The Old Art College and The Generator Loughborough

Dr Jill Vincent will be a familiar figure to many of you. Although I have known of her for many years, it is only quite recently, since I have become rather more vocal about Loughborough's history, that our paths have crossed more frequently. Jill is a supporter of many local initiatives, but it is in her capacity as one of the Directors of The Generator that she writes the following piece, full of history, heritage, and hope, for which I thank her very much. 

Old Art College (left) Generator Building (right)

The Old Art College and The Generator Loughborough

This article has been written by Dr Jill Vincent, one of the Directors of The Generator, the other directors being David Pagett-Wright (Chair), Andy Harper, and Roger Perrett, with Jonathan Hale (Company Secretary).  

Introduction

This story must begin with the transformation of a Leicestershire market town by the industrial revolution, and continue with the development of Loughborough College under Herbert Schofield. 

In the mid to late C19 major engineering industries were established in Loughborough: factory-based knitwear and textiles (e.g. Wm Cotton, Towles Ltd), John Taylor & Co Bell Foundry, and heavy industry such as Brush Electrical Engineering Co and Herbert Morris Ltd, cranes and lifting tackle.  At the same time, people came to work in the newly established industries.  In 1871 Loughborough’s population was 11,588; thirty years later in 1901 it had nearly doubled to 21,508.

The Brush, Loughborough, adjacent to a railway line

Part of the Herbert Morris factory on Empress Road

Part of the John Taylor & Co bellfoundry works

The application and development of the many scientific discoveries of the C19 that gave rise to the industries meant that industrial workers needed knowledge that could only be supplied through technical education.  The County Education Committee and its Director (W.A. Brockington) [1] acknowledged and supported this.

The Technical Institute (on the corner of Green Close Lane and Ashby Road, now the site of a Sainsbury supermarket) was set up as an administration and educational centre in 1909.  It co-ordinated the evening classes held in the town and district.

Dr Herbert Schofield, an inspirational educationalist, was appointed Principal in 1915.  Under his guidance, education and training were revolutionised.  He believed that education and training should be as near to real life industrial conditions as possible, with modern equipment.  He set about creating a college to ‘reflect his own idiosyncratic views on higher education and his genius for improvising and capitalising on opportunities … a high-level academic institution devoted to the study of science and technology, it must reject the traditional university approach to these subjects and be firmly based on ‘Training on Production’.’  (Len Cantor)

These principles guided developments throughout.

During the 1914/18 war, the Technical Institute responded to the needs of the war effort with practical training for men and women.  Indeed, its development was accelerated, with substantial enlargement of engineering workshops and new machinery, expanding into training for tool setters, fitters, and gauge-makers. 

In 1918, Schofield renamed the institution Loughborough College.

Following the war, the range of high-level courses widened to include Mechanical Engineering, Electric and Automotive Engineering, Chemical Technology, Civil Engineering & Commerce, Law & Economics.  They were influential in establishing an active cultural and social life among the students.  The Instructional Factory also trained workers in carpentry, welding, and gauge-making. 

College departments were set up in various locations in the town centre, including Ashby Road, Green Close Lane, William Street, Frederick Street, and Orchard Street.  They were later described as ‘scattered and frequently makeshift premises’. 

We come now to the developments that gave rise to the buildings currently known as the Old Art College and The Generator Loughborough. 

First, is the construction of the generators.

The ‘U-Boats Episode’

(This account follows that given by the students in their almanac.  It exemplifies Schofield’s genius for improvising and capitalising on opportunities and for ‘Training on Production’)

‘In which J.F.B. Driver, a member of staff, and 25 students went to HM Dockyard at Portsmouth and Devonport, where they were invited to take such gear as they could from four German U-Boats that had been captured in the war.  They removed apparatus that included engines, dynamos, motors, compressors, fans, switchgear, and batteries.

The engines were rebuilt at the College without the aid of drawings or instructions of any kind.  They adapted, rebuilt, and converted parts.  The first engine was started up in 1924 in an old wooden hut on Packe Street.

The switchboard was also designed and built with switches, circuit breakers, instruments, and regulating resistances that had been liberated from the submarines.’ [S1]

The generators built by the students provided electricity to all the scattered College buildings, without interruption, until they were replaced in 1949.  The story goes that on one occasion, Loughborough’s electricity supply failed, and the town was in darkness, but the College buildings were still lit.

The generators were housed in a wooden building that was originally intended for car washing at the back of the automobile repair shop, itself in temporary buildings on Frederick Street.  The batteries were in a divided off portion of the College Instructional Garage.

The Old Art College and The Generator Loughborough

In 1934 the new Garage Block on Frederick Street was begun.  It is a substantial, art deco, four-storey brick building.  We now know it as the Old Art College.

In true Schofield fashion, training was provided by practical instruction.

The Automobile repair and reconditioning shop was on the ground floor.

The first floor was devoted to practical instruction in hosiery, in a Finishing and Making Up Laboratory, and in a Machine Laboratory.  Machinery was supplied by local manufacturers and machine builders such as Blackburn and Sons, PA Bentley, Wm Cotton, and Towles Ltd.

The second floor housed a Textile Testing House and Dyeing Laboratory.  It provided practical instruction for students and also a commercial service for local hosiery manufacturers and dyers.  Much of the plant and machinery was financed by Cllr W. Bastard (who also donated the Bastard Gate on the site of the current University campus). [2]

The top floor held the Handicraft Workshop, Department for the Training of Teachers.  Students supplied their own tools and toolboxes and made the furniture for their college accommodation.  Training in woodwork and metalwork was done in the general workshops of the College, with design, drawing, and construction carried out in the workshop.  The course was led by two of the foremost proponents of the Cotswold School, Peter Waals and Edward Barnsley.

