Everything about Red Brick Universities totally explained
Red Brick (or perhaps better,
Redbrick) originally referred to the six "civic"
British universities which were founded in the industrial cities of
England in the Victorian era and which achieved university status before
World War II. The modern term roughly equates to those members of the so-called
Russell Group of universities founded between 1850 and 1960, although the terms are by no means mutually inclusive.
The civic universities
The civic university movement started in
1851 with Owens College, Manchester (now the
University of Manchester), which became the founding college of the federal
Victoria University in
1880 and attained university status when the federal university was dissolved in
1903.
The six civic universities were:
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. In this sense, they owed their heritage to
University College London and to the
Humboldt University of Berlin, both of which emphasised practical knowledge over the academic sort. 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 (for example assent to the
Thirty-Nine Articles) on staff and students. Scotland's
ancient universities (
St Andrews,
Glasgow,
Aberdeen and
Edinburgh), usually grouped with
Dundee (which was originally part of St Andrews - see below), were founded on a different basis.
Origins of the term
The term "Red Brick" or "Redbrick" was first coined by a professor of Spanish (
Edgar Allison Peers) at the
University of Liverpool to describe these civic universities (under the pseudonym "Bruce Truscot" in his 1943 book
Redbrick University). His reference was inspired by the fact that
The Victoria Building at the University of Liverpool (which was designed by
Alfred Waterhouse and completed in
1892) is built from a distinctive red pressed
brick, with
terracotta decorative dressings. On this basis, the University of Liverpool (which was itself originally part of the aforementioned Victoria University together with Owens College in Manchester) can be argued to be the "original" red brick university. With the Birmingham University Act receiving assent on
24 May 1900, the first red brick university to receive its Royal Charter was the
University of Birmingham.
However, the term was to become more nebulous. The
University of Reading, founded in the late 19th century as an extension college of Oxford, received its charter in
1926. Despite being the first university to be based on a self-contained
campus, Reading is often classed as one of the civic universities and is therefore "Red Brick", as is
Queen's University Belfast, which became a civic university in
1908, having previously been established in
1845 as a university college of the
Queen's University of Ireland (which was later renamed as
Royal University of Ireland).
University College London itself, and colleges from the 19th and early 20th centuries which later achieved university status prior to 1963, are also sometimes described as "Red Brick". This broader designation includes institutions such as:
University of Exeter (originally an extension college of Cambridge);
University of Hull;
University of Leicester;
University of Newcastle (originally two extension colleges of the University of Durham)
University of Nottingham; and
University of Southampton (until the 1950s, all were colleges with degrees being awarded by the University of London).
Additionally, the University of Dundee, formerly "University College Dundee", was founded in the late 19th century and then spent many years as a constituent college of the University of St Andrews, until it received its own charter. - it has many features in common with the original "Red Brick" universities of large northern English cities, although it has other features it shares with the Scottish ancients.
The term "redbrick" is also used to cover most of the original constituent institutions of the University of Wales, those being; Aberystwyth, Bangor, Swansea and Cardiff. The exception to these being the St David's College, Lampeter, which predates all 'Red Brick' universities by being founded in 1822.
Keble College, Oxford is notable for being both an architecturally red-brick built college within the University of Oxford and a "Red Brick"-style institution which places a similarly strong emphasis on engineering and sciences. It is also chronologically of the redbrick era, having been founded in 1870.
In 1963, the Robbins Report recommended expansion of the British university system - the universities established after this report are often known as the "plate glass universities".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Red Brick Universities'.
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