Medical Students' Representative Council (M.S.R.C.)

The collection comprises minutes of the Council to 1974 (MMC/5/9/1), newsletters of the MSRC (MMC/5/9/1/4), handbooks (MMC/5/9/1/3), photographs of past presidents (MMC/5/9/1/6).

The MSRC is the main representative body for students in the University of Manchester's medial school. Provision for a representative council was made in statute X of the Victoria University's charter, granted in 1880. In 1901 Owens College medical students won the right to form a representative council, and this was confirmed in the charter of the new University of Manchester in 1903. The purpose of the Council was to promote the social and academic interests of the medical students. The Council was responsible for its own common room at the University and held a variety of social events. In the early days it also liaised with MRI authorities about the students common room at the Infirmary, Piccadilly. The Council took over responsibility for the Manchester Medical Students Gazette, and the Manchester University Medical Students Gazette, when this was refounded in the 1920s. The Council was responsible for a variety of social and sporting events over the years.

In 1933, the MSRC successfully campaigned for a Clinical Commission to be established to report on the clinical teaching of Manchester students. The Commission was headed by the president of the Council, Harvey Flack, and produced recommendations about teaching to the Medical Board of the Infirmary. The Commission proposed a number of reforms, which aimed at the better integration of clinical and academic teaching including replacing systematic lectures with tutorials, increasing student access to wards, allowing students to conduct routine treatments, that students be allowed residence at hospitals and that medical professorial units be established.

In the post-war period an annual staff-student conference was held to discuss matters of common interest. Although in other faculties student representation was handled by the Students' Union, the MSRC continues to deal directly with the Medical Faculty on account of its more specialised interests. The MSRC is governed by an executive committee and a general committee; all medical students are automatically members.

The Manchester University Medical Students Gazette is filed separately, but contains much information in passing about MSRC activities.