Article 627- 9 February 2012

Technical Memories (Part 5)

Towards a Munster University

Bertram Windle became a familiar person at most Cork Civic gatherings and on so many public platforms throughout the country as he sought to reconnect Queen’s College Cork to public life. He got people talking about education and re-energised its importance. As President of the Irish Technical Association, he attended several Technical Congresses from Newry to Tralee, where on average 150 delegates from all parts of Ireland attended. The delegates represented on average 60 Technical Committees and the principal Chambers of Commerce and Industrial Development Associations.

A journalist for the Irish Independent on 25 July 1906 remarked of Betram Windle:

“Satisfaction will be felt throughout Ireland at the appointment of Dr. Windle, the able and energetic President of the Queen’s College, Cork, to a seat on the Intermediate Board. Since his arrival in Ireland Dr. Windle has taken an active part in promoting the cause of education; he has also identified himself with the industrial movement and the Gaelic revival. He, as a sound educationist, must see that any thorough system of primary and Intermediate education for this country must be so arranged as to fit the pupils to acquire such a training in these schools as will enable them to avail of the advantages of Technical Instruction.”

In September 1906, a resolution of the County Council of King’s County (Co. Offaly) demanded a Catholic University. It was unanimously adopted by Cork Corporation. In connection with the same subject, a letter was read at the Council meeting (written about in the Irish Independent) acknowledging the vote of thanks passed to Bertram Windle by the Corporation for his recent report to the King on the ways forward for Queen’s College Cork. In the letter, Windle strongly argued: “There are those who think that Cork could get on very well without any college at all, or with one, which was only of the nature of a superior Technical Institution. I am glad to find that these opinions are not shared by the representatives of the citizens of Cork itself, and I am also glad that they have made the important fact public. At the present juncture it is not my place to point out the advantages which the city would reap from the possession of a University College.”

Whilst as President of such bodies as the Cork Literary and Scientific Society and a member of the General Council of Medical Education in Ireland, Windle’s practical experience and wide knowledge were freely given for the public good. As one of the Special Commission appointed to prepare the stations and regulations, Windle was able to play a prominent and important part in laying the foundations of the new Cork university. In 1908, the University Act, in connection with which Windle was one of the Chief Advisers of both the government and the Catholic Bishops, removed the semi-official religious ban, which had previously existed, and enabled the college in its new guise, as a constituent college of the National University, to take its place in the national life.

On the university campus, through his work, Bertram Windle saw the construction of a new chemical and physical laboratory, and a new biological laboratory. He re-conditioned and re-organised the medical school. Private benefaction was also enlisted in support of projects, which government assistance could not be obtained. Prominent among these gifts were the Honan Hostel, the Honan Scholarships and the Honan Chapel.

Windle’s services to the church and education were honoured by the Pope in 1909 when he was made a Knight, of St Gregory the Great, and he received an additional honour of knighthood from the King. Once he had revived and reorganised the Cork College he was once more able to devote himself to literary work, and several important books appeared from his pen. His work, The Church and Science (1917), was awarded the Gunning Prize by the Victoria Institute in 1919, the first time this distinction was ever awarded to a Catholic writer.

In 1917-18, Bertram Windle acted as a member of the Irish Convention, summoned by Lloyd George, to arrange, if possible, an agreed scheme of self-government. He accepted the invitation to become a member of this assembly with enthusiasm, believing a resolution between North and South could be found. He was disappointed at the inconclusive settlement. He also sought an Independent University for Munster. With the support of all the leading men of the Province and backed by resolutions of its lending bodies, a committee was formed in 1918 to further the project and bring it to fruition. Considerable progress was made, a draft bill was prepared and the support of the government obtained. However with the 1919 General Election and the rise of the new Sinn Féin party, the scheme lost national support.

Almost at the same time, in October 1919, Bertram Windle was offered the position of Professor of Anthropology at Saint Michael’s College, Toronto, the Catholic College of the University of Toronto. Discouraged by the lack of support for his Munster University idea, he took up the position and spent the next ten years in America. He died in 1929.

