page_title: Owen Roberts (educator)
section_title: Career and later life
hierarchical_section_title: Owen Roberts (educator) / Career and later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: nature5918981899lock (find matches) Title: Nature Year: 1869 (1860s) Authors: Lockyer, Norman, Sir, 1836-1920. edt Subjects: Science Science Sciences Biologie Physique Natuurwetenschappen CIENCIA NATURAL HISTORY BIOLOGY SCIENCE Publisher: (London, etc., Macmillan Journals Ltd., etc.) Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: ther sources. grants made by the Technical Education Board of the LondonCounty Council. The income of the Northern Polytechnic is made up asfollows: (I) the amount, previously mentioned, received underthe City Parochial Charities; (2) special grants made by theCentral Governing Body, up to the present amounting to about500/. per annum&#160;; (3) grants from the Technical EducationBoard, amounting for the session 1897-8 to 1900/.&#160;; (4) grantsfor attendance, or on the results of examinations, made by theScience and ,\rt I )cpartment and the City and (luilds of LondonInstitute, but which, in the absence as yet of a complete work-ing year, cannot be exactly estimated&#160;; (5) students fees, which,for the last working year amounted to 1300/,&#160;; (6) fees receivedfor hire of the large hall, and private subscriptions. The more important items of expenditure are—salaries andwages, 4100/.&#160;; fuel, light, and water, 500/.&#160;; advertising,printing, stationery, and postage, 500/.&#160;; rates and insurance,200/. Text Appearing After Image: Subscriptions to the amount of 25,000/. were secured for thatpurpose, largely from private sources, but chiefly through themunificence of the Clothworkers Company, and a site was ob-tained in the llolloway Road. Plans for the erection of aninstitute were prepared in 1893, but, in the first place, only thebuildings necessary for educational purposes were erected. Thecost of the site was 8500/., and its total area is about one and aquarter acres. The buildings at present completed, at an e)c-penditure of 28,000/., cover some 3400 square yards of the site.Up to the present some 8000/ has been spent upon theequipment of the institute. In every department a fairly com-plete set of apparatus and fittings for elementary work wasprovided from the beginning, and instruments for more advancedwork have been added, as required, from special equipment * The reader is referred 10 Mr. Sidnej^ Webbs able paper in * SpecialKcports on Educational Subjects, vol. li., for further general informationrespe Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Sir Owen John Roberts, JP, DL, DCL, LL.D was a Welsh educationalist, who helped to pioneer technical education in London. He is also a great-grandfather of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, who was the husband of Princess Margaret.
context_section_description: Owen was appointed a director of the Improved Industrial Dwellings Association in London, and worked for many years in the Imperial Fire and Life Insurance Office.  Roberts was asked to become Clerk to the Clothworkers' Company in 1866, largely because he was a fully qualified barrister, holding the office for over 40 years and becoming Master in 1909. He helped encourage the Yorkshire College at Leeds and University College, Bristol.  A successful and active clerk he was instrumental in reviving the moribund sector.  In 1870 the Gladstonian Education Act instructed the companies to organize greater facility for women and working-classes to expand the technical abilities.  A bold plan was conceived to advance technical instruction by a triumvirate of company leaders, Sir William Sawyer (Drapers), Sir John Watson (Mercers) and Roberts himself. On New Years Eve he gained one of many such appointments as one of three Governors of the University of North Wales for a statutory period of five years.  The other two Sir Hugh Owen, and Dr Isambard Owen were well-known academics, also of Welsh descent whose national identity was intrinsic to the appointments. A regular membership of Cymmrodorion Society confirmed his own sense of welshness.
  He supported and promoted the radical idea of women's tertiary and secondary education funding scholarships to Newnham and Girton Colleges, Cambridge, as well as St Catherine's and Somerville Colleges, Oxford.  He was personally involved in the public subscriptions towards a laboratory at Newnham and in extending the sciences more generally to women.  He had an intimate connection with the Society for Promotion the Training of Women.  In 1895, although no longer honourary secretary of the Higher Education Association, he still managed to persuade the Clothworkers Hall to donate £250 towards the founding of the London School of Economics, for which the Webbs were eternally grateful.
  He was active in setting up the City and Guilds of London Institute and Somerville College, Oxford.  He was chairman of the London Polytechnic Council and a member of the governing body of Imperial College, under the auspices of the University London Act 1898, for which purposes he was a commissioner. Sir Owen was a member of the Royal Commission on Education and Training, of which no less than nine of the sixteen-man commission were knights and one peer-of-the-realm.  Through his considerable gifts of zeal and commitment, welsh lyricism he made it easier to determine how the extension of opportunity might be funded for the development of workers' education. 
  The chairman of Sir John Cass's Foundation, Sir Owen oversaw the transition from 10 Idol Lane to a new headquarters in Jewry Street in 1901.  He was also chairman of St Dunstan's Educational Foundation 1895-1915.  The secretary for both organisations was W H Davison, who was also his son-in-law.  The Edwardian era was one of immense political and social change during which Sir Owen was chairman of a number of City of London institutions.  From 1904 to 1915 he was Chairman of the City and Guilds Institute, supervising the regime for apprenticeships across London. He also served as vice-president, chairman of the council and treasurer of the Royal Society of Arts. The great scientist, Lord Kelvin "looked back with gratitude at all the many works he had done for good of the country," praising a man dedicated to the arts and education all his life, and in particular to its expansion. He promised help to the Labour movement at any available opportunity.  On 8 May 1906, during a meeting he chaired at Finsbury Technical College he pledged the commitment of the Clothworkers Company towards expanding opportunities among its young subscribers. It coincided with a New Liberal government eager to extend radical schemes, yet was utterly consistent with Sir Owen's generosity, fervour and drive to idealise education for all.
caption: Northern Polytechnic Laboratory, Nature (1898) (14594982988)
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