Owens College, Manchester

The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. After the demerger of the Victoria University, it gained an independent university charter in 1904 as the Victoria University of Manchester.

On 1 October 2004, the Victoria University of Manchester merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to form a new, larger entity named the University of Manchester.

History

1851–1951

Owens College was founded in 1851, named after John Owens, a textile merchant, who left a bequest of £96,942 for the purpose. Its first accommodation was at Cobden House on Quay Street, Manchester, in a house which had been the residence of Richard Cobden. In 1859, Owens College was approved as a provincial examination centre for matriculation candidates of the University of London. As the college progressed the premises became inadequate so a move to Chorlton on Medlock was planned in 1871. Alfred Waterhouse was the architect of the new college building, west of Oxford Road, which was opened in 1873.

Owens College became the first affiliate college of the federal Victoria University in 1880. In 1884, University College Liverpool also joined the Victoria University, followed in 1887 by the Yorkshire College in Leeds. In 1903, University College Liverpool left the Victoria University to become the independent University of Liverpool; Leeds followed in 1904 to become the University of Leeds.

The new Victoria University of Manchester was established by royal charter on 15 July 1903; the university and Owens College were merged by Act of Parliament on 24 June 1904. The Manchester University Press was founded by James Tait in 1904 (as the Publications Committee of the University), initially to publish academic research being undertaken at the Victoria University of Manchester. The office was accommodated in a house in Lime Grove. Distribution was then in the hands of Sherratt & Hughes of Manchester; from 1913 the distributors were Longmans, Green & Co. though this arrangement came to an end in the 1930s. The MUP offices moved several times to make way for other developments within the university. Since 1951 these have been Grove House, Oxford Road, then the former University Dental Hospital of Manchester (''illustrated'') and until the present time the Manchester Medical School in Coupland Street.

1951–2004

In the mid-1960s the university and the city corporation commissioned Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley to produce a new plan for the campus. The final report was issued in 1966; it recommended removing traffic from Oxford Road to the adjacent main routes east and west, and building of the Precinct Centre – subsequently constructed in 1970–1972. The Precinct Centre building included the oldest part of the Manchester Business School, Devonshire House and Crawford House and St Peter's House, the University Chaplaincy. It stood on Booth Street East and Booth Street West and Oxford Road ran through it at ground level. The architects were Wilson & Womersley, in association with the university's planning officer, H. Thomas; for St Peter's House the architects were Cruickshank & Seward. The Precinct Centre was the largest public building completed in the campus redevelopment, containing office and shopping space, a pub, library and post office amongst other town centre facilities, designed to separate pedestrians from traffic.

The Precinct Centre was demolished in August 2015 as part of Manchester University's £50m redevelopment of Manchester Business School.

On 5 March 2003 it was announced that the university was to merge with UMIST on 1 October 2004, to form the largest conventional university in the UK, the University of Manchester, following which the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST would cease to exist. The new university was inaugurated on 1 October 2004.

The university had more than 18,000 full-time students (including 2500 international students from more than 120 countries) by the time it merged with UMIST. It was regarded as one of the top universities in the country, frequently achieving top ratings for research.

Officers

:''See also :Vice-Chancellors of the Victoria University of Manchester''

The chief officers of the university were the vice-chancellor, the registrar, the bursar and the librarian. In later years many administrative changes were made that increased the independence of the Director of Estates and Services, the Director of the Manchester Computing Centre, and eventually combined the offices of registrar and bursar as that of registrar and secretary, the last holder of this post was Eddie Newcomb (1995–2004).

Notable people

In the early decades of Owens College, a few outstanding faculty members set high standards for the new institution. These included statistician Stanley Jevons, jurist James Bryce, William Eyre Walker (Art Master) and particularly Henry Enfield Roscoe Professor of Chemistry and Principal of the college. It also educated the young J. J. Thomson before he went to Trinity College, Cambridge

Since the later 1800s, many notable people have worked and studied at the Victoria University of Manchester as, for example, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Motto and arms

The motto of the university was ''Arduus ad solem'', meaning "striving towards the sun". It is a metaphor for aspiring to enlightenment. It is quoted from Virgil's ''Aeneid'', Book II, and the archives do not record the reasons for its choice.Thompson, Joseph (1886) ''The Owens College—its foundation and growth''. Manchester: J. E. Cornish The original verse refers to a serpent and the sun, both of which featured in the university coat of arms. The serpent is traditionally associated with wisdom. The arms were granted in October 1871