The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire was founded in 1886 as the Birmingham School of Music, grouping together into a single entity the various musical education activities of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. The institute had conducted informal musical instruction from its foundation in 1854, and its predecessor organisation the Birmingham Philosophical Institution had held music classes since 1800, but it was in 1859 that music was established as a formal part of the institute's curriculum. In that year singing classes were begun which, after some initial struggles, by 1863 had 110 students and were performing regular concerts. In 1876 a proposal was heard at the institute's council that further classes should be established on the model of the Leipzig Conservatoire, and that year the composer Alfred Gaul began teaching classes in the theory of music. In 1882 instrumental classes were started, attracting 458 students on their first year, and a separate music section created within the institute. This was established as the separate "School of Music" in 1886, with William Stockley as its first principal The school's second principal Granville Bantock was recommended for the position by Edward Elgar