Mason Science College was founded by Josiah Mason

Josiah Mason

Sir Josiah Mason was an English pen-manufacturer.Mason was born in Mill Street, Kidderminster, the son of a carpet-weaver. He began life as a street hawker of cakes, fruits and vegetables. After trying his hand in his native town at shoemaking, baking, carpentering, blacksmithing, house-painting...

 in 1875, the buildings of which were opened in Edmund Street

Edmund Street

__notoc__Edmund Street is a street located in Birmingham, England.Edmund Street is one of a series of roads on the old Colmore Estate which originally stretched from Temple Row in the city centre, around St Phillip's Cathedral, to the northern end of Newhall Street. Originally the estate surrounded...

, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 on 1 October 1880 by Thomas Henry Huxley. In 1900, it was incorporated into the new University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

.

Notable alumni include:

• Francis William Aston
  Francis William Aston
  Francis William Aston was a British chemist and physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule...
  
  , British chemist and physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
  
  
• Neville Chamberlain
  Neville Chamberlain
  Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
  
  , British Prime Minister.
• Stanley Baldwin
  Stanley Baldwin
  Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
  
  , British Prime Minister.
• Sir Henry Fowler
  Henry Fowler (engineer)
  Sir Henry Fowler, KBE was a Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Midland Railway and subsequently the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.- Biography :...
  
  , locomotive engineer.
• C.W. Hobley
  Charles William Hobley
  Charles William Hobley, CMG — known as C. W. Hobley — was a pioneering British Colonial administrator in Kenya...
  
  , pioneering colonial administrator in Kenya.
• Henry Eliot Howard, ornithologist
• Constance Naden
  Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden
  Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden was an English poet and philosopher.Born at 15 Francis Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England to Thomas Naden, an architect, later president of the Birmingham Architectural Association, and Caroline Ann who died within two weeks of giving birth...
  
  , Poet & Philosopher.
• John Berry Haycraft
  John Berry Haycraft
  John Berry Haycraft was a professor in physiology and carried out important medical research.Haycraft was born in London, England in 1875 and received his medical education in Edinburgh. He worked for a time in Ludwig's laboratory in Leipzig....
  
   discovered an anticoagulant
  Anticoagulant
  An anticoagulant is a substance that prevents coagulation of blood. A group of pharmaceuticals called anticoagulants can be used in vivo as a medication for thrombotic disorders. Some anticoagulants are used in medical equipment, such as test tubes, blood transfusion bags, and renal dialysis...
  
   created by the leech
  Leech
  Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways...
  
  , which he named hirudin
  Hirudin
  Hirudin is a naturally occurring peptide in the salivary glands of medicinal leeches that has a blood anticoagulant property...
  
  .

Despite being a fine Victorian Neo-Gothic building, it was demolished in 1962 followed by the original Central Public Library and original Birmingham and Midland Institute

Birmingham and Midland Institute

The Birmingham and Midland Institute , now on Margaret Street in the city centre of Birmingham, England was a pioneer of adult scientific and technical education and today offers Arts and Science lectures, exhibitions and concerts. It is a registered charity...

 as part of the inner ring road redevelopment. The current Central Library

Birmingham Central Library

Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England, and the largest non-national library in Europe. It is managed by Birmingham City Council...

stands on the site of the old college.

Sources

• Ordnance Survey 1st Edition Map, 1890