| AdminHistory | The Liverpool Nautical College has links back to the Liverpool Sailors' Home and associated Liverpool Sailors' Home School (also known as the Liverpool Sailors' Nautical School and the Liverpool Nautical School), which both opened in 1852 in Canning Place. The foundation stone for the Home was laid by Prince Albert in 1846. The Home had a library and reading room, and supported up to 200 seamen. After 1853, the Liverpool Nautical School was subsidised by the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, and subsequently the Science and Art Department until funding was cut in 1873 and the School had to revert to management under the Home. The Liverpool Sailors' Home School remained in operation until 1969.
The Liverpool Nautical College was subsequently founded in 1892 under new funding from the Liverpool City Council from taxes on wine and spirits known as 'whisky money,' and was based in the Royal Institution building on Colquitt Street. It officially opened on 1 December 1892, and the first Head of the new College was James Gill, who had also been Principal of the Liverpool Sailors' Nautical School, from which he brought ten students with him when he was appointed. The purpose of this College was to offer Deck Officers and Marine Engineers 'the means of obtaining a thoroughly complete and scientific training in all the subjects embraced in a liberal technical education' (LJMUH/NC/1/1/1/1). It offered classes to boys, apprentices, Second Mates, First Mates, Masters (Ordinary), Masters (Extra) and Higher School, and it prepared candidates for certificates in accordance with the latest requirements for the Board of Trade. From 1898 onwards, the Committee in charge of the College became the Nautical Instruction Sub-Committee of the newly constituted standing Technical Instruction Committee within the Liverpool Education Authority.
The inception of the College was not met without controversy, with criticisms from sailors of unnecessarily academising their profession, as demonstrated by a letter from Captain Corcoran to the Editors of the Liverpool Mercury, dated 25 October 1894 entitled 'Is it a fad?,' including the observation 'Is the time really come when our ships are to be officered by professors and not sailors? If this is to be the case we may be accredited with taking the idea from Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan's opera [Pinafore] of "Sticking to your college, With no practical sea knowledge, Then start a full-fledged captain in the mercantile marine."'
In 1892, at the suggestion of the Liverpool Training School of Cookery, later known as F L Calder College of Domestice Science (see LJMUH/FLC), and the Shipping Federation, the Technical Instruction Sub-Committee financed a special Cookery Class for Seamen for the training of ships' stewards and cooks. The class was held in a room provided by the Shipowners of the Seamen's Institute and taught by a man with both considerable experience at sea and a qualification from the Liverpool Training School of Cookery. The classes were carried out as an experiment under the supervision of the Committee of the School of Cookery, and proved successful, leading to more similar classes provided by the Shipping Federation. This is likely the inception of the Liverpool Nautical Training School for Ships' Stewards and Cooks provided by the Nautical Advisory Committee (see LJMUH/NC/7/1/1).
In 1889, Thomas Glazebrook Rylands (1818-1900), wire manufacturer and philanthropist of Highfields, Thelwall, Cheshire, gifted a 5 inch Cooke refractor and a 2 inch transit telescope to the Liverpool Astronomical Society. These instruments were offered on the condition that the Liverpool City Council should provide a site for an observatory, which the Liverpool Astronomical Society should have the use of for three nights each week. The Society sought to find funds for the project and put it to the Parks, Gardens, and Improvements Committee. Their original application sought to build an observatory at St James' Mount, now the site of the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, but this was turned down. Eventually, in 1892, the Technical Instruction Sub-Committee agreed to a proposal to mount the instruments in the Nautical College's Yard, which was also a tennis court on Colquitt Street at the Royal Institution. The new observatory was in by 1893, where the Liverpool Astronomical Society subsequently held meetings, and students of the Nautical College were admitted to the Society as Junior members for an annual subscription of two shillings. The observatory's proposed removal to new premises on Byrom Street was approved in April 1899.
In 1901, the Liverpool School of Science, Technology, and Art was transferred to the Liverpool Corporation to become the City of Liverpool Municipal Technical School, now based at new premises on Byrom Street. During this period of transfer, the Nautical College also transferred its premises to share the site of the new Central Technical School on the opening of the Mountford Street Building in 1903. In 1902, the Boys' School section of the College was discontinued and increasing numbers of students prepared instead for higher certificates from the Board of Trade.
When James Gill died in 1900, he was succeeded by W V Merrifield (commonly misspelt as Merryfield), who remained in office until his death in 1924, at which point the College became a Department of the Central Municipal Technical School, still based at the Mountford Street building. By the 1950s, the courses were increasingly known as Maritime Studies, within which instruction for Merchant Navy Certificates of Competency, Second Mate, First Mate, Master and Extra Master were provided. Teaching moved into the top floor of the new higher education college building nearby at Byrom Street, later designated as part of Liverpool Polytechnic in 1970.
In 1963, the Robbins Report recommended that 'university places should be available for all who were qualified for them by ability and attaimnent,' and further advocated for the establishment of a Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) to ensure appropriate academic standards. This initiative provided a major stimulus for Departmental Heads to develop undergraduate programmes for mariners, primarily as an additional undergraduate (BSc) qualification. The leading spirit behind the initiatives in Liverpool was Captain Frank Main, an Extra Master, who could see that the old order of running ships in a paternalistic manner would eventually give way to the pressures of advanced technology and new ways of working. A further impetus came from the Rochdale Enquiry into Shipping 1970, which recommended that 'a preferential route to a degree and command of a ship should be provided to able young men with A level or equivalent qualifications.' By 1967, Captain Main and his staff had prepared their first undergraduate programme, and the Maritime Studies Department opened its doors. Courses were aimed primarily at those mariners already in the system who wanted to acquire a degree and further develop their knowledge and skills.
In 1970, the Department joined the Liverpool Polytechnic with the rest of the Regional College of Technology for Liverpool, and in 1977, Maritime Studies was amalgamated with Engineering under a newly appointed Head of School, Captain Len Holder. In 1992, this became Liverpool John Moores University, and the most recent descendant of the Nautical College is the LJMU Maritime Centre.
For more sources of information on the history of the Liverpool Nautical College, please see:
Webster, R., and Wilkie, S., 2017. The Making of a Modern University: Liverpool John Moores University (London: Third Millenium Publishing), pp.60-67. A copy of this can be made available via LJMU Special Collections & Archives.
Liverpool Astronomical Society, 1996. 'The History of the Liverpool Astronomical Society,' available via: https://liverpoolas.org/the-history-of-liverpool-astronomical-society/ [accessed 25/01/2024]
Turnbull, W., 2023. 'The ‘proper means of efficient nautical education’? The Liverpool Nautical College (1892-1900) and the late-Victorian port city,' Doctoral thesis, LJMU. Available via: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/21674/ [accessed 25/01/2024]
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. |