Introduction
I recently came across a dissertation on the Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge that traces its history from its formation in 1828. The institution, established to provide adult education and a library in the town, became the Harris Institute in 1882. It passed through several stages to emerge as today’s University of Lancashire.
Lecturers at what was Preston Polytechnic and then the University of Central Lancashire have written histories of their organisation that include accounts of the nineteenth-century institution. None is as detailed as the dissertation published here. It was written by Peter Hindle in 1971 when he was a student at Liverpool University, before the later histories were published.
Two key figures in the setting up of the institute were the social campaigner Joseph Livesey and Thomas Batty Addison, the Recorder of Preston. Addison became the institute’s first president and Livesey its first treasurer. The two men were later to become fierce opponents in the administration of the New Poor Law in the town.
It was Livesey who urged that the new body should be named the Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge and not the Preston Mechanics’ Institute. He argued that: ‘Although mechanics are a class which are to be benefitted by the institution, they are not the only class. There is a large class of labouring men who do not come under the term mechanics, and there are other classes of men, who will be benefitted by it.’ And it was Livesey the temperance campaigner who fixed the price of membership at 1s. 7½d per quarter, equivalent to the cost of ‘a gill of ale per week’.
At the inaugural meeting, Thomas Batty Addison pointed to the example of London University, which had similar small beginnings: ‘What has been done in London, might, upon a corresponding scale, be done in Preston.’ But Preston would have to wait nearly two hundred years to get its university.
One thing missing from Hindle’s dissertation is the opposition that Livesey mounted to the transfer from the institution’s original home in Cannon Street to a grand new building near Winckley Square, the district that had become the home to the town’s wealthier inhabitants. The building was named the Avenham Institute. This is what Livesey had to say about the building that later became the Harris Institute: ‘… a more unlikely site could scarcely have been chosen. It is quite at an outside corner of the town, and convenient only to the comparatively wealthy. And not only so, but it will become less and less central as the town extends …’. The town did extend, to the north and east, far away from Winckley Square.
The Livesey quotation is taken from Nigel Morgan’s 1981 Lancaster University MLitt dissertation that has a good deal more on Livesey’s criticism of the way Preston’s wealthy middle classes appropriated the cultural amenities of the town.
The three other histories of the institution are:
Pope, Rex, and Ken Phillips. University of Central Lancashire: A History of the Development of the Institution since 1828. University of Central Lancashire, 1995. https://knowledge.lancashire.ac.uk/id/eprint/55951/.
Timmins, Geoffrey, David Foster, and Harry Law. Preston Polytechnic: The Emergence of an Institution 1828-1978. Preston Polytechnic, 1979.
Vernon, Keith. A History of the University of Central Lancashire. University of Central Lancashire, 2018.
Note: The title ‘The Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’ was never the formal title for the institution. This is made clear in its annual reports where it is named ‘The Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge’.
The Preston Institution for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
by Peter Hindle
Dissertation submitted for the Diploma in Adult Education in the University of Liverpool, May 1971
Contents
Chapter One
Foundation and Early Success
A. The Inaugural meeting
B. The First Open meeting
Chapter Two
The Cannon Street Period 1828-1849.
Chapter Three
The Avenham Period 1849-1870
(a) General activities
(b) Educational work
Chapter Four
The Last years of the institution 1871-1882.
Chapter Five.
Summary.
Appendix 1. Membership
Appendix 2. The Library, Museum and Penny Bank.
Appendix 3. The Jubilee celebrations 1879.
Appendix 4. Dr. Shepherd’s Library.
Appendix 5. Photocopy of Rules and Regulations.
Chapter One: Foundation and Early Success
A. The Inaugural Meeting.
The Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the aim of which was, “to facilitate and promote the diffusion of useful knowledge among the operative mechanics, and others, inhabitants of Preston and its neighbourhood”, (1) was founded on October 7th, 1828 at 11, Cannon Street, off Fishergate, when twenty-four people attended an inaugural meeting. They met in response to a notice placed in the “Preston Chronicle” of September 11th, 1828 by Joseph Livesey, (2) which invited the attendance of people interested in forming, “an Institution in Preston upon similar principles to the Mechanics Institutes in different parts of the kingdom”. Of the twenty-four present that evening eleven were, “businessmen or gentlemen” and thirteen were, “operatives”, including five mechanics, one joiner and one “sedan-chair carrier”. These twenty-four formed a council (3) and the following officers were elected; Thomas Batty Addison, for many years Recorder of Preston, became the first president, Robert Ashcroft, later Town Clerk of Preston, was elected secretary, and Joseph Livesey was made treasurer.
It was Joseph Livesey who was mainly responsible for selecting the title of the new society. Speaking against calling it the “Preston Mechanics’ Institute” he is reported as saying, “Although mechanics are a class which are to be benefitted by the institution, they are not the only class. There is a large class of labouring men who do not come under the term mechanics, and there are other classes of men, who will be benefitted by it”. (4) T.B. Addison, formally proposing the accepted title, (5) stressed that membership was not to be restricted to any particular group, “All who wish to profit by it may do so, and they will be welcome” (6)
These remarks show a more realistic understanding of the need for education of the working class, and of the relatively small numbers of mechanics in it, than was usually the case in these times. The annual subscription of six shillings and six-pence (three halfpence per week), which could be paid quarterly, was one of the cheapest in the British Isles (7) and was commented upon favourably by Hudson in 1851, “The public educational institutions of this town are distinguished both for their low rates of subscription, and for the public spirit with which they have been conducted”. (8) It is difficult to understand why Hudson uses the plural “institutions” here for the only recorded possible rival to the Preston Institution at the time he wrote was a Literary and Philosophical Society which had a minimum subscription of twenty-one shillings. Hudson, too, favoured a weekly subscription.” (9)
An interesting reason for fixing the subscription at six and sixpence was given by William Livesey, son of Joseph Livesey and a former librarian of the institution. Speaking at the Jubilee celebrations of the institution on April 2nd, 1879, he said, “My father, Mr. Joseph Livesey, whose teetotal proclivities were well known, fixed the price of membership at 1s. 7½d per quarter, that being the price of a gill of ale per week, which he thought the working man might easily save”. (10)
At no time during the existence of the institution did its subscription rate for ordinary members exceed ten shillings per year, and in later years a reduced rate was available for ladies and juveniles. The existence of quarterly membership did mean that numbers fluctuated during the course of each year, being high during the autumn and winter periods of classes and lectures, and low during the spring and summer quarters. The figures of quarterly members, where available, probably provide a rough guide to the numbers of working men who were members of the institution and will be considered in further detail later in this paper.
Another provision agreed to at this inaugural meeting was of importance for the development of the educational work of the institution. Rule 13 stated that members who formed themselves into classes, “for mutual instruction in any art or science”, or for discussion, could make use of rooms and apparatus, “at the council’s discretion”. It was not until 1857 that the council itself began to organise classes within the institution.
Rule 14 provided for the formation of a library but imposed the following restrictions, “No novels, plays, deistical or atheistical works, no books of party politics or polemical divinity, shall be admitted to the library”. (11) In its issue of October 11th, 1828, an editorial in the “Preston Pilot” singled out this particular decision for adverse comment, stating that it was wrong that, “religion was not one of the subjects to be studied and expounded by the members in their assemblies and classes”. (12)
Notes
1. Rules and Regulations of the Preston Institution, Number 1. A photo- copy of the Rules & Regulations will be found in Appendix 5.
2. Livesey, a self-educated local business man and a keen temperance advocate, called the meeting but Whittle’s, “History of Preston”, 1837, page 86, says the idea came from John Gilbertson, a local surgeon, who worked actively for the institution during its early years both as council member and lecturer.
3. Management of the institution was vested in the council – Rule 4.
4. Preston Chronicle 11.10.1828.
5. It is possible that the founders of the Preston Institution drew their inspiration for its title from the “Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” which was founded in London by Lord Broughan in 1826. This society was basically concerned with the provision of cheap educational literature for the masses. Over a period of twenty years, under the directorship of Charles Knight, it was responsible for the publication of, “The Library of Useful Knowledge” (from 1827), the “Library of Entertaining Knowledge” (from 1829), the “Quarterly Journal of Education (1831-36), the “Penny Magazine” (from 1832), and many others. See Kelly, “History of Adult Education” pp.164-167.
6. Preston Chronicle 11.10.1828.
7. T. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.266, 2s.6d a quarter was perhaps the commonest subscription; occasionally it was as low as 1s. a quarter, and it was quite often 4s or 5s”.
8. Hudson p.155.
9. Hudson, preface, p.viii.
10. Preston Chronicle 6.4.1879.
11. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.218. “Works of controversial politics and theology were commonly barred; many institutes also excluded fiction, and Leeds initially excluded even history and biography”. Preston was doing no more than conforming to the national pattern. 12. Preston Pilot. 11.10.1828.
12. Preston Pilot. 11.10.1828.
B. The First Open Meeting.
This inaugural meeting was given wide, and generally favourable, coverage in the local press, and it is therefore not surprising that between six and seven hundred people attended at the Corn Exchange on Tuesday, November 11th, 1828, when an open meeting for intending members was held. In his opening address, T.B. Addison referred to the small beginnings of London University and with local pride and optimism in ascendancy over realism stated, “What has been done in London, might, upon a corresponding scale, be done in Preston”. (13) It was announced that rooms had been leased at 11, Cannon Street, at a rent of £10 per year, that a library was being formed and that a series of lectures was being arranged.
