FROM MILLHAND TO B.A.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 6917, 28 January 1901, Page 4

FROM MILLHAND TO B.A.

The value of the University Extension lectures and free libraries has been strikingly shown in the case of Mr Joseph Owen, B. A., of Balliol College, Oxford, who has been elected to a Modern History Fellowship at Pembroke College. He is the son of a Lancashire artisan, and himself worked in an Oldham mill when he left school at the age of thirteen. His chief means of eduoation were free libraries and University Extension classes. In 1895 Mr A. L. Smith, Fellow of Balliol, was struck by the quality of his work in English history, and recommended that he should come to Oxford. There were many difficulties in the way. He was twentythree years of age, married, and had no knowledge of Latin or Greek Nevertheless, the college admitted him on the strength of his University Extension work, and gave him a special exhibition of £50 a year. He entered Balliol in 1895, and six weeks later won in open competition the Brackenbury Scholarship for history of the value of £80 a year and tenable for four years. He added to his previous honours in 1899 by gaining a first-olass in the Honour School of Modern History, and the same year proceeded to his Bachelor of Arts degree.