The older civic (“redbrick”) universities.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 645.

The early nineteenth-century English universities.

The Old Scottish universities.

By 1600 Scotland boasted four universities. They were Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews. The last of these resemble Oxbridge in many ways while the other 3 are more like civic universities in that most of the students live at home or find there own rooms in town. At all of them the pattern of study is closer to the continental tradition than to the English one - there is less specialization than at Oxbridge.

Durham University was founded in 1832. Its collegiate living arrangements are similar to Oxbridge, but academic matters are organized at university level. The University of London started in 1836 with just two colleges. Many more have joined since, scattered widely around the city, so that each college (most are non-residential) is almost a separate university. The central organization is responsible for little more than exams and awarding of degrees.

During the nineteenth century various institutes of higher education, usually with a technical bias, sprang up in the new industrial towns and cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Their buildings were of local material, often brick, in contrast to the stone of older universities (hence the name, "redbrick"). They catered only for local people. At first, they prepared students for London University degrees, but later they were given the right to award their own degrees, and so became universities themselves. In the mid twentieth century they started to accept students from all over the country.