To be continued…

Captions:

627a. Queen’s College Cork, c.1900 (source: National Library, Dublin)

627b. Portrait of Betram Windle from the front cover of Ann and Dermot Keogh’s book on Bertram Windle

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent 

2 February 2012

Technical Memories (Part 4)

A Question of Life or Death

 “In this country, he went on, the question to which we invite your attention to is literally one of life or death; it is a question, which involves that other great question, whether we are going to stop that terrible drain of emigration, which has been sapping the strength of this country far too long…the technical education movement might itself be used to stem that tide of emigration”, Journalist on Bertram Windle, Industrial Conference at Cork, 21 November 1905.

The exhibit of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction’s at the Cork International Exhibition 1902 was deemed a great success. It enthused those involved in education down south to do as much as they could to rally support for the movement. In the years following the exhibition one of the key figures to emerge in Cork and to push the movement was Bertram Windle (1858-1929), who became the President of Queen’s College Cork in 1901. In setting out his background and work in Cork, at the outset one of his notable traits was his mass of interest and experience in different matters concerning education in not just Cork but across the country. There is also the matter of the energy he put into his various pursuits. On the study of Windle one is blessed with a myriad of archival material in UCC’s Boole library and great reviews of his life and times by John A. Murphy, and Ann and Dermot Keogh. There are also the myriad of obituaries, which appeared in local and national newspapers at the time of his death in July 1929.

By the time Staffordshire born, Bertram Windle arrived in Cork in 1901, he already had a notable academic career. Starting as a senior moderator in natural science, after qualifying he was appointed Demonstrator in Anatomy and Histology at the Irish College of Surgeons, and in the following year Pathologist at the General Hospital in Birmingham. In this city he was destined to spend twenty years of his active career. He soon became Professor of Anatomy in the Medical School, which at that time was affiliated to the Queen’s College as an Anglican theological seminary.

Shortly afterwards, Bertram Windle started a movement, which resulted in the transfer of the medical school to the undenominational Mason College where he became Dean of the Medical Faculty. His ability to lobby government transformed it subsequently into the University of Birmingham. During this time he converted to Catholicism and also married Madoline, daughter of W. Hudson of Birmingham. He began to write and publish a number of books on medical and topographical subjects. These books were the fruits of his historical and literary studies. His closing years in Birmingham were sadly marked by the death of his wife and two infant sons. He also had two daughters.

His association with the Catholic life of Birmingham, in which he played an active part as a member of the Society of the St Vincent De Paul and otherwise, brought him in contact with the Irish exiles in that city. He became a supporter of various Nationalist organisations as well as being keenly interested in the future of Ireland. He also began to take an interest in the wider aspects of education, having served on the Birmingham School Board, and also as a member of the Consultative Committee to the English Board of Education. These activities led to the Presidency of the Queen’s College, Cork, which was offered to him in 1901 by George Wyndham, then Unionist Chief Secretary for Ireland, and which after personal investigation, he accepted.

At that time Queen’s College Cork was little more than an excellent medical school, which created doctors, many of whom emigrated. The priorities for the college at this time was its low numbers, poor morale, lack of finance for development, the absence of any real university context, the unrepresentative nature of its ruling body, and general public indifference. The figure and voice of the new President began to change those issues. New projects for the development of the College were successfully launched. With the warm support and assistance of old students from all over the world, a student’s Club was erected, new faculties were inaugurated, new lecturers were appointed, and money for additional buildings squeezed from the reluctant Westminster Treasury.

Betram Windle’s activities during these years were by no means confined to Cork. As President of the Irish Technical Association, at the Industrial Conference in Cork in November 1905, he noted:

“The technical movement was open to every Irish man and woman; it knows nothing of political or religious difference, as that great meeting showed. We want to make the movement a practical one, and not a Cork conference…I ask whether it would not be a useful thing to bring about a closer touch between the Technical Education Committee and the Industrial Development Associations, which were springing up over the country…Delegates should attack their task. You are met with the object of doing a piece of work for yourselves and by yourselves, because you think it is a good thing that it should be carried out”.

