Tag: postcard

  • Higher education postcard: Totley Hall Training College

    Higher education postcard: Totley Hall Training College

    Back in 1943 the UK government knew that more school teachers would be needed. The school leaving age was to be raised: this and other planned changes meant that 70,000 extra teachers would be needed over the coming years. The teacher training colleges then in place trained 7,000 a year, so there was a problem.

    The solution? Emergency Training Colleges. A compressed curriculum was piloted at Goldsmiths College, and in five years about 50 such colleges produced about 35,000 teachers. But it was a short-term scheme, and many of the colleges were wound up after 1950 or 1951.

    Nevertheless, there continued to be a need to grow base capacity to train teachers. The emergency colleges had dealt with the immediate shortfall, but with more children attending schools every year, there was still work to be done. Some of the emergency colleges became regular training colleges, and some local authorities established new colleges of their own. And this is where Totley Hall enters the stage.

    Not shown on the card is Totley Hall, built in 1623 and in 1949 passed to Sheffield Council. This was to be the heart of a new training college – the Totley Hall Training College of Housecraft. Its mission: training domestic science teachers.

    There’s a wonderful account of the college’s foundation and development, written by Anna Baldry, who was one of the first lecturers at the college. It’s well worth a read. Highlights include her nerves at interview; problems with electricity blackouts; HMI inspections; the admission of men; its opening by Violet Attlee; and some lovely photographs.

    More prosaically, the college had by 1963 become the plain Totley Hall Training College, focusing on training primary teachers. In 1967 men were admitted; in 1969 the best students could continue to study for a fourth year to gain a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree from the University of Sheffield, rather than the Certificate in Education. And in 1972 – there being simultaneous vacancies in the principalships – Totley Hall Training College and the nearby Thornbridge Hall Training College were merged, to form the Totley/Thornbridge College of Education.

    In 1976 the College became part of Sheffield Polytechnic, which was renamed Sheffield City Polytechnic – and this in turn became Sheffield Hallam University in 1992, and I’ve written about it here.

    Here’s a jigsaw of the card.

    The card was posted, but I can’t read the postmark, so don’t know when. The 3p stamp shows it was after decimalisation. If it was in 1971 or 1972 it was sent first class; if it was 1973 it was sent second class. Those are the only options for that stamp.

    An engagement? A wedding? A pools win? A baby? What do we think?

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  • Higher education postcard: London South Bank University

    Higher education postcard: London South Bank University

    On 12 May 1888 the London Evening Standard reported as follows:

    A meeting is to be held at the Mansion House at twelve o’clock, on June 8, to consider the projected South London Polytechnic Institutes. It is stated that Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, and Sir Lyon Playfair have agreed to be present in order to lend their support to the scheme.

    We’ve met Sir Lyon Playfair before – sometime secretary to the Department of Science, he advised on the question of a maritime school for Southampton, which ultimately became Southampton Solent University. Lord Rosebery and Lord Salisbury were both eminent politicians, Salisbury a Tory, Rosebery a Liberal. In 1888 Salisbury was Prime Minister. Rosebery would be Prime Minister soon too – he succeeded Gladstone in 1894, the following year being replaced himself by Salisbury. Clearly the support of these figures was significant. But what was going on?

    Enter Mr Edric Bayley. Bayley was a solicitor living in Southwark: partner at a local practice, he was becoming a man of some substance. In 1892 and 1895 he was elected as a member of the London County Council, representing Southwark West for the Progressive Party. Prior to that, in 1887, he had established a group – the South London Polytechnic Institutes Council or, in some accounts, Committee. This sought to use funds under the control of the Charity Commissioners to create technical and recreative institutes in New Cross, Borough and Battersea. This seems to have been the scheme referred to in the Evening Standard article. In 1888 the Charity Commissioners agreed to match funds up to £150,000 for this scheme. And do the game was most definitely afoot.

    The New Cross institute became Goldsmiths College; the Battersea one became Battersea Polytechnic and in due course the University of Surrey.

