Working Men’s College

A place I’ve walked/driven past a few times over the years, the imposing red-brick Edwardian building in Crowndale Road, close to Mornington Crescent, is the Working Mens’ College -  the oldest surviving adult education institute in Europe.

Founded in 1854, the College was associated with the Cooperative Movement and the Christian

WMC, Crowndale Rd, Camden

Socialists. Its purpose: to provide a liberal education for Victorian skilled artisans. Early supporters of both this and the Working Women’s College, (founded in 1864 and merged with WMC in 1967) included John Stuart Mill, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Ford Maddox Brown, Walter de la Mare and Octavia Hill. 

Great Ormond St premises

Original entrance

The College’s original premises was in Red Lion Square, later moving to Great Ormond Street. The current building, designed by WD Caroe in a mix of Classic and Arts & Crafts styles, opened in 1905 and was the first purpose-built premises for the study of non-vocational subjects. The original main entrance is a splendid Wren-style stone portal, but today access is through a new main entrance created in 2012.

The physical structure of the new building was designed to reflect that found within university colleges, with large common spaces, a library, Common Room, Hall, and Museum. There was no separate staff room. There were originally two Common Rooms – the current one features plaster ceiling mouldings and Georgian fireplaces brought from the Great Ormond St building. Specialist rooms such as science labs, art and craft studios, lecture theatre and a gymnasium were added in the 1930s, reflecting a desire to provide a broader educational experience.

WMC library

 The Library, with its attractive barrel-vaulted             ceiling, is modelled on Wren’s library at Trinity   College, Cambridge, where Caroe was an   undergraduate. 

Ruskin Art Room

The Ruskin Art Room, a sizeable light-flooded space with a high curved ceiling and huge semi-circular east window, is named after the writer and art critic John Ruskin who taught at the college.

Grade II-listed since the 1960s, today’s WMC is a flourishing centre of educational and leisure classes for men and women. Both this building and another WMC centre in nearby Kentish Town serve the needs of adults needing to achieve formal qualifications to find work, those who wish to learn for personal enjoyment and wellbeing, and those who have retired from full-time work but who wish to remain active and involved in the local community. It provides daytime, evening, weekend, short and year-long courses in art, applied arts, humanities, languages, computing and basic education.

In its 2013 Ofsted inspection, WMC was rated as "outstanding”, the first College in London to be rated so highly. 

References:

WMC website: https://www.wmcollege.ac.uk/                                                                                                                          Photo of Great Ormond St premises courtesy of the author - Davies, J. Llewelyn (1904) The Working Men’s College 1854-1904 Macmillan and co. P. 280, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15283720