The labour movement's Ruskin College emerged in Oxford University's shadow in the 1890s, writes CHRIS KOENIG

On February 22, 1899, appropriately enough George Washington's birthday, the recently rebuilt Oxford Town Hall found itself bedecked with the Union flag and the Stars and Stripes.

Inside, local bigwigs of the labour movement read out messages of goodwill from such national leaders as the chairman of the Independent Labour Party, Keir Hardie.

The occasion was the opening ceremony of Ruskin Hall, the forerunner of Ruskin College, which had come into being with the avowed intent of educating working class men - and women - to achieve social change.

It had nothing to do with the artist and reformer John Ruskin, who was then in his eighties but who nevertheless wished it well. It was named after him as a friend of the movement.

It was the brainchild of two American students at Oxford University: Charles Austin Beard, aged 24, and Walter Watkins Vrooman, 29. They had met for the first time in late 1898, but such was the success of their project that barely five months later the first students at Ruskin Hall - not to be confused with the John Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, which was founded by Ruskin in 1871 - were studying at the Hall's first premises, leased from Balliol, at 14 St Giles.

From the start, Ruskin Hall, which became the college four years later, was something of an enigma in Oxford. Closely allied to the labour movement and seeking help from local and national trade unions and co-operative societies, it was nevertheless the product of middle-class reformers.

Mr Vrooman might claim, as he did in an 1899 interview, that "We have no 'ism to teach, we have no party and no creed" but it soon became clear that his project was yoked to the emerging Labour Party. Workers needed educating to equip them to seize the reins of power, and they knew it. By 1902 there were 96 classes going and Ruskin had branch halls in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. There were also 1,800 students enrolled on correspondence courses.

Much of this early success was due to Mrs Vrooman, 20 years Mr Vrooman's senior, whom he had married in 1897. She was rich and funded her young husband's scheme to the tune of about £2,000 a year, another £1,000 coming from the labour movement and from individual sponsors of individual students.

By 1909 the college was seen as a provider of future Labour leaders, bent on reform, but because Oxford University, seen as a bastion of a hierarchical social system, continued to have a great say in the running of the college, trouble was inevitable. That year the students went on strike over the sacking, or at least forced resignation, of the principal, Dennis Hird, who was accused of teaching socialism and atheism - exactly what some students who formed something called the Plebs' League in 1908 wanted him to do!

All residential students were sent home with their return fares paid. Some say that this was a blessing in disguise since they were then able to lobby their sponsor organisations for support. Yet when the students returned the place was more, not less, closely linked to the university in that students were offered the chance to sit for the university's Diploma in Economics and Political Science. On the other hand, the college's governing body came to consist solely of representatives of working class bodies, such as the Trades Union Congress.

In 1913 the college's present red brick, neo-William and Mary headquarters in Walton Street was built by architects Joseph and Smithern. After the Second World War demand for places soared and the college acquired the 18th-century mansion and grounds called the Rookery in Old Headington.