To be continued…

Caption:

626a. Photograph of Bertram Windle (picture: UCC Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 26 January 2012

Technical Memories (Part 3)

Renaissance Ireland

Three years after the passing of the Irish and Agriculture and Technical Instruction Act 1899 and the beginning of its associated Department in Dublin, Cork showed leadership in providing ample space for the Department to showcase its work at the Cork International Exhibition in 1902. Held at the Mardyke, the exhibition showcased the cause of industrial revival in Ireland and all its actions, programmes, ongoing discussions and ideas.

One of the exhibition halls was given over to the exhibits of the Department of Agricultural and Technical Instruction and its details can be viewed in archival catalogues that have survived in Cork City Library. The decoration of its stalls were designed and executed by the students of the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, and were an adaptation of old Celtic designs. A special feature and a most notable piece of decorative work was an exact reproduction of the doorways and apse of Cormac’s Chapel at Cashel. This was and still is generally admitted to be the best example of Celtic Romansesque architecture in existence. Modelled in fibrous plaster by a Cork craftsman, the interior of the structure was used as a reception room and main office by the Department. This was situated just within the chief entrance to the Department’s section, which was through an elaborately beautiful openwork Celtic screen, designed and executed by the students of the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.

The exhibits of the Departmental section were classified under various divisions: Firstly the agriculture section contained exhibits on dairying, cheese-making, horticulture, cottage gardening, forestry, bee-keeping, willow culture, poultry keeping, fruit and vegetable drying, and preserving, and some of the applications of technical instruction to these subjects. Indeed in the western section of the exhibition grounds there was a series of demonstration plots with different varieties of farm crops, calf feeding experiments, model byre and feeding sheds, a school garden and examples of cultivation suitable to labourers’ allotments.

The Department also established on the far west end of the exhibition grounds a working dairy, where there were exhibitions of butter and cheese manufacture based on the Scotch system, and one adapted to the means of the small farmer. The butter was made in hand churns by girls from the Munster Institute. About 80 gallons of milk were used in each day’s butter making, whilst the quality of milk used in the daily manufacture of cheese amounted to 120 gallons.

The second division showcased the application of art, science and technology and the work of technical schools and art schools, Irish, British and Continental. It featured decoration and works carried out by the art schools of Dublin, Belfast and Cork and a working boot-making exhibit under the management of the Cork Technical Institute. Two of the most popular features of the division and exhibition were a full sized science laboratory and workshop equipped and fitted up for twenty students each. There, through demonstrations by pupils of the Christian Brothers School or the North Monastery School and their supervisor Brother Dominic Burke, the Department’s programme for day secondary schools was displayed.

The third division presented illustrations of industries, which were deemed suitable for introduction into Ireland, and of some industries, which existed in the country already, and which were capable of improvement and development. The exhibits consisted of charts and models illustrative of the use of water power, and of the applications of electrical power and of gas and oil to small industries. There was a working textile exhibit containing a selection of modern looms and other improved machines intended to demonstrate means of developing the smaller woollen mills of Ireland. There were looms on display for the manufacture of carpets, and the weaving of ribbons, braces and belts. There were working exhibits illustrating the manufactory of pottery and glass, clock making, paper box making, straw hat making, Swiss wood-carving, the making of toys and dolls, artificial flower making, mosaic working, art enamelling and art metal working.

The fourth classification was fisheries, which covered illustrations of current methods used in sea and island fisheries of Ireland, and of manufactures connected with it and of developments, which could be introduced. Examples encompassed artificial propagation, trout farming, oyster culture, model hatcheries, boats and gear, net-making etc.

Next to the fisheries was the Statistics and Intelligence section, which presented charts, diagrams, maps, and publications and which demonstrated the economic circumstances of the country. Section six was about the country’s raw materials. Specimens of Irish minerals and ores were on display as well as clays suitable for pottery and sands applicable for the manufacture of white glass, and of building and ornamental stones.

Section seven was made up of the historic arts and crafts section. A loan collection was showcased and was illustrative of some artistic crafts, which formerly were practised with distinction in Ireland, and whose traditions could influence modern work. The collection included specimens of old Irish furniture, silver plate, cut glass, book bindings and reproductions of antique Celtic work. Indeed section eight involved the display of Celtic design and utilised Celtic elements of ornament with a view to reharnessing such designs in modern design.