Local newspapers gave the institution plenty of space during its early months and from them we learn that by the end of November 595 (14) members had enrolled and by January 3rd, 1829 membership had reached 670. (15)
Six hundred and sixty-eight books had already been given to the library at the time of the open meeting and when the first issue of books was made on the following Wednesday the number was, “in excess of seven hundred volumes”. The “Preston Chronicle” commented, “several hundreds of the members attended, especially operatives, who behaved with great decorum”. (16) A letter to the same newspaper on January 3rd, 1829 remarks the obvious need which is being fulfilled by the libraryand comments. “Compared with those who visit Dr. Shepherd’s library ten times the number apply here for books”. This letter is important for two reasons. First, because it draws attention to the fact that before the Public Libraries Act of 1850 Preston was one of only three provincial towns in Great Britain which had a public library. The other two were Manchester (Chetham’s Library) and Glasgow (Stirling’s Library). Second, because it stresses by implication the importance of easy access to libraries. In 1759 Dr. Shepherd had left his library to the mayor and aldermen of Preston, “for the use of the inhabitants”; (17) but books could not be lent out and the signed authority of an alderman was needed for a person to use the library. In fairness, to the trustees it must be pointed out that Dr. Shepherd’s Library was essentially a scholars’ library and likely to be of very limited interest to the majority of members of the new institution.
Except on Sundays, the institution’s library was open daily from 12.30 to 4.30.p.m. and from 5.0. to 9.0.p.m., and by the time of the first annual general meeting in October 1829 it contained 1,506 volumes valued at £429, of which 1,140 had been donated by members and well-wishers. Periodicals taken by the library at this time included; “The Mechanics’ Magazine”, “The London Journal of Science”, “The Journal of the Royal Institution”, “The Library of Useful Knowledge”, “The Library of Useful History” and “The Kaleidoscope”. (18) Issues for the first year averaged 300 per week but it was not until the 1860s that the institution provided a “breakdown” of both books in stock and issues to give any information about members’ literary interests.
The first series of lectures started on December 4th 1828 when Mr. Moses Holden, who had some national as well as local reputation as an astronomer, attracted over 600 people to a course of four lectures on “Optics”. Each lecture had to be given twice as the rooms at Cannon Street could not accommodate such large numbers. During the course of this first year, members were also able to attend lectures on phrenology, elocution, architecture, electricity, the microscope, and “The Society and its Aims”, all of which were delivered free of charge by members of the institution. During the same period classes were held in chemistry and English language and composition.
Preston seems to have been an exception to the general rule that, “Only a few institutes attempted at this stage to form a regular museum” (19) for after a few years it had collected, according to Hudson, “800 specimens of natural history”.” (20) Early in 1829 John Addison, a local bookseller, presented to the institution a “collection of philosophical apparatus” which he had purchased, “on the dissolution of the society to which it belonged”.(21) Such collections were usually assembled in the hope that they could be used for the dual purpose of illustrating lectures and providing members with opportunities for experiments but this seldom seems to have happened. Hudson wrote in 1851, “The museum and collection of philosophical apparatus has been comparatively useless, occupying space which might have been more advantageously used by clubs or classes.”(22) According to Kelly, “Only at the Dundee Watt Institution does this department (i.e. the museum) seem to have achieved substantial success”. (23)
The society from which John Addison had bought his “philosophical apparatus” was the Preston Literary and Philosophical Society which had been founded by the Rev. John Dunn, a Unitarian minister, and Thomas Batty Addison on March 12th, 1810 and which was dissolved early in 1828. All the leading members of this society as listed by Whittle (24) became members of the Preston Institution and included both the vicar of Preston, the Rev. Mr. Parr and the Rev. Joseph Dunn, senior priest of St. Wilfrid’s Catholic chapel, as well as the Rev. E.D. Rendell, New Jerusalem Church. Preston thus seems to have been one of the exceptions to the national trend stated by Kelly, “it is unusual to find Church of England clergymen playing an active part”, and, “Roman Catholic clergy were likewise generally hostile”. (25) It is possible that the more ambiguous title chosen for the Preston Institution helped to reconcile such people to it and the collapse of the Literary and Philosophical Society left them free to devote their energies to the new venture. All the gentlemen listed above gave lectures to the members on several occasions and on a variety of subjects.
Indeed the Preston Institution seems to have been founded at a time when the town was almost completely, if not entirely, lacking in organizations of an adult-educational nature. The local botanical and natural history societies, the former founded in 1804, were both moribund, a subscription library had foundered in 1819, discussions on a proposed Athenaeum had come to nothing, and a public adult school attended in 1817 by “fifty poor men and elder apprentices” (26) had been abandoned the following year. These factors may have contributed considerably to the early success of the new institution.
At the institution’s first annual general meeting held on October 6th, 1829 it was reported that membership on Sept. 30th 1825, was 621 “paid up members” and that the institution had a balance in the bank of £54. 4s. 1d. The membership included “several ladies” and it does seen probable that ladies were allowed to join the society on equal terms from its very beginning. The “Preston Chronicle” of November 15th, 1828 reported that “twenty to thirty ladies” attended the open enrolment meeting. A published “breakdown” of membership in 1841 shows “ladies” as full members.
This apparent success, during the first year occasioned many self-congratulatory speeches at this meeting which were fully reported in the “Preston Chronicle” of October 10th, 1829. It was left to the reporter for that newspaper, however, to identify the problem which the institution was to face in the future regarding lectures and also to stress the importance of the library. He wrote, “Instead of spending money on lectures, which only gratify for the evening, they have devoted their attention more to the formation of a library.”
The position regarding lectures was one which nearly all mechanics’ institutes and similar organisations found themselves in sooner or later. The normal fee for a specialist or professional lecturer in those days was from three to five pounds for a single lecture. Very few institutes, especially those with low subscriptions such as Preston, could afford this and they were forced to rely upon the free services of local manufacturers, clergy and doctors. Only a minority of these were qualified to give the science lectures which were at first in great demand, and in any case the local supply soon ran out. It is therefore to the credit of the Preston Institution that it was able to maintain a programme of free lectures for as long as it did. The first year in which an entrance fee for lectures was charged, thereby implying that the lecturer was paid, was 1837. An even more acute problem was faced when attempts were made to institute class teaching on a similar voluntary basis for while, in general, members could be prevailed upon to give a single lecture or short course of lectures it was not easy to find men willing to take an evening class every week during the winter months. Several Preston members did this and must be given credit for it.
Notes
13. Preston Chronicle 15.11.1828.
14. Preston Chronicle 6.12.1828.
15. Preston Chronicle 3. 1.1829.
16. Preston Chronicle 22.11.1828.
17. Whittle p.88 For a full account of Dr. Shepherd’s Library see Appendix 4.
18. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1829.
19. Kelly “George Birkbeck” p.218.
20. Hudson, P.156.
21. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1829.
22. Hudson p.157.
23. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.238.
24. Whittle p. 87.
25. Kelly, “George Birkbeck”, p.217.
26 Hudson, p155.
Chapter Two: The Cannon Street Period 1828-1848
For the first twenty years of its existence the Preston Institute occupied a set of rooms at No. 11 Cannon Street, off Fishergate, in the centre of the town. Here the steadily growing library was housed, and lectures and classes were held. In 1830 one of the rooms was equipped as a “Reading Room” and at the annual general meeting that year it was reported that many new members from outside the town were being attracted specifically by this provision. Exceptionally, the occasional celebrity lecture and exhibition would be held at the Corn Exchange. Over the years dissatisfaction about the lack of adequate accommodation was often expressed and it was this that led the council, in 1846, to purchase for £772 a plot of land on Avenham Walks on which to build their own premises. There was at the time some criticism of the purchase of this particular site on the grounds that it was too far from the centre of the town. It was four years before the new building was complete and during this period the institution involved itself in financial difficulties which were not solved until 1865 when the debt was finally liquidated by the proceed of a bazaar. It is possible that financial worries at a critical time in the life of the institution went some way towards preventing it fulfilling its full potential.
However, after the first year when 621 people joined the new society there was a steady decline in membership to a total of three hundred and thirteen in 1835. It was this which probably prompted Hardwick, writing in 1857, to say that the institution was at that time, “Too far advanced in its character to meet the then state of education of the masses, and, like many other Mechanics’ Institutes, it soon ceased to be much patronised by that class”. (1)This statement is directly contradicted by membership figures announced at the annual general meeting in October 1835 which were as follows: Mechanics 44, Shoemakers 20, Weavers 20, Joiners 12, Painters 12, Labourers and Porters 40, Tailors 24, Book-keepers 28, Lawyers and clerks 40, Tradesmen and others 63, Boys at school 10. This gives a total of three hundred and thirteen and the representation of working men is quite strong, though the majority seem to have been skilled men rather than ordinary “operatives”.
There are two possible local reasons for this decline. First, in 1832, following considerable discussion at the annual general meeting the council elected to serve for the following year comprised, “eight gentlemen and sixteen mechanics and others”. (2) During the year 1832 – 1833 there were no lectures at all and the programme of classes was reduced, which led to the critical comment at the 1833 meeting, when membership had fallen from 450 to 330, “The interests of this institution have suffered from a majority of persons being on the council who have not the command of their time”. (3) This is a reflection of the long hours then worked in industry and a reminder that a considerable amount of time needs to be given to the satisfactory running of any voluntary body. Secondly, dissatisfied members, especially those with literary and artistic tastes, had a chance the next year to join a more congenial society when the Preston Society of Arts was founded on September 19th, 1834.