    The Borough story goes like this. In 1890, anticipating success, buildings were purchased: these had previously been the base of the British and Foreign School Society; the South London Polytechnic Institutes (Borough Road Site) Act 1890 authorised the purchase. In 1891 sufficient funds had been raised to proceed with the overall scheme, and an act of Parliament passed to create a legal basis for the new institutions. And in 1892 Lord Rosebery opened the polytechnic. His speech was notable for suggesting that by forbidding smoking in the new polytechnic, they would be unable to compete favourably with public houses. And that the structures against dancing and dramatic performances similarly might be too severe.

    It’s worth looking at this extract from his speech – reported in The Globe of Friday 30 September 1892. Not only because it gives a lovely flavour of Rosebery’s speech-making, but also for the slight hint, maybe, of Johnsonian populism.

    The polytechnic was a technical and recreative institute, which means that as well as technical courses, it also had a gymnasium, and offered facilities for clubs and so on. Obviously as long as they weren’t dramatic or involved dancing. The model was the People’s Palace in the east end, which became Queen Mary College. And that’s a story for another time.

    And so the Borough Polytechnic Institute started to do what it did, which was to educate people. Very successfully too, with the National Bakery School, for example, being an early innovation.

    In 1970 the Borough Polytechnic Institute became the Polytechnic of the South Bank, and incorporated a number of other institutions: the Brixton School of Building, the City of Westminster College, and the National College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering. In 1975, when education colleges were being brought into existing HEIs, the Battersea College of Education and some of the provision at Rachel MacMillan College of Education joined the polytechnic.

    In 1987 the polytechnic shuffled its name, becoming the South Bank Polytechnic. In 1992 it became South Bank University and in 2003 it became London South Bank University.

    Finally, here’s a jigsaw of the card. It’s unposted, which means I can’t be sure of the date, but it looks to be pre-World War One.

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  • Higher education postcard: Ashridge | Wonkhe

    Higher education postcard: Ashridge | Wonkhe

    We looked a few weeks ago at Philip Stott College; this week we’ll go to the Bonar Law Memorial College, its rival and successor, and see what happened there.

    Earlier in my career, when I worked at what is now City St George’s, I was obliged to visit Ashridge in my official capacity. A magnificent stone building, with wonderful medieval fireplaces and mullioned windows; the childhood home of Elizabeth I, rich in history.

    Except, of course, that Ashridge House was built in the early nineteenth century. All of that history took place at Ashridge Priory, which stood on the same site but was demolished in 1803. And Ashridge House is now grade I listed, with its grounds grade 2 listed. It’s a fake, but it’s a glorious fake.

    It was built under the auspices of John Egerton, 7th Earl of Bridgewater. He was a descendent of Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord Chancellor of Elizabeth I and James VI and I, and also of Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater and a canal magnate. And when complete it eventually passed into the Brownlow family, who in 1921 sold the house and the grounds to the National Trust.

    It was bought by Urban H Broughton. Broughton was a civil engineer, who in 1884 went to the USA to promote a hydro-pneumatic sewerage system. He clearly did well there, promoting the system at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, and in 1895 being hired by oil tycoon Henry Rogers to instal the system in his home community. And there he met Cara Leland Duff, Rogers’ widowed daughter. Sparks flew; they married. And, years later, he returned to Britain with his family, a rich man. He became a personage in society, a Conservative MP, and he was just about to be ennobled when he died.

    Before he did this, however, he gave Ashridge House to the Conservative Party to be used as a staff college.

    And so the Bonar Law Memorial College was born. Its original trustees were a roll-call of the Conservative party’s great and good: Stanley Baldwin MP, John Colin Campbell Davidson MP, Baron Fairhaven, John William Beaumont Pease, Viscount Hailsham, Neville Chamberlain MP, Viscount Astor, Col. John Buchan (he of The Thirty-Nine Steps), Viscountess Bridgeman, and Lady Greenwood, amongst others. The Leader and Chaiman [sic] of the Conservative and Unionist Party were trustees ex officio. It was named for Andrew Bonar Law, Prime Minister from 1922 to 1923.

