Image ID: 24922

Eastwood Miners Welfare (once the Machanics Institute)

Courtesy of Mr George L Roberts

Mansfield Road
Eastwood
England

This building housed the library from which D H Lawrence and Jessie Chambers once borrowed books. The idea of a Mechanics Institutes first emerged in Scotland at the end of the 18th century. At the University of Glasgow, two professors, John Anderson and George Birkbeck began offering free lectures to the working people of Glasgow. When Anderson died in 1796 he left all the money he had to found Anderson's College. Birkbeck worked as professor of natural philosophy at the college but eventually moved to London where he founded the London Mechanics Institute. The publication of Observations Upon the Education of the People (1825) by Henry Brougham helped to popularize these institutions. These self-improving working men's adult education colleges were often funded by wealthy local industrialists. Mechanics Institutes became common in most towns of Britain and the United States between 1820 and 1860 for the voluntary education of skilled manual workers. Ideally such an institute was to have a library, a museum, a laboratory, public lectures about applied science, and courses in various skills, but few had all of these. They were places where artisans could learn, part-time, the basic principles of science, particularly mechanics, physics and chemistry. Mechanics Institutes were also used as exhibition centres and meeting places for clubs in the Sciences as well as the Arts.

Date: c 1960

Organisation Reference: NCCC001016

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