It must not be thought, however, that a big decline in membership after early enthusiasm was peculiar to the Preston Institution. Kelly tells us that about this time many of the institutes created during the middle and late eighteen-twenties became “moribund or extinct” (4) and that this decline was not confined to any one part of the country. While economic depression and the rigid exclusion of politics from their programmes played a definite part, a more important reason was that a majority of working-class members lacked the basic educational skills needed to take full advantage of what the mechanics’ institutes and similar bodies offered them. As Kelly says, “The educational programme of the early mechanics’ institutes was entirely misconceived in relation, to the kind of audience it was desired to attract”. (5)
Although 1834 was indeed a low point as far as the provision of lectures was concerned, they never, apart from in 1828, formed an important part of the institution’s programme during the early years. In 1831 for example only three, on Elocution, Astronomy and Architecture were delivered, and the record for 1832 simply says, of lectures, “a few, poorly attended”. (6) The energies of the members seem to have been devoted to class study. Despite a mention in 1830 of a “dearth of competent teachers” (7) seven classes were held that year in English, Chemistry, Mechanics and related subjects, besides which a literary and philosophical discussion group is stated to have met regularly. Music, stenography and “the Lewisian system of writing” were added in 1831 and in the following year some form of regular evening school was established. During the winter months, on three nights each week, between twelve and fifty young men and boys received instruction in “all branches of common English education”, (8) for which they each paid one halfpenny per week. The secretary in his report for that year drew a comparison with the Edinburgh Sessional Schools. Unfortunately, the system was not maintained at this level during the next year when only three classes were held, in Chemistry, Natural History and English Grammar.
1834 saw the election of a new council and the institution embarked on a programme of lectures which was to continue as its main educational activity for the rest of the society’s tenancy of the Cannon Street premises. No classes were held for the next two years and although from then on instruction in Mechanical and Architectural drawing (fairly frequently) and Chemistry and Arithmetic (occasionally) was provided, the study of English was not resumed until 1858. On the other hand, discussion groups seem to have met regularly and frequently each year, and classes were held for phonography, (a visit by Mr. Pittman (sic) is recorded in 1841), choral and instrumental music, and singing “by the Wilhelm’s system”. (9) A French class was also held for many years. It is important to stress that none of these classes was arranged by the committee. Members had to agree to study some subject and then find their own teacher who would be willing in most cases to provide his services free. (The first official record of class teachers being paid by the Institution is not found until 1858) (Under these circumstances it is remarkable that any classes were held at all, not that they were so few in number). Some classes were able to continue without the aid of a teacher and were commended for this by a committee member at the 1841 annual general meeting, “mutual instruction is a very pleasing and profitable mode of conducting any study”. (10) At the same meeting attention was drawn to the fact that accommodation for the classes was “not of the best description” and there is evidence quoted by Tylecote that working men in Preston were at this time able to make better provision for their studies on their own. She quotes the “Preston Temperance Advocate” of June 1837 on the “Academies” of that town, “where eighteen or twenty men would rent a two roomed cottage for 1s 9d to 3 shillings a week, and use the top room for learning to read and write, the bottom room for social meetings”. (10) Similar examples are quoted from Oldham and Royton.
The record of an exchange which took place at the same, 1841, annual general meeting illustrates the difference between the two main groups among the society’s members. Lamenting the poor attendance at a recent course of lectures the secretary, Mr. A. Halliday, said, “It is not want of means which prevents them from attending as the earnings of many, especially weavers and clerks, are considerable”. (11) An operative member, speaking from the body of the hall, explained, that, “he knew the value of Mr. Sturgeon’s lectures but times were so bad, many were out of employment or only working short time, that they could not afford to pay for the advantages of listening to them”. (12)
In 1834-5 the institution presented a programme of thirty lectures during the winter months and although this total was never again approached it continued, until the move to the Avenham building, to concentrate its main educational effort on the lecture. During this period an average of fourteen lectures was given each winter. While “Electricity, Galvanism and Magnetism”, “Mechanics” and “Mechanical Philosophy” were featured fairly regularly and Moses Holden gave several courses on astronomy and a lecture in 1848 “On the new discovery of an unknown planet” which attracted “over three hundred persons”, the majority of lectures were of the non-scientific, general interest type though most of them probably demanded a far greater background knowledge of the subject than was possessed by the majority of the members. One cannot readily imagine wide interest being aroused by a course of four lectures on, “German Literature”, or by two lectures on, “Eulogy”, in 1837. (13) For some reason the subject of “Medical Jurisprudence” appears to have been popular. First delivered in 1837, it was repeated twice during the next few years. Other popular subjects were “Phrenology, Respiration and the circulation of the blood”, “British Reptiles”, “Meteorology”, and “Hieroglyphics” all of which appear more than once in the institution’s programmes of the eighteen-thirties and eighteen-forties.
Here again Preston seems to have followed the national trend away from an attempt to provide serious and systematic lecture courses in science and related subjects, and to have substituted, “miscellaneous programmes of single lectures and occasional short courses on a great variety of topics – science, history, literature, antiquities, phrenology and so forth. (14)
An examination of membership figures shows that this type of programme did win back people to the institution. From the low figures of 313 in 1835 membership rose to 521 in 1838. There was then a gradual decline to 440 in 1845 and then another steady rise to 620 in 1847, the year before the opening of the new building at Avenham. In relation to the rest of the country Preston was always one of the stronger institutions. According to Kelly (15) it was in 1831 one of only 22 institutions in the country with a membership of over 200; in 1841 was one of 72 in the same class; and in 1851 was one of only 35 institutions with a membership of over 500. At no time in its existence did membership fall below 300.
The first departure from the provision of formal lectures does not been to have been made until 1839. In this year two “Conversational meetings” were held which appear to have been social events at which a lecture was given and was then followed, after refreshments, by “general discussion and conversation”. The subjects covered at these two meetings were “Fine Arts” and “Natural Magic”. Although the committee regarded those as having been highly successful the experiment does not seem to have been repeated until the institution was established in the new building on Avenham Walks, unless the “soirees” mentioned first in 1840 and several times in later years are to be regarded as similar more social and educational events.
Undoubtedly the decision which caused most argument during this period was that which allowed for the “provision of chess-boards and chessmen for the use of the members”. This proposal was first made at the annual general meeting of 1841 and discussion went on throughout the following year until it was accepted in October 1842. Precedent was quoted that the game was ‘allowed at the Literary and Philosophical Society in this town” and its educational value as a “first rate mental exercise” (16) was stressed. It was several times mentioned in succeeding years that chess was proving a very popular pastime for many members. At this time, too, the subjects studied by the classes seem to have become more “social” and the popularity of singing, both by the “Wilhelm” and the Sol-fa (17) systems is particularly noticeable. The institution would occasionally sponsor popular lectures; Mr. Catlow of Manchester delivered two on “Rational Mesmerism” at the Corn Exchange in the spring of 1843; in the previous year two lectures on “Mechanical Philosophy” in the same building were well attended after the committee had sent out over 300 free tickets to local factories and in 1845 Mr. Pennington gave a series of “Penny Lectures” at the Theatre Royal.
It was not until 1840 that the institution held its first exhibition of “Works of Art, Scientific Apparatus and Machinery”. Because the rooms at Cannon Street were inadequate for this the Exchange Rooms in the centre of town were rented for a sum of £100 and the exhibition was opened to the public on January 31st 1840 and ran until June 13th of that year. Every evening the rooms were illuminated free “by the liberality of the Gas Company”; interest was kept up by a “succession of soirees”; and a series of six lectures on the objects in the exhibition was delivered by Professor R. Jones of King’s College, London. Attendances were reported to be heavy. The population of Preston and the surrounding area no doubt profited by what they observed and heard at the exhibition and the institution can here be said to have fulfilled a role, “whereby the advances in science in particular were communicated to a much broader public than they might otherwise have been”.” (18) Many of the items on exhibition were afterwards donated to the institution which also recorded a cash profit of £280. It seems, in the eyes of one member, to have had a valuable moral effect upon the town for he said at the next annual general meeting, “More than half the receipts, it is believed, consisted of money withdrawn from the scenes of low excess and conviviality.’ (19)
However, the main reason for holding the exhibition seems to have been to raise funds for the erection of the institute’s own building. For several years there had been complaints that the work of the institution was being held back by lack of suitable accommodation and a steadily rising membership during the late 1830s gave hope for a prosperous future. A more definite incentive however was provided by the establishment early in 1840 of a new Preston Literary and Philosophical society which almost immediately set about acquiring land in Cross Street for the erection of its own premises. According to Hudson (20) the new “Lit. & Phil” was formed by an amalgamation of the Preston Society of Arts and the Palatine Subscription Library founded in February 1825, but Hardwick says (21) that the initiative came from “several members of the Cannon Street Institute” who were dissatisfied with the policy of that body. The building in Cross Street was completed late in 1846 but despite this competition membership of the Institution continued to increase.
Fund raising for the proposed building at Avenham became the main preoccupation of the council from 1840 onwards. In 1841 Mr. Hamer Hargreaves left £100 to the society for building purposes, and in the same year a subscription list was opened which was eventually to total £1,700 in subscriptions from “gentry and trade”. Preston Corporation gave £250, operative members collected £51. 16s. 2d. and a ball held in January 1843 realised £37. By October 1845 just over £2,750 had been raised and a plot of land on Avenham Walks was purchased for £772. It was not, however, until June 15th 1846 that the foundation stone was laid by the President, and Mayor of Preston, Mr. Thomas German “with full masonic honours” and “under circumstances of great eclat”, as the “Preston Chronicle” reported in its issue of June 18th.
It was not until October 1849 that the new building was officially opened, on the twenty first anniversary of the foundation of the institution. Building work had twice been halted because of lack of funds and completion was due in large measure to a loan of £600 from Mr. Thomas Birchall a member of the institution and to a bazaar held in January 1849 which realised the sum of £1,800.
This building which contained some classrooms, a library, reading room, lecture hall and two exhibition rooms, was to house the institution for the remainder of its existence and is still used today by the Art Department of the Harris College. “The Preston Chronicle” described the new building, which was constructed to the designs of Mr. Welch, in these words, “The structure is of the Greek composite order, modified by certain prevailing Italian ideas, the portico being modelled after the famous Athenian, “Temple of the Winds”. Hudson describes it as one of the “chief ornaments of the town”. (22)
Notes
1. Hardwick, p.217.
2. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1832.
