Staffordshire University has one main campus based in the city of Stoke-on-Trent. They also have two Centres of Excellence in Healthcare Education, located in Stafford and Shrewsbury.
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"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. In 1907, pottery classes followed, being transferred from Tunstall into temporary buildings, and in 1914 the building now known as the Cadman Building was officially opened as the Central School of Science and Technology by J. A. Pease, President of the Board of Education.
A frieze over the entrance depicts potters and miners." Source: (
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The extensive frieze is situated above the main entrance to The Cadman Building in College Road.
The frieze is split into three sections illustrating the industries of Stoke-on-Trent - (pottery manufacture and mining) and the Sciences.
On the left side of the frieze there are four miners depicted with the tools of their trade, a railway cart, pickaxes and a Davy lamp.
On the right side there are four potters, three men and a woman are depicted with a potters wheel, kiln and finished vases.
In the central panel a seated female figure in Classical dress holds a book open on her lap possibly representing Learning, a child stands at her side. On her left and right sides stand two female figures, beside them are chemistry apparatus and a set of scales respectively."
"Neville Malkin 25th August 1976 describes the building as follows;
This neo-classical facade in College Road, Stoke, is the main entrance to the North Staffordshire Polytechnic, previously known as the North Staffordshire College of Technology.
The history of the college can be traced back to 1869, when the first organised science classes in the Potteries were held at the Wedgwood Institute, Burslem. In the 1870s several of the other towns introduced courses in higher education, but it was not until the last decades of the century that serious consideration was given to establishing a school on a central site. In the 1890s a movement was instigated to build a North Staffordshire College which could provide adequate education in a properly staffed and thoroughly equipped school, worthy of the industry in the area.
From 1900 to 1906 there existed a private association called the Council for the Extension of Higher Education, whose job it was to promote such a college. In 1905, the County Council agreed to find £12,000 towards the cost if matching funds were forthcoming from private sources. Shortly before his death in December, 1901, Mr. A. S. Bolton, of Oakamoor, Chairman of the Council for the Extension of Higher Education, purchased a site of two acres close to Stoke Station for purposes of higher education.
His two sons declared that the site would be given to the City as soon as there was any prospect of a suitable building being erected. In November, 1910, following Federation, the Education Committee of the new Stoke-on-Trent County Borough was established and received from the Bolton brothers a formal offer of the site, which was accepted. It was agreed that Stoke-on-Trent should pay two-thirds and the county one-third of the cost of the new school, and that the annual maintenance costs should be divided according to the relative number of students from each authority.
The plans for the building were by John Hutchings and S. B. Ashworth, architects of the two respective education committees, and the work carried out by Thomas Godwin, of Hanley. The cost was in excess of £30,000.
The building was known as the Central School of Science and Technology, and contained large chemistry and physics laboratories, a large pottery laboratory, an analysis room, a grinding room, classrooms and lecture rooms, and other accommodation, while also providing for mining classes."
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