Longer than the other campus tours, this visit will take us away from Oxford Road to the northern end of the University’s long, loosely contiguous campus: we will visit what were historically quite distinct parts of the city’s teaching and research facilities, and which should be of particular interest to historians of technical education.

Depending on conditions, we may visit the 1856 building of the Mechanics Institute, later a Technical school, which housed the founding meeting of the Trades Union Congress in 1868. We will focus, however on the grand 1902 building of the Manchester Technical College, modelled on German Polytechnics – including the wonderfully chauvinistic stained glass windows in the Great Hall.

To the south of this building stand the distinctive white modernist structures which accommodated the expansion of the ‘Tech’, after the Second World War, into an exclusively university-level institution which gained a world reputation: UMIST, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Avowedly independent, in most respects, from the (Victoria) University of Manchester on Oxford Road, UMIST was nevertheless brought into a merger with its neighbour in 2004, creating the UK’s largest single-site University campus.

The walk will be led by Professor John Pickstone, emeritus, founding Director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, and advisor on university heritage.

There is no charge for this walk. Numbers will be limited, so please register in advance. You can do this at any time before the Congress by emailing tours@ichstm2013.com with your details; or you can sign up in person at the Congress Events Desk.