3. Preston Chronicle 6.10.1833.
4. [No reference supplied]
5. Kelly, “George Birkbeck”, p.227.
6. Preston Chronicle 8.10.32.
7. Preston Chronicle 9.10.1830.
8. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1832.
9. Guillaume Wilhelm invented his method of teaching singing to large groups in Paris in the eighteen-twenties. Like the SOL-FA and TONIC SOL-FA systems, which were developed from it, it was much simpler to learn than the ordinary staff-notation. Basically, it was a system of associating each note of the musical scale with a particular syllable, such syllables representing either C, D, etc., of the natural scale, or the first, second, etc., notes of any scale.
10. Preston Chronicle 9.10.1841.
10. Tylecote, p.126. [Hindle has two footnotes numbered ‘10’]
11. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1841.
12. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1841.
13. In 1837 there is the first mention of paid lecturers being employed but no details are given. In 1839 the institution paid out a total of £40 for eight lectures by various persons.
14. Kelly, “History of Adult Education”, p. 128.
15. Kelly, “George Birkbeck”, Appendix 8.
16. Preston Chronicle, 9.10.1842.
17. The Sol-fa method of teaching singing was pioneered in this country by John I. Hullah, a composer and organist, who opened a singing school at Exeter Hall, London in February, 1841. This system was based on the one invented by G. Wilhelm in Paris (see footnote ?.). In the same year John Curwen, a Congregational minister, began to propagate the Tonic Sol-fa notation which was even simpler than Hullah’s, for the principle of the “movable Doh” dispensed with the need for accidentals. For many years there was rivalry between the two systems but the superior simplicity of Curwen’s method eventually carried the day. The Tonic Sol-fa system remained in extensive use until the First World War.
18. Stephens & Roderick, p.8.
19. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1840.
20. Hudson p.157.
21. Hardwick, p.218.
22. Hudson, p.157.
Chapter Three: The Avenham Period 1849-1882.
A. General Activities
The most remarked upon feature of the new building at Avenham was the spacious lecture hall which had seating for six hundred people. Yet during the whole of the remaining period of the institution’s existence a programme of more than ten lectures in any one year was only presented on five occasions; in 1849 when eighteen lectures were given, in 1854 – 12 lectures, 1855 – 13 lectures, 1861 – 11 lectures and 1863 – 14 combined “lectures upon instructive subjects and free entertainments”. The complete record for other years is as follows:
1850 – 10 lectures and 2 concerts, “badly attended and occasioning a loss to the society”.
1852 – 3 lectures, “thinly attended”.
1853 – 5 lectures, “poorly attended”
1860 – 6 lectures.
1864 – “Lectures by Mr. J. Buckmaster of the Science Department of the Council of Education”. These were part of an attempt to arouse interest in a School of Science which the council of the institution was proposing to establish.
After 1864 there is no record of the lecture hall being used for its original purpose until April 1879 when Dean Stanley delivered the “Jubilee Address” there.
In 1854 it was used for an exhibition of “Works of Art” which was attended by over ten thousand people and showed a profit of £280.
A similar exhibition was held in 1861 but this resulted in a loss of £150. Further exhibitions were held in 1875 and 1879, the latter being the Jubilee Exhibition. The only other recorded use of the lecture hall is in November and December 1861 when a series of “Penny Readings” (1) is reported to have been “very well attended”. At some time in 1868 part of the seating was removed from the hall and it was used for some time as a gymnasium. Preston was not a pioneer in this activity; Kelly records a gymnastic class at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute as early as 1832. (2)
In failing to provide the right sort of accommodation for its members the Preston Institution was not, apparently, unique. Tylecote (3) gives the impression that an inability to forecast the declining popularity of the lecture and an increase in demand for classroom accommodation was fairly widespread. Speaking of new buildings erected by Mechanics’ Institutes she says that many of them, “proved unsuitable for their purpose, and also too pretentious in their style”, “emphasis was placed upon the provision of a lecture hall; but later experience showed the greater importance of several good class-rooms and a large, well-lit and well-warmed reading-room”.
Her remarks about ambitious building programmes, “which crippled an institution’s finances, curtailed its educational activities and compelled the directors to concentrate on money-raising activities” are also remarkably applicable to the Preston institution.
In later years members often looked back with affection to the early days in Cannon Street when the institution was free from financial worry and seemed to have a clearly defined role in the life of the town. One typical example is taken from a speech by Mr. Thomas Edelston at the Jubilee meeting in April, 1879, “What a refuge from temptation that dear old room in Cannon Street was”. (4)
The new building, when finally complete, cost just over £6,000 and the debt upon it was not finally liquidated until 1865, although the repayment of £600 to a member, Thomas Birchall, was completed in 1854. There is no doubt that the finances of the institution were considerably helped by the decision of the trustees of Dr. Shepherds Library, in 1850, to house it in the new building and pay the society an annual rent of £40 for this. Dr. Shepherd’s library continued in the keeping of the institution until 1868 when it was removed to the building of the Literary and Philosophical Society, in Cross Street, which had been purchased by the corporation of Preston after that society’s dissolution.
B. Educational work
Apart from the lectures which have been previously mentioned the institution seems to have attempted little educational work during its first few years in the Avenham building. Classes in French, Chemistry, phonography, singing and dancing were held during 1850 but the annual reports give no details of any classes at all for the next two years. It cannot however be assumed that no classes were held, it is just that discussion at the annual general meeting in each of these years was largely concerned with the financial problem caused by the building debt. In 1853 a drawing class is specifically mentioned, but other classes must have been operating for in June 1853 the institution held an essay competition for members, “currently attending classes at this institution”. A prize of £5. 5s. 0. was won by a joiner, Mr. J. H. Forshaw, and one of £2. 2s. 0. was awarded to Mr. T. Livesey, a local schoolmaster. Total entries were only twenty- four and the competition does not seem to have been repeated.
For the period 1854-56 no definite details of classes are available and they are given only passing mention in the annual reports for these years. The early fifties do in fact seem to have been a time when the institution made very little educational provision for its members, yet during the years 1850-57 membership never fell below 537 (1853) and was twice as high as 594 (1850 and 1857). Membership in 1856, according to Hardwick, (5) was 571, comprising 240 “business, professional and trade”, 264 “operatives” and 67 “females and minors”, but his total is 22 short of the figure given at the annual general meeting on October 7th 1856.
At this meeting there was much criticism of the way in which the council was conducting the affairs of the institution. It was stated, for instance, that the members of the council had attended no meeting during the year, and then Mr. James Atkinson drew attention to the lack of activity, likening the institution to “a vast factory with engines of great power and machinery complete, yet with only a small proportion of its spindles and looms in motion”. (6) Another member suggested that the provision of a good library was no longer an attraction. He pointed out that some of the mills in the town had small libraries for their work people and that most Sunday Schools had libraries too. Several of these Sunday School libraries had between nine hundred and a thousand volumes and one in particular, with 150 members, had a weekly circulation of over 100 volumes.
October 1887 was an important month in the history of the institution for it was then that the directors decided to assume full responsibility for the organisation of the classes which they had previously only “sanctioned”. Paid teachers were employed for the first time and the following successful programme was arranged: two classes in English and Arithmetic (one for ladies) and one class each for French, Mathematics, Architectural drawing and Mechanical Drawing. Membership rose sharply to 703 (201 annual and an average of 302 quarterly) members. The secretary’s report for October 1858 attributes this rise entirely to the organisation of the classes and says that the new members were almost entirely “youths from the humbler ranks of society”.(7) In the same year the Preston Institution became affiliated to the Association of Mechanics’ Institutes of Lancashire and Cheshire and the council also rated with approval the formation by some of the members of a Young Men’s Elocutionary Association, which seems to have met regularly during the remainder of the existence of the society, for it is mentioned in nearly every annual report.
In the following year the same programme of classes was repeated and although no enrolment figures are given the council was highly pleased with its success. Also, in 1858 the Preston Natural History Society ceased to function and its library was handed over to the institution. In the same year it was at last agreed that the rate of membership subscription should be raised from the six shillings and six-pence which had been the rate since the foundation of the institution in 1828. On two previous occasions, in 1844 and again in 1851 the question of increased subscriptions had been discussed at length by the council and had been decisively rejected. The majority of the council, despite their failure to cater fully for the needs of their members, were always conscious of the fact that the institution was intended for the welfare of working men and in 1851 Mr. G. Cartwright, speaking against the motion to raise subscriptions had said, “if we increase the subscription to ten shillings we must change the title of this institution to that of Gentlemen’s’ and Tradesmen’s Institution”. (8)
The introduction of classes directly organised by the council of the Preston Institution was the culmination of several years of effort and must be seen as part of a national trend of mechanics’ institutes and similar bodies in the direction of technical education. According to Kelly this tendency, “was accentuated by the 1851 exhibition, which by the weaknesses it revealed in English technical equipment led to an increasing emphasis on technical education”. (9)
The first move in this direction had however been taken as far back as 1836 when, as a result of the Final Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, which had emphasised the need for instruction in industrial design, Government Schools of Design had been established in London and the chief provincial centres of manufacture, although only thirteen were operating by 1849. In 1853 the government established a Department of Science and Art, which made grants available in aid of Schools of Art and School of Science established by local effort and later, in 1859, started a scheme for the promotion of science classes by giving grants to teachers based on their qualifications and results. In 1861 the Department organised local examinations in scientific subjects. At the same time the Royal Society of Arts (originally the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) created in 1852 a national Union of Institutions with a central office in London to act as a clearing-house for information. In 1856 it inaugurated the Society of Arts examination which covered a wider range of subjects than did the examinations of the government department. It was these developments which gave a much-needed boost to the class-teaching work of the institutes and in reality, created for them a new and more clearly defined role in adult education.
