royal belfast academical institution
Inst was founded by the public subscription of the citizens of Belfast in the
early years of the nineteenth century. The foundation stone of the magnificent
John Soane designed building, perhaps the finest example of late Georgian
architecture anywhere in Ireland, was laid in July 1810 by George Augustus
Chichester, the Second Marquis of Donegall. Belfast Academical Institution
opened on 1st February, 1814, as both a school for pupils and a college for
students. On the occasion, Dr. William Drennan, a founder, spoke of what he
envisaged as the main purpose of Inst, which was to diffuse useful knowledge,
particularly among the middling orders of society, as one of the necessities
rather than of the luxuries of life; not to have a good education only the
portion of the rich and the noble, but as a patrimony of the whole people.
