by. HIS MAJESTY THE KING
Address by the Mayor (Aid. E. HUNTSMAN)
Speech by His Majesty the King
IT is in a little room in the Friends' Meeting
House of 1798, whereFoxandSingletbn taught working women in the first Adult School, that the history of the movement to provide Nottingham with a People's University really begins. Up through the Bromley House Library, the ' Operatives' Libraries ' in the biggest public-houses in the town, the Mechanics' Institution and the People's Colleges, the movement climbed and grew. Then, in 1873, the University Extension system was brought to Nottingham, and four years later the foundation stone of the present University College was laid.
Backed by the Corporation, the College thrived. After the war, students flooded it, and the scheme for a great University of the East Midlands came into being. At this stage Sir Jesse Boot comes into the story-a benefactor as munificent as any such scheme has ever had. To him is due the acquisition of Highfields Park where the new University College buildings will be opened by the King today. Here have risen great halls and libraries, class-rooms and laboratories, hostels, swimming-baths, and playing-fields; a city of education whose great central buildings, nobly designed by Mr. Morley Horder , boldly proclaim that here in the heart of the industrial Midlands the great cause of learning has found a worthy and a permanent home.