University of Hull

Duke of York (George VI) laid the foundation stone in 1928 and the College opened in October with 39 students and 14 ‘one-man’ departments. There were 100 students in 1931.

Located on Cottingham Road in Hull, with just one building (now the Venn Building), the new University College Hull was an outpost of the University of London and offered courses in the arts and pure sciences.

During its early years, the College faced the changing economic trends of the 1930s and then the outbreak of war, which led to falling student numbers, buildings being commandeered and books being evacuated for safe-keeping.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the University’s Research Centre in Surface Engineering pioneered the development of a new discipline of crucial importance to the manufacturing industry. The University has also developed expertise in the field of robotics and virtual reality systems. Research expertise is not confined to pure science – History, Law, English, Geography, Asian Studies, Politics and Music were all awarded a Grade 5 (‘internationally excellent’) in the last national Research Assessment Exercise.