meeting in the Town Hall. On each occasion the Duke of Devonshire was in the chair. At the College meeting Lord Frederick Cavendish, its President, gave a short account of its origin and aims. They were there, he said, to take care that they did not through ignorance waste the natural wealth of the county, or stay the further development of the natural qualities of its people. Wealth, however, was not much in itself but only as a means. Were they quite certain that in the great wealthy industrial North they had made the same progress in intellectual culture and refinement as they had in wealth? He pointed to the example of Owens College: inspired by that College, they would try in Yorkshire if they could not do something of the same sort.