    The Bonar Law Memorial College opened in 1929; it became known as a college of citizenship. During WW2 it was used as a field hospital. And it seems that its time as a Conservative college was not without tensions between the Conservative party and the college. Which is probably inevitable: the periodicity of vicissitudes in politics is, I claim, shorter than the periodicity of change in ideas and curricula.

    By 1954 the political nature of the college was coming to an end. By an Act of Parliament – the Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust Act 1954 – the college became non-partisan, and known as the Ashridge Management College. It seems that the charitable aims were focused on the UK and the Commonwealth, meaning that the Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust Act 1983 was necessary to enable the college to recruit students from countries outside the Commonwealth.

    In the 1990s Ashridge was validated by City University – which was how I got to go there – but then gained its own degree awarding powers. And rightly so. In 2015 it became part of Hult International Business School and now hosts executive education.

    The card is undated and unposted but judging by the cars parks out front I would guess stems from the 1950s, after it had become Ashridge. Here’s a jigsaw of the card – it’s a really tricky one this week!

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  • Higher education postcard: the Sorbonne

    Higher education postcard: the Sorbonne

    The Sorbonne is undoubtedly one of the most recognised university names in the world. But to what does it refer? Well, there’s a story. Consider this a first instalment – there’s more than I can do justice to in one post.

    Let’s go back to twelfth century Paris. The cathedral of Saint Etienne (which was near to what is now Notre Dame) had a school attached. And associated with this cathedral school in 1150 or thereabouts was a collective of teachers and students, organising themselves in the way that medieval teachers and students did. One Lotario de’ Conti di Segni completed his studies there in 1182, and in 1200 King Philip II issued a charter declaring it a universitas. In 1215 Lotario de’ Conti di Segni, who by now was Pope Innocent III, also recognised it.

    The university was organised into four faculties: arts, medicine, law and theology. Students had to graduate in the faculty of arts before they could begin study in any of the other faculties. Was this an early example of a foundation course, or was it the first stirrings of the STEAM agenda? Discuss.

    The university also had some colleges, like Oxbridge – by 1305 there was the College of the Eighteen, the College of the Sorbonne, and the College of Navarre. The College of the Sorbonne was founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to King Louis IX, focusing on theology. Students were also organised into nations, depending on their nationality, and these nations also provided accommodation: nation and college seemed like overlapping concepts.

    And for the next few hundred years the university did what universities do, going through ups and downs with good and bad relationships with kings and emperors and popes. A highlight: when the Spanish invaded during the reign of Louis XIV, crossing the Somme and threatening Paris, the university agreed to award the Master of Arts degrees without further ado to any scholar who presented a certificate of service in the King’s army. Academic standards, you see.

    And then came 1793, and the mother of all upheavals: the French Revolution. On 15 September the National Convention decreed that education beyond primary level was to be organised differently, and by 1 November the universities were no more.

    If this were a TV miniseries, this point is definitely the cliffhanger. What will happen next? Well, a LOT of history happened in the next few years, but for the purpose of this blog, we’ll skip to the start of the next season. Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1806, re-established the University of France with a single faculty. (All staff, I think, were members of this faculty and working in a particular site. But I may be wrong. France is very different, and very confusing. Vive le difference!) And in 1808 expanded this to have five faculties.

    And as France had new republics, so it seems that France made tweaks to its university system, of which Paris and the Sorbonne was a part. So in 1870 the number of faculties was again changed, and the types degrees students could get and the curriculum for them. Women were admitted from the 1860s onwards (which is about fifteen years ahead of the UK).

    In 1968 France almost had another revolution. Unrest started in universities, as students firstly complained about the failure of the state to provide enough good quality spaces as universities expanded. The protests then expanded to become anti-Vietnam war and generally anti-government protests. Workers joined in – nine million were on strike by 22 May 1968. De Gaulle called a referendum, the striking workers and students burned the Paris Bourse. De Gaulle fled to a military base in Germany, but returned when assured of military support, and slowly the individual strikes were broken up.

