John Owens was described as possessing a good deal of hard-headedness and practical common sense, a keen buyer and a good payer, very methodical in his habits and operations, and who acted up to his favourite motto, _Honestas optima politia_. He was a staunch Dissenter and a “stalwart” Radical, a shy, silent man, known only to a few intimates, a misogamist, if not actually a misogynist, of no great intellectual ability, and with few cultured tastes, nor, so far as can be gathered, particularly friendly to learning. There is reason to believe that his first intention was to leave the greater part of his fortune to his lifelong friend and former schoolfellow, George Faulkner, a well-known and prosperous Manchester merchant, who in declining it appears to have suggested the idea of founding a college in Manchester. The suggestion took root. In developing it Owens seems to have been mainly moved by a feeling of bitterness against a system which imposed subscription to articles and creeds on a young man before he could be admitted to the ancient Universities. He was determined to break down this injustice so far as he was able; he therefore made the trust subject to “the fundamental and immutable rule and condition … that the students, professors, teachers, and other officers and persons connected with the said institution shall not be required to make any declaration as to, or submit to any test whatsoever of, their religious opinions, and that nothing shall be introduced in the matter or mode of education or instruction in reference to any religious or theological subject which shall be reasonably offensive to the conscience of any student, or of his relations, guardians, or friends, under whose immediate care he shall be.”[3] John Owens died, unmarried, in July 1846, at the age of fifty-five. Mr. George Faulkner, who had been named as one of the executors, proceeded to carry out the provisions of the will. The estate took some years to realize, and the accounts were not finally closed until 1857, when the total sum received for the purposes of the college amounted to £96,942—not a very large amount considered as endowment, but still sufficient, viewed from the standpoint of the middle of last century, to enable a modest start to be made, with prudent management on the part of the trustees, and a reasonable amount of sympathy and goodwill on the part of the community that was to be benefited.