Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  23 February 2012

Technical Memories (Part 7)

The Matter of Arnott’s Brewery

When no positive outcome of funding came from Westminster, other means of raising income to fund a purpose built municipal technical institute in Cork City was considered. In May 1908, a national conference was held in Cork in association with the National Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. This sparked the initiative that perhaps the Corporation of Cork could fund such a building.

The Cork technical instruction committee asked the Corporation of Cork to raise a loan of £18,500, on the security of municipal rates in order to construct a new science school. The Head Science Master, Mr. E.A. O’Keeffe, also suggested to the committee that if the Department’s annual development grant of £800 could be capitalised, it might be possible to erect a new technical institute from funds there as well. After consultation with the Department’s officials, this proposal was finally approved, within certain limits, on 8 March 1909.

In May 1908, the local government board sanctioned the appointed of Arthur Hill of Cork as architect for a new building. However, the architect had no site to work from. Difficulties were experienced by the committee in obtaining a suitable site, which were not overcome until early February 1909 when Arthur Frederick Crawford presented to the committee, a site in Fitton Street. It was previously occupied by Arnott’s Brewery, together with the old buildings then on the site.

Arnott’s Brewery began its life under Samuel Abbott in 1805. By 1858, the time George Waters took over the firm, the brewery made 600 barrels of ale per week. The brewery bought by Sir John Arnott in 1861. John was one of the city’s entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Born at Auchtermuchty, Fifeshire, Scotland, on 26 June 1814 and having spent his boyhood years in his native country, he came to Cork when about 21 years of age. He established many business concerns in almost all parts of the United Kingdom. They comprised drapery establishments, breweries, shipping companies and docks, and newspapers. Among the other businesses he started or was involved in included Cash and Company Cork, Baldoyle and Cork Race Park Meetings, the City of Cork Steamship Company, Passage Docks Shipbuilding Company, the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company and Arnott’s Brewery Cork.

For a considerable period of time, John Arnott occupied a prominent place in public life, in which he gained many honours. He was thrice elected Mayor of the City (1859, 1860 and 1861) by the Corporation of the time. There is a plaque on St Patrick’s Bridge in Cork that commemorates its opening by him on 12 December 1861.While Mayor, he was also elected to sit in Parliament for the town of Kinsale and spent five years at Westminster.

John Arnott was a philanthropist and was heavily involved in providing charity to the poor of the city. The journalist writing his obituary in the Southern Star of 2 April 1898 writes of him: “He always saw the cause and most liberally supported it…for instance – and it is only one of many-will he not be missed by the hundreds of poor people who annually, on Christmas Eve, made their way to Woodlands [his house], there to receive the contributions which Sir John invariably gave during the festive season”.

Linking his charitable side to Arnott’s Brewery (also became known as St Finbarr’s Brewery), in the Freeman’s Journal of 10 January 1862, it was noted:

“Sir John Arnott sometime since intimated his intention of carrying out a munificent system of relief to the poor of Cork, by undertaking upon a large scale the establishment of a bakery, a soup kitchen, and brewery…The soup kitchen is the first the visitor meets with entering these extensive premises…the kitchen itself is a square brick room, containing an immense boiler, opposite to which, at the other side of the apartment, are three large iron pans, capable of containing 150 gallons of soup each…to the rear of the kitchen is a very comfortable room for serving out the soup to the public. There are several wooden troughs in the yard, where all the vegetables are washed and cleansed before being sent into the kitchen and also a well aired room where the meat. The bakehouse alone will contain six enormous ovens, the largest, we understand ever introduced into this city”.

By 1876, the affect of the soup kitchen is unknown but the brewery was producing up to 50,000 barrels of stout per year. The brewery’s cooperage was situated on the opposite side of Fitton Street and the bottling stores adjoining the brewery. The Chamber of Commerce in its book Cork: Its Commerce and Trade in 1919 notes that Lady’s Well Brewery and the Murphys acquired the St Finbarr’s Brewery and Riverstown Ale Brewery and Maltings in 1901. They closed and dismantled both those breweries, but continued to work the malt houses. Arthur Sharman Crawford was a director of Messrs. Beamish and Crawford since its formation and had been earlier been a partner in the firm. For many years he was Chairman of the Cork Technical Instruction Committee. His offer of the brewery site was gratefully accepted by the committee.

To be continued…

Caption:

629a. Arnott’s Brewery, c.1900 (source: Crawford College of Art and Design)

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)