The history of Durham University spans over 190 years since it was founded by Act of Parliament. King William IV granted royal assent to the Act on 4 July 1832, and granted the university a royal charter on 1 June 1837, incorporating it and confirming its constitution. The university awarded its first degrees on 8 June 1837. It describes itself as the third-oldest university in England (a claim also made by UCL and the University of London) and is listed by the European University Association as one of Europe's oldest hundred universities in continuous operation. – By the chronological list on pp. 673–691, Durham was the eighth of these new foundations.
From 1870, the university was divided between Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, with a fully federal arrangement from 1910 which lasted until 1963 when the Newcastle division separated to become the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. From 1992, the university once again divided with a new campus in Stockton-upon-Tees, until 2017 when the university unified academic activities in Durham.
Durham University owns (as of 2006) a 227.8-hectare (563 acres) estate which includes a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one ancient monument (the Maiden Castle earthworks), five grade-one listed buildings and 68 Grade II listed buildings along with 44.9 ha (111 acres) of woodland.
Origins
Medieval foundations and foundation attempts
Durhamites had a central role in the development of higher education in England well before the formal establishment of Durham University. Archdeacon William of Durham established the first college in Oxford, 'Durham Hall' (now University College, Oxford), followed by John de Balliol who established the city's second college, Balliol College, shortly after. However, the direct involvement of Durham Cathedral with higher education dates back to the foundation c. 1286 of Durham Hall at Oxford, where the monks of Durham Abbey could go to study at the University of Oxford. This was endowed by Bishop Thomas Hatfield of Durham c. 1380 to become Durham College, Oxford, consisting of eight monks (one of whom served as Warden) and eight secular scholars. This college remained a cell of Durham Abbey rather than becoming an independent foundation. At the Reformation in 1540 it was dissolved and its revenues passed to the new dean and chapter of the reformed Durham Cathedral.
In 1541, Henry VIII proposed to use the funds of the dissolved college to found a northern University in Durham, but the plans were scaled down from a college with a provost and professors of divinity, Greek, Hebrew and medicine to a grammar school (Durham School) with a headmaster and an assistant master paid from Cathedral funds. There was a brief attempt to continue the college in Oxford as a secular foundation, but this lasted less than a year. The site was sold to Sir Thomas Pope in 1555 and used to found Trinity College, Oxford.
The Commonwealth foundation
The next attempt to establish a university in Durham was under Oliver Cromwell. In 1649 the cathedrals of England were dissolved by Act of Parliament, leaving Durham Castle (the Bishop's palace), the cathedral and the college (the cathedral close) unoccupied. A number of petitions were presented to Cromwell, who in 1657 issued letters patent incorporating Durham College.
Philip Hunton was nominated as the provost, along with two preachers, four professors, four tutors, and four schoolmasters. The college was granted an endowment of lands formerly belonging to the cathedral, along with the buildings of the college and the cathedral library. However, the letters patent of 1657 did not give the college the powers of a university. A further petition was made to Cromwell in 1658, but nothing was done before he died.
In 1659 the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioned his successor, Richard Cromwell, against the foundation of a third university, and especially against any grant of degree-awarding powers. The college was also opposed by George Fox and other Quakers as being an institute designed to prepare ministers. According to Fowler, "on April 22 [Richard Cromwell] directed that a grant which had been drawn up to make the College a University should not be sealed until further order". The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 saw the cathedral chapter re-established and Durham College closed. However, the cause of education was not wholly forgotten, for Bishop John Cosin established his library on Palace Green a few years later, in 1669.
Origins of the 19th century university
In the first half of the 19th century, many elements came together. There was increasing interest in the theological training of the clergy, leading to the establishment of the private St Bees Theological College in west Cumberland in 1816 and St David's College, Lampeter in Wales in 1822 by Bishop Thomas Burgess, who was a prebendary of Durham. Burgess was succeeded as Bishop of St David's in 1825 by John Banks Jenkinson, who became Dean of Durham (in addition to his bishopric) in 1827. The secular University College London (UCL) was established in 1826: it was then operating under the name of London University, which had led to the foundation of the Anglican King's College London in 1829. In 1831 UCL had, like Cromwell's Durham College, had its attempt to gain University status blocked by Oxford and Cambridge, on the grounds that it wanted to offer degrees to people who were not members of the established church. A church university could not be opposed on these grounds, and schemes were drawn up in the late 1820s and 1830s for universities in York and Bath, both of which failed for lack of money. There were also threats that the Whig government elected in 1830 would seek to remove some of the wealth of the Church of England – of which Durham was one of the richest cathedrals – and that a UCL-like secular college would be established in Newcastle, as proposed by Thomas Greenhow in 1831 (this led to the foundation of the Newcastle upon Tyne School of Medicine and Surgery in 1834).
