Act 1890, commonly known as Whiskey Money, was intended to compensate licencees in the country required to close. It created an income which Sir Arthur Dyke Acland instead proposed to Parliament be earmarked for the new County Councils to spend on technical instruction. His amendment, it is reported, was adopted by a lethargic and half empty house. There were some institutions offering short courses in Agriculture but very few opportunities for degree courses. The Normal School of Science, shortly to merge and form Imperial College, had only graduated seven agricultural students per year between 1878 and 1887. There had been proposals for a single, central agricultural university, potentially near Derby, but no appetite for a network of them or state funding. However nationally, now county councils chose to spend £80,000 per year of the Whiskey Money specifically for agricultural education. The combined Lady Thornhill Trust owned its school premises; nearby Amage Farm, and agricultural land on Romney Marsh. An 1891 proposal from the Earl of Winchilsea envisaged this should be the basis of a 40 male student agricultural college for Kent, Surrey and Sussex, funded by Whiskey Money. East and West Sussex County Councils dropped out of the scheme, and the farms were not immediately available, but negotiations took place for newly formed Kent County Council and Surrey County Council to purchase the school premises and a lease was arranged for of land at Coldharbour Farm from Erle-Drax's Olantigh Estate. Coldharbour was considered difficult, inhospitable, and a suitable challenge for the college to prove its ability to local farmers. In 1892, Kent and Surrey County Councils obtained the old chantry premises for £1,000, the schools moving to a new building on land Lady Thornhill's trust owned in Bridge Street, and in 1894 opened the South Eastern Agricultural College there. They appointed chemist, socialist and former schoolmaster Alfred Daniel Hall as principal and he opened with thirteen students. It was then the first and only college founded and maintained by public money solely for the benefit of agriculture in England. Hall's student roll grew to 46 in 1900; 71 in 1902, and 124 in 1913. Unconventionally for a college of agriculture, Hall chose to appoint teaching staff that were scientists rather than agriculturalists with some scientific insight, and at opening, none had agricultural experience. He later accepted that with his initial over-emphasis on basic science the establishment was fortunate to be