History and description
The college was built as an independent (i.e. congregational) college in 1840–43, the architects being Irwin and Chester. The site was in the new suburb whose development had been begun about 10 years earlier by Samuel Brooks; its name later became Whalley Range. The aim of the Lancashire Independent College was a project of the Lancashire Congregational Union to provide higher education for Non-Conformists who were excluded from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge until 1871. [2] This included a new college building and moving the staff from Blackburn Academy which was then closed. [3] The three founders were George Hadfield, Thomas Raffles and William Roby (minister of the Grosvenor Street Chapel, London Road, Manchester). [4] The Blackburn Academy arose from courses of lessons given to prospective Congregational ministers by William Roby who was supported by the Manchester merchant Robert Spear. When the principal, Joseph Fletcher, left for London the academy became the Lancashire Independent College and moved to Manchester. The college became known much later as the Northern Congregational College.
The similarity of design to an Oxbridge college is therefore easily understood. The marshy nature of the area, then called Jackson's Moss, meant that 4½ feet (135 cm) of peat had to be dug away before safe construction could begin. Nikolaus Pevsner commended the "long, very impressive, ashlar-faced, Gothic front." The wings culminate in a "tall, fanciful" tower, with a "two-storey Gothic oriel (window)." The entrance and assembly halls were re-ordered by Alfred Waterhouse in 1876–80 and Pevsner considered them "disappointing, but the rooms along the piano nobile are very charming, their Gothic fireplaces, ceilings and doorcases nicely varied."
During World War II, it was used to house refugee academics, mainly from Czecho-Slovakia. The later name of the college was the Northern Congregational College, who used the premises until 1985 when they joined the Northern Baptist College in Luther King House, Brighton Grove. [6]
The building became the national college of the GMB in the late 20th century and trained many trades-union negotiators. The GMB sold the college in 2004 as it was considered too expensive to maintain. After a period of uncertainty, the building was purchased by the British Muslim Heritage Centre to "serve as a focus for Muslim heritage and identity in Britain". [7]
In January 2013 and 2014, the building was nominated for the Arts and Culture Awareness award at the British Muslim Awards. [8] [9]
Nasar Mahmood currently serves as a trustee of the centre. [10] He was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours List in 2019. [11] [12]
Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to the north and St Peter's Square to the south, with Manchester Cenotaph facing its southern entrance.
Whalley Range is an area of Manchester, England, about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 15,430. Historically in Lancashire, it was one of the earliest of the city's suburbs, built by local businessman Samuel Brooks.
George Hadfield was an English lawyer, author and Radical politician who represented Sheffield for 22 years.
The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles. The city is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is known as the first modern, industrial city. Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals – remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods. Manchester has minimal Georgian or medieval architecture to speak of and consequently has a vast array of 19th and early 20th-century architecture styles; examples include Palazzo, Neo-Gothic, Venetian Gothic, Edwardian baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Neo-Classical.
The Whitworth Building is a grade II* listed building on Oxford Road and Burlington Street in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. It has been listed since 18 December 1963 and is part of the University of Manchester. It lies at the south-east range of the old quadrangle of the University, with the Manchester Museum adjoined to the north, and the former Christie Library connected to the west.
Sir Percy Scott Worthington was an English architect.
The Memorial Hall in Albert Square, Manchester, England, was constructed in 1863–1866 by Thomas Worthington. It was built to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. One of the best examples of Venetian Gothic revival in the city, the hall is a Grade II* listed building.
The former Manchester Law Library at 14 Kennedy Street, Manchester, England, is a Grade II* listed building in the Venetian Gothic style. The building is notable as having housed the oldest provincial law library in England. Its architect, Thomas Hartas, is little known, and the former law library appears to be his only documented building. In 2015, the Manchester Incorporated Law Library Society sold the premises, and moved to new offices on Booth Street.
Ellen Wilkinson High School was housed, until it closed in 2000, in a Grade II* listed building in Ardwick, Manchester, England, designed in 1865–67 by the prolific Manchester architect Thomas Worthington. Formerly known as Nicholls Hospital, the building was funded by Benjamin Nicholls as a memorial to his son, John Ashton Nicholls. Nicholls commissioned Worthington to prepare designs, with instructions that building was only to commence after his own death. It was built in 1878–1880 and Worthington's last significant commission in the city. The original usage was as an orphanage; the Ashton family gave over £100,000 to its construction and endowment.
The Reform Club in Manchester, England, is a former gentlemen's club dating from the Victorian era. Built in 1870–1871 in the Venetian Gothic style, it was designed by Edward Salomons, in collaboration with an Irish architect, John Philpot Jones. The building is situated on the corner of King Street and Spring Gardens. Claire Hartwell, in her Manchester Pevsner City Guide considers the club Salomons' "best city-centre building" and it has a Grade II* heritage designation. The contract for construction was awarded to Mr Nield, a Manchester builder, and had a value of £20,000. The Reform was constructed as the club house for Manchester's Liberal Party, and was opened by Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, Liberal Foreign Secretary, on 19 October 1871.
The Church of St Peter in Old Market Street, Blackley, Manchester, England, is a Gothic Revival church of 1844 by E. H. Shellard. It was a Commissioners' church erected at a cost of £3162. The church is particularly notable for an almost completely intact interior. It was designated a Grade II* listed building on 20 June 1988.
Blackfriars Bridge is a stone arch bridge in Greater Manchester, England. Completed in 1820, it crosses the River Irwell, connecting Salford to Manchester.
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England. It was created by the Local Government Act 1972, and consists of the metropolitan boroughs of Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan and the cities of Manchester and Salford. This is a complete list of the Grade I listed churches in the metropolitan county as recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Buildings are listed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on the recommendation of English Heritage. Grade I listed buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important"; only 2.5 per cent of listed buildings are included in this grade.
Lancashire is a county in North West England. In 1974 parts of the historic county were divided between Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and Cumbria, and part of the West Riding of Yorkshire was transferred into the county, creating the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire. Together with the unitary authorities of Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool it now forms the ceremonial county of Lancashire.
Edwin Hugh Shellard was an English architect who practised in Manchester, being active between 1844 and 1864. Most of his works are located in Northwest England, in what is now Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire. He was mainly an ecclesiastical architect, and gained contracts to design at least 13 churches for the Church Building Commission, these churches being known as Commissioners' churches. Most of his designs were in Gothic Revival style, usually Early English or Decorated, but he also experimented in the Perpendicular style. He employed the Romanesque Revival style in his additions to St Mary's Church, Preston. The National Heritage List for England shows that at least 23 of his new churches are designated as listed buildings, four of them at Grade II*. The authors of the Buildings of England series consider that his finest work is St John's Minster in Preston, Lancashire.
Thomas Raffles was an English Congregational minister, known as a dominant nonconformist figure at the Great George Street Congregational Church in Liverpool, and as an abolitionist and historian.
Maxwell and Tuke was an architectural practice in Northwest England, founded in 1857 by James Maxwell in Bury. In 1865 Maxwell was joined in the practice by Charles Tuke, who became a partner two years later. The practice moved its main office to Manchester in 1884. Frank, son of James Maxwell, joined the practice in the later 1880s and became a partner. The two senior partners both died in 1893, and Frank Maxwell continued the practice, maintaining its name as Maxwell and Tuke.
Manchester is a city in Northwest England. The M16 postcode area is to the south of the city centre, and contains the area of Whalley Range. The postcode area contains 13 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade II*, the middle grade of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade.