The Preston Institution became a member of the Society of Arts’ national union in 1852 and a comment at the 1853 A.G.M. says that the association had proved “beneficial”, but in the following year members complained that the only result of the Society of Arts connection had been an exhibition of photographs which caused, “little excitement in the town and was poorly attended”, Also in 1852 negotiations were opened with London over the institution’s plan to establish a School of Design in Preston, and a note in the Secretary’s report for that year records that a special room was being equipped for “the Drawing class”. In the following year it was reported that the committee had been unable to secure, “a competent teacher” for the projected School of Design but the same report contains a statement that there was some feeling in the country, based apparently on reports of the fortunes of Schools of Design at Manchester and Belfast, that the Board of Privy Council seemed keen to prevent provincial Schools of Design from becoming any more than “infant schools of art” in an effort to “magnify the London Institution into a sort of college or university”. (10) Negotiations must however, have continued but in the following year the idea was finally abandoned because the Department of Science and Art wanted “too big a contribution from the society”.
While the actions as outlined above, being taken by both the government and private bodies could be said to have exercised fairly direct pressure on the mechanics’ institutes to devote more of their resources towards an increase in technical education, there were other pressures on them.
The Museums Act of 1845 and to a much greater extent, the Public Libraries Act of 1850, with subsequent amending and consolidating legislation, empowered local authorities to establish free libraries supported out of the rates. The original act limited provision to the product of a ½d rate but this was changed in 1855 to 1d. It was in the following year that Preston Corporation first discussed the provision of a free library in the borough and the matter was mentioned at the institute’s annual general meeting. The committee considered whether or not they should present their museum to the town but no doubt the thought was also present that a free library, once established, could have an adverse effect on membership, for there is no doubt that the institute’s library was one of its main attractions. It is quite likely, then, that here was another factor which played its part in the decision to concentrate efforts on class-teaching.
Some pupils who enrolled for the classes which started in October 1857 submitted themselves for the Society of Arts’ examinations the following summer and five students did well enough to receive “prizes and commendations”. No details of examination successes are given for the year 1859 but 10 received “prizes” in 1860 and there were also “several successes” in examinations held by the Lancashire and Cheshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutes. There was demand this year for extra classes to be given in history, political economy and languages and there was talk of establishing a connection with a body referred to as the “Arundel Society for the Promotion of Knowledge of Art”, but there is no further reference to this. The most important event of 1860 was, however, the foundation of a School of Art for which the committee authorised the spending of £177. 8. 10½d on equipment, and for which it received a grant of £54. 56. 0d. from the Department of Art and Science. From now on all classes were the responsibility of the School of Art which was in the charge of Mr. Huntington, who also taught Mathematics. Miss Ferguson was in charge of “ladies and young-ladies”, Mr. Cope taught French and Mr. Hughes was in charge of both Mechanical and Architectural Drawing. The names of other teachers are not given. Enrolment for this year comprised 15 ladies, 10 young ladies, 18 “boys at school”, 48 apprentices and artisans, and 83 school masters, school-mistresses and pupil-teachers, giving a grand total of 174 students. Seven of these won prizes in the following year’s Lancashire and Cheshire Union examinations, two of the prize-winners being ladies, one of whom received the only first-class prize won by the school. Sometime later in 1861 the school was “inspected” by the Department of Science and Art and of the 157 pupils, six received medals, eleven won prizes (first and second class), twenty one gained certificates of merit and two were honourably mentioned. In June 1862 the number of students in the school of art had fallen to 126 but at the Royal Society of Arts’ examination in that year they gained 15 medals, 7 first and 13 second prizes, 13 certificates and 5 honourable mentions. At the same examination the “public schools in Preston” presented 124 candidates who gained 35 first prizes and 1 second prize, and two certificates. The comparison seems to indicate that the teaching at, and quality of pupils attending, the School of Art was considerably better than that available at other establishments in the borough. In 1863 the School of Art had 139 pupils but the only examinations mentioned are those held by the Lancashire and Cheshire Union in which four men and four ladies were successful. No examinations are mentioned in the institution’s reports for the next two years when the numbers of pupils were 137 and 107 respectively. Categories of pupils for the years 1860 to 1865 inclusive reveal a remarkable decline in the number of school-teachers and pupil-teachers who attended; the relevant figures being 83 in 1860, and only 6 in 1865. For the same years the number of apprentices and artisans was 48 in 1860 and 44 in 1865 so that proportionately this class of pupil increased its representation. Numbers, however, are not always a sign of quality for it was in 1866 when the number of students fell to only 94, that Preston provided its first Queens Medallist in the R.5.A. examinations in the person of James Buchanan, a forty-one-year-old plasterer. Two years later the institution had two Queens Medallists, and two students successful in the Department of Science and Art examinations were awarded “National Scholarships” which enabled them to study in London. Strangely, the report of that year does not reveal their names.
In 1864 the institution had taken another step towards expanding the scope of its educational provision when it invited J. Buckmaster of the Science Department of the Committee of Council on Education to give a number of lectures on the value and importance of scientific education. These led to the establishment in 1865 of a School of Science which started life with a class in Chemistry which attracted thirty students, thirteen of whom were examined the following year, nine of these being successful. Additional classes in geology and animal physiology were planned for the next session. For the next four years the institution’s annual reports give only passing mention to the School of Science but its activities seem to have expanded considerably for the report for 1870 lists classes running in the following subjects: chemistry, physics, mathematics, zoology, geometrical, mechanical and architectural drawing, and French; but total enrolment in the School of Science for the year was only 60 students. 1870 brings the first mention of the School of Art providing day as well as evening classes. Eighty pupils were registered at the day school, with an average attendance of 55, while the evening classes had 101 students with an average attendance of 60. Figures of 60 males and 16 females are also given for what were described as “elementary classes” but there is no indication of how long the council had been providing these. In the following year a fall of 78 in the membership of the institution is attributed entirely to the discontinuing of these elementary classes which the committee is reported to have dispensed with because, “the juvenile classes” were, “reducing the position of the institution”. (11) The passing of the 1870 Education Act did, however, mean that alternative provision was being made for this class of student and this knowledge must have been available to the directors when they took their decision.
Notes
1. There were dramatic readings from popular authors, Shakespeare and Dickens being particularly popular. This is the first mention of them at Preston but Kelly in “George Birkbeck” pp. 234-235 indicates that they were featured at many mechanics’ institutes from the 1830s.
2. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.237.
3. Tylecote, p.113.
4. Preston Chronicle 7.4.1879.
5. Hardwick, p.219.
6. Preston Chronicle 11.10.1856.
7. Preston Chronicle 9.10.1858.
8. Preston Chronicle 11.10.1851.
9. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.272.
10. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1853.
11. Preston Chronicle 7.10.1871.
Chapter Four: The Closing Years, 1871-1882.
At the 1871 annual general meeting a list of figures was produced which shows that the institution had in fact been providing day classes at the School of Art from at least 1866. The full list, as given at the meeting, is reproduced below.
| School of Art Enrolments 1866-1871 | ||
| Year | Day Students | Evening Students |
| 1866 | 45 | 51 |
| 1867 | 64 | 100 |
| 1868 | 67 | 85 |
| 1869 | 80 | 101 |
| 1870 | 86 | 64 |
| 1871 | 89 | 61 |
The two features of those figures are first, a steady increase in the number of day students, and second, considerable fluctuation in the numbers of pupils attending the evening classes. It becomes obvious too that figures released at previous AGMs always refer to enrolments in the previous autumn.
At the same meeting sone disquiet was expressed about the future of the School of Science. It appears that the system of paying the master by results had been introduced by the Department of Science, which had at the same time raised the pass standard in its examinations, “In order”, said a member of the committee, “to diminish the amount of their expenditure”. (12) This meant that the institution would have to pay proportionately more to maintain the School of Science at its previous level of activity, and the committee seems to have been unwilling to do this, though earlier at the same meeting the treasurer had reported the institution to be financially “prosperous”. The introduction of more rigorous standards had reduced the School of Science at this time to only thirty-five students.
The writer has been unable to discover any report of the activities of the Institution for the years 1872 and 1873.
In 1874 the classes are stated to have been continuing steadily and there was some discussion at the annual general meeting of Preston Corporation’s plans to construct a museum, art gallery and free library which, it was felt, would have a bad effect upon the membership of the institution. Plans were discussed for an Exhibition of Arts and Industries to be held at Avenham in the spring of 1875. This exhibition was apparently very well attended and resulted in a profit to the institution of £900.
In the following year the position of the School of Arts’ classes was said to be “satisfactory” but the School of Science does not seem to have been doing well, for it was reported that the institution had, “the smallest number of students of any scientific class in the town” (13) At the same meeting it was decided that, provided suitable teachers could be obtained, a School of Cookery should be established. It was argued by one member that such a venture would be in keeping with the institution’s commitment to the “diffusion of useful knowledge”.
At the same meeting we have the first mention of the institution being interested in the University Extension Movement, which had developed over the previous few years after James Stuart’s first lectures in Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester in 1867. The interest was expressed in the following words, “The council are anxious to obtain the services of a University lecturer for next winter if they receive sufficiently increased support.” (14) Despite this interest it was not until 1880 that the first course of lectures was presented under the Cambridge Local Lectures Extension scheme, when the Rev. J.J. Lawrence M.A., of Downing College, delivered six lectures on “The Great Revolution and the Hanoverian Kings”. The only benefit they brought to the institution however, was the five pounds rental which the arrangers, an independent local committee, paid for the use of a room at Avenham. According to Jolly, who in 1916 published a short history of the “Harris Institute”, these lectures continued to be held at Avenham for a number of years, but he gives no details.