    By 1970 De Gaulle had increased his majority at a general election, and the government dissolved the University of Paris. It was broken up into thirteen universities – which is why you see places referred to as Paris 3, or Paris 11 and so on. Professors were, it seems, allowed to choose the university they were assigned to. The Sorbonne became Paris IV, which later merged with Paris VI (Pierre and Marie Curie University) to become the Sorbonne University, and also now includes INSEAD.

    And this is where the question, to what does the Sorbonne refer, becomes real. In addition to the Sorbonne University (Paris IV and VI), it might mean (if you look at the Wikipedia disambiguation page):

    • the building which housed the Sorbonne, and is now used by multiple universities
    • the Sorbonne chapel
    • the University of Paris up to 1970
    • the chancellery of the Sorbonne, which administers the Sorbonne estate
    • Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris I)
    • Sorbonne Nouvelle University
    • Sorbonne Paris North Université (Paris XIII)
    • Sorbonne-Assas International Law School (Paris II)

    As I say, they do things differently in France. And it is confusing.

    The card itself was not sent, but looks to date from the 1910s or 1920s, and is evidently in a biology lab. Here’s a jigsaw of the card – enjoy!

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  • Higher education postcard: Warsash Maritime School

    Higher education postcard: Warsash Maritime School

    Ahoy there!

    We’ve seen before how the University of Southampton was founded by a bequest from Henry Robinson Hartley. Today we’re going to look at a college which grew out of the university, and then became part of another one.

    Hartley died in 1850, but his bequest was not finally clear of the courts until 1858, and the town could then think how to create the institution he had suggested. The advice of the government was sought, and in April 1859 Professor Lyon Playfair – secretary to the Department of Science – proposed that the new institution should include a school of trade and navigation. His argument was reported in the Hampshire Advertiser on 15 May 1858:

    Did the council listen to this advice? They did not. And so the Hartley Institute – the nascent University of Southampton – did not have a school of navigation.

    Or not yet anyway. In 1909 Captain Gilchrist opened the South of England Navigation School to prepare students for the Board of Trade’s maritime examinations. And in 1932, the school – now known as Gilchrist’s Navigation School – was incorporated into University College Southampton as the Department of Nautical Training. At a celebratory luncheon with the Southampton Master Mariners’ Club, the university college principal Kenneth Vickers said that “it was preposterous to think that a university was going to teach a man his practical job when he got to it.”

    The department taught the theoretical foundations of navigation and seamanship, enabling its students to progress to apprenticeships on merchant vessels and, in due course, to take the exams to become qualified second mates.

    In the second world war the school continued to train sailors for the merchant marine, but also taught for the navies of the allied countries. It moved in 1942 to Warsash, a site further down the Solent, which was shared with a Royal Navy training site teaching the use of landing craft. (Fun fact: Royal Navy land bases are called HMS – HMS being His Majesty’s Ship. In this case the base was called HMS Tormentor.)

    After the war HMS Tormentor was decommissioned, but its site and buildings were added to the school of navigation. And by the late 1950s new accommodation was built at the school, to replace the WW2 pre-fabs. And it is the design for this that you can see on the card.

    In 1970 the school ceased to be part of the University of Southampton. My guess is that this was related to how technical education was funded: this would have been a move into local authority control. And in 1984 the school merged with the Southampton College of Technology, forming the Southampton Institute of Higher Education. And this in time became what is now Southampton Solent University, but more of that another time.

    The school is now known as the Warsash Maritime Academy, and operates both from a city centre site and, I think, in part still from the waterside site at Warsash. There’s a fabulous site maintained by alumni which includes memories from former students – well worth a browse when you have a little time to spare.

    The card was written and posted on Wednesday 18 May 1966. Very unusually, it is a typed message. A busy senior staff member, perhaps, who had access to secretarial support?

    And here’s a jigsaw of the postcard – I found it a slightly more challenging one this week. Enjoy!

