Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham: A History and Guide, Arranged AlphabeticallyHarman, Thomas T.
History
Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham: A History and Guide, Arranged Alphabetically
Harman, Thomas T.
Birmingham (England) -- History -- Dictionaries
the number of annual subscribers was 1,900, and lecture ticket-holders
838. In the Industrial Department there were 4,334 students; the
Archæological Section numbered 226 members, and the musical Section 183.
108 students attended the Laws of Health classes, 220 the Ladies
classes, and 36 the classes for preparation for matriculation. The
benefits derived from the establishment of the Midland Institute, and
the amount of useful, practical, and scientific knowledge disseminated
by means of its classes among the intelligent working men of the town
and the rising generation, is incalculable. These classes, many of which
are open at the low fee of 1d., and some others specially for females,
now include the whole of the following subjects:--English language and
literature, English history, French, German, Latin, Greek, and Spanish,
algebra, geometry, mensuration, trignometry, and arithmetic, music,
drawing, writing, English grammar, and composition, botany, chemistry,
experimental physics, practical mechanics, and metallurgy, elementary
singing, physical geography, animal physiology, geology, practical plane
and solid geometry, &c. The general position of the Institute with
regard to finance was as follows:--Gross receipts in General Department,
£3,281 5s. 6d.; expenditure in this department (including £998 1s. 6d.
deficiency at the close of the year 1882), £3,088 17s. 2d.; balance in
favour of the General Department, £192 8s. 4d. Gross receipts in
Industrial Department, £1,747 13s.; expenditure in this department,
£3,173 7s. 10d.; deficiency, £l,425 14s. 10d., met by a transfer from
the funds of the General Department. The total result of the year's
operations in both departments left a deficiency of £1,233 6s. 6d. The
amount due to bankers on the General Fund was £863 13s. 6d; and the
amount standing to the credit of the Institute on the Repairs Account is
£440 12s. 2d. It is much to be regretted that there is a total debt on
the Institute, amounting to £19,000, the paying of interest on which
sadly retards its usefulness. Many munificent donations have been made
to the funds of the Institute from time to time, one being the sum of
£3,000, given by an anonymous donor in 186[**], "in memory of Arthur
Ryland." In August, same year, it was announced that the late Mr. Alfred
Wilkes had bequeathed the bulk of his estate, estimated at about
£100,000, in trust for his two sisters during their lives, with
reversion in equal shares to the General Hospital and the Midland
Institute, being a deferred benefaction of £50,000 to each.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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