The committee reported, some six months after its appointment, to a special meeting of the governors, when it was resolved, with practical unanimity, that it was expedient to take such steps as might be calculated to promote the success of the proposal to seek for the Owens College a charter as a university granting degrees. A memorial was presented to the Privy Council through the Lord President of the Council (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon), praying for the grant of a charter to the College conferring upon it the rank of a university, to be called the University of Manchester, with power to grant degrees in arts, science, medicine, and law. The memorial was influentially supported by eminent men, who recapitulated the arguments which had led the governors to their decision; it was further supported by memorials from the corporations of the chief towns of Lancashire (Liverpool excepted), and from a number of public bodies and educational institutions in the county. The very success of Owens College as an educational agency in the town and district in which it was situated was, for the moment, the cause of opposition to its attempt to obtain for itself university powers. Other towns, conscious of the benefit of such institutions, were seeking to establish colleges of the type of Owens College, and which it was hoped might ultimately develop into universities. Leeds had founded the Yorkshire College in 1874. Originally started as a science college, and with special reference to the educational requirements of the industries of the district, its scope had been rapidly enlarged so as to include arts and languages. It had already established relations with the local medical school, and its development as a college was not very dissimilar from that of Owens prior to the extension movement. At that time it had upwards of four hundred students—registered occasional, medical, and evening—with some eighteen professors, instructors, and assistants, and an income from fees of about £1,500. The governing body of the Yorkshire College, and others interested in its progress, therefore viewed with some apprehension the establishment of a degree-granting body so close to its own area. The majority were not opposed to the creation of another university in the north of England, provided that the interests of their own college were safe-guarded. They desired that the charter of the contemplated university might be so modified as to admit of the inclusion of other institutions of collegiate rank which might be able to fulfil the conditions of incorporation as constituent colleges with a definite share in its government. This, indeed, was actually contemplated by the promoters of the Manchester University, but the terms of incorporation were, in the opinion of Yorkshire, not sufficiently well defined, and there were other conditions which failed to satisfy local aspirations. The friends of the young College were keen and active; the Leeds Press