Falmouth Poly celebrates 175 years

7:50pm Tuesday 23rd September 2008

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One of Britain’s oldest scientific think tanks, the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, is celebrating 175 years of promoting bright ideas and technology with a three-phase celebration including launching new awards, a landmark exhibition and a new fellowship scheme.

The society, based in Falmouth, and predating London’s famous Fabian Society by more than half a century, was founded by two teenage sisters from the town, 85 years before women were even allowed to vote.

To many, the Polytechnic Hall in Falmouth's Church Street, known locally as 'the Poly', is an elegant Georgian building that is home to a thriving arts centre and cinema.

However, this historic venue is also home to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society and has been at the centre of some of the most exciting developments in science and technology since the Industrial Revolution.

It was here that Alfred Nobel made one of his first demonstrations of dynamite – causing minor damage to the building's interior while he was at it.

It was also here that the concept of the revolutionary life-saving mine-shaft lift, the 'man-engine', was incubated, here that the concept of the lifeboat that saved the lives of the survivors of the Titanic disaster was developed and it was here that Alexander Graham Bell allowed an his new-fangled telephone invention to be demonstrated.

Falmouth teenagers Caroline and Anna Maria Fox (then 17 and 13 respectively) persuaded their father, businessman Robert Were Fox, to let them set up the organisation to help incubate and make use of the ideas coming from workers at the family firm – the Perran Foundry based at Perranarworthal.

Their society captured the imagination of business leaders, scientists and engineers alike. Indeed two years after it was created, the society was granted royal patronage by King William IV.

The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society was, in effect, the “Dragon’s Den” of its day – a place where business leaders and scientists, and later artists too, could come together to discuss, share and develop ideas.

The society's work included meteorological observation and it was chosen in 1866 as a venue for one of Britain's seven meteorological observatories. Meteorology was a key interest of Anna Maria who had a passion for collecting pictures of cloud formations.

AWARDS LAUNCH As part of the 175th year celebrations, the society is relaunching a system of regular prizes for innovative young people with great ideas. It will announce in December special cash prizes to help these people develop their ideas.

FELLOWSHIP LAUNCH It will also revive another of the society's original objectives – ensuring the society remains relevant for generations to come – by a new fellowship scheme. Fellows will be invited to a wide range of lectures and discussions by great minds in science, art, politics and business from around the world.

EXHIBITION LAUNCH To share this amazing landmark with the public for whom the society, in effect, works a special exhibition has been launched. It is titled ‘Chasing Clouds – 175 Years of Achievement’, alluding to Anna Maria's passion for meteorology.

Launched on September 8, 2008, the exhibition will run for over five weeks in the main upstairs gallery of the Poly. It displays many of the inventions first conceived, tested or developed in Falmouth, in many cases more than 100 years ago. It was be opened by Robert Trench Fox, a direct descendant of founders.

On display is a revolutionary Berthon folding lifeboat, models of the man-engine, revolutionary steam engines and many more inventions and bright ideas fostered by the society. It also includes portraits, landscape paintings, sketches artefacts, notebooks and diaries.

"For 175 years the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society has been involved with the artistic, social and economic life of Cornwall.

It has provided a platform for discussion, the exhibition of new ideas in the arts and sciences and with the promotion of achievement by the people of Cornwall and beyond, said Keith Hambly-Staite, acting chairman of the RCPS.

"It has always been multi-disciplinary and politically independent and will continue to provide encouragement and support for artistic expression, innovation and enterprise in all walks of life as it seeks to encourage and recognize new ideas both in the arts and sciences.

"As we stand, at the beginning of the 21st Century, we want to give new emphasis to the original objectives of the society. These are to encourage enterprise by young people and the wider community as Cornwall seeks to show what it has to give to the artistic, social and economic life of the nation."

“It is our young people, whether at school, at our new university, working for themselves or employed in the emerging new business community, who will have the responsibility for shaping the Cornwall of tomorrow.

"These sentiments are as relevant to the renaissance of Cornwall today as they were in the early Nineteenth Century."