Archive Item of the Month – September 2011
27th September 2011
Last week saw a busy induction week across all three campuses at the University of Gloucestershire, with new students moving into halls of residence, getting to know their surroundings and making new friends. Our archive item of the month for September is one of our earliest year group photographs, the new intake of men at Cheltenham Training College in 1862. Taken outside the South Porch at FCH, the cohort of 27 is dwarfed by the c.2600 who arrived at university last week.
The Cheltenham Training College was opened in 1847 as a Church of England teacher training college. It admitted both male and female students, although these lived and were taught separately from each other until well into the twentieth century. The present day University of Gloucestershire traces its roots back to this institution and further still to the various mechanics institutes established in the county in the 1830s. Today, the University is obliged to continue providing education and religious studies courses, a direct consequence of our collective heritage.