Following the demise of the
Birmingham Philosophical Institution, founded 1800, which was wound up in 1852, the Birmingham & Midland Institute was founded in 1854 under the
Birmingham and Midland Institute Act 1854 (
17 & 18 Vict. c. xci) "for the Diffusion and Advancement of Science, Literature and Art amongst all Classes of Persons resident in Birmingham and the Midland Counties", as the council had rejected the
Free Libraries and Museums Act 1850. The principal promoter of the project was
Arthur Ryland, while others prominent in its establishment included
George Dixon,
John Jaffray, and
Charles Tindal. The Institute commissioned architect
Edward Middleton Barry to design a building next to the
Town Hall in
Paradise Street. The
foundation stone was laid by
Prince Albert in November 1855. With the building half-completed, in January 1860, the first public museum was opened in the Institute. Immediately the Council reversed its decision, and adopting the Act, negotiated with the Institute to buy the rest of the site. The other half of the planned building (up to
Edmund Street) was completed by
William Martin using the intended façade but redesigned behind. The municipal
Public Library opened in 1866, but burned down during the building of an extension in 1879. Exhibitions of art were moved from the Institute to
Aston Hall during rebuilding. In 1881
John Henry Chamberlain (architect and Honorary Secretary of the Institute) completed an extension to the Institute, in the gothic style. When the premises at Paradise Street were demolished, in 1965 as part of the redevelopment of the city centre, the Institute moved to 9 Margaret Street. Margaret Street was originally the home of the private Birmingham Library, but it became part of the Midland Institute in 1956, when members voted for it to be subsumed into the Institute. The Birmingham Library premises were built in 1899 to the designs of architects
Jethro Cossins, F. B. Peacock and Ernest Bewley, and is now a Grade II*
listed building. A
blue plaque on this building commemorates
Albert Ketèlbey, who studied at the
Birmingham School of Music when it was part of the Institute.
Charles Dickens was an early president after giving recitals in the
Town Hall to raise funds. The Institute contains the 100,000 volumes of the Birmingham Library, founded in 1779. In 1876, the subject of "phonography" (or
Pitman shorthand) was introduced to the Institute. During the first session,
Marie Bethell Beauclerc, the first female shorthand reporter in England, taught 90 students. By 1891, there were over 300 students, predominately male, attending her phonography classes. A School of Metallurgy was set up in the Institute by G. H. Kenrick in 1875. This was spun-out from the Institute in 1895 as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School, now
Aston University. ==Weather recording==