STEM Workshops in Burton upon Trent

Burton upon Trent is where brewing became a science. Water rising through the town's gypsum beds is naturally rich in calcium sulphate, and Victorian brewers learned to read that chemistry so precisely that adding these salts to brewing water anywhere is still called Burtonisation. By the late 1880s more than thirty breweries drew on the pale ale trade led by Bass and Allsopp, and their laboratories were early examples of science applied directly to industry. In 1902 the Marmite Food Extract Company opened here too, turning spent brewer's yeast from Bass into a national product. Chemistry, not luck, built this town.

Two Fellows of the Royal Society worked at the bench in Burton's breweries. Cornelius O'Sullivan joined Bass in 1866 and became head of its scientific staff, winning the Chemical Society's Longstaff Medal in 1884 for research on carbohydrates and election to the Royal Society in 1885. A few streets away, the German chemist Johann Peter Griess spent more than twenty-five years at Allsopp's; his earlier discovery of the diazotisation reaction underpins the synthetic azo dyes that colour much of the world. Pupils rarely hear that a brewery bench produced science of that reach.

The science has not left town. Molson Coors still brews in Burton and now bases its UK operation here, so the industry that made the place remains a working employer. On the edge of town, the Football Association's St George's Park trains all of England's national teams, with the FA's own sports science, medicine and performance analysis staff based on site. Pirelli continues to make tyres at its long-established Burton factory. Up the road at Rocester, JCB designs and builds construction machinery from its world headquarters.

That mix of industry sits within reach of Burton's pupils. Burton and South Derbyshire College runs engineering apprenticeships from Level 2 through to Level 3 Engineering Fitter, feeding local employers directly. At Rocester, the JCB Academy takes pupils from fourteen into engineering and business, sponsored by JCB and backed by the Royal Academy of Engineering, with partners including Toyota and Bosch Rexroth. Between Molson Coors, JCB, Pirelli's manufacturing and the sports science teams at St George's Park, a child in Burton can picture a STEM career without leaving Staffordshire. The routes are real, local and already hiring.