Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society


The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society is an educational, cultural and scientific charity, as well as a local arts and cinema venue, based in Falmouth, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The Society exists to promote innovation in the arts and sciences.

History

In 1832 the Fox family.
a prominent Quaker business family of Falmouth, founded the Cornwall Polytechnic Society, to promote the ideas and inventions of the workers in their Perran Foundry. This was the first use of the word ‘Polytechnic’ in Britain.
In 1835 King William IV bestowed Royal Patronage on the Society, at the request of Davies Gilbert and it changed its name from the Cornwall Polytechnic Society to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society.
In the same year the Polytechnic Hall was built, at 24 Church Street, Falmouth, being originally used for “objects connected with the sciences, arts and literature”, but not for theatrical purposes. This restriction was removed in 1889 to permit “dramatic plays”. The building was designed by George Wightwick.
By 1837, the Society had local Committees in Falmouth & Penryn, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, St. Day & Chacewater, Helston, Penzance & Marazion, Hayle, St. Austell & Fowey, Liskeard and Bodmin, as well as a Ladies Committee. In all, there were 98 committee members.
The Society played a prominent role in industrial development in the 19th century, being instrumental in the development of the “Man engine” in mines also improved drilling machinery, mine ventilation, the health and welfare of fishermen and miners – and explosives. At the 1865 Exhibition a first Silver Medal was awarded for Nobel’s nitro-glycerine, following a demonstration at Falmouth docks in which a wrought iron anvil of about three hundredweight was blown up by a small quantity, and a larger quantity scattered from forty to fifty tons of rock. Prentice's gun cotton was also demonstrated.
In 1858 the Society founded The Miners Association to better aid the mining industry.
The first Secretary to the Poly was Thomas Brown Jordan, followed by William Westcott Rundell.
In 1840, Jordan was succeeded as Secretary by Robert Hunt, who both organised the programme of Exhibitions and Lectures and gave fascinating lectures himself.
The Society benefitted from the availability of "star" scientific and technical speakers in its Lecture Programmes, thanks to the network of friends of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S. and his brother Charles Fox. The presentation of the cutting edge of scientific knowledge resulted in large and enthusiastic audiences.
The Society has had many notable presidents including the novelist Howard Spring who lived in Falmouth from 1947 to 1965 and served for eight years.

Notable people

Notable members and others associated with the Poly include:
There is no serious overview of developments in the Poly from its 19th-century heyday. Peter Gilson, the Society's historian until his death in 2009, prepared a basic chronology, which is listed below. An initial judgement would be that the Society lost its scientific impetus sometime in latter decades of the 19th century, presumably reflecting the relative decline of Cornwall's economy which, in turn, was driven by relentless decline of the mining industry from the 1850s. The Society was left with a substantial building, which could be used for films and, from the mid-Century, theatrical productions. Members kept up programmes of exhibitions and lectures, but there were regular financial problems caused by the need to maintain an ageing building. During the 1950s, the author Howard Spring seems to have injected a new burst of life into the Society, and the development of Falmouth Art School meant that it was able to serve a thriving local artistic community. There were, however, growing tensions between the Artistic and more scholarly sides of the Society, which came to one particularly critical phase in 2006–10 when an ambitious attempt to develop a major commercially-driven artistic programme failed and brought the Society close to bankruptcy. A Community-led campaign to "Save Our Poly" produced a revitalisation of the Society, which now supports a varied programme of Films, Plays, Comedy, Talks, Artistic exhibitions and Local History. The Society is also the owner of the biggest collection of pictures of Henry Scott Tuke. In 2012, the Society is benefitting from the relative health of the local Falmouth economy, and from the emergence of the nearby Tremough campus of the Combined Universities of Cornwall. This means that the Poly's facilities in the heart of Falmouth are increasingly a major asset to both Town and Gown.
As far as one can tell, the Poly was not only the first Polytechnic in the English-speaking world, but has now become the last one. This is a proud history.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries, relating to the Poly