A report in the “Preston Chronicle” of October 8th 1881 shows that history was once again the subject for the second course of lectures. The lecturer this time was Mr. J.W. Mansfield of Trinity College and he opened on October 6th with, “The History of England from 1232 to 1258”. This first meeting was not well attended but the rest of his course is reported to have attracted good audiences.
The proposed school of Cookery was again discussed in 1876 but nothing seems to have been done about the matter. The other classes run by the institution were merely reported as being “steady” but in the following year this steadiness appears to have been considered unsatisfactory. One member went so far as to say that the classes in their present form were a “drain on the funds of this institution” (15) and that many more students must be recruited to make them viable. Mr. J. Barnes is reported in the “Preston Chronicle” as saying that it was, “a question for England to consider whether it was not in the interests of the nation that they should compel artisan apprentices to attend such classes, and learn the connection between art and labour, in the same way that elementary education was being enforced at the present day”. (16)
1878 seems to have been a good year for the classes at the School of Art. Three Queen’s Prizes were gained, (in the same year the School of Art at Glasgow received only one, and that at Liverpool gained no Queen’s Prize), and fourteen other prizes and thirty certificates were awarded. It was reported at the annual general meeting that the school had “sixty purely artisan students” on its books. The School of Science, however, continued to be a financial worry to the directors and it was reported that ‘200 had been withdrawn from the reserve fund of this institution to meet the losses attending the last two sessions”. (17) There was a suggestion that the School of Science should be abandoned but the institution’s rules were quoted to show that they had a responsibility to continue the classes.
Plans were also discussed at this meeting for the Institution’s Jubilee celebrations which were to be held in the April of the following year. A separate account of these celebrations is provided in Appendix 3.
At the meeting held on 7th October 1879 the secretary, Mr. T. R. Jolly, reported a drop in income from subscriptions from £287. 6s. to £272. 12s. and attributed this to, “depression in the staple trade of the town” and to the opening of the Free Library in January of that year. The Art School continued to do well with a total of forty-three prizes and the School of Science seems to have had a better year with classes in magnetism, acoustics, chemistry, practical chemistry, geology, steam, mathematics, physiography, animal physiology and applied mechanics, although only fifty students were enrolled. “Payment on results” for both schools was the best recorded.
It is in the chairman’s comment on the classes that we have the first public indication that the institution was considering the transfer of its classes to some other responsible body. Alderman Edelston is reported as saying, “When he saw the Free Library and Museum well before the public he had hoped some portion of the scheme might include a plan whereby the Art and Science classes might be under the patronage and supervision of the corporation (hear, hear)”.
During the year the institution received a legacy of £1,000 from Mr. Edward Thornley, “for the benefit of the children of the working classes of the town for the purposes of establishing either scholarship or prizes such as the council may deem advisable, in order to advance the course of science and art”. The council decided to present annually two £10 prizes, one each to the School of Art and the School of Science.
The other notable event of the year was a presentation to Mr. Charles Croft who retired after having been the Institution’s librarian for the past 32 years. At a special ceremony on June 25th, he was presented with a purse of eighty guineas and “an elegant flower 19 stand bearing a suitable inscription”.
In October 1880 the classes are again reported to have done well but the most important announcement at the meeting was made in the following words, “The Council has made an application to the Trustees under the will of the late E.R. Harris Esq., for a grant out of the funds at their disposal in aid of the objects which it has been the aim of the Institution to further”. (20)
E. B. Harris, son of Richard Harris, vicar of St. George’s, Preston, had died in 1862. He had practised as a solicitor at 13-14 Chapel Street during his early years, but had made most of his large fortune through speculation in railway shares, and he left the greater part of it for the welfare of his native town. The Free Library and Museum were built with grants from his estate, as were the Harris Orphanage and later an improved technical college. Details of the various sums are as follows:
Free Library and Museum: £120,000
Orphanage: £100,000
Institution and Technical College: £70,000
Manchester Diocesan Society: £15,000
In the same year the directors transferred on loan, “the whole of the fossils, coins etc., belonging to the institution, to the Public Museum in Cross Street”. (21)
The last annual general meeting of the Institution was held in October 1881. The classes had continued to do well and had a total of 250 students plus an additional 41 students in a “Shorthand class”. The major business was, however, confined to discussion of the negotiations with the Harris Trustees and the following statement was made, “The Harris Trustees have determined to set apart a sum of £40,000 for the purpose of establishing and endowing an institution for the promotion of art, science, literature and the advancement of technical education”. (22)
The application had to pass through Chancery, in which the estate of Mr. Harris had been administered, but everything went smoothly and on June 30th 1882 the Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge was dissolved under the provisions of the Literary and Scientific Institutions Act of 1854.
Notes
12. Preston Chronicle 7.10.1871.
13. Preston Chronicle 9.10.1875.
14. Minute Book 5.10.1875.
15. Minute Book 2.10.1877.
16. Preston Chronicle 6.10.1877.
17. Preston Chronicle 5.10.1878.
18. Preston Chronicle 11.10.1879.
19. Minute Book 27.6.1879.
20. Minute Book 5.10.1880.
21. Minute Book 5.10.1880.
22. Minute Book 4.10.1881.
Chapter Five: General Conclusions
Up to the time it instituted class teaching of basic subjects by paid teachers in October 1857 it is probable that the formal educational work of the Preston Institution had very little effect upon the class of people in the town for whom it was originally intended, “the operative mechanics and others, inhabitants of Preston”. Like the majority of mechanics’ institutes and similar bodies founded in the 1820s and after the Preston Institution relied for the “diffusion of useful knowledge” upon the lecture, a method of instruction which a previously quoted writer in the “Preston Chronicle” had recognised was unsuitable as early as 1829. Yet the institution persisted with the lecture well into the 1860s although the amount of provision varied tremendously over the years; as many as thirty lectures were given in 1834 and as few as three in 1852. Not only was the lecture itself unsatisfactory as a method but the quality and variety of lectures provided did not always reach a very high standard. In those days good, professional lecturers were expensive to hire and most societies, especially those like Preston which had a low subscription and consequent low income, could not afford them very often. This meant they had to rely upon the free services of local people whose particular expertise was not always suited to the needs of their audiences. It has been pointed out that very few mechanics, or others, in Preston would have made much of “eulogy” for example.
The need in those early years, and indeed up to 1870 at least, was for elementary education, for without the basic skill of reading the other branch of the institution, the library, could have no appeal. What, in fact, the Preston Institution was founded to provide was secondary and further education for a population the majority of which had had no elementary schooling. The narrow range of books stocked by the library, the fact that subscriptions could not be paid weekly, and the exclusion of religion and politics, from the institution’s programme could all have helped deter people from joining, but their lack of basic education was almost certainly the prime reason.
That even many of those who did join felt the need for class instruction is shown by the formation, within the institution but not arranged by the council, of a series of “mutual instruction” classes and classes which relied on the free services of voluntary teachers. These classes persisted up to 1857, stronger and more numerous in some years than others, and there was a tendency over the years for them to become more social; English grammar and arithmetic tended to be replaced by music, singing and literary discussion.
In this Preston seems to have stood aside from the majority of similar institutions which provided classes in basic subjects from at least the early 1830s. The council of the Preston Institution must stand rebuked for this failure. This neglect does not, however, seen to have adversely affected the membership of the institution for in terms of members Preston was always one of the strongest institutions in the country and fared much better than many which provided extensive classes. (410)
The institution seems to have been one of the few which admitted ladies as full members from the first, and as early as 1837 it relaxed its library rules to admit works of fiction, biography, history and travel, thus broadening the appeal of that facility. Nevertheless, it remained a fairly “elite” society, catering mainly for the lower middle class and the, “better sort” of the working class. Its main contact with most of the inhabitants of Preston was probably only through its occasional exhibitions, a few series of penny dramatic readings, its “soirees” and the open “conversational meetings” which were held from time to time.
Probably the most important contribution that the institution made to the development of education in the town was the starting of examination-linked classes in 1857. These were the true start of formal technical education in Preston and were persisted with despite considerable financial difficulties. These difficulties might have been less had the institution been prepared to construct a more modest building for its headquarters but on the other hand the Harris Trustees, who took it over in 1882, found it ample for the expanded programme of classes they arranged and were thus able to devote their resources to educational rather than building provision. Over the years, too, the Avenham building gave accommodation to a variety of organisations which contributed to the social and cultural life of the town. Dr. Shepherd’s library has already been mentioned. Other societies range from the Preston Presbyterian Church, the Preston Scientific Society, through various choral societies, to the Preston Bicycle Club. The building was also the venue for several series of University Extension Lectures from 1880 onwards.
While the Preston Institution cannot be said to have achieved the aims it was founded for in 1828 it was, nevertheless, during the middle years of the nineteenth century an important cultural centre in the town, a provider of secondary education and a pioneer of technical education. It should be remembered that England had no national provision of even elementary education until after 1870, and that the Technical Instruction Act did not become law until 1889.
The words of a modern economist and teacher will perhaps help to put the work of the Preston Institution into its true perspective by giving an idea of general trends in the nineteenth century.
“I’ve always felt that the educational system was always to a considerable degree a response to economic need. If one goes back to the 19th century and to a period when industry, in the main, required unlettered proletarians, that was what the educational system provided. And the system of higher education was accommodated to the need for the learned professions, some doctors, some lawyers and the like, and for a certain decorative effect on the manners and behaviour of the sons of the rich and later, their daughters as well as for a few clergy. And when it came to pass that the industrial system required Very large numbers of engineers, scientists, administrators, planners, architects and so forth, that again was what the educational system provided”.
J.K. Galbraith New Scientist 18.2.71. p. 375.
