Red brick university The Aston Webb building, University of Birmingham Red brick university (or redbrick university) is a term originally used to refer to six civic universities founded in the major industrial cities of England. The term is now used more broadly to refer to British universities founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in major cities.[1] All of the six original redbrick institutions, or their predecessor institutes, gained university status before World War I and were initially established as civic science or engineering colleges.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Whilst the term was originally coined as these institutions were new and thus regarded by the ancient universities as arriviste,[8] the description has since ceased to be derogatory with the 1960s proliferation of universities and the reclassification of polytechnics in 1992. The six institutions are members of the Russell Group (which receives two-thirds of all research grant funding in the United Kingdom).[9] Contents [hide] 1 Origins of the term and use red brick.[14][15] The University of Birmingham grew from the Mason Science College (opened two years before University College Liverpool in 1880), an elaborate red brick and terracotta building in central Birmingham which was demolished in 1962.[16] The civic university movement[edit] These universities were distinguished by being non-collegiate institutions that admitted men without reference to religion or background and concentrated on imparting to their students "real-world" skills, often linked to engineering.[17] In this sense they owed their structural heritage to the Humboldt University of Berlin, which emphasised practical knowledge over the academic sort.[18] This focus on the practical also distinguished the red brick universities from the ancient English universities of Oxford and Cambridge and from the newer (although still pre-Victorian) University of Durham, collegiate institutions which concentrated on divinity, the liberal arts and imposed religious tests (e.g. assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles) on staff and students. Scotland's ancient universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh), usually grouped with Dundee, were founded on a different basis.[19] The first wave of large civic red brick universities all gained official university status before the First World War, all of these institutions have origins dating back to older medical or engineering colleges and were located in the industrial centres of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras that required strong scientific and technical workforces.[19] These universities developed out of various 19th century private research and education institutes in industrial cities. The 1824 Manchester Mechanics' Institute formed the basis of the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and thus led towards the University of Manchester proper.[6] The University of Birmingham has origins dating back to the 1825 Birmingham Medical School.[2] The University of Leeds also owes its foundations to a medical school: the 1831 Leeds School of Medicine. The University of Bristol began with the 1876 University College, Bristol,[3] the University of Liverpool with a University College in 1881,[5] and the University of Sheffield with a university college in 1897.[7] Name University Charter Awarded Predecessor institutions Image Notes Victoria University 1880 (defunct 1903) Owens College, Manchester (1851) Leeds School of Medicine (1831) University College Liverpool (1881) Victoria University was a federal college based in Manchester with satellite sites in Leeds and Liverpool. It was defunct by 1903 as Leeds and Liverpool sought independent university status which led to the formation of the new Victoria University of Manchester in 1903 and which merged into the University of Manchester in 2004. University of Birmingham 1900 Birmingham Medical School (1825) Mason Science College (1875) Mason University College (1898) Old joe.jpg The first independent civic university to be awarded full university status by Royal Charter. University of Liverpool 1903 University College, Liverpool (1881) Victoria Clock School of Medicine (1831) Great Hall Leeds.jpg University of Sheffield 1905 Sheffield Medical School (1828) University College of Sheffield (1897)

• published: 06 Feb 2015
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