TheRoyal Victoria Gallery for the Encouragement of Practical Science was anadult education institution and exhibition gallery inVictorianManchester, a commercial enterprise intended to educate the general public aboutscience and its industrial applications.
During the 1830s, theManchester Mechanics' Institute was failing to attract students to its science lectures. On 21 March 1839, a meeting was held at the York Hotel to discuss the possibility of establishing an institution aimed solely at science education. The meeting was chaired byHugh Hornby Birley, the leader of the troops at thePeterloo Massacre in 1819, who revelealed that the project was to be based onJacob Perkins'Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science inLondon and was to:[1]
William Fairbairn,Eaton Hodgkinson andJohn Davies were all at the meeting and gave their enthusiastic support. Aprospectus was published in theManchester Guardian seeking to raisecapital through ajoint-stock company, representing the Gallery as a sound financial investment. A committee was established to create the new Gallery and included, Hodgkinson, Fairbairn, Davies andRichard Roberts, the last three, all founders of the Mechanics' Institute.[1]
Annual subscriptions were to be offered at oneguinea with two guinea family subscriptions. The admission fee was to be oneshilling, beyond the means of most of the Victorianworking class and a rival committee held a meeting on 4 April proposing a not-for-profit alternative but without realising any of their ambitions. In due course,William Sturgeon was retained as superintendent of the Gallery andQueen Victoria was prevailed upon to offer herpatronage.[1]
The Gallery opened in June 1840 in the Exchange Dining Room. The exhibition comprised artistic and scientific exhibits including:[1]
The Gallery planned lectures and demonstrations and the collection of a library was started.[1]
In February 1841, Sturgeon promotedJames Prescott Joule's first public lecture at the Gallery and the directors were sanguine about the Gallery's prospects. However, ultimately, there proved to be insufficient local people willing to pay the admission fee and the Gallery closed in 1842.[1] Joule observed:
... the indifference to pursuits of an elevated character which too frequently marks wealthy trading communities destroyed this, as it has many other useful institutions.
— Manchester Memoirs 2nd series,14 (1857) 83
The Gallery's collections were transferred, some sold, some donated, to theRoyal Manchester Institution. Sturgeon attempted to revive the concept in theManchester Institute of Natural and Experimental Science but it failed a shortly after it opened.[1]
The Gallery had been one of several similar institutions established in the 1830s and 1840s, all of which quickly closed. It has been suggested that their promoters, such as Sturgeon, had overrated the public's appetite for science and its willingness to pay. Further, "electricians" such as Sturgeon had alienated themselves from the increasingly professionalised scientific establishment represented by theRoyal Society and theRoyal Institution, denying themselves the experience and expertise in managing scientific enterprises.[3]