An experiment in higher education: Owens College opens, 12 March 1851

Today (12 March) is the 175th anniversary of the opening of Owens College, a predecessor institution of the University of Manchester, and a prototype of the civic or ‘Redbrick’ university.

The civic universities established in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries redefined higher education. They provided advanced education with a modern curriculum for a primarily local population, and later developed impressive reputations for original research. The civics were reflections of the confidence and wealth of the towns and cities which provided them with a home.

Owens College was the first ‘civic’ college in England (it was not a university because it did not award degrees). It was the outcome of a lengthy debate within Manchester about whether a university was needed to compete with Oxbridge and London. Manchester had grown rapidly in both population and wealth since 1800, and despite immense social problems, had developed an impressive range of civic institutions and learned societies. Establishing a university would confirm its maturing cultural identity, and provide opportunities for local middle-class young men to experience a new type of education (young women would have to wait until the 1880s for similar opportunities).

Establishing a local university had several attractions; it could avoid the Anglican exclusivity of Oxbridge and the costs (and moral risks) for students living away from home. It could also offer a more modern curriculum and meet the needs of local businesses and professions.

By contrast, Oxford and Cambridge were at the time facing sustained criticisms of their deep connections to the Church of England, and their narrow curricula which focussed primarily on classics and mathematics. Reformers proposed alternative non-denominational universities with more emphasis on sciences, modern languages, history, and in some cases, law and engineering. Medicine was also seen as an invaluable subject in the quest for university status, because of its proven popularity.

In Manchester, the university idea was set out by William Whatton, a local physician, in a lecture to the Royal Manchester Institution in 1829, and was followed by Henry Longueville Jones’s more detailed scheme in A Plan for a University of Manchester, 1836. These plans coincided with a more general interest in Manchester’s civic amenities, with the new municipal council, established in 1838, seeking to improve the town centre. In this vein, the local businessman and philanthropist, William Fairbairn, suggested in his Observations on the Town of Manchester (1836) that a university could form part of a beautified Piccadilly.

These proposals won support from the Literary and Philosophical Society, Manchester Statistical Society and Royal Manchester Institution; institutions which brought together local intellectual and social elites. Both groups were keen to promote Manchester as “a centre of intelligence” as well as a successful commercial town.

In 1836/7, these groups actively campaigned for a local university. They were encouraged by the recent grant of a charter to the University of London, to which it was hoped the Manchester institution might affiliate. Campaigners wanted a modern curriculum, with science and medicine well represented, to attract local students. Local medical practitioners such as Thomas Turner, Thomas Fawdington and Joseph Jordan were notably prominent in this campaign. They supported the Manchester medical schools joining the college, but in the event the campaign petered out, partly because of disagreements within the medical group. A document book in the Owens College Archive details the rise and fall of this campaign (OCA/22/4).

A major problem was finance. Supporters of a university envisaged subscribers donating annual sums, to be topped up with students’ fees (the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution was funded in this way). However, it was unclear whether this would raise sufficient funds, especially in the start-up period. The only realistic alternative was a major endowment from a rich donor. This offered security, but with associated risks, primarily that the donor might want unacceptable influence. This had happened at Queen’s College, Birmingham, where a medical college had expanded through the support of a wealthy Anglican clergyman, Samuel Warneford. Warneford had insisted on religious tests for teaching staff; they had to be Anglicans. This deterred recruitment and ultimately the College stagnated.

At Manchester, this situation was fortuitously avoided as its benefactor, John Owens, a local textile merchant, was deceased. After his death in 1845, Owens had unexpectedly left a very large sum of £96,942 [over £10m in 2026 prices] to be used for:

“…an Institution for providing or aiding the means of instructing and improving young persons of the male sex (and being of an age not less than fourteen years) in such branches of learning and science as are now and may be hereafter usually taught in the English Universities.”

Trustees were appointed to enact the plan. They were local notables, primarily businessmen, but local MPs were also recruited. A minority had been involved in the earlier university campaign, notably James Heywood (1810-1897), a Lancashire MP and outspoken critic of Oxbridge. Other trustees were novices in the subject, and they proceeded cautiously, taking care to consult fully with existing universities. George Faulkner (c.1790-1862), Owens’ business partner and executor, chaired the trustees committee, skilfully negotiating religious and political differences to agree a plan for the new college.

Owens had as its key features: no religious tests for staff or students; non-residence of students; male students primarily in their late teens; systematic courses of study, although with no expectation that students would take a degree (from the University of London); and that students would pay fees.

There appears to have been little disagreement over the College’s organisation and curriculum, and the only area of contention was a proposal to offer voluntary lectures on religious subjects. This aroused considerable opposition and was quietly dropped. The difficult task of appointing suitably qualified staff was achieved without discord. A. J. Scott, a professor at University College, London was appointed Principal of the College. Five professors were selected, some holding dual chairs: Scott (English language and literature/logic, mental and moral philosophy), J. G. Greenwood (classics/history), Edward Frankland (chemistry), W. C. Williamson (natural history) and Archibald Sandeman (mathematics). The original plan to create a separate chair in history was realised in 1854, when R. C. Christie was appointed professor. Teachers were also appointed for German and French.

The Trustees were keen that the Owens endowment was used for staff rather than elaborate buildings, and the College occupied a modest building in Quay Street in the town centre, originally leased, and then purchased for the College by Faulkner.

The College opened on 12 March 1851 with a general meeting at Manchester Town Hall, followed by lectures by the professors at the Quay Street building. In the first few months, 25 students registered, all of whom were local (two students from Macclesfield and Rochdale probably commuted by rail).

Initially, the College struggled to attract students as the utility of higher education remained unproven. However, numbers recovered in the early 1860s, particularly after the admission of evening students. The College Extension campaign of the late 1860s raised sufficient funds from the people of Manchester to fund new subjects and build a new campus at Oxford Road, to where Owens College migrated in 1872/3. Owens had by this time become a fully-fledged civic institution.