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.