The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is located in the leafy suburb of Edgbaston outside Birmingham City Centre. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1828 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery) and Mason Science College (established in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason), making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter.
It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21.
The University of Birmingham was ranked 11th in the UK and 64th in the world in the QS World University Rankings for 2014-15.In 2013, Birmingham was named 'University of the Year 2014' in the Times Higher Education awards.
In an employability survey published by the New York Times, where CEOs and chairmans were asked to select the top universities which they recruited from, Birmingham placed 55th in the world.The Global Employability University Ranking conducted by THES places Birmingham at 57th world-wide.
Birmingham is also ranked 4th in the UK for Graduate Prospects in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2015.
The student population includes around 19,000 undergraduate and 9,000 postgraduate students, which is the 11th largest in the UK.The annual income of the institution for 2013–14 was £528.2 million, with an expenditure of £499 million.
The university is home to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, housing works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet, the Lapworth Museum of Geology, the Cadbury Research Library home to the Mingana Collections of Middle Eastern manuscripts and the Chamberlain Collection, and the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, which is a prominent landmark visible from many parts of the city.
Academics and alumni of the university include former British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain, and Stanley Baldwin,and eight Nobel laureates
Queen's College
Although the earliest beginnings of the University were previously traced back to the Queen's College which is linked to William Sands Cox in his aim of creating a medical school along strictly Christian lines, unlike the London medical schools, further research has now revealed the roots of the Birmingham Medical School in the medical education seminars of Mr John Tomlinson, the first surgeon to the Birmingham Workhouse Infirmary, and later to the General Hospital. These classes were the first ever held outside London or south of the Scottish border in the winter of 1767–68.
The first clinical teaching was undertaken by medical and surgical apprentices at the General Hospital, opened in 1779. The medical school which grew out of the Birmingham Workhouse Infirmary was founded in 1828 but Cox began teaching in December 1825. Queen Victoria granted her patronage to the Clinical Hospital in Birmingham and allowed it to be styled "The Queen's Hospital". It was the first provincial teaching hospital in England. In 1843, the medical college became known as Queen's College.
Mason Science College
In 1870, Sir Josiah Mason, the Birmingham industrialist and philanthropist, who made his fortune in making key rings, pens, pen nibs and electroplating, drew up the Foundation Deed for Mason Science College.
The college was founded in 1875. It was this institution that would eventually form the nucleus of the University of Birmingham. In 1882, the Departments of Chemistry, Botany and Physiology were transferred to Mason Science College, soon followed by the Departments of Physics and Comparative Anatomy.
The transfer of the Medical School to Mason Science College gave considerable impetus to the growing importance of that college and in 1896 a move to incorporate it as a university college was made.
As the result of the Mason University College Act 1897 it became incorporated as Mason University College on 1 January 1898, with Joseph Chamberlain becoming the President of its Court of Governors
No comments:
Post a Comment