What is the history of UK universities?
The first universities were established in the 13th century in Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford was already an important town geographically, commercially and favoured by royalty. Cambridge was established as a seat of learning when some Oxford students had a quarrel with Oxford citizens and moved to Cambridge. There were no further universities created in England for about 600 years until universities were established at London and Durham in the 1830’s. In the mean-time Scotland had created four universities starting with St. Andrews in 1413 followed by Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The Queen’s University of Belfast was established as a college in 1845 as part of the federal Queen’s University of Ireland and achieved independence in 1908. The federal university of Wales was founded in 1893 and remained so until 2007 when it’s component institutions became independent. Manchester became the headquarters of the federal Victoria University in 1880 which had colleges in Leeds and Liverpool