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  • Higher education postcard: Jesus College, Cambridge

    Higher education postcard: Jesus College, Cambridge

    In about 520CE, or so the story goes, Radegund was born, daughter of Bertachar, one of three brother kings of Thuringia.

    Uncle Hermanfrid, one of the other brothers, killed Bertachar; Radegund moved into his household. Hermanfrid allied with another king, Theuderic, to defeat Radegund’s other uncle, Baderic, and thus became sole King of Thuringia. And in so doing he reneged on an agreement with Theuderic.

    I hope you’re paying attention, because there’ll be a short test later.

    Now Theuderic was not the kind to forget a slight, and in 531, when Radegund was 11, he invaded Thuringia, with his brother Clothar. They defeated Hermanfrid, and Ragemund was taken into Clothar’s household. She lived in Picardy until 540, when Clothar married her, bringing his total of wives to six. (The other wives were Guntheuca, Chunsina, Ingund, Aregund and Wuldetrada, just in case you think I’m making this up.)

    In 545 Clothar murdered Radegund’s last surviving brother, and that was clearly the last straw, as she fled. She sought the protection of the church, and Medardus, Bishop of Noyen, ordained her as deaconess. In about 560 she founded the abbey of Sainte-Croixe near Poitiers, and she died in 567, having reputedly lived an austere, ascetic life, renowned for her healing powers. Or so the story goes.

    Now fast forward 600 years or so. Malcolm IV, King of Scotland and Earl of Huntingdon, visited Poitiers, the site of the cult of the now-sanctified Radegund. He gave ten acres of land to found a priory, dedicated to St Mary and St Radegund. And this land was in what would in time become central Cambridge.

    Now fast forward another 300 years. The priory now had a – ahem – reputation. John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, in whose see the priory sat, was given permission by Pope Alexander VI and King Henry VII to dissolve the priory. This was in 1496; the later description of the priory as a “community of spiritual harlots” may have been the cause; it may also, of course, have been a post facto justification. In any event, the priory was dissolved and a college founded in its place. The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge, which is now more commonly known as Jesus College, Cambridge, took over the priory buildings, and away it went.

    Bishop Alcock, by the way, gave the college its arms: the three cocks’ heads play on his surname. No sniggering at the back there.

    For hundreds of years Jesus was, in essence, a training college for clergy, staying small. But in 1863 Henry Morgan was appointed tutor of the college, and set about his duties with energy. The railway boom at the time meant that some of the original priory lands could be sold, bringing in cash with which Morgan expanded the college: by 1871 there were four times as many students as ten years previously; by 1881 the college had nearly doubled in size again from 1871. And these students would not be confined to those seeking a career in the Church of England.

    Let’s have a look at some Jesus College people. (What’s the correct term? Jesuits is logical but it really does have a more specific meaning. Jesusites? Jesusians? I bet there’s a correct term, and I bet someone will comment to say.)

    A good place to start is Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Henry VIII, and architect of the English reformation. Cranmer may have (but probably didn’t) attended the college as a student, but he was certainly reader in divinity at Jesus from 1517 to 1528. He didn’t keep strong connections to the college after moving into court circles as archbishop, but as he was ultimately executed as a traitor (he backed the wrong team in the post-Edward VI power struggle) this may have been no bad thing, for the college at least.

    Let’s then move on to Laurence Sterne, student at the college 1733–37. He became a clergyman, but no-one remembers him for this. Because he arguably invented the English novel, with The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman published between 1759 and 1767. If you don’t know it, have a read; it is well worth it. It may change your opinions about just how modern modern writing is.

    Next in the roll of honour is Thomas Malthus, student of the college 1784–88 and fellow 1793–1804. As an economist Malthus was influential. In his Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society he argued that population growth was unsustainable, because demand for food would inevitably outstrip supply. It is worth noting that the world population at that time was about 800 million; it is ten times that today. And while food is not fairly distributed across the world, neither is there a population crash as Malthus argued there would be.

    And now let’s move on to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, romantic poet and opium addict, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. Coleridge was a student at Jesus. He developed his opium habit while at college, and in his third year dropped out to join the army, under the assumed name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbache. His brother had to pay a bribe to get him out of the army, and although he returned to Cambridge thereafter he never quite graduated.