The ground floor automobile repair shop, now a cafe, reproduced with kind permission of LU Archives and Directors of The Generator

Students at work in the Handicraft Workshop, reproduced with kind permission of LU Archives and Directors of The Generator

Building the Generating Station presented serious difficulties as the new building was erected around the existing wooden structure, which was dismantled bit by bit. The electricity supply was maintained, uninterrupted, day and night.

The new Generating Station and Garage Block were officially opened in 1937 by Charles Day MSc, MIMechEng, Past President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.  The electricity that was generated provided power (Direct Current) for Loughborough College; the surplus was sold to the National Grid (converted to Alternating Current).

The Generator building, showing black and white tiled floor, reproduced with kind permission of LU Archives and Directors of The Generator

The same black and white floor tiles photographed in March 2023

The 1944 Education Act put a brake on entrepreneurial/maverick developments, bringing Further Education provision under the control of the County Council and the Ministry of Education.  Proper planning and rationalisation had to be undertaken.  The move from central town sites to the ‘playing field’ (current) site began in earnest.

The College was reorganised into separate institutions, namely Lboro College of Technology, Lboro Training College, Lboro College of Further Education and Lboro College of Art & Design.   Further Education and Art & Design remained in the town centre.  Over time, the College institutions moved onto the campus, becoming a College of Advanced Technology, a University of Technology, and finally Loughborough University, the world-class University we know today. 

Art & Design was different: it mostly moved to purpose-built accommodation on the campus in the late 1960s, but remained independent until 1998 when it was reconstituted as Loughborough University School of Art and Design (LUSAD).  The Foundation programme, later replaced by Graphic Communication & Illustration, moved into the Garage Block, referred to as the Foundation building and the Generator Gallery.  The name ‘Loughborough College Generator Gallery’ is etched into the stonework on the Packe Street elevation.   Degree shows, exhibitions by ArtSpace group of local artists and events run by Charnwood Arts opened The Generator to a wider audience.

No courses were run in the building after 2011.  It was used as storage by the Library for a while, and was then declared surplus to need by the University. 

In 2014 a group led by Kevin Ryan, CEO of Charnwood Arts, was formed with a vision to take over the whole building to provide an arts and culture hub serving all Loughborough’s communities.  It would provide a home for Charnwood Arts, incubator space and support for creative enterprises, rehearsal and performance space, meeting rooms and workshops … and so on.  The group comprised committed representatives from Charnwood Arts, Love Loughborough BID, Creative Leicestershire, the Studio at Loughborough University, and Charnwood Borough Council.  It was constituted as a Community Interest Company (CIC) in 2015.  We tried for some years to gain adequate public sector funding to attain our vision; our project was greeted enthusiastically but the funding did not follow.

The University waited patiently while we struggled but eventually gave us a deadline of a year, after which they would put it on the market.  So, in 2019 we went out to tender, seeking a partner who would share our vision and would take over the Old Art College building while we kept The Generator.   We found Our Neighbourhood and bought the building from the University, who contributed to the vision by agreeing a discount on the sale price in view of the proposed use.  Our Neighbourhood is a private sector concern so they could act fast to create the Old Art College, with Public, the thriving coffee shop with plants and bread making on the ground floor, and creative sector tenants on the upper floors.

We have The Generator.  Our vision stands.  We will be the arts and culture hub that Loughborough needs and we are very nearly there, with funding from the Town Deal and a range of sources.  Tenders for the building works knocked us back a bit, as of course inflation has hit the building trades hard, but we are at RIBA stage 4, and are applying for (public sector) funds to bridge the final gap.  Once the builders are in, it will take a year for the works to be completed, so fingers crossed we will open early 2025.

Inside The Generator building March 2023

The Generator building photographed in March 2023

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Notes

[1] William Alport Brockington was honoured with an OBE in 1917, and a CBE in 1928. He was knighted in 1946.

[2] William Bastard was chair of the College Governors and donated the Bastard Gates on Ashby Road to the college. You can read more about those gates in 'Loughborough in 50 Buildings'. Bastard is not to be confused with Frank Bastert, a German-born, naturalised British citizen who with Herbert Morris formed the company Herbert Morris & Bastert in 1884 in Sheffield, the company later moving to Empress Road Loughborough, after the pair had split.  

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About Jill

During her career, Jill has combined her interest in the arts with work teaching and researching social policy, and active engagement in politics and the voluntary and community sector.

She studied fine art at St Martins, then had a break for children and family, before returning to study at Loughborough Uni (Sociology and Political Science), and then gaining a PhD from Nottingham Uni.

Jill worked for the Open University and as a researcher at the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough Uni. Her employment and commitment to social issues complemented each other nicely. She was a Borough Councillor for 16 years, spending the final year as Mayor; Jill has been a Trustee at John Storer Charnwood and Equality Action (where she is still actively involved) and a Governor at Loughborough College (where she is now a co-opted member).

Jill's interest in the arts is a thread running through her life. She worked in Arts in Prisons research and provision, and with Kevin Ryan at Charnwood Arts. She was a member of ACE East Midlands Arts Board. She was awarded an Honorary Degree by Loughborough University in 2012.

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Sources

S1:

Cantor L. M. and Matthews G. F. (1997) Loughborough: from College to University, A History of Higher Education at Loughborough 1909 – 1966. Loughborough University of Technology

S2:

Loughborough College Past Students’ Association (1957) The History of Loughborough College 1915 – 1952, Past Students’ Association of Loughborough College

Thanks are extended to Jenny Clark, University Archivist, now retired, for information from the university archive, and for permission to reproduce the photographs.

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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