To be continued…

Captions:

625a. Illustration of the central grounds of the Cork International Exhibition, 1902 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

625b. Illustration of the central grounds of the Cork International Exhibition, 1902 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article

Cork Independent, 19 January 2012

Technical Memories (Part 2)

Educating a Modern Nation

Between the years 1901 and 1908, classes in science and commercial subjects were held in three centres in Cork. The Crawford School of Art was the first. The second centre was in the Model Schools on Anglesea Street, and the third was at 13 Union Quay.

At the second centre in the Model Schools in Anglesea Street, permission was given in 1902 by the Commissioners of National Education to use six rooms in order to enable the Cork Technical Instruction committee to hold practical classes in engineering and also some building classes. In a large house at 13 Union Quay, purchased by the committee, classes were held in plumbing, carpentry, engineering theory and drawing office work, and in music.

Apart from classes in art and music, in the 1901-02 session the records show that 29 classes in science and commerce were under the Cork’s committee’s control. In the 1905-06 session the number had risen to 88 classes with 711 individual students, which highlights the development of work subsequent to the opening of new rooms. In 1908, the commercial classes were transferred to a School of Commerce in the South Mall.

Funding for national technical instruction schemes in the year 1902 amounted to £2,818 19s. 8d. and by the year 1911, the figure was £27,066. The funding coincided with the rapid rise in interest and demand for technical education. However as the 1911 reported, the amount of funding required to meet the demand was much higher and classes for many years in all forms of technical instruction were carried out in many Irish locations, like in Cork, where premises, in general, were not purpose built to host classes. The report noted (p.307):

“With the rapid increase in the number of students attending these schools and the steady progress towards higher and higher efficiency of the teaching in them, the inconvenience of temporary buildings began to be acutely felt. All classes of buildings were employed to meet the need. In one place a fever hospital, in another a disused jail, in others disused chapels were adapted, while in one case a technical school is to be found underneath a large water tank, which supplies the town with water. In many cases private houses have been pressed into the service. In rural districts, the case is worse still”.

Through the Technical Instruction Act of 1899, an outreach programme for secondary schools was also planned. This led to the drafting of a programme of experimental science and drawing suitable for secondary schools, including the subject of manual instruction for boys’ schools and the subject of domestic economy for girls’ schools.

During the 1900-1 session, there were three schools in Munster carrying on practical science classes: two at the Christian Brothers’ Schools in Cork City (through Brother Dominic Burke), and one at Waterpark College, Waterford. By 1902, there were 38 schools running classes. In these schools, about 1,400 pupils devoted three hours per week to science, and one hour per week to drawing; 350 pupils gave, in addition, two hours per week to manual instruction, and twenty pupils gave an additional period to household economy. Seventeen schools received financial aid from their local authorities and many others were promised assistance. Of the 38 schools, only twenty, up to 1902 were able to equip really satisfactory laboratories. During the 1901-02 school session, practical science in six schools had to be carried out on temporary benches in rooms where curtains were used to separate other classes from the science classes. In five other schools the rooms were too over crowded, or fitted with unsatisfactory makeshift tables. In a report in 1911 on “A Decade of Technical Instruction in Ireland”, it was noted that grants were allocated amounting to a total of £25,000 for the equipment of laboratories. Schools themselves provided very large sums for building purposes, and some grants were made from the funds of local authorities.

The question of the training of teachers in science was also a difficult matter, but summer training courses were established in the principal settlements in Ireland. They were held annually in the months of July and August and extended over a period of nearly one month. They were held in the Royal College of Science, the Metropolitan School of Art and elsewhere. Courses were also held in a number of convents, where, in order to meet the needs of the members of enclosed orders, classes were organised consisting of nuns from different convents. Written and practical examinations were held at the end of the summer courses and recognition extended to teachers as appropriate. Permanent recognition was not given in a subject until the teacher-student had attended and passed the examinations of five summer courses.

Courses were also held in rural science and school gardening, in hygiene and home nursing, in office routine and business methods, and in manual work, building construction and other relating building work. In national courses held in 1911, 621 teachers attended whilst the number of special instructors numbered 88. The Department’s teachers of domestic economy were taught in the Irish Training School of Domestic Economy in Stillorgan Dublin.

To be continued…

Caption:

624a. North Monastery Laser Show, January 2011 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)