Over 95 years of excellence
The University of Reading has been at the forefront of UK higher education for nearly a century. Over the decades we have become innovators and pioneers, pushing academic boundaries and leading social change.
Origins: Science and Art
Reading is a modern, global university. So it is fitting that its origins lie in the first international celebration of technology, the Great Exhibition of 1851. This produced enough of a surplus to set up ‘Schools of Science and Art’ around the country. Reading got an Art School in 1860 and a Science School in 1870; in 1882 they merged, moved to Valpy Street in the town centre, and formed a miniature technical college for the men and women of the town.
The College and the coat of arms
University Education came to Reading in 1885 with an Oxford University ‘extension unit’, and in 1892 this merged with the Schools of Science and Art to form the University College, with the geographer Halford Mackinder as its first Principal. The College expanded its range of subjects and the demand for space prompted a new campus on London Road, funded by generous benefactors such as the Palmer family and Lord and Lady Wantage. From this moment the drive towards separate University status began to gather pace.
The Charter
First suggested in 1906, the road to becoming a separate University was a long one, interrupted by the First World War and achieved, uniquely, in the period before the Second. The senior academics, led by W.M. Childs, and the College’s local benefactors did not give up and in 1926 the University was incorporated ‘for the public benefit to advance education, learning and research’. In its early days, the University was small and compact, but while it has grown, its aims have not changed.
War and Peace
The First World War was a crisis for the University. Its survival – though 144 of its members gave their lives – gave it a proud but sad history, and spurred a new drive towards the Charter.
The Second World War was also devastating, and both conflicts saw buildings taken into military use – which complicated the purchase of Whiteknights. Proud of its role in the century’s major conflicts, the University was committed to peace: in 1951 it responded positively to Hiroshima University’s appeal for books following the devastation of the atomic bomb – the first UK institution to do so.
Our Campuses
After the Second World War, the University had the chance to purchase Whiteknights Park, an historic parkland, landscaped in the eighteenth century. This became the new heart of the University and enabled massive growth in numbers.
Bulmershe College merged with the University in 1965, bringing a new campus that became home to education and theatre studies. London Road was retained but largely used for exams and graduations, until the institute of Education moved from Bulmershe in 2011. The Henley Business School’s Greenlands campus began life as the home of the stationer and politician William Henry Smith.
Henley Business School
The Henley Business School brings together two fine traditions. On the one hand the University had its own business school which grew from the work of economists such as John Dunning on international business, and the UK’s first centre for real estate and planning.
The ICMA Centre for capital markets was added in 1991.In 2008 the Whiteknights-based departments merged with the Henley Management College based at Greenlands. This had begun life as the Administrative Staff College in 1945, a civilian equivalent of the military staff colleges and a place where civil servants, business leaders and academics could pool their expertise.
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