What are the top 10 oldest Universities in the UK?
The two obvious ones – Oxford since at least 1096, and Cambridge since 1209. Then I believe it’s St. Andrews in Scotland, founded in 1410. The others probably include Glasgow (1451), Kings College Aberdeen (1495), Edinburgh (1583) and Trinity College Dublin (1592 – in Ireland today but part of the UK until 1922). There was then a very large gap in the creation of new universities until the 1800s, contenders including University College London and Kings College London that became the University of London in 1836, and the University of Durham, granted a Royal Charter in 1837. St. Davids College in Lampeter, Wales is the oldest Welsh university (1822). Loads more were incorparated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, some of which can trace back their origins earlier to Medical Schools or Colleges of Medicine. Leeds can trace its origins back this way to 1831 and Birmingham back to 1825, though neither received a Royal Charter as a university until the first decade of the twentieth century.
