| Description | The papers of Liverpool School of Science, later known as the School of Science, Technology and Art, the Liverpool Municipal Central Technical School, the City of Liverpool Municipal Technical College, the Liverpool College of Technology, and the Regional College of Technology for Liverpool, contains records of one of LJMU’s pioneering Colleges. The collection includes Administrative papers; records on governance of the School of Science, including papers of William Hewitt, Director of Technical Education at Liverpool City Council; records of Buildings and Estates of the School including recollections of the Central Municipal Technical School building; Student Records including student registers, student examination and assessment results, memorabilia from awards ceremonies such as addresses given to students, and student exhibition work; Staff Records including photographs of staff and classrooms; and Library Services and Teaching Resources made available to students of the College.
Significant records include:
LJMUH/CT/2/1/1/2 Memorandum on the Transfer of the Liverpool School of Science, Technology, and Art to the Liverpool Corporation in 1901, possibly written by W T Emery.
LMUH/CT/2/3/4 Papers of William Hewitt, Director of Technical Education at Liverpool City Council, 1924-1929. This includes Hewitt's 1927 publication The Technical Instruction Committee and its Work; 1890-1903 (LJMUH/CT/2/3/7/4/1) which provides a detailed history of various Colleges and Schools of education across Liverpool, and his 1928 A Short Account of the first 30 Years Work of the Liverpool Council of Education (LJMUH/CT/2/3/7/4/2).
LJMUH/CT/3/3/1 Order of proceedings for the opening of new workshops for the Department of Building, 1950, the precursor to the split of the College of Building in 1951. This includes photos of the woodcutting machine shop and the plumbing workshop.
LJMUH/CT/3/3/2 Order of proceedings for the opening of the first installment of the James Parsons Building for the College of Technology, 30 September 1960. This includes detailed information on the history of the establishment of the College.
LMUH/CT/3/4/1 Recollections on the Central Municipal Technical School building, 14 September 1921.
LMUH/CT/4/4/1/1 A book of drawings illustrative of classwork in Inorganic Chemistry at Liverpool Science and Art Classes for a Chemico competition prize, 1888-1889.
LMUH/CT/4/4/1/2 Catalogue of Exhibits of Students' Work including Scientific Apparatus at the Central Municipal Technical School, Byrom Street.
LMUH/CT/5/1/1 Papers of R R Butler, Principal of Liverpool Technical College, 1934-1947.
LJMUH/CT/5/3/1-2 Two group photographs of staff members in the Department of Physics and Mathematics in 1961 and 1964.
LJMUH/CT/7/2/1 The Liverpool School of Science 1861-1901: Its Work and Its Pioneers (Liverpool: C Tinling & Co.) by W T Emery (Secretary of the School of Science, Technology, and Art), 1903. This includes a detailed history of the Liverpool School of Science until Municipalisation in 1901. |
| AdminHistory | The Liverpool School of Science was established in 1861, with contributions to its foundation by people such as James Samuelson, William Brown, Henry Duckworth, and John Keates, following a meeting with the then Lord Mayor of Liverpool S R Graves to raise £600 for the School's establishment. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was involved in the School since its inception, with the then President Dr W Fairbairn performing its inaugural ceremony on 10 October 1861.
Academic work started immediately, and 185 students were admitted to study science subjects under Dr Birkenhead. Excellent results were recorded in the first sessions since the School's opening and notable alumni from this period include Michael Fitzpatrick.
In 1866, sudden withdrawl of Government aid led to financial difficulties for the School and enrollment dropped to just 28 students, although this grew back to a record 322 students by 1870. At this point twenty different subjects were taught by four teachers, including a Dr Campbell Brown. Henry Duckworth, previously Secretary and Treasurer, also became Chairman of the School in 1870, a position he held for 22 years.
In 1864, S Leigh Gregson was elected Registrar conjointly with T J Moore. As Registrar for twenty years, he contributed to the growth of the School and furtherance of technical education for artisans. As a member of the City Council, he also championed the cause of the School in its claim for Municipal help. Despite being met with much opposition, he eventually succeeded. During his appointment as Registrar, he aimed to see enrollment reach 1,000 students, and by the time he died in 1884 it had reached 930. His name was perpetuated in the foundation of the Leigh Gregson Memorial Prize Fund. The teachers who made profound impact in the early history of the school were Dr Birkenhead, Dr Carter, Mr. John Watt, and Dr Campbell Brown.
Need to expand the School's capacity was growing, and in 1886 it was conceived at the Liverpool Exhibition, a new technical College should be erected under the name The Leopold College for Technical, Artistic, and Industrial Education, but this did not come to pass. In 1885, a Royal Commission was formed to consider the expansion of technical education in Liverpool, and in 1887, a memorial was presented to the City Council to ask for the erection of a Central Technical School as a Jubilee memorial to the late Queen Victoria’s reign, although this did not come to pass. The site suggested was the one which eventually became the actual Municipal Central Technical School.
