the inner ring road. The former Central Library stood on the site of the old college, the library having moved to a new site in 2013; the building was demolished in 2016. Departments During the first academic session of the college in 1880 courses in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics were offered to students. By 1881 courses in geology and mineralogy, botany and vegetable physiology, engineering, English language and literature, Greek and Latin, and French and German language and literature were also available. From 1882 Medical students at Queen's College, Birmingham were able to attend classes in botany, physiology and chemistry, and in 1892 the medical faculty of Queen's College was transferred to Mason College. There was also a short-lived department of ‘Mental and Moral Science’, which was not successful despite funds being gifted specifically to support the endeavor in 1882. Academics and alumni Notable academics and alumni of the college include: Edward Arber, academic and writer Francis William Aston, chemist and physicist, 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister Sir Gilbert Barling, 1st Baronet, physician John Belling, cytogeneticist who developed the iron-acetocarmine staining technique which is used in the study of chromosomes Sir Nathan Bodington, Professor of classics Adrian John Brown, FRS, pioneer in the study of enzyme kinetics Arthur Henry Reginald Buller, British-Canadian mycologist mainly known as a researcher of fungi and wheat rust Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister Lawrence Crawford (mathematician) FRSE (1867–1951), taught in the college Sir Guy Dain, Chairman of the British Medical Association 1943–49 (M.B. medicine) Hermann Georg Fiedler, German scholar Sir Henry Fowler, locomotive engineer Percy F. Frankland, chemist Ernest Gold, set up the first operational (military) meteorological service, Deputy Director of the Meteorological Office John Berry Haycraft, discovered an anticoagulant created by the leech, which he named hirudin John Rippiner Heath, physician and composer Micaiah John Muller Hill, FRS, English mathematician, known for Hill's spherical vortex and Hill's tetrahedra Charles William Hobley, pioneering colonial administrator in Kenya Frank Horton, Professor of Physics at Royal Holloway College and Vice-Chancellor of the University of London 1939–45 Henry Eliot Howard, ornithologist Arthur Lapworth, FRS, chemist Charles Lapworth, FRS, FGS, geologist who pioneered faunal analysis using index fossils and identified the Ordovician period Robert Thomson Leiper, parasitologist and helminthologist Lionel Simeon Marks, engineer and one of the pioneers of aeronautics Gerald Rusgrove Mills, publisher who established the publishing company Mills & Boon John