Mechanics' Institutes

Mechanics' institutes are educational establishments, originally formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men. Similar organisation are sometimes simply called "institutes". As such, they were often funded by local industrialists on the grounds that they would ultimately benefit from having more knowledgeable and skilled employees (such philanthropy was shown by, among others, Robert Stephenson, James Nasmyth, John Davis Barnett and Joseph Whitworth). The mechanics' institutes were used as "libraries" for the adult working class, and provided them with an alternative pastime to gambling and drinking in pubs.

The world's first mechanics' institute was established in Edinburgh, Scotland, in October 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh (later Heriot-Watt University), with the provision of technical education for working people and professionals. Its purpose was to "address societal needs by incorporating fundamental scientific thinking and research into engineering solutions". The school revolutionised access to education in science and technology for ordinary people.

The second institute in Scotland was incorporated in Glasgow in November 1823, built on the foundations of a group started at the turn of the previous century by George Birkbeck. Under the auspices of the Andersonian University (est. 1796), Birkbeck had first instituted free lectures on arts, science and technical subjects in 1800. This mechanics' class continued to meet after he moved to London in 1804, and in 1823 they decided to formalise their organisation by incorporating themselves as the Mechanics' Institute.

The first mechanics' institute in England was opened at Liverpool in July 1823. The London Mechanics' Institute (later Birkbeck College) followed in December 1823, and the mechanics' institutes in Ipswich and Manchester (later to become UMIST) in 1824. 

In 1823, Sir George Birkbeck, a physician and graduate of the University of Edinburgh and an early pioneer of adult education, founded the then "London Mechanics' Institute" at a meeting at the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the Strand. More than two thousand people attended. However the idea was not universally popular and some accused Birkbeck of "scattering the seeds of evil."

In 1825, two years later, the institute moved to the Southampton Buildings on Chancery Lane. In 1830, the first female students were admitted. In 1858, changes to the University of London's structure resulting in an opening up of access to the examinations for its degree. The Institute became the main provider of part-time university education.

• In 1866, the Institute changed its name to the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution.
• In 1876, the London Society for the Extension of University Education was founded, boosting the aims of encouraging working people to undertake higher education. 
• In 1885, Birkbeck moved to the Breams Building, on Fetter Lane, where it would remain for the next sixty-seven years.
• In 1903, the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of the University of London and it was integrated into Birkbeck (in 1988 as the School of Continuing Education). 
• In 1904, Birkbeck Students' Union was established.
• In 1907, Birkbeck's name was shortened to "Birkbeck College". 
• In 1913, a review of the University of London (which had been restructured in 1900) successfully recommended that Birkbeck become a constituent college, although the outbreak of the First World War delayed this until 1920. The Royal Charter was granted in 1926.
• In 1921, the college's first female professor, Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, began teaching botany. Other distinguished faculty in the inter-war years included Nikolaus Pevsner, J. D. Bernal, and Cyril Joad.
• During WW2, Birkbeck was the only central University of London college not to relocate out of the capital. In 1941, the library suffered a direct hit during The Blitz but teaching continued. During the war the College organised lunch time extramural lectures for the public given by, among others, Joad, Pevsner and Harold Nicolson.

By the mid-19th century, there were over 700 institutes in towns and cities across the UK and overseas, some of which became the early roots of other colleges and universities. For example the University of Gloucestershire, which has the Cheltenham Mechanics' Institute (1834) and Gloucester Mechanics' Institute (1840) within its history timeline. It was as a result of delivering a lecture series at the Cheltenham Mechanics' Institute that the radical George Holyoake was arrested and then convicted on a charge of blasphemy.

The Industrial Revolution created a new class of reader in Britain by the end of the 18th century, "mechanics", who were civil and mechanical engineers in reality. The Birmingham Brotherly Society was founded in 1796 by local mechanics to fill this need, and was the forerunner of mechanics' institutes, which grew in England to over seven
hundred in number by 1850.

G. Jefferson explains that:

The first phase, the Mechanics Institute movement, grew in an atmosphere of interest by a greater proportion of the population in scientific matters revealed in the public lectures of famous scientists such as Faraday. More precisely, as a consequence of the introduction of machinery a class [of] workmen emerged to build, maintain and repair, the machines on which the blessing of progress depended, at a time when population shifts and the dissolving influences of industrialization in the new urban areas, where these were concentrated, destroyed the inadequate old apprentice system and threw into relief the connection between material advancement and the necessity of education to take part in its advantages.

Small tradesmen and workers could not afford subscription libraries, so for their benefit, benevolent groups and individuals created mechanics' institutes that contained inspirational and vocational reading matter, for a small rental fee. Later popular non-fiction and fiction books were added to these collections. The first known library of this type was the Birmingham Artisans' Library, formed in 1823.

Some mechanics' libraries lasted only a decade or two, many eventually became public libraries or were given to local public libraries after the Public Libraries Act 1850 passed. Though use of the mechanics' library was limited, the majority of the users were favourable towards the idea of free library use and service, and were a ready to read public when the establishment of free libraries occurred.

Beyond a lending library, mechanics' institutes also provided lecture courses, laboratories, and in some cases contained a museum for the members' entertainment and education. The Glasgow Institute, founded in 1823, not only had all three, it was also provided free light on two evenings a week from the local gas light company. The London Mechanics' Institute installed gas illumination by 1825, revealing the demand and need for members to use the books.

Agricultural Colleges ..
BCTC - Birmingham Central Technical College ..
Birmingham Polytechnic ..
CAT - College of Advanced Technology
Croydon Polytechnic ..
Higher Education - UK ..
Mechanics' Institutes ..
Polytechnics ..
Technical Colleges ..

A Short History of Technical Education .

Chapter 1 – Introduction .
Chapter 2 – The Industrial Revolution and the Role of Science and Technology in the Development of Technical Education. .
Chapter 3 – The Guilds and Apprenticeships .
Chapter 4 – Promoting Public Interest and Awareness in Science and Technology – Early Groups, Societies and Movements .
Chapter 5 – The Dissenting Academies, the Mechanics’ Institutions and Working Men’s Colleges .
Chapter 6 – The Mid 19th Century .
Chapter 7 – After the Great Exhibition – A Growing Recognition for the Need for Technical Education? .
Chapter 8 – The Developments at the End of the 19th Century. .
Chapter 9 – The Beginning of the 20th Century 1900-1921 .
Chapter 10 – Developments between 1920 and 1940 .
Chapter 11 – Developments in the 1940s and 1950s .
Chapter 12 Developments in the 1950s and 1960s .
Chapter 13 – Developments in the 1960s and the 1970s .
Chapter 14 – Developments in the 1980s .
Chapter 15 – The Developments in the 1990s .
Chapter 16 – Developments in the Late 1990s and Early 2000. .
Chapter 17 – Concluding Remarks .
A Short History of Technical Education –Glossary .
A Short History of Technical Education –Book References/Other Publications .
A Short History of Technical Education – Chronology .

• Engineering education in the United Kingdom .
• Higher education in the United Kingdom .
• Higher education colleges in the United Kingdom .
• History of education in the United Kingdom .