    In 2019 Jesus appointed its first female master, Sonita Alleyne, having first admitted women as students in 1979. Alleyne was also the first black head of an Oxbridge college, preceding Valerie Amos at University College, Oxford by a year. More generally, the college has a very good run through its history here.

    Jesus is a sporty college, and its boat club is very strong. It holds the most headships of the river in the May and the Lent bumps, across both men’s and women’s boats. (I tried to explain about Cambridge rowing a while ago – here’s the link in case you’re interested.)

    And here’s a jigsaw of the card – hope you enjoy it!

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  • Higher education postcard: Lincoln College, Oxford

    Higher education postcard: Lincoln College, Oxford

    It’s late fourteenth century England, and a religious reform movement known as Lollardy was on the rise.

    The incomparable Sellar and Yeatman had it thus:

    During this reign the memorable preacher Wyclif collected together a curious set of men known as the Lollards or Dullards, because they insisted on walking about with their tongues hanging out and because they were so stupid that they could not do the Bible in Latin and demanded that everyone should be allowed to use an English translation. They were thus heretics and were accordingly unpopular with the top men in the Church who were very good at Latin and who liked to see some Dullards burnt before every meal.

    The Encyclopaedia Britannica will give you more detail if you need to know. Importantly, remember that John Wyclif is not the same person as Wyclef Jean.

    Anyway, Lollardy was considered a problem by the church, and in 1427 Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, founded a college in Oxford as, apparently, “a little college of true students of theology who would defend the mysteries of Scripture against those ignorant laymen who profaned with swinish snouts its most holy pearls.”

    Benefactions in 1436 and 1437 enabled the nascent college to establish a physical base in Oxford, with a chapel, a library, a hall, a kitchen, rooms and, in 1465, rooms for the college’s master. In 1478, a second Royal Charter was granted, at the prompting of Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln and later Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, who was the college’s visitor. (We’ll cover the role of the visitor another time, when I have the right postcard!)

    By this stage we’ve got in place the necessities of a college, and a few more elements – leasing the Mitre Inn, gaining a coat of arms – followed in the next hundred years. And the college continued to add buildings and the like, in the way that medieval Oxford colleges did. The interesting parts of our story now are people.

    Let’s fast forward to 1726, when John Wesley was elected a fellow of Lincoln. Discussions within the college set the scene for the establishment of Methodism. Having started as a college to counter heretical beliefs, the college had now enabled a significant branch of non-conformist Christianity to be born.

    In 1882 the first Jewish fellow of an Oxford college was elected at Lincoln. This followed the Universities Tests Act, passed in 1871, which removed religious barriers to participation in university life at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham. The fellow in question was Samuel Alexander, who later became a professor at Owens College, Manchester, and whose work focused, as best as I can tell, on questions of the nature of space and time. He’d have answered Zeno’s paradox, I suspect, by denying the reality of incrementally smaller units of time. But I may be wrong!

    In 1925 Theodor Seuss Geisel enrolled as a graduate student at Lincoln, having completed undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, USA. We know him better as Dr Seuss. He didn’t, it seems, complete his postgraduate work. Maybe he’d have been a better writer if he had, maybe not – who knows?

    In 1952 another notable writer began his studies at Lincoln. This was David Cornwall, who is similarly better known by his pen-name: John le Carré. Cornwall graduated in 1956; it is thought that he was working for MI5 while at the college, and he certainly became an intelligence agent afterwards, continuing until 1964, when the fall-out from Kim Philby’s spectacular betrayal of many British agents means that he left the secret service. Fortunately for him, his writing enabled him to make an alternative living.

    Other notable Lincoln names include Rishi Sunak, former PM; Edward Thomas, WW1 poet; and physician John Radcliffe, after whom many Oxford buildings, including the hospital, the camera and the observatory, were named.

    Women were admitted to Lincoln for the first time in 1979.