In summer 1831 the idea of founding a university at Durham was revived by Charles Thorp, a prebendary of Durham and domestic chaplain to Earl Grey, the prime minister (and from December 1831 Archdeacon of Durham). On 28 September the Chapter passed an Act officially founding "an academical institution" and by the end of the year this was being advertised as the University of Durham. In 1832 William van Mildert, the Bishop of Durham, introduced a bill in Parliament entitled "an Act to enable the Dean and Chapter of Durham to appropriate part of the property of their church to the establishment of a University in connection therewith". The two main effects of this bill were: (1) to establish a university as an eleemosynary (charitable) trust under the control of the Dean and Chapter of Durham as governors and trustees, and the Bishop of Durham as Visitor; (2) to allow part of the property of the cathedral to be used to support this university. The bill was passed with the support of Earl Grey's government, and received Royal Assent on 4 July 1832, which is taken as the date of the university's foundation.
Early years, 1832–1846
The opening of the university
The university was intended from the start to be collegiate, and the foundation college was University College. This was originally accommodated in the former Archdeacon's Inn, renamed University House (now Cosin's Hall).
After the passing of the Act, a year was spent setting up the university and recruiting staff. The library was established in January 1833 by a donation of 160 volumes from Van Mildert, with the Bishop's librarian, Rev. Patrick George, being named the university's first librarian. The library was housed in a gallery of Cosin's Library on Palace Green. On 20 July the opening of the university in Michaelmas Term 1833 was announced, along with an almost complete list of staff.
The university opened on 28 October 1833 with 19 "scholars" and 18 "students" on the Bachelor of Arts course and 5 students on the theology licence course. The university was the first in England to introduce matriculation examinations, although these had been in use at the University of St Andrews and Marischal College, Aberdeen since the 1820s; the first student to be matriculated was John Cundill. Shortly after the first students arrived, the "first calendar" was published, advertising the institution as the "University of Durham founded by Act of Chapter with the Consent of the Bishop of Durham 28 September 1831. Constituted a University by Act of Parliament 2nd and 3rd William IV., Sess. 1831-2." The university had three professors (all Anglican clergymen) at its opening: Hugh James Rose (Divinity and Ecclesiastical History), Henry Jenkyns (Greek and Classical Literature) and John Carr (Mathematics). This reflected the two BA honours courses in classics and mathematics (following Oxford and Cambridge) and the course in theology, leading to the Licence in Theology (LTh). There were also readers in law (William Gray), medicine (William Cooke), history (Thomas Greenwood), natural philosophy (Charles Thomas Whitley) and moral philosophy (J. Miller), and lecturers in Modern languages (James Hamilton), and chemistry and mineralogy (James Finlay Weir Johnston, FRSE). Unlike at Oxford and Cambridge, where the teaching was carried out by the colleges, the professors at Durham were expected to "have the charge of the studies in their respective departments and work as at Glasgow and the foreign Universities, and as they did at Oxford in old times".
Unfortunately, Carr died suddenly on 30 October, only two days after the university opened. The university went into mourning for fourteen days. George, the librarian, died on 13 January 1834, Whitley taking over that role in addition to his readership. Rose was also plagued by ill health and left in March. He became the second principal of King's College London in 1836 but again only lasted around six months before ill health forced him from the post; he died in 1838 aged 43. After he left Durham, his brother, Henry John Rose, filled in for the rest of the academic year, before returning to his fellowship at Cambridge.
Jenkyns took over as acting professor of divinity, while remaining professor of Greek until 1839, when he was appointed professor of Greek permanently and made a canon of the cathedral. Temple Chevallier came to Durham in 1834 to assist Jenkyns with the teaching of theology and Hebrew, and was appointed professor of mathematics, reader in Hebrew and Registrar to the university in 1835.
In early 1834, Thorp wrote to the bishops of the Church of England asking if they would accept holders of Durham degrees for ordination alongside those from Oxford and Cambridge. The answers were mostly positive, with only two bishops refusing: George Murray (bishop of Rochester) and Henry Phillpotts (bishop of Exeter and a canon of Durham Cathedral). At the end of the 1833–34 academic year, George Selby Thomson became the first recipient of the LTh, which was available with only one year's study for those with degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin or Durham (as opposed to three years' study for non-graduates). Thomson had gained his BA at Jesus College, Cambridge and took his MA in June 1834.
There was originally an intention to offer a medical course similar to those at the London colleges, leading to the Licence of the Society of Apothecaries. However, there was insufficient demand to sustain the course, particularly after the opening of the medical school in Newcastle (1834), and lectures in medicine stopped after 1836.