3-066-016 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new University College, Nottingham, 1881. '...this admirable local institution...originated with the members and supporters of the Nottingham Mechanics' Institute...These flourished and increased so much that it seemed high time to develop the teaching arrangements into a College, more especially intended to put the benefits of liberal education and mental culture within reach of the artisan class. The Town Council of Nottingham, at the same time, wanted accommodation for their Free Library and their Natural History Aluseum...The building...has cost £70,000...its main front...is of the Gothic style...A wooden spire, covered with lead, rises above to the height of 120 ft. The interior contains a spacious library, 90 ft. long and 40 ft. wide, reference library, and reading-rooms; the Natural History Museum, in which vertebrate and invertebrate collections occupy different floors; three lecture theatres, the largest of which will accommodate six hundred persons, with chemical laboratories, an optical experiment gallery, 125 ft. long, professors' rooms, and various offices'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.