George Birkbeck

Physician and educationist, born in Settle, North Yorkshire, N England, UK. As professor of natural philosophy at Anderson's College, Glasgow, he delivered his first free lectures to the working classes (1799). In 1804 he became a physician in London. He was the founder and first president of the London Mechanics' or Birkbeck Institute (1824), the first in the UK, which developed into Birkbeck College, a constituent college of London University.

Born to a Quaker family in Settle, North Yorkshire, Birkbeck went to school in Sedbergh and then completed his training as a doctor in Edinburgh in 1799.

After mechanics started asking questions about the apparatus he used in his lectures, he had the idea of holding free, public lectures on the 'mechanical arts' (c 1800-1804).

Working as a doctor in London, Birkbeck, with others, established the London Mechanics Institute in November 1823 - of which he was the first President. The Mechanics Institute concept was quickly adopted in numerous other cities and towns across the UK and overseas, but his association with the ground-breaking London institution was marked by it being renamed the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution in 1866 (now, as Birkbeck College, part of the University of London).

He also helped create the first chemistry laboratory for undergraduates at University College London.

He died in 1841 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.