Bristol University

, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School
1876 – University College, Bristol
1909 – received royal charter
, type = Public red brick research university
, endowment = £91.3 million (2021)
, budget = £752.0 million (2020–21)
, chancellor = Paul Nurse
, vice_chancellor = Professor Evelyn Welch
, head_label = Visitor
, head = Rt Hon. Penny Mordaunt MP

, academic_staff = 3,385 (2020)
, students = ()
, undergrad = ()
, postgrad = ()
, city = Bristol
, country = England
, coor =
, campus = Urban
, free_label = Students' Union
, free = University of Bristol Union
, colours = Pantone 187
, website
bristol.ac.uk
, logo =
, affiliations = Russell Group
Coimbra Group
Worldwide Universities Network
Universities UK
PEGASUS
SETsquared
GW4
Sutton 13
EUA

The University of Bristol is a red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had been in existence since 1876.

Bristol is organised into six academic faculties composed of multiple schools and departments running over 200 undergraduate courses, largely in the Tyndalls Park area of the city. The university had a total income of £752.0 million in 2020–21, of which £169.8 million was from research grants and contracts. It is the largest independent employer in Bristol. Current academics include 21 fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences, 13 fellows of the British Academy, 13 fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 44 fellows of the Royal Society. Among alumni and faculty, the university counts 9 Nobel laureates.

Bristol is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities, the European-wide Coimbra Group and the Worldwide Universities Network, of which the university's previous vice-chancellor, Eric Thomas, was chairman from 2005 to 2007. In addition, the university holds an Erasmus Charter, sending more than 500 students per year to partner institutions in Europe. It has an average of 6.4 (Sciences faculty) to 13.1 (Medicine & Dentistry Faculty) applicants for each undergraduate place.

History

Foundation

The earliest antecedent of the university was the engineering department of the Merchant Venturers' Technical College (founded as a school as early as 1595) which became the engineering faculty of Bristol University. The university was also preceded by Bristol Medical School (1833) and University College, Bristol, founded in 1876, where its first lecture was attended by only 99 students. The university was able to apply for a royal charter due to the financial support of the Wills, Fry and Colston families, who made their fortunes in tobacco plantations, chocolate, and (via Edward Colston) the transatlantic slave trade, respectively. A 2018 study commissioned by the university estimated 85% of the philanthropic funds used for the institution's foundation was directly connected with the transatlantic slave trade.

The royal charter was gained in May 1909, with 288 undergraduates and 400 other students entering the university in October 1909. Henry Overton Wills III became its first chancellor. The University College was the first such institution in the country to admit women on the same basis as men. However, women were forbidden to take examinations in medicine until 1906.

Historical development

Since the founding of the university itself in 1909, it has grown considerably and is now one of the largest employers in the local area, although it is smaller by student numbers than the nearby University of the West of England. It is a member of the Russell Group of research-led UK universities, the Coimbra Group of leading European universities and the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN).

Early years

After the founding of the university college in 1876, government support began in 1889. Funding from mergers with the Bristol Medical School in 1893 and the Merchant Venturers' Technical College in 1909, allowed the opening of a new medical school and an engineering school — two subjects that remain among the university's greatest strengths. In 1908, gifts from the Fry and Wills families, particularly £100,000 from Henry Overton Wills III (£6m in today's money), were provided to endow a University for Bristol and the West of England, provided that a royal charter could be obtained within two years. In December 1909, the king granted such a charter and erected the University of Bristol. Henry Wills became its first chancellor and Conwy Lloyd Morgan the first vice-chancellor. Wills died in 1911 and in tribute his sons George and Harry built the Wills Memorial Building, starting in 1913 and finally finishing in 1925. Today, it houses parts of the academic provision for earth sciences and law, and graduation ceremonies are held in its Great Hall. The Wills Memorial Building is a Grade II* listed building.

In 1920, George Wills bought the Victoria Rooms and endowed them to the university as a students' union.
The building now houses the Department of Music and is a Grade II* listed building.

At the point of foundation, the university was required to provide for the local community. This mission was behind the creation of the Department of Extra-Mural Adult Education in 1924 to provide courses to the local community. This mission continues today; a new admissions policy specifically caters to the 'BS' postcode area of Bristol.

Among the famous names associated with Bristol in this early period is Paul Dirac, who graduated in 1921 with a degree in engineering, before obtaining a second degree in mathematics in 1923 from Cambridge. For his subsequent pioneering work on quantum mechanics, he was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics. Later in the 1920s, the H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory was opened by Ernest Rutherford. It has since housed several Nobel Prize winners: Cecil Frank Powell (1950); Hans Albrecht Bethe (1967); and Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1977). The laboratory stands on the same site today, close to the Bristol Grammar School and the city museum.

Sir Winston Churchill became the university's third chancellor in 1929, serving the university in that capacity until 1965. He succeeded Richard Haldane who had held the office from 1912 following the death of Henry Wills.

During World War II, the Wills Memorial was bombed, destroying the Great Hall and the organ it housed, along with 7,000 books removed from King's College London for safe keeping. It has since been restored, complete with oak panelled walls and a new organ.

Post-war development

In 1946, the university established the first drama department in the country. In the same year, Bristol began offering special entrance exams and grants to aid the resettlement of servicemen returning home. Student numbers continued to increase, and the Faculty of Engineering eventually needed the new premises that were to become Queen's Building in 1955. This substantial building housed all of the university's engineers until 1996, when the electrical engineering and computer science departments moved over the road into the new Merchant Venturers' Building to make space for these rapidly expanding fields. Today, Queen's Building caters for most of the teaching needs of the faculty and provides academic space for the "heavy" engineering subjects (civil, mechanical, and aerospace).

With unprecedented growth in the 1960s, particularly in undergraduate numbers, the Students' Union eventually acquired larger premises in a new building in the Clifton area of the city, in 1965. This building was more spacious than the Victoria Rooms, which were now given over to the Department of Music. The University of Bristol Union provides many practice and performance rooms, some specialist rooms, as well as three bars: Bar 100, the Mandela (also known as AR2) and the Avon Gorge. Whilst spacious, the Union building is thought by many to be ugly and out of character compared to the architecture of the rest of the Clifton area, having been mentioned in a BBC
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