    Lincoln College’s full name – reserved for Sunday best – is the College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln. It’s only called that by the monarch and by the university when it has been naughty, I imagine. The college has a very good page on its history – including some shot films – here. There’s more than I could reference in this piece.

    The card itself was unposted but has a message written on the back.

    Dear Mr Smithies, Great pleasure to talk to you – thanks for your kind offer of support.

    And as usual, here’s a jigsaw of the card – enjoy!

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  • Higher education postcard: matriculation | Wonkhe

    Higher education postcard: matriculation | Wonkhe

    It’s that time of year again. A level results have been and gone, the initial buzz of clearing has passed, and new students are about to turn up. It can only mean enrolment. Or, at some universities, this strange thing called matriculation.

    One internet definition of matriculation has it as “the process of matriculating”. Helpful.

    To get to the bottom of it, we need to remember that universities were medieval European creations, and medieval Europe was all about the corporation. A universitas was a single body of people, chartered by a king or a pope, or sometimes by both, and you had to become a member of the universitas to benefit from its protection and patronage.

    And the terminology stays with us – a degree refers to your class of membership of the universitas. A master had a license to teach at a universitas, and being a master at one would often (but not always) give you license to teach at another.

    Matriculation was the process whereby you became a student member of the university. At some universities (here’s Oxford, for example) it is a formal ceremony, dressing up and parading, and the whole works. At other universities it can be more administrative – in my own case, I got a letter from the University of London University Entrance Requirements office telling me that I’d matriculated. But I still had to queue up a long winding staircase at LSE to enrol, get my student ID and a grant cheque.

    Yes, I am that old.

    Enrolment is really the same as matriculation, but without the razzamatazz. It’s the moment when the contract between the student and the university becomes made by both sides; calling it enrolment not matriculation is a badge of the ongoing transition by universities from being medieval to being modern. Which I guess we should probably support. Before we need to transition to being postmodern.

    The card itself was issued by Clarkson School of Technology, in the USA. It’s actually a marketing card. Come to Clarkson, it says. There’s still time to matriculate and register, and start to learn. Note that the sequence is: exam for matriculation, matriculation, instruction begins. And note that the exam to matriculate isn’t the university’s, but is the New York Education Department’s. An external verification that standards had been met before enrolment could happen.

    The Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology was founded in 1896. Thomas S Clarkson was a businessman, with multiple interests including a quarry. In August 1894 we are told that a worker at the quarry was in danger of being crushed by a derrick pump. Clarkson pushed the worker out of the way, being crushed himself instead. He died five days later of his injuries. His three sisters and his niece established the technical school in his name.

    In 1912 the State University of New York required the registration of all higher educational establishments, and it became the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial College of Technology, commonly known as the Clarkson College of Technology. It became a university in 1984. The university has a more thorough account of its history on its webpages.

    The card itself was sent on 19 February 1910.

    Good morning, Leon:- Haven’t heard from you this week. Neither have we heard from Mayme. Had letter from Mabel R, her vacation began last Monday and lasts ‘til April 1st ….

    Here’s the actual message if you can decipher more than I have, please share in the comments!

    Image: Hugh Jones

    And here’s a jigsaw of the postcard for you – hope you enjoy it.

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  • Higher education postcard: Philip Stott College

    Higher education postcard: Philip Stott College

    We’ve seen before how, at the end of the nineteenth century, a college for the working classes was opened in Oxford. Ruskin College was strongly associated with the trade union movement, and the left of British politics. And in 1923 a Conservative equivalent opened – the Philip Stott College.

    Philip Stott (1858-1937) was, properly, Sir Philip Sidney Stott, and went, apparently, by Sidney Stott. Whichever first names he chose, he was an architect, who specialised in designing cotton mills. And so he became a wealthy and influential man, having designed 77 mills across Oldham and Lancashire more broadly, and having acquired shares in many of them. He had broad interests. He played rugby league for Oldham – the Athletic of 2 November 1881 records him playing at half-back, and making some “very strong runs” in Oldham’s comprehensive victory over Breightmet. He was president of the Oldham Lyceum.

