Robin Longbottom examines how the growing Mechanics Institute movement came to Keighley

DURING the late 18th and early 19th centuries a new class of working men emerged as a result of the introduction of machinery into factories and mills.

They were known as mechanics and were the men who built, maintained and repaired the machinery that generated the industrial revolution. However, the speed of progress led to a complete breakdown of the old apprenticeship system and created a demand for further education to meet the requirements of the new age.

The solution came from Edinburgh where in 1821 a school had been established offering further education to working men. It provided a library and regular lectures, and its purpose was to pursue “scientific thinking and research into engineering solutions”. The school was called the Mechanics Institute and began a movement that was to spread throughout the nation. In London a Mechanics Institute opened in 1823, one in Manchester in 1824 and one in Leeds in 1825.

Keighley was also quick off the mark, opening its first Mechanics Institute in 1825 and meeting at the National School at the bottom of West Lane. It produced its first annual report in March 1826 and had spent a total of £136-16 shillings on “books, apparatus etc leaving a balance in the treasurer’s hands of £2-3s-3d”. The report anticipated that through the institute “latent genius may be excited and prompted into action, the dormant abilities of individuals, yet unknown, may be roused, brought to light, for the general good.” As well as providing a library, frequent lectures were held – for example on the evenings of January 24 and 25, 1828, a Mr Dalton delivered lectures on the steam engine and illustrated them with 16 working models.

From a small beginning the movement had by the end of 1833 raised £450 to build its own institute. Several plans for a building were submitted and the most expensive at £580 was accepted. The decision to choose the more expensive plan was made because this proposal included shops that would be built under the institute and would bring in an anticipated income of £60 per year. The shortfall of £130 was to be raised by the sale of shares. A plot of land was acquired in North Street, at the junction with Bow Street, and on Monday March 31, 1834, about 100 members processed from the National School to the site where the Rev Theodore Drury laid the foundation stone. After the ceremony the members returned to the National School where William Fox of the Lord Rodney provided a substantial dinner. The Rev Drury concluded the after-dinner speeches and expressed his hopes that “brilliant talents might be called forth” from the new institute, concluding that Joseph Haydn, the musical composer, was the son of a wheelwright; John Opie, a renowned portrait painter, was the son of a carpenter; and William Herschell, the astronomer, had been a “common soldier”.

The institute was available to all for study and whilst small subscription fees were sought, many lectures were free. By the 1860s the institute had outgrown its premises and finance was raised to build a new and grander building. The site chosen was on the corner of North Street and Cavendish Street. The new Mechanics was opened in 1870 and included a School of Art and a Trades School.

The Mechanics Institute was the forerunner of the Keighley Technical College which merged with Park Lane College, Leeds, in 2007 and is now part of Leeds City College. The original building on the corner of Bow Street became the Yorkshire Penny Bank and still had a shop in the basement up to its demolition in the 1960s. The new Mechanics sadly was badly damaged by a fire in 1962 and demolished in 1967.