APPENDIX ONE: Membership of the Institution
Simple totals of members are available for all except the following years; 1833, 1851-52, 1859, 1872-73. Details of the classes of subscribers (i.e. life and annual, and quarterly members) are recorded in the following years: 1839-40, 1842-50, 1854, 1857-8, 1874, 1878-81; detailed breakdown of membership was published in 1835 and 1841; and a separate authority (Hardwick’s “History of Preston”) (1) gives a more generalised breakdown for the year 1856. It should be noted that Hardwick’s total of 571 is some twenty-two short of the figures issued at the Institution’s annual general meeting in that year and must therefore be treated with some reserve. The details have been set out on the graph at the end of this section.
At no time did membership of the Preston Institution fall below three hundred and from this point it must be considered one of the more successful institutions in the country, especially as Preston was never one of the largest industrial towns (the population in 1830 was about 25,000 and this had risen by 1880 to about 75,000) From 1856 until 1879, two years before it was dissolved, membership was always in excess of four hundred, and it only fell below this figure on six occasions during the entire life of the society.
For almost all of its existence leadership of the institution was in middle-class hands. The two exceptions seem to have been the year of the society’s foundation, when the first council of 24 comprised
“13 operatives” and 11 businessmen and gentlemen”; and 1832 when a committee of “8 gentlemen and 16 mechanics and others” was elected. At the annual general meeting of 1833 it was reported that “the interests of this Institution have suffered materially from a majority of persons being on the committee who have not the command of their time (2) and no further attempts at working class control seem to have been attempted.
Apart from the three years previously mentioned it is not possible to say with any accuracy how many workmen were members of the institution, numbers of quarterly subscribers do not provide an accurate guide, but it seems that Preston experienced a reluctance to join on the part of this class which was nationwide. A regret that workmen were not joining “in substantial numbers” was expressed in 1835, and in 1839 the Rev. J. Clay said they had “only 100 operative members”. The subject came up in 1840 when the president, the Rev. J. Ashton said, “If the class for whose particular benefit it was originally established have not availed themselves of its advantages to the extent which was desired it is yet pleasing to observe how much it has met real exigencies of the community in general”. (3) In 1841 it was noted that for the first time there were no operatives on the committee, and Mr Moses Holden regretted that “The working classes have turned their back on the institution”. (4) When membership rose sharply to 548 in 1846 it was approvingly noted that “many of the additional subscribers are operatives” (5) and when it reached its peak of 705 when formal classes were introduced in 1858 it was reported that all the new members were “youth from the humbler ranks of society”. (6)
In the same year the President, Alderman Spencer, presented a new definition of an artisan as “not only a person working with his hands but anyone whose income was of a limited nature”. For the next twenty years there are only scattered references to the lack of real support from the working class and they are always in tones of regret rather than anger, as are those noted above. At the 1878 meeting, however, Mr. H. L. Boones spoke on this subject in very condemnatory tones, “With regard to the absence of the working class from the Institution he thought that the same observation applied to their educational status as were applied fifty years ago. The opinion then was that the working classes were incapable of receiving instruction. Since then not much work had been got out of them and, he thought, very little more instruction.” (7) This is the only reported condemnation of the working class by a member of the committee.
The Preston Institution – Membership Details 1835, 1841, 1856.
| 1835 | 1841 | ||
| Mechanics | 44 | Ladies | 6 |
| Shoemakers | 20 | Gentlemen | 14 |
| Book-keepers | 28 | Bankers | 3 |
| Lawyers & clerks | 40 | Professional men | 96 |
| Weavers | 20 | Manufacturers | 40 |
| Tailors | 24 | Tradesmen | 76 |
| Labourers & porters | 40 | Clerks and shopmen | 85 |
| Joiners | 12 | Mechanics | 17 |
| Painters | 12 | Joiners and other operatives | 34 |
| Tradesmen & others | 63 | Factory hands | 6 |
| Schoolboys | 10 | Miscellaneous | 29 |
| Youths at school | 6 | ||
| Total | 313 | Total | 412 |
| 1856 | |
| Business, professional & trade | 240 |
| Operatives | 264 |
| Females & minors | 67 |
| Total | 571 |
Figures for 1835 and 1841 are from the Annual Reports of the Institution. Figures for 1856 are from Hardwick’s “History of Preston”.
Notes
1. Hardwick, p.219.
2. Preston Chronicle 5.10.1833.
3. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1840.
4. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1841.
5. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1846.
6. Preston Chronicle 9.10.1858.
7. Preston Chronicle 5.10.1878.
APPENDIX TWO: The Library, Museum and Penny Bank
The Library
Samuel Smiles may not have been completely accurate when he said that, “It is necessary to have a library in order to keep the Institute together”, (1) but there is no doubt that the directors of the Preston Institution always considered their library, and the newsroom which was added later, as one of its main attractions. There is some mention of the library in every annual report from 1829 to 1851; sometimes It is a mere mention of the number of volumes it possesses but quite frequently details are given of acquisitions during the year with the amount spent on them, weekly and monthly issues, and in some years an analysis of issues under particular subjects. The librarian, and there were only three during the entire history of the institution, was its first paid official and the new building at Avenham, opened in 1849, included living accommodation for the librarian and his family, The society on one occasion at least paid for the redecoration of these rooms. It is for these reasons that this separate account of the library is provided though there have been references to it in the general account of the work of the Institutions
At the first annual meeting in October 1829 the society owned 1,506 volumes which, together with the exhibits in the museum, were valued at £429. 1,140 of these books had been donated to the society but it seems from an account given by the first librarian that many of them may have been given in order to clear shelves in the donors’ houses. Looking back to those early days, at the time of the 1879 Jubilee, William Livesey who was the first librarian, reminded his listeners of how, “At this time fifty years ago he officiated as librarian at Cannon Street and it would have surprised them to have seen the immense litter of books which were then sent in, he might almost say in cart loads, some of which were to form the nucleus of the splendid collection which now graced the shelves of the library”. (2) He recalled too that, “It was the pleasing duty of himself, his father, Dr. Gilbertson, and Mr. Moses Holden, to assort this miscellaneous heap”.
In the early years the library was open every day, except Sundays, from 12.30 to 4.30 p.m. and again in the evening from 5.0 p.m. until 9.0.p.m. It appears that some form of news or reading-room was established from the first for at the 1830 meeting the treasurer called attention to the fact that several new members from the district around Preston had been “attracted” by the reading room. In 1831 the society purchased book to the value of £70. 4s. though this sum presumably would include subscriptions to such periodicals as the Mechanic’s Magazine, the Quarterly Journal of Education and others, which were available to members from the first. By 1835 the library contained 2,360 volumes (issues given as 600 per month) and it was pointed out that was only 300 volumes less than the library of the much larger Manchester Mechanics’ Institute. In the following year the librarian’s wages were raised from 8/- to 10/- per week and it was reported that with 2,600 volumes, the library was much larger than that of the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute which had only 1,741 books for 931 members. Preston at this time had just over 500 members. As has previously been mentioned Preston, in common with most institutions, at first excluded, “works of the imagination” from its shelves but this decision was reversed in 1837 so far as novels, plays, poetry and books of travel were concerned. The president explained that one way to attract new members was to provide for them works that would, “Blend amusement with instruction”, (3) thus anticipating Marshall McLuhan’s “It’s misleading to suppose that there is any basic difference between education and entertainment” (4) by a matter of some one hundred and thirty years.
Opening hours were increased in 1838 to from 10.0. a.m. until 9.0. p.m. and perhaps in consequence of the increased work this involved for him the librarian’s wages went up to fifteen shillings per week. In the same year the society spent £52. 9s. on 172 new books bringing the total to 2,807 and from 1839 such publications as “The Edinburgh Review”, “The Quarterly Review” and “The Naturalist” were available in the reading room, periodicals which can hardly be described as light literature.
In 1840 William Livesey gave up being librarian and his place was taken for the next seven years by Thomas Wilkinson who relinquished the post in 1847, as he became blind in that year. He was succeeded by Mr. Charles Croft who held the post until the dissolution of the Institution in 1882, and who continued as librarian of the Harris Institute for several years after that.
The first full catalogue of the library was prepared in 1843 and is said to have been printed but no copy of it seems to have survived. By the time the move to Avenham was made in 1849 the library contained 4,392 volumes and consequent upon this move the librarian’s salary was increased to £50 per annum. Early in 1850 the council of the institution agreed with Preston Corporation to house Dr. Shepherd’s Library for an annual rental of £40. The original agreement was for seven years only but the society in fact acted as custodian until the end of 1867. During this period Dr. Shepherd’s Library was probably more easily available to the public than at any other time of its existence, including the present day. (5)
It would appear from a remark made by Mr. Croft at the 1853 annual meeting that it was the task of the council rather than the librarian to actually choose the books to be purchased and that they may have been more concerned with quantity than quality in this respect. Mr. Croft suggested on this occasion that, “Instead of buying 1/- books for the library they should obtain works which private individuals could not afford to buy”. (6) It may have been upon his advice that over the next few years the library disposed of a total of 402 “old and unwanted” volumes. Furthermore, the more serious side of the library was strengthened in 1859 when it took in the library of the recently defunct Natural History Society of Preston.
During the early eighteen sixties several annual reports give details of the various classes of books held in the library and of the annual issues for each class (full details are given at the end of this account). Issues for 1860 were 15,092, nearly 50% of these being for fiction titles (7,257) although volumes of fiction (931) constituted less than 10% of the total volumes in the library (6,336). The next most popular class of books was “Voyages and Travel with 1,358 issues of 519 volumes. The same pattern was maintained over the other years for which details are available, 1862, 1863 and 1864.
By 1866 the library contained 7,840 volumes and in that year came the first mention that the Institution also received a regular supply of books from, “Mudies Circulating Library”, for the use of its members. This provision seems to have been continued for several years. In 1871 is recorded the formation of the Avenham Literary Society – a discussion group separate from the Institution, but which was allowed the use of the library,
During the remaining years of the institution additions to the collection continued to be made, if anything at a faster rate than ever before. The 10,000-volume mark was passed in 1874 and thanks to considerable expenditure during the late 1870s the library contained 11,679 volumes when the society was dissolved in June 1882. The figures of purchases are as follows:-
1877 – 208 books for £175. 2s. 4d.
