History
Engineering firms Peter Brotherhood and Baker Perkins relocated to Peterborough just after 1900 and by the 1930s British Thomson-Houston (which became Hotpoint), Newall Engineering and Mitchell Engineering were well established. Peterborough was already an important railway centre providing a great deal of work for the populace, but with all this industry there was no local provision for training.
In 1903 the County Technical School was set up in a small building in Broadway in the city centre with boys studying mathematics, science, technical drawing and some technological subjects. Girls studied a programme for employment in commerce. This was closed in 1926 to save money. Some technical classes did continue but were held as evening classes at Deacon's Grammar School, other schools and the Broadway building.
With the onset of the war in 1939 the major engineering firms had to expand to produce munitions and other vital military equipment. The demand for skilled men, and also now for women, escalated but there was nothing in the education or training field to cope with this demand. The industrial expansion continued but it wasn't until 1944 that the Soke of Peterborough Education Committee established Advisory Committees for Engineering and Building and reorganised courses into the Senior Evening Institute of Commercial and Technical Students, Junior Evening Institute and Adult Institute. Classes were held all over the city but in 1946 temporary premises were erected on land in Garton End Road to provide space for engineering subjects. Pressure from local firms with education and training policies resulted in the Education Committee supporting a plan for Peterborough Technical College, initially at the Garton End Road site.
The separate Adult Education Institute became Peterborough College of Adult Education in 1970 when it moved to its own premises on Brook Street.
In 1952 the first instalment of the new, purpose built Eastfield site opened. In the following years four more building instalments were made and the developments were the result of an almost unique collaboration between the firms of the area, the county council and the Principal and Governors of the College.
In 1987 The Tech was renamed Peterborough Regional College and in 1993 it became a Corporation under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, with new branding and a range of degrees validated by leading universities.
Read more about this topic: Peterborough Regional College
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