page_title: History of Durham University
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: History of Durham University / Origins
context_page_description: The history of Durham University spans over 180 years since it was founded by Act of Parliament. King William IV granted Royal Assent to the Act on 4 July 1832, and granted the university a Royal Charter on 1 June 1837, incorporating it and confirming its constitution. The university awarded its first degrees on 8 June 1837. It claims to be the third-oldest university in England and is, according to the European University Association's A History of the University in Europe, one of the oldest hundred universities in continuous operation in Europe.
  Durham University owns a 227.8-hectare estate which includes a UNESCO world heritage site, one ancient monument, five grade-one listed buildings and 68 Grade II listed buildings along with 44.9 ha of woodland. The university has, since 1992, been divided into two campuses: Durham City and Queen's Campus, Stockton-on-Tees.
context_section_description: The direct involvement of Durham Cathedral with higher education dates back to the foundation c. 1286 of Durham Hall at Oxford, where the monks of Durham Abbey could go to study at the University of Oxford. This was endowed by Bishop Thomas Hatfield of Durham c. 1380 to become Durham College, Oxford, consisting of eight monks (one of whom served as Warden) and eight secular scholars. This college remained a cell of Durham Abbey rather than becoming an independent foundation. At the Reformation in 1540 it was dissolved and its revenues passed to the new dean and chapter of the reformed Durham Cathedral. In 1541, Henry VIII proposed founding a northern University in Durham, but the plans were scaled down from a college with a provost and professors of divinity, Greek, Hebrew and medicine to a grammar school with a headmaster and an assistant master paid from Cathedral funds. There was a brief attempt to continue the college in Oxford as a secular foundation, but this lasted less than a year. The site was sold to Sir Thomas Pope in 1555 and used to found Trinity College, Oxford.
  The next attempt to establish a university in Durham was under Oliver Cromwell. In 1649 the cathedrals of England were dissolved by Act of Parliament, leaving Durham Castle (the Bishop's palace), the cathedral and the college (the cathedral close) unoccupied. A number of petitions were presented to Cromwell, who in 1657 issued letters patent incorporating Durham College. Philip Hunton was nominated as the provost, along with two preachers, four professors, four tutors, and four schoolmasters. The college was granted an endowment of lands formerly belonging to the cathedral, along with the buildings of the college and the cathedral library. However, the letters patent of 1657 did not give the college the powers of a university. A further petition was made to Cromwell in 1658, but nothing was done before he died. Oxford and Cambridge then petitioned his successor, Richard Cromwell, in 1659 against any grant of university powers to the Durham college. The college was also opposed by George Fox and other Quakers as being an institute designed to prepare ministers. According to Fowler, "on April 22 [Richard Cromwell] directed that a grant which had been drawn up to make the College a University should not be sealed until further order". The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 saw the cathedral chapter re-established and Durham College closed. However, the cause of education was not wholly forgotten, for Bishop John Cosin established his library on Palace Green a few years later, in 1669.
  In the first half of the 19th century, many elements came together. There was increasing interest in the theological training of the clergy, leading to the establishment of the private St Bees Theological College in west Cumberland in 1816 and St David's College, Lampeter in Wales in 1822 by Bishop Thomas Burgess, who was a prebendary of Durham. Burgess was succeeded as Bishop of St David's in 1825 by John Banks Jenkinson, who became Dean of Durham (in addition to his bishopric) in 1827. The secular University College London (UCL) was established in 1826: it was then operating under the name of London University, which had led to the foundation of the Anglican King's College London in 1829. In 1831 UCL had, like Cromwell's Durham College, had its attempt to gain University status blocked by Oxford and Cambridge, on the grounds that it wanted to offer degrees to people who were not members of the established church. A church university could not be opposed on these grounds, and schemes were drawn up in the late 1820s and 1830s for universities in York and Bath, both of which failed for lack of money. There were also threats that the Whig government elected in 1830 would seek to remove some of the wealth of the Church of England – of which Durham was one of the richest cathedrals – and that a UCL-like secular college would be established in Newcastle, as proposed by Thomas Greenhow in 1831 (this led to the foundation of the Newcastle upon Tyne School of Medicine and Surger
caption: King William IV who granted Durham University its Royal Charter in 1837
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