1878 – 260 books for £203. 5s. 3d.
1879 – 179 books for £181.11s.3d.
A proportion of these volumes was retained by the Harris Trustees as a Reference Library at Avenham and the remainder transferred to the Harris Free Library as follows:-
Poetry 400
Miscellaneous and Bound Magazines 3,800
Biography 700
“Talks & Novels” 1,800
Voyages & Travel 400
Total 7,100
The Museum
Kelly, in his biography of George Birkbeck mentions the Preston Institution as one of the few institutes that “attempted to form a regular museum”. (7) Despite the fact that it had within a few years gathered together “over 800 specimens” of natural history and a collection of philosophical apparatus” presented by Mr. Addison it seems to have had little interest for the members. References to it are very few and almost entirely confined to attempts to hand it over to Preston Corporation. The only record of an addition to the collection is in 1841 when a number of coins which formed part of the famous Cuerdale Hoard were acquired; “13 Anglo-Saxon and 16 Continental coins”. The museum was finally handed over to Preston Corporation in 1880.
The Penny Bank
This was inaugurated in October 1860 and continued in operation until the end of 1866. An attempt to re-start it was made in 1869 but appears to have come to nothing. Depositors did not have to be members of the society and, as the figures for 1863 show, it did perform a valuable service for a class of people who, in the main, would have no contact with the institution. It seems, in fact to have been started at a rather inopportune time for 1861 was referred to as a “bad time” in Preston and there was a local bank failure in the town, while 1864 was spoken of as a year of “considerable privation among the operative classes” (8) of Preston. Details given in the Institution’s annual reports are as follows:-
| Year | Depositors | Amount in Benk |
| 1860 | 429 | £620. 19. 7 |
| 1861 | 427 | £533.14.4 |
| 1862 | N.A. | “many withdrawals” |
| 1863 | 538 | £629.6.9 |
| 1864 | 955 | £262.3.0 |
| 1865 | 429 | £228.11.0 (many accounts had only 1d left in). |
| 1866 | Bank Closed | |
| Classes of Depositors in the Penny Bank | ||
| 1863 | 1864 | |
| Young persons at school & home | 315 | 535 |
| Factory workers | 148 | 246 |
| Mechanics, Joiners & artisans generally | 61 | 124 |
| Clerks, Apprentices & Shopboys | 7 | 25 |
| Domestic Servants | 7 | 25 |
| Total | 538 | 955 |
The Library
| 1860 – Contents & Issues | ||
| Class | No. of Volumes | No. of issues |
| Arts & Science | 1,368 | 1,464 |
| Magazines (Bound volusen) | 1,592 | 1,702 |
| Voyages & travel | 519 | 1,358 |
| History | 659 | 712 |
| Biography | 591 | 945 |
| Poetry & Drama | 309 | 599 |
| Novels | 53 | 7,257 |
| Miscellaneous | 652 | 1,007 |
| Translations | 88 | 48 |
| Parliamentary Reports | 27 | 0 |
| 6,336 | 15,092 | |
| Issues Only | |||
| 1862 | 1863 | 1864 | |
| Arts & Science | 1,715 | 1,426 | 1,700 |
| Bound Magazines & Miscellaneous | 2,516 | 2,490 | 2,875 |
| Voyages & Travel | 1,423 | 940 | 1,219 |
| History | 586 | 459 | 574 |
| Biography | 1,038 | 745 | 815 |
| Poetry & Drama | 530 | 482 | 411 |
| Novels | 2,268 | 9,088 | 8,825 |
| Total issues | 15,076 | 15,630 | 16,419 |
| Books in Library | 6,760 | 7,051 | 7,278 |
| Books in the Library | ||
| 1869 | 1870 | |
| Arts & Science | 1,673 | 1,696 |
| Bound Magazines & Miscellaneous | 3,215 | 3,329 |
| Voyages & Travel | 655 | 674 |
| History | 786 | 810 |
| Biography | 758 | 773 |
| Poetry & Drama | 354 | 375 |
| Novels | 1,250 | 1,330 |
| Totals | 8,701 | 8,987 |
Notes
1. Kelly, “George Birkbeck” p.207.
2. Preston Chronicle 6.4.1879.
3. Preston Chronicle 10.10.1829.
4. McLuhan, p.3.
5. See Appendix 4.
6. Preston Chronicle 8.10.1853.
7. Kelly, “George Birkbeck”, p.218.
8. Preston Chronicle 2.10.1861.
APPENDIX THREE: The Jubilee of the Preston Institution
The Jubilee opened on Tuesday evening April 2nd when the Rev. A.P. Stanley D.D., Dean of Westminster delivered an address on “The Diffusion of Knowledge”. The “Preston Chronicle” of April 6th reported that the, “body of the hall at Avenham was well filled by representatives of all the most influential families in the town”, but that, “the gallery and other seats were not occupied to the extent that might have been desired”.
A gathering evidently much more to the taste of the local populace took place the following night when, in association with the Preston Scientific Society, the Institution held a “GRAND CONVERSAZIONE”. The proceedings opened with a public lecture by Dr. Williamson of Owens College, Manchester who spoke on “The Natural History of a Piece of Limestone” (for which he received a fee of £10. 10. 0d). After this the rooms of the institution were thrown open for an exhibition of the “scientific, mechanical, and artistic” treasures of the society. singled out for particular mention were stereoscopes and graphoscopes, the oxyhydrogen microscope purchased by the society in 1836, various items of telegraphic equipment, including the “Wheatstone automatic printing telegraph instrument”, “large collection of Japanese curiosities and manufactures” which was later offered for sale (“a brisk trade” was reported) and most interesting of all, perhaps, the Phoneidoscope constructed by Mr. Tedley Taylor, described as, “an instrument for observing or colouring figures reflected from liquid films under the action of sonorous vibration”. The crowds were further entertained by the band of the 3rd Royal Lancashire Militia, which played selections from Auber, Gounod and Waldteufel, and by vocalist Miss Marsh, with such songs as, “Saved from the Storm” and “Kathleen Mavourneen”, in which latter song, says the “Preston Chronicle”, her “rich voice and feeling were displayed to the greatest advantage”.
APPENDIX FOUR: Dr. Shepherd’s Library
This short account is a summary of the “Dr. Shepherd Bi-Centenary Oration” delivered at the Harris Library, Preston on October 26th, 1961 by Miss Jane Downton M.A., F.L.A., Borough Librarian of Preston.
Dr. Richard Shepherd M.D. was born at Kendal in 1694. He spent nearly all of his working life in Preston and died there on December 4th, 1761. By his will dated June 6th 1759 he donated his library to, “the corporation of Preston for the benefit of the inhabitants”, and left the interest on £200 to pay the salary of a librarian. The residue of his estate, which amounted to about £1,000, was to be used for the purchase of books for the library.
Whittle, in his “History of Preston”, published in 1837 described the library as being situated in a “very extensive brick building”, in Shepherd Street, behind the Parish Church. During this time the library does not seem to have been very well managed. Whittle mentions, “many gross abuses” and states that many of the books were in poor condition.
It was in 1850 that the Preston Institution agreed to house the library at Avenham for an annual rent of £40. The transfer took place towards the end of 1850 but the library was not opened to the public until July 29th, 1851. The trustees provided their own librarian who received a salary of £50 per annum.
According to Miss Downton the stay at Avenham was, “an unhappy period in its history”. The books were housed in the exhibition rooms.
When the institution mounted exhibitions or displays of work only the librarian had direct access to the books and readers had to be accommodated in “a smaller room”. There were frequent complaints from readers about noise from the classrooms and there was, “trouble with ventilation and heating and the books began to show signs of deterioration”.
In 1859 the institution, “undertook to warm the room with hot water apparatus and to dispense with the use of stoves if the Trustees would allow them the amount it cost them in coal”.
In 1861 there were reports of “damage to books” and restrictions on readers were imposed. No person under the age of 15 years was allowed to use the library.
Finally on March 3rd 1868 the library was removed to the Literary and Philosophical Society’s building in Cross Street and re-opened to the public on Monday April 6th of that year.
Books and Documents Consulted
Minute Book of the Preston Institution 1859-1882.
Rules and Regulations of the Preston Institution, 1829.
The Preston Chronicle 1828-1882, various issues.
The Preston Pilot 1828, various issues.
1. Downton J. Dr. Shepherd’s Library – mimeograph copy of the “Dr. Shepherd Bi-Centenary Oration”, October 26th, 1961.
2. Hardwick, C. History of the Borough of Preston. Simpkin, Marshall Co. London 1857.
3. Harrison J.F.C. Learning and Living 1790-1960, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961.
4. Hewitson, A. History of Preston. Chronicle Press, Preston, 1883.
5. Hudson, J.W. The History of Adult Education, Woburn Press, London (reprint) 1969.
6. Jolly, T.R. The Harris Institute Annual Report for 1916, Preston 1917.
7. Kelly, T. George Birkbeck. Liverpool University Press, 1957.
8. Kelly, T. A History of Adult Education in Great Britain, Liverpool University Press, 1st Edition. 1962.
9. McLuhan, C. & Carpenter, E. Explorations in Communication Jonathan Cape, London. 1970.
10. Stephens, K.D. & Roderick G.W. The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, Earles Press, Redruth, No date.
11. Tylecote, H. The Mechanics’ Institutes of Lancashire and Yorkshire before 1851. Manchester University Press, 1957.
12. Whittle, P. A History of the Borough of Preston, published by the author, Preston, 1837.
Excellent find Peter
Thank you, Pat