University of Hull
The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hull York Medical School, a joint initiative with the University of York. Students are served by Hull University Union.
The first chancellor of the university was Lord Middleton, followed by Lord Cohen, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Armstrong and Virginia Bottomley . Alan Johnson was installed as the current chancellor in July 2023.
History
University College
The foundation stone of University College Hull, then an external college of the University of London, was laid in 1927 by Prince Albert, the Duke of York. The college was built on land donated by Hull City Council and by two local benefactors, Thomas Ferens and G F Grant. A year later the first 14 departments, in pure sciences and the arts, opened with 39 students. The college at that time consisted of one building, now named the Venn building. The building now houses the administrative centre of the university.Other early buildings include the Cohen Building, which originally housed the college library, and Staff House, now named Canham Turner building, built in 1948 as the Students' Union. Another early structure was the Chemistry Building, built in 1953. With the rapid expansion of student numbers which took place in the 1950s many academic departments were housed in temporary buildings, colloquially known as 'huts', which gave the campus the feel of an 'academic army camp'. The Dennison Centre on Cottingham Road was formerly the Brooklands Officers Hospital opened by the Red Cross in 1917. The author J. R. R. Tolkien was a convalescent patient at Brooklands and his connection is marked by a blue plaque.
Though many of the older buildings on Hull's campus are of red brick it is not a redbrick university in the strictest sense of the term, as it was not founded as part of the civic university movement of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Hull, with its origins in the 1920s, has been categorised as a 'younger civic university' and it is placed between the 'redbricks' and the 'plateglass universities' founded in the 1960s.
The first principal of the college was Arthur E. Morgan, the second was John H Nicholson, who also served as the university's first vice-chancellor when the college was granted university status.
Coat of arms
The university coat of arms was designed by Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig in 1928. The symbols are the torch for learning, the rose for Yorkshire, the ducal coronet from the arms of the City of Hull, the fleur-de-lys for Lincolnshire and the dove, symbolising peace, from the arms of Thomas Ferens. These symbols were later reused to create the current university logo. The motto, Lampada Ferens, incorporates the name of the university's founding father within a Latin pun.Royal charter
The college gained its royal charter on 6 September 1954. This empowered it to award degrees of its own, making it the 3rd university in Yorkshire and the 14th in England. The twenty six years between the formation of the university college and the awarding of the charter were the shortest such period in the history of university formation in England up to that time. Within a year of the charter being granted applications to study at the new university had doubled, and in 1956 student numbers topped 1,000 for the first time.The mace
The academic authority and autonomy of the university is symbolically embodied in the ceremonial mace. Made of gilt silver, and incorporating devices from the Hull University coat of arms, the mace was presented to the university in December 1956 by the Lord Mayor of Hull. As a gift from the city it also reflects the close relationship between "town and gown" existing in Hull. The mace is carried in procession and displayed at all major university ceremonies.Expansion in the 1950s and 1960s
The period of rapid expansion of Hull University coincided with the vice-chancellorship of Sir Brynmor Jones, during whose time in office student numbers quadrupled.The Brynmor Jones Library, which houses more than a million volumes, was constructed in two phases: the first phase was fully completed in 1959, with a tower block extension officially opened in 1970. Previously, the library had existed across two rooms in the Cohen Building, run by Agnes Cuming from its opening in 1929 until 1955. During the 1950s and 1960s a considerable number of academic buildings were built, including the Larkin and Wilberforce Buildings. The 'Martin Plan' of 1967, Sir Leslie Martin was the university architect, envisaged a campus with its tallest buildings in the centre surrounded by buildings diminishing in height towards the perimeter. In the course of the 1960s most of the departments housed in temporary structures were moved into new purpose-built premises. However, Biochemistry was still partially located in a 'hut' to the rear of the Venn building into the early 1980s. This early phase of expansion through building ended in 1974, after this year there was to be no further academic building construction on the campus until 1996. However, student numbers doubled in this period, with the university becoming highly efficient in using its existing building stock.
Liquid crystal technology
In 1972 George Gray and Ken Harrison created room-temperature stable liquid crystals in the university chemistry laboratories, which were an immediate success in the electronics industry and consumer products. This led to Hull becoming the first university to be awarded the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for the joint-development of the long-lasting materials that made liquid crystal displays possible.Expansion in the 21st century
In 2000 the university bought the site of University College Scarborough on Filey Road, Scarborough, plus two linked buildings on the same road. This became the University of Hull Scarborough Campus.A further significant expansion took place in 2003, when the buildings of the former Humberside University campus, which were situated immediately adjacent to Hull University's main campus, were purchased. The acquisition increased the size of the Cottingham Road campus by more than a third. It was the largest single act of expansion in the history of the university. Hull University fully occupied the newly acquired premises in the 2005 academic year; the area becoming the university's West Campus. The site now houses the Hull York Medical School and the relocated business school, which is located in three of the most prominent buildings – Wharfe, Derwent and Esk.
In 2012, the university began the ambitious refurbishment of the Brynmor Jones Library, a £28 million project to transform the seven-storey former workplace of Philip Larkin, into a learning hub suitable for contemporary student needs. The project was completed in 2015.
Hull History Centre
The Hull History Centre, which opened in 2010, is located in a new building on Worship Street in Hull city centre. It unites the holdings of Hull City Library's Local Studies collections and Hull University's archives and is run in partnership between the City Library and University Library.City of Culture 2017
The university was a principal partner of the city's bid to become UK City of Culture in 2017. As well as being involved in the planning and preparation of the bid, the university and its staff and students have been involved in many of the events of the year. For example, during the initial three-month season, Hull Maritime Museum displayed a multimedia installation depicting a Bowhead whale The installation was designed by students from Hull School of Art and Design with music by students from Hull University. The opening event of the whole year, from 1–7 January, included a multimedia projection called Arrivals and Departures which was greatly influenced by the work of Dr Nick Evans on migration patterns into and through Hull. The installation was projected onto The Deep using stop-frame animation, image and sound.Staff cuts and restructuring
In June 2024, University of Hull Vice-Chancellor Professor David Petley announced plans to cut up to 150 jobs in response to a reduction in international student applications. The number of redundancies was later reduced to 127.In November 2024, it was announced that the university would close its chemistry department and that the number of schools would be reduced from 17 to 11.
On 10 December 2025, Professor David Petley stepped down as Vice-Chancellor and subsequently became Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University.
Campuses
The main campus is located in a residential district of North Hull on Cottingham Road. The university had a smaller campus in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast.Hull University is a campus university; though situated in a city, its main campus is in a suburban rather than urban district. The main campus occupies a single, clearly defined site and is self-contained in regard to catering and entertainment for students and staff. Most of the major features of the campus are described in the 'history' section above; in addition, the campus has a large Students' Union building, which is often described as one of the finest in the country, and extensive playing fields and other sports facilities. The large village of Cottingham on Hull's north-western outskirts housed for many years some of the university-owned student accommodation, although none are used for this purpose now.