Warsash Maritime Academy

 

.Warsash Maritime Academy: a history of change > .

Warsash Maritime School, formerly Warsash Maritime Centre and Warsash Maritime Academy, is a maritime training college and is part of Solent University. The academy campus is just east of Southampton aside the River Hamble and Warsash village. The college provides education, training, consultancy and research to the international shipping and off-shore oil industries. It is one of the United Kingdom's colleges responsible for the training of the British Merchant Navy. The courses on offer cover a wide range of maritime education and training from deck and engineer officer cadetships, including degree pathways, to senior officer certificates of competency, together with the associated safety training.

The Southampton School of Navigation originated with the death of a Southampton wine merchant Henry Robinson Hartley, in 1850. He bequeathed £42,524 to the Southampton Corporation which they received some years later. After advice from the Secretary of the Department of Science, Lyon Playfair, it was decided that a School of Navigation should be set up, which would be fitting with the recent development of Southampton as a great seaport. After the need to raise additional funds the school was eventually finished in 1902. It was granted university college status and known as the Hartley Institute, based in South Hill in the city of Southampton.

In 1932 the school was expanded when it merged with the Gilchrist Navigation school. At that time the school was confined to preparing students for Board of Trade certificate examinations for Mate, Master and Extra Master. 51 students were taught at this time by only two staff. In 1934 the college expanded to accommodate day cadets and courses for civil air navigation. It was during this time that Captain Whalley Wakeford was appointed as head of the school. Residential cadet courses began in 1937 with cadets completing a sea preparatory course. By 1939 there were 19 cadets, 129 day students and 15 staff and the school has moved to a new home at South Stoneham House in Swaythling where it remained until 1946.

During the WW2 the school remained open to train mariners. In 1940 all students and cadets had joined the Local Defence Volunteers (Home Guard). Courses continued to run despite bombing in the Southampton area. Cadets were still trained and additional courses were created for existing officers from the armed services and abroad, including some 60 free Polish cadets. By 1942 the school had over 180 sea cadets in training and it was decided the school should be moved to a larger campus, which incorporated the existing HMS Tormentor operations base, just outside the village of Warsash. At the request of the United States a special navigation course was provided in 1945 for naval officers stationed in the United Kingdom. By 1946 the entire school had moved to Warsash and included over 316 students and 32 staff (with the name of the college now officially recorded as the Southampton School of Navigation). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsash_Maritime_School .