Monday, October 28, 2013

Agricultural Colleges

.Agricultural College: A Farmer's Boy - 1945 - BrCo > .
Wartime Kitchen, Garden, Farm - ElQu >> .

'Agriculture today is a big industry, requiring the co-operation of scientists, engineers, chemists and government officials to help ordinary farmers. The film shows how Britain is training farmers and specialists at one of the many agricultural colleges in Britain for the future needs of this great industry.'
There are a number of common farming practices in this film that are shown but not discussed, such as pasteurisation and sheep dipping.

Seale-Hayne College, 3 miles from Newton Abbot, was an agricultural college in Devon, England, which operated from 1919 to 2005. It was established in accordance with the will of Charles Seale Hayne (1833-1903), a Liberal politician who was a Devon land-owner. The college was built between 1912 and 1914, but its opening was delayed by the start of WW1. It was the only agricultural college in the United Kingdom whose buildings were purpose designed and built.

During the war it served as a training centre for Land Girls, and in 1918 and 1919 it operated as a military neurasthenic hospital for the treatment of soldiers suffering from shell shock. The first students arrived in 1920. During WW2 the college was used for the training of the second Women's Land Army

After the war the college was significantly expanded, and by 1986 there were over 1,000 students. In 1989 the college merged with Plymouth Polytechnic to form the Seale-Hayne Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Land Use, Polytechnic South West. (Polytechnic South West became the University of Plymouth in 1992). In 2005 the university closed the college and staff and students were transferred to Plymouth.


Oxford: The Institute of Agricultural Economics was established, as the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, with the aid of a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Development Commission grant in 1913. Until 1945 it formed a part of the School of Rural Economy. An Advisory Sub-Committee of the Committee for Rural Economy was established in June 1912 to be responsible for the selection of the Director of the Institute and to supervise the teaching, examination and research of agricultural economics in the University.

The form of the name of the Institute was altered four times between 1913 and 1986: 1913-27 Institute for Research into Agricultural Economics 
1928-44 Agricultural Economics Research Institute 
1945-70 Institute for Research into Agricultural Economics 
1970-86 Institute of Agricultural Economics


Horticultural science research in the early twentieth century exhibited marked diversity and horticulture included bees, chickens, pigeons, pigs, goats, rabbits and hares besides plants. Horticultural science was characterised by various tensions arising from efforts to demarcate it from agriculture and by internecine disputes between government organisations such as the Board of Agriculture, the Board of Education and the Development Commission for control of the innovative state system of horticultural research and education that developed after 1909. Both fundamental and applied science research played an important role in this development.

Efforts made by the new Horticultural Department of the Board of Agriculture and by scientists and commercial growers raised the academic status of horticultural science and the professional status of its practitioners.

Lady Evelyn Barbara Balfour, OBE (16 July 1898 – 16 January 1990) was a British farmer, educator, organic farming pioneer, and a founding figure in the organic movement. She was one of the first women to study agriculture at an English university, graduating from the institution now known as the University of Reading. At the age of 17, she enrolled, as one of the first women students to do so, at Reading University College for the Diploma of Agriculture. After obtaining her Diploma in 1917, she completed a year's practical farming, living in 'digs' at 102 Basingstoke Road, Reading. During this time she worked at Manor Farm ploughing fields. The Living Soil (1943) is regarded as a seminal classic in organic agriculture and the organic movement. The book is based on the initial findings of the first three years of the Haughley Experiment, the first formal, side-by-side farm trial to compare organic and chemical-based farming, started in 1939 by Balfour (with Alice Debenham), on two adjoining farms in Haughley Green, Suffolk, England.

Agricultural Colleges ..


Top ten ranking agriculture, Forestry & Food universities in the Guardian University Guide 2021:
  1. University of Leeds .
  2. University of Nottingham .
  3. Abertay University . 
  4. Bangor University .
  5. Queen’s University Belfast .
  6. University of Reading .
  7. Writtle University College .
  8. Aberystwyth University .
  9. Nottingham Trent University .
  10. Newcastle University .

Sunday, October 27, 2013

BCTC - Birmingham Central Technical College

BCTC Certificate 1940 .
Birmingham Central Technical College

A School of Metallurgy formed in the Birmingham and Midland Institute in 1875. The Birmingham Municipal Technical School separated from the Institute in 1895, teaching chemistry, physics, metallurgy and electrical engineering. In 1911, commercial classes were introduced and grew into an independent School of Commerce by 1916. The technical school expanded, and by 1917 was also teaching botany and other subjects to trainee teachers

In 1927 the Technical School changed its name to the Central Technical College to reflect its changing approach to teaching technology. 

In 1951, the Technical College was renamed the College of Technology, Birmingham and work began on the Main Building at Gosta Green. In 1956, it became the first elite designated College of Advanced Technology (CAT) and underwent a major expansion. It moved into buildings that were constructed between 1949 and 1955 to a design by Ashley & Newman. Princess Margaret laid one of the first foundation stones at the base of the new building in 1951

The building is one of Europe's largest freestanding brick buildings. In 1955, the College of Advanced Technology was opened by Her Majesty The Queen. The college expanded again to a design by the City Architect of Birmingham Alwyn Sheppard Fidler between 1957 and 1965.

The Birmingham Municipal Technical School in Suffolk Street, founded in 1895.[15]

Birmingham Municipal Technical School, Suffolk Street (f. 1895)

The College of Advanced Technology officially became the University of Aston in Birmingham on receipt of its Royal Charter on 22 April 1966 and the first Chancellor of the University, Lord Nelson of Stafford, was installed on 10 May.



In the 1960s, changes were made to the higher education system creating an expansion of polytechnics as a more vocationally orientated alternative to the typical university.

Birmingham Polytechnic was designated as a polytechnic in 1971 and gained university status in 1992. Five universities in the city, the other four being Aston University, Birmingham City University, University of Birmingham, University College Birmingham, and Newman University.

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...