In 1872, James Samuelson, one of the original founders who also acted as Joint Secretary for three years, established a distinctive set of Science classes for Liverpool under the name of the Operative Science Classes, later known as the Science and Art Classes, which ran concurrently in a friendly rivalry with the Liverpool School of Science. These classes were managed by the Honorary Principal of the classes, A Norman Tate, until his death in 1892 which was by chance announced as the Board sat for their very last meeting in Tate's own office. In 1891, a special sub-committee of the Library, Museum, and Arts Committee of the City Council was held to consider the allocation of money to technical instruction, and a grant of £1,000 was made to the School of Science. This enabled the School to centralise in a building at 21 Islington-flags. After Tate's passing in 1892, the Liverpool Science and Art Classes were amalgamated with the Liverpool School of Science to become the Liverpool School of Science, Technology, and Art, at which point Tate's namesake was perpetuaed by a memorial prize fund for the two most successful Chemistry students in Liverpool.
The School would remain at this site until the eventual Municipalisation of the School of Science, transferring it to the City Council in 1901, at which point it was known as the Municipal Central Technical School and moved to the corner of Byrom Street, William Brown Street, and Clayton Street. The new site was officially opened on 26 October 1901. During this period of transfer, the Liverpool Nautical College also transferred its premises to share Byrom Street with the new Central Technical School on the opening of the Mountford Building in 1903. After the Headmaster of the Nautical College W V Merrifield died in 1924, the Nautical College became a Department of the Central Municipal Technical School.
During the First World War, the School site was used as a recruitment centre, as well as for Classes for women in aeroplane fuselage construction and oxy-acetylene welding of the metal joints of the fuselages, for which about 1,000 women were trained. In 1918 a new Department for Marine Engineering was established, and in 1924 negotiations for the establishment of Day Classes for Building Industry began. The approved scheme allowed for the attendance of 500 building apprentices one day a week. The work of the Central Technical School had advanced in quality and quantity to such an extent that it gained the status of Technical College in 1935 with approval from the Board of Education, and became the City of Liverpool Technical College.
Lecture rooms were rented in Drury Building on Water Street, later destroyed by enemy bombing action in 1941 during the Blitz, and in Empire Building on Spellow Place. To provide additional accommodation, the premises of Oulton School on Clarence Street was added to the College in 1942. During the Second World War, the College offered more classes to aid the war effort, such as in Radar for the RAF, Air Crew Training, Production Planning, Fuel Economy and Efficiency, and training for Foremen and Women Supervisors.
By 1949, the College had become one of the major establishments for advanced technological work and again raised its status to become the Liverpool College of Technology. The Department of Building and Architecture, which was transferred to the Oulton School on Clarence Street, was given new building workshops in 1950, and in 1951 split to become its own College of Building with its own Principal (see LJMUH/CB for the papers of the College of Building).
In 1950, following the retirement of H Humphreys Jones' retirement, Principal of the Liverpool School of Pharmacy, the School of Pharmacy was amalgamated into the City of Liverpool Education Authority to become part of the Regional College of Technology. The transfer negotiations were closely overseen by Humphreys Jones, and he was pleased to see that his former pupil Thomas Linley Bower was appointed as the first Departmental Head under the new structure.
In 1958, the College of Technology was officially recognised as a Regional College by the Ministry of Education, and became the Regional College of Technology for Liverpool. This change included transferring lower level work to district technical colleges. Up-to-date premises for the College of Technology were again needed, and a site of 5.9 acres was obtained on Byrom Street close to the original building. Work began on this installment in May 1956, and the premises were occupied by the end of 1959. The first installment was officially opened on 30 September 1960. By 1960, the College had seven Departments: Chemistry and Biology; Electrical Engineering; Food Technology; Mechanical, Marine, and Production Engineering; Navigation; Pharmacy; and Physics and Mathematics. This new building would eventually be named after the then Principal of the College, S A James Parsons, as the James Parsons Building, and become the main campus for the Liverpool Polytechnic which was established in 1970. In 1992, the Liverpool Polytechnic became Liverpool John Moores University, where the James Parsons Building is still in use for subjects related to sciences and technology.
For more sources of information on the history of the Liverpool School of Science and its descendants, see:
Webster, R., and Wilkie, S., 2017. The Making of a Modern University: Liverpool John Moores University (London: Third Millenium Publishing), pp.52-59. A copy of this can be made available via LJMU Special Collections & Archives.
LJMUH/CT/7/2/1 W T Emery (Secretary of the School of Science, Technology, and Art), 1903. The Liverpool School of Science 1861-1901: Its Work and Its Pioneers (Liverpool: C Tinling & Co.), which includes a detailed history of the Liverpool School of Science until Municipalisation in 1901.
LJMUH/CT/2/3/7/4/1 William Hewitt, 1927. The Technical Instruction Committee and its Work; 1890-1903: A Chapter in the History of Education in Liverpool (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), which provides a detailed history of various Colleges and Schools of education across Liverpool.
LJMUH/CT/3/3/2 Programme for the opening of the first installment of the James Parsons Building for the College of Technology, 30 September 1960, which includes detailed information on the history of the establishment of the College.
LJMUH/CT/2/1/1/2 Memorandum on the Transfer of the Liverpool School of Science, Technology, and Art to the Liverpool Corporation in 1901, possibly written by W T Emery. |
| CustodialHistory | The majority of the records in this SubSection were transferred to LJMU's Archives in the early 2000s from Byrom Street with no documentation, with the exception of two volumes which were transferred from the James Parsons building in 2022. There is an unknown number of other records still at the James Parsons building currently on display. |