LEEDS TRAINING COLLEGE

The City of Leeds Training College grew out of the Leeds Pupil Teacher College founded in 1901 to centrally train teachers for the city. The college itself was founded in 1907 and moved to a 35-acre site at Beckett Park in 1912, centred on the historic Kirkstall Grange mansion, purchased from Lord Grimthorpe. New buildings, designed by G. W. Atkinson in a Wrenaissance style, included a main building and seven residential hostels named after prominent Yorkshire figures, providing accommodation for 300 women and 180 men. During both World Wars, the premises were requisitioned for use as military hospitals, notably the 2nd Northern General Hospital in the First World War. The college trained men and women separately, being one of only five mixed teacher training colleges among 170 in the country. From 1918 to 1933 it was led by principal John Robinson Airey. In 1933, the Carnegie College of Physical Education was established alongside it at Beckett Park. The college was renamed the City of Leeds College of Education in 1964, merged with Carnegie College in 1968 to form the City of Leeds and Carnegie College, and later became part of Leeds Polytechnic in 1976, which evolved into Leeds Metropolitan University and finally Leeds Beckett University in 2014.