The City of Leeds Training College was a teacher training college established in 1907 at Beckett Park in Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. After merging with the Carnegie College of Physical Education in 1968 it was renamed the City of Leeds and Carnegie College. It became one of the principal constituent institutions of Leeds Beckett University.
The City of Leeds Training College grew out of the Leeds Pupil Teacher College founded in 1901 to train teachers centrally in the city rather than in individual schools. The college in the city centre was founded in 1907 and moved to Beckett Park in 1912. [1] The site selected was a 35-acre site around Kirkstall Grange. The mansion house was already rented by Leeds Council to house teacher training students. [2] After some opposition, the property was bought for £48,000 from Lord Grimthorpe. [3] A competition for Leeds architects to design a main building and seven halls of residence or hostels, two for men and five for women, resulted in 27 submissions. Building started in 1911 and the college was ready for occupation by September 1912. [4] The mansion was used as a men's hostel named Grange. The other hostels were named after prominent Yorkshire people, Cavendish, Fairfax, Brontë, Caedmon, Macaulay, Leighton and Priestley. [5] The college had accommodation for 300 women students and 180 men in eight hostels each housing 60 students. [1] By September 1913 the college was filled to capacity with students from all over England. [5]
At the outbreak of First World War the college was about to admit 421 students when the building was requisitioned by the War Office to create the 2nd Northern General Hospital, a facility for the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. [6] [1] During the First World War the principal matron of the 2nd Northern General Hospital based at Beckett Park, Leeds, was Euphemia Steele Innes. [7]
Local schools were used for teaching and several large houses in Headingley were used to house students. In 1916 the War Office took over the whole college for the hospital which remained open until 1924. [8] The college trained men and women but was not co-educational as men and women were taught separately. Out of 170 teacher training colleges it was one of only five that was mixed. [9]
From 1918 to 1933, the principal of the college was the mathematician John Robinson Airey. [10]
The Carnegie College of Physical Education was formed in 1933 as the result of an initiative between the government and the Carnegie Trust to provide training for male physical education teachers. The Director of Education for Leeds, James Graham, was instrumental in attracting the college to Leeds and building its premises on the Beckett Park campus. [11] The Carnegie Trust provided £30,000 to provide a gymnasium and a hostel for 60 male students. [12]
The college premises were again used as a military hospital in the Second World War and the students were moved out of the city to Scarborough, returning to Beckett Park at the end of 1945. [13]
The City of Leeds College changed its name to the City of Leeds College of Education in 1964. [14] It merged with the physical education college in 1968 to form the City of Leeds and Carnegie College and in 1976 merged into Leeds Polytechnic which in 1992 became Leeds Metropolitan University. [1] Leeds Metropolitan University was renamed Leeds Beckett University in September 2014. Its chancellor, Sir Bob Murray, said "We will be very proud to adopt a new name for our University which is so closely linked to the location and birthplace of two of our major founding colleges." [15]
The college's original three-storey halls of residence and teaching and administration building built around a green lawn known as the Acre were designed by G. W. Atkinson and completed in 1912 in a Wrenaissance style in red brick with ashlar gritstone dressings. All are now Grade II listed buildings. [16] [17] [18]
The Grade II* listed Kirkstall Grange was built as a country house for Walter Wade in 1752 by James Paine. The house was altered around 1834 when it was acquired by the Beckett family and again in 1858. [19]
Kirkstall is a north-western suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, on the eastern side of the River Aire. The area sits in the Kirkstall ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds West parliamentary constituency, represented by Rachel Reeves. The population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 21,709.
Leeds is a major town in West Yorkshire, England.
Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley Stadium.
Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The university's origins can be traced to 1824, with the foundation of the Leeds Mechanics Institute. Leeds Polytechnic was formed in 1970, and was part of the Leeds Local Education Authority until it became an independent Higher Education Corporation on 1 April 1989. In 1992, the institution gained university status. The current name was adopted in September 2014.
Bretton Hall College of Education was a higher education college in West Bretton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. It opened as a teacher training college in 1949 with awards from the University of Leeds. The college merged with the University of Leeds in 2001 and the campus closed in 2007.
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Kirkstall Brewery is a complex of Grade II listed buildings built in the 19th century on either side of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
Burley is an inner city area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) north-west of Leeds city centre, between the A65 Kirkstall Road at the south and Headingley at the north, in the Kirkstall ward.
Beckett Park is a residential area and a large public park in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is in the Weetwood ward of Leeds City Council. It borders onto Headingley, West Park and Kirkstall. It is named after Ernest Beckett, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe.
William Beckett was an English Conservative politician
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The architecture of Leeds, a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England, encompasses a wide range of architectural styles and notable buildings. As with most northern industrial centres, much of Leeds' prominent architecture is of the Victorian era. However, the City of Leeds also contains buildings from as early as the Middle Ages such as Kirkstall Abbey, one of Britain's best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries, as well as examples of 20th century industrial architecture, particularly in the districts of Hunslet and Holbeck.
John Garry Hemingway was an English rugby union, and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for Yorkshire and Sheffield and South Yorkshire, and at club level Old Thornensians RUFC, as a wing, i.e. number 11 or 14, and club level rugby league (RL) for Leeds, as a wing, i.e. number 2 or 5.
The Didsbury Campus on Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, England, originally a private estate, was part of the Manchester Metropolitan University; the oldest building on the site dated to around 1785. It became a theological college for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1842, about the same time as a chapel which later became part of the college was built. These buildings are now all listed.
Leeds is known for its culture in the fields of art, architecture, music, sport, film and television. As the largest city in Yorkshire, Leeds is a centre of Yorkshire's contemporary culture and is the base for Yorkshire's television and regional newspapers.
Dunfermline College of Physical Education, was a college for training teachers of physical education and hygiene in Scotland. The college was established in Dunfermline in 1905, moved to Aberdeen in 1950, and merged with Moray House College of Education, University of Edinburgh, in 1987.
Headingley Cricket Ground is a cricket ground in the Headingley Stadium complex in Headingley, Leeds, England. It adjoins the Headingley Rugby Stadium through a shared main stand, although the main entrance to the cricket ground is at the opposite Kirkstall Lane end. It has hosted Test cricket since 1899 and has a capacity of 18,350.
The Hostel of the Resurrection also known as the Priory of St Wilfred and later as the Adult Education Centre at the University of Leeds is a former student hostel in Leeds. A designated Grade II* listed building in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, the building is now privately owned and is again student accommodation.
Kirkstall is a ward in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It contains 48 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade I, the highest of the three grades, two are at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The ward contains Kirkstall, Burley and Hawksworth, all suburbs of Leeds. The River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal pass through the ward, and the listed buildings associated with these are weirs, sluices, locks, and a canal bridge. The most important building is the ward is Kirkstall Abbey, which is listed, together with associated structures. The other listed buildings include houses and associated structures, churches and items in churchyards, public houses, a school and a former Sunday school, a commemorative arch, road bridges, a railway viaduct and station, former mill buildings, buildings associated with a former forge, and a war memorial.
Bibliography
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