College. His promise of sponsorship initially helped the project. It was Percival's connections with the colleges of the Oxford which helped in lobbying for the creation of the university. Percival was able to agree that the Master of Balliol College would subscribe £300 to the project, on the terms that adult education was catered for and that the college catered for the arts as well as the sciences. On 11 June 1874 the Victoria Rooms hosted a meeting to promote what was described as a College of Science and Literature for the West of England and South Wales. The meeting was attended by the then president of the British Association and Sir William Thompson (later Lord Kelvin). This meeting has been described as a partial success, as it gained the support of Albert Fry and Lewis Fry, members of the influential Fry family (the Fry name being known for the chocolate business set up by their grandfather and developed by their father Joseph Storrs Fry). Lewis Fry was a Quaker, lawyer and later a Liberal and Unionist Member of Parliament from 1885 to 1892 and 1895 to 1890 for the constituency Bristol North. Albert Fry also gained distinction as the founder of the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works Co. However, the fact that the project attracted large numbers of Quakers, Non-Conformists and Liberals meant that the project was labelled as such an institution. Tories made some initial grants to the project but soon focused their interest on a rival institution through the Society of Merchant Venturers which was considered mostly Conservative in politics. Ironically, the Society of Merchant Venturers, which was to become a rival institution during much of the college's history, made a gift of £1000 at this point. Despite this initial donation, a lack of funds was to plague University College, Bristol up until the donations which allowed it to lobby for a royal charter. Initially the financial response to the meeting was disappointing, with the college gaining only £25,991 of the £40,000 funds which it asked for. It was at this stage that the Wills family became involved in the project with Henry Overton Wills donating £250 to the project. The lacklustre response to the call for funds had the immediate result of delaying the opening of the college until 1876, and meant that when it did open it was under the most stringent financial conditions. Shelborne