    And, as soon as he could afford it, he moved to Gloucestershire, setting up home in Stanton Court, a Grade II listed Jacobean manor house. And here it seems he devoted his time and energy to the Conservative Party: he became president of the local Conservative Association. He was created a baronet in 1920, and in 1925 was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.

    Stott wanted the Conservative Party to have a college of its own. The Conservative Party archives, held at the Bodleian library, record that:

    It having been decided to accept the generous offer of Sir Philip Stott, Bt., of the use of Overstone Park, Northampton, for the purposes of a permanent school for the study of Economics and Constitutional History, the first Session for Students commenced there on the 28th April last, and fortnightly courses have continued until the 29th September. During that period over 500 Students attended the College. They have been drawn from all classes, and from all parts of Great Britain, the majority being working men and Trade Unionists. Very encouraging reports have been received of the working of the College, and of the results achieved, the splendid efforts of the Lecturers and Tutors being greatly appreciated. Gifts of books from supporters of the Party and donations to be utilised in the purchase of books for the College Library have been thankfully received and acknowledged. The College was officially opened by the Prime Minister on the 27th September last.

    Gloriously, there is footage of the Prime Minister opening the college: this is from British Pathé in October 1923. The Prime Minister at the time was Stanley Baldwin – the first of his three periods in that office. And I defy you to find other footage of a Prime Minister being towed in a car by students acting as horses. This was a different age.

    The Spectator in June 1923 ran an account of the college’s early life. The college was initially aimed at working class conservatives, especially trade unionists, and it seems that the idea was to have intensive two-week courses, paid for by local associations and occasional bursaries. But it seems that this was insufficient to pay the college’s way, and its course were broadened to be open to Conservative party members more generally. There’s a good short account of the college (and a photograph from its early years) by Alastair Lexden, Lord Cooke, official historian to the Conservative Party.

    The college closed in 1929. By then a rival had been set up by the then Conservative Party chairman, J C C Davidson. Bonar Law Memorial College – later to become the Ashridge Business School – was opened by Stanley Baldwin in 1929. Philip Stott College’s programmes and assets were transferred to the Bonar Law Memorial College, but it seems that nobody consulted Philip Sott about this. Which must have been a little galling. He resigned from the Conservative Party in 1935.

    I’ll write more about the Bonar Law Memorial College another day; but for now, here’s a jigsaw of the card – hope you enjoy it.

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  • Higher education postcard: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

    Higher education postcard: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

    Student life can mean lots of things, but for some universities it means the seaside! And I’m not talking here about universities in towns by the sea, I mean ones where the seaside is literally on their doorstep.

    Now I’m not claiming that this is a comprehensive survey of UK seaside universities – I haven’t visited them all, and I’m almost certain to have missed some. But let’s visit three.

    First of all, the University of the Highlands and Islands. Which, as the name suggests, includes some campuses on islands. And the Stornoway campus is in Lews castle, overlooking the sea. I wrote about UHI a couple of years ago – here’s a link – and it’s highly likely that some of the other campuses are right by the sea too. But I don’t have postcards, so I can’t really check.

    Secondly, going widdershins, is Aberystwyth. The old college, which is in the card, is no longer the hub of the university, but it is still part of the university. And it is literally on the seafront. I’ve written about Aberystwyth a few times – here’s one on the university, here’s one about student representation, and here’s one about the university court.

    And finally, here’s Swansea. The university’s old campus is right next to the coast – you can see the coast road, the now-gone railway and the edge of the beach at the bottom right of the card above. Swansea has a new campus too, further round the bay and still on the sea front. Here’s a blog I wrote about Swansea almost three years ago now.

    So what other universities are right by the sea? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll try and find postcards and add them to my list of future bogs.

    Anyway, here’s a jigsaw of the three postcards, pinned, as it were, on the cork-board in your office. It’s a tougher one then normal!

    Thank you for reading, and for all of the comments and feedback. I hope you have a great summer, and I’ll be back again with some more higher education postcards in September.

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