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)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 January 2012

Technical Memories (Part 1)

A Technical Act

This month coincides with the 100^th anniversary of the official opening of the building, which houses CIT Crawford College of Art and Design on Sharman Crawford Street, Cork. A series of events have been planned to mark the occasion. I’d like to share some articles on the history on the 1912 establishment of the building, which when it opened was called the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute, Cork.

The Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act in 1899 recognised the need for an Irish framework for technical education in an attempt to halt industrial and manufacturing decline. The Irish act came ten years after the British one was passed. The Irish work proceeded along four lines. Firstly, technical instruction was re-organised under local authorities. Secondly, a system of instruction was planned in experimental science, drawing, and manual work, and domestic economy in day secondary schools.  Thirdly, there was a focus on “operations bearing directly on industries”. Fourthly, higher technical instruction was re-organised in the Royal College of Science.

In extensive and richly descriptive journals, published by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction from 1901 to 1921, the steps are outlined that each city and town, in particular, pursued in order to comply with the aims of the act. The 1901 journal (now in the Boole Library, UCC) reveals that in Cork the necessary steps were taken to transfer the control of the classes from the General Committee appointed by the Corporation of Cork under the Public Libraries (Ireland) Acts of 1855 and 1877 to a Technical Instruction Committee of the Corporation. That consisted of 21 members, eight of whom were accepted, and the transfer was carried out in 1901.

There already existed in Cork the work of the central Technical Schools of Science and Art. These schools, better known in their day as the Crawford Municipal Technical Schools, were presented to the City of Cork by William Horatio Crawford in 1884. The buildings comprised sculpture and picture galleries (Crawford Art Gallery), library, lecture theatre, class rooms for art, and some rooms for Science and technology. However, the 1901 technical instruction committee deemed the buildings insufficient for their proposed central technical institute.

The School of Art had engaged in some excellent work, but the science classes, on the whole, were deemed to be “starved” in the 1901 report. On the industrial side of the school there were classes for lace-making and crochet. These classes were largely attended, and most of the designs were supplied by students of the design class in the School of Art. A key feature of the School of Art was the system of scholarships connected to it. In 1892 ten free studentships were offered to pupils of national schools in the city, admitting them to evening classes. A preliminary test examination in freehand enabled the committee to select the best candidates. In respect of scholarships, the Cork Industrial Exhibition of 1883 had an important influence on the school. It was decided that a surplus remaining from the fund, raised for the exhibition, should be devoted to the endowment of two scholarships of £50 each, to enable successful candidates to receive a year’s training at the Royal College of Art in South Kensington, London. At first these scholarships were limited to young men (industrial students or artisans), but in 1889-90, one of the scholarships was offered to female students. The scholarships were of great benefit to many of the successful candidates; several won scholarships in the College of Art, South Kensington, and obtained appointments under the London School Board.

Out of the first year’s Departmental grant in 1900, the Technical Instruction Committee allotted to different secondary schools in the city a sum of £1,600 for equipment and apparatus. In Cork, a head science master was also appointed, who was to render the same service as in Belfast in the organisation of the new technical instruction scheme. Mr O’Keeffe, a technological teacher, who had fifteen years’ experience at Finsbury Technological College, London, was appointed by the committee, with the approval of the Department.

In 1901 the committee appointed a deputation consisting of three members of the committee and the Head Science Master to visit the various centres of technical instruction in England and Scotland. There they gained an insight into the working of many excellent schemes in existence, particularly those, which afforded some comparison with the work practiced in Cork. The report of the deputation again strongly advised the retention of all available funds for the purpose of building a central Technical College, which should be for the benefit of the County as well as the City of Cork. A large part of the funds at the disposal of the committee at that time were allocated to various secondary institutions to equip science classes. The committee decided to wait until better financial conditions prevailed before discussing the erection of a central Technical College.

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 in Anglesea Street, and the third was at 13 Union Quay.

To be continued…

Caption:

623a. Crawford Municipal Technical Institute, Cork 1912 (source: Opening Souvenir Booklet)