3-021-714 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Winterbottom Nautical College, Ocean-Road, South Shields, 1869. 'The object of the institution is to give the very best instruction procurable to the masters and officers of vessels, and to those who aspire to become such. In the words of the founder [Thomas Masterman Winterbottom] "the instruction is to consist of every kind of mathematical and other learning that can be interesting or useful to a sailor."...[There is] a large and excellent school-room...a most commodious lecture-room...an apparatus-room...[with] a large quantity of philosophical apparatus for illustrating the lectures on astronomy, mechanics, pneumatics, hydrostatics, meteorology, electricity, and magnetism...Upon a higher floor are situated the compass-room...and a nautical observatory, where a whole class can be exercised at once in taking altitudes, lunar distances, and bearings, with the sextant and azimuth compass...an elegant spiral staircase conducts to the revolving dome, where a fine 7-inch equatorial telescope is placed, which will be used to illustrate the lectures given upon astronomy...the new building...has been erected from the designs of Mr. Clemence, the late Borough Surveyor, and carried out under the Superintendence of Mr. T. A. Page, architect'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.