Mason Science College

Mason Science College was founded by Josiah Mason in 1875, the buildings of which were opened in Edmund Street, Birmingham, England on 1 October 1880 by Thomas Henry Huxley. In 1900, it was incorporated into the new University of Birmingham.

Notable alumni include:

• Francis William Aston, British chemist and physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister.^[1]
• Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister.^[2]
• Sir Henry Fowler, locomotive engineer.
• C.W. Hobley, pioneering colonial administrator in Kenya.
• Henry Eliot Howard, ornithologist
• Constance Naden, Poet & Philosopher.
• John Berry Haycraft discovered an anticoagulant created by the leech, which he named hirudin.

Despite being a fine Victorian Neo-Gothic building, it was demolished in 1962 followed by the original Central Public Library and original Birmingham and Midland Institute as part of the inner ring road redevelopment. The current Central Library stands on the site of the old college.

References

1. ^ K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1970), 11-12
2. ^ K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1970), 11

Sources

• Ordnance Survey 1st Edition Map, 1890

External links

• Huxley's inauguration speech
• Lists of students at Mason Science College
• 1960s photograph