The idea of a Manchester university was not by any means new. It was as old, indeed, as 1640, when Henry Fairfax, Rector of Ashton-under-Lyne, moved his brother, the second Lord Fairfax, to petition the Long Parliament “for an university to be erected at Manchester, as the want of an university in the northern parts of this kingdom, both in this and former ages, hath been apprehended a great prejudice to the kingdom in general, but a greater misery and unhappiness to these countries in particular, many ripe and hopeful wits being utterly lost for want of education, some being unable, others unwilling, to commit their children of tender and unsettled age so far from their own eyes, to the sole care and tuition of strangers.” Lord Fairfax replied that this could not be done except by a Bill in Parliament, “which will be a charge of one hundred marks at least [£66 13s. 4d.], too much to be hazarded on so great an uncertainty.” The successive stages in the growth of this conception are given in Mr. Joseph Thompson’s “History of Owens College.” These can only be shortly indicated here. The establishment of a university at Manchester was boldly advocated in 1829 by Mr. W. R. Whatton, who contemplated the alteration and extension of the plan of the existing Royal Institution for the purpose, and drew up a scheme of higher education on a wide and liberal basis. Mr. Whatton combated the objections which were raised with considerable skill, but the “religious difficulty” got mixed up with the controversy: it proved insurmountable and nothing came of the project. In 1836, Mr. H. L. Jones read a paper before the Manchester Statistical Society on a plan of a university for the town of Manchester, which was subsequently published in pamphlet form at the expense of the late Mr. James Heywood, F.R.S., a well-known Manchester worthy. Mr. Jones, who was a member of the University of Cambridge, was a strong advocate of university reform and of the principle of introducing university culture into the larger industrial centres, in a form suited to the intellectual needs of modern life. An attempt was made to put the scheme into effect, but it died of inanition in a few months. It is, however, interesting to note that many details of Mr. Jones’s plan foreshadowed what were subsequently adopted in the arrangements of John Owens’s foundation. Naturally the idea eventually centred itself in this institution. The language of the local newspaper Press in the early days of the College, even when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb, clearly indicates what was the hope and aspiration of the more public-spirited and thoughtful of the community. As the College grew and prospered, their hope was strengthened and their aspiration encouraged by friends of education from the older universities like Freeman the historian, by men of science like Lord Kelvin, Huxley, and Brodie, and by public men like Lord Bryce and the late Lord Avebury.