of the College may from time to time direct”—a sapient amendment which made little or no essential difference when the inclusion of women came to be dealt with as a practical question. The Owens College Extension Act received the royal assent in July 1870. The foundation-stone of the first block of the new buildings was laid by the Duke of Devonshire, the first President of the Owens College, on September 23, 1870. The design of the chemical laboratories was wholly inspired by Roscoe, after a careful examination of every continental example that might furnish suggestions concerning internal arrangements and fittings, the details being admirably carried out by the late Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A. It is not too much to say that these laboratories have served as models for practically every chemical laboratory which has been subsequently built in this country or abroad. Roscoe’s interest in the new buildings was not by any means exclusively confined to his own department. As a member of the building committee he took an active and leading part in its work generally. The position he thus acquired may be illustrated by the following story. When Principal Greenwood was asked how many master-keys would be needed by the staff, he replied: “Three: one for me because I’m Principal; one for Ward as Pro-Principal, and one for Roscoe because he is Roscoe.” The actual incorporation of John Owens’s trust within the scheme of the extended College could only be effected with the sanction of the Charity Commissioners. There was no difficulty in the trustees of the original College and the governors of the enlarged institution coming to an agreement. The difficulty was raised by the Charitable Trusts Commissioners, and it again arose on the question of the “eternal feminine,” the inclusion of women being held to be a departure from the expressed objects of Owens’s foundation. After a lengthy correspondence this and certain other points raised by the Commissioners were adjusted, when a Confirming Bill was introduced into Parliament; it passed through both Houses and received the royal assent in July 1871. The Owens College was now free to develop towards that consummation to which all friends of education desired it should proceed. It had gradually enlarged the scheme of its studies so as to include nearly every department of learning, other than theology, professed at the older universities. It was inevitable therefore that sooner or later it should seek for university powers. That this was to be its goal was clearly foreseen by all who were actively engaged in its extension. The main difference of opinion was as to whether the time was opportune. Many distinguished friends of the College, who had watched its development, were of opinion in the late ’seventies that it had already attained a university position, and that steps should then be taken to make it the university of Manchester.