History
In 1901 industrialist Alfred Bolton acquired a 2-acre (8,100 m2) site on what is now College Road and in 1906 mining classes began there. By 1907 teaching of pottery classes followed, being transferred from Tunstall into temporary buildings. In 1914 the building now known as the Cadman Building was officially opened as the Central School of Science and Technology by Rt. Hon J A Pease MP, President of the Board of Education. A frieze over the entrance depicts potters and miners.
In 1915 a department was established for the commercial production of Seger cones (used to measure and control the temperatures of ceramic furnaces) based upon research completed by the principal, Dr Joseph Mellor. Grants from the Carnegie UK Trust, the second in 1924, were used to develop the ceramics library and in 1926 the name of the institution was changed to North Staffordshire Technical College. By 1931 extensions to the Cadman Building ran along Station Road and housed the Mining Department. A grant was awarded from the Miners’ Welfare Fund to fund the building work. The new extension also housed the library, which by now had 35,000 volumes. By 1934 the college consisted of four departments: Engineering (nearly 800 students), Pottery (just over 600 students), Mining (just under 500 students), and Chemistry (under 300 students).
In 1939 new engineering workshops were occupied for the first time and the land opposite the Cadman Building was purchased. By 1950 Victoria Road changed its name to College Road and the site now extended over 12 acres (49,000 m2). The Mellor Building and ‘Experimental Production Block’ (now Dwight Building) were constructed giving the North Staffordshire College of Technology by 1960.
Various faculty movements and further building work resulted in North Staffordshire Polytechnic being formed in 1971 with the merger of Stoke-on-Trent College of Art, North Staffordshire College of Technology (both based in Stoke-on-Trent), and Staffordshire College of Technology in Stafford. The Polytechnic later (in 1977) absorbed a teacher training facility in Madeley.
The Polytechnic was able to develop traditional strengths of the component institutions, e.g. ceramics (Stoke-on-Trent), computing (Stafford) and sports education (Madeley). However, the mining department closed as result of the decline of coal mining in the 1980s. New subjects were developed, for example, in the 1970s North Staffordshire Polytechnic was amongst only a handful of third-level institutions in the UK to offer International Relations as a dedicated degree. The 1992 UK government Research Assessment Exercise placed the International Relations Department as the highest-rated in the institution.
In September 1988 the institution changed its name to Staffordshire Polytechnic. In 1992 it became Staffordshire University, one of the New Universities.
Read more about this topic: Staffordshire University
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