The Institute was designed by Paley & Austin and built in 1891 for Sir Thomas Storey on the site of the earlier (1824) Mechanics' Institute, "for the educational and cultural benefit of the people of Lancaster".
When Storey donated it to the town in 1893, the Institute housed the City Art Gallery, a public library/newsroom, a technical school (the forerunner of Lancaster & Morecambe College, which moved to its own premises in 1953), an art school (Lancaster College of Art from the 1950s to 1982), and a music venue. When I moved to the city in 1993, the Institute also accommodated departments of the University – I wonder whether Storey could have envisaged that, a century earlier.

By the latter half of the 20th Century the Storey Gallery had declined, rarely seeing significant exhibitions, but an artist-driven revival in the 1990s culminated in a recent organisational review, and there's talk of repurposing the building as a centre for creative industries. I hope that means it'll remain a lecture venue and public art gallery, as Storey's governing covenant stipulated.