University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public 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 Medical School, founded in 1833, was merged with the University College in 1893, and later became the university's school of medicine. Bristol remains one of the United Kingdom’s leading research universities and is frequently positioned among the top 50 universities worldwide.
The university is organised into three academic faculties composed of multiple schools and departments running over 200 undergraduate courses, largely in the Tyndall's Park area of the city. It had a total income of £1.16 billion in 2024–25, of which £342.1 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £1.09 billion. It is the largest independent employer in Bristol. Current academics include 23 fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences, 13 fellows of the British Academy, 43 fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences, 13 fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 48 fellows of the Royal Society. The University of Bristol's alumni and faculty include 13 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 to 13.1 applicants for each undergraduate place.
History
Foundation
The earliest antecedent of the university was the engineering department of the Merchant Venturers' Technical College which became the engineering faculty of Bristol University. The university was also preceded by Bristol Medical School 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 and Fry families, who made their fortunes in tobacco plantations and chocolate respectively. A 2018 study commissioned by the university estimated 85% of the philanthropic funds used for the institution's foundation "depended on the labour of enslaved people".
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.
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.
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, 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 in 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 ; Hans Albrecht Bethe ; and Nevill Francis Mott. More recently, the Laboratory has housed Prof. Sir Michael Berry FRS, a theoretical physicist known for his work on the Berry phase and Berry curvature. Berry joined Bristol in 1965 and has spent his entire career there. The H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory stands on the same site today, close to the Bristol Grammar School and the city museum.
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.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 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 poll to find the worst architectural eyesores in Britain. The university has proposed relocating the Union to a more central location as part of its development 'masterplan'. More recently, plans for redevelopment of the current building have been proposed.
The 1960s were a time of considerable student activism in the United Kingdom, and Bristol was no exception. In 1968, many students marched in support of the Anderson Report, which called for higher student grants. This discontent culminated in an 11-day sit-in at the Senate House. A series of chancellors and vice-chancellors led the university through these decades, with Henry Somerset, 10th Duke of Beaufort taking over from Churchill as chancellor in 1965 before being succeeded by Dorothy Hodgkin in 1970 who spent the next 18 years in the office.
As the age of mass higher education dawned, Bristol continued to build its student numbers. The various undergraduate residences were repeatedly expanded and, more recently, some postgraduate residences have been constructed. These more recent ventures have been funded by external companies in agreement with the university.
One of the few centres for deaf studies in the United Kingdom was established in Bristol in 1981, followed in 1988 by the Norah Fry Centre for research into learning difficulties. Also in 1988, and again in 2004, the Students' Union AGM voted to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students. On both occasions, however, the subsequent referendum of all students reversed that decision and Bristol remains affiliated to the NUS.
In 1988, Sir Jeremy Morse, then chairman of Lloyds Bank, became chancellor.
21st century
As the number of postgraduate students has grown, there eventually became a need for separate representation on university bodies and the Postgraduate Union was established in 2000. Universities are increasingly expected to exploit the intellectual property generated by their research activities and, in 2000, Bristol established the Research and Enterprise Division to further this cause. In 2001, the university signed a 25-year research funding deal with IP2IPO, an intellectual property commercialisation company. In 2007, research activities were expanded further with the opening of the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science and The Bristol Institute for Public Affairs.In 2002, the university was involved in an argument over press intrusion after details of then-prime minister Tony Blair's son's application to university were published in national newspapers. In the same year, the university opened the new Centre for Sports, Exercise and Health in the heart of the university precinct. At a cost, local residents can also use the facilities.
File:Bristol University from Cabot Tower.jpg|thumb|left|Most of the buildings here are used by the university. The Wills Memorial Building is left of centre. Viewed from the Cabot Tower on Brandon Hill
Brenda Hale, the first female Law Lord, became chancellor of the university in 2003. Paul Nurse succeeded Lady Hale as chancellor on 1 January 2017.
Expansion of teaching and research activities continues. In 2004, the Faculty of Engineering completed work on the Bristol Laboratory for Advanced Dynamics Engineering. This £18.5m project is intended to further the study of dynamics and is the most advanced such facility in Europe. It was built as an extension to the Queen's Building and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in March 2005.
In January 2005, the School of Chemistry was awarded £4.5m by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to create Bristol ChemLabS: a Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, with an additional £350k announced for the capital part of the project in February 2006. Bristol ChemLabS stands for Bristol Chemical Laboratory Sciences; it is the only chemistry CETL in the UK.
September 2009 saw the opening of the university's Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information. This £11 million building is known as the quietest building in the world and has other technologically sophisticated features such as self-cleaning glass. Advanced research into quantum computing, nanotechnology, materials and other disciplines are being undertaken in the building.
There is also a plan to significantly redevelop the centre of the University Precinct in the coming years. The first step began in September 2011, with the start of construction of a state-of-the-art Life Sciences building.
In 2018 while building work was underway in the Fry Building, the building caught fire.
In 2024 the university revised their emblem, removing the dolphin emblem because of its connection to the slave trader Edward Colston and adding an image of moving pages and a bookmark.
In 2025, BristolSEDS, a student society within the University, successfully hot-fired a 6 kilo-newton bi-propellant rocket engine, claiming the record for the highest thrust of an engine of this type designed by students in the UK.