Cathedrals and Universities

Does every cathedral city have a university, or some form of recognised higher education provision? Prompted by the good news that there’s new investment in Salisbury’s HE provision, offered by the Wiltshire College and University Centre, this raised the question about the links.

In England, the two universities (and the two that were started and then stopped by the king) were not in cathedral cities. They were under diocesan control, their chancellors evolved from the bishops’ chancellors, but neither Oxford or Cambridge were in the cathedral city. Ely was close by, but Oxford was at the furthest end of the large Lincoln diocese. When Henry VIII reorganised the bishops Oxford gained a cathedral, first as Osney Abbey but quickly relocated into a College. Scottish universities were closely linked to the cathedrals, an established place of learning, and the first attempt to have a university in Ireland was linked to St Patrick’s cathedral

There have been several reorganisations of the dioceses since Henry VIII and a continuous development of universities. This list will focus on England and on Anglian cathedrals, which is arbitrary but that’s the established church for you. There will also be a bit of a judgment call on whether a provider is actually in the city. So, for example, to complete the picture that many of the new universities that were founded in the 1950s and 1960s, Warwick is in Coventry. In some cases, say Ripon and Southwell, the cathedral is not in the main city of the diocese (Leeds and Nottingham respectively).

As you’d expect, there’s a clear picture: most cathedral cities have higher education provision. But Blackburn, Bury St Edmonds, Ely, Lichfield, Salisbury, St Albans, Ripon, Wakefield and Wells don’t have a university.

There’s a university centre in Blackburn, it used to have two OfS-registered providers with university centres, but St Mary’s recently closed. We’ve already noted a university centre in Salisbury. St Albans ought to have a a university; Chelsea College of Technology was in negotiation to move there in the 1960s but it remain in London (later closing). St Albans has HE through Oaklands College. Bury St Edmonds has West Suffolk College. Wakefield College has recently merged, so is no longer on the OfS register itself, but is part of one. There is HE in Lichfield through Staffordshire University courses offered at South Staffordshire College – the college is not OfS registered but Staffordshire itself is listed in the OfS Geography data. Ripon used to have a higher education provider, but now the offering from Craven College in the town appears to offer no HE courses. There appears to be no HE or FE provision actually in Ely or Wells (although Strode College is in nearby Street).

There’s a complexity to mapping the location of providers in England. As a result, the list for each city may not be exhaustive. I’m also arbitrarily excluding branches of universities such as BPP although I have noted Law is in Chester. The OfS register can’t be searched by location and not all trading names are listed, so I may have missed providers entirely. The register doesn’t show franchised-in provision, which is in the geography of HE data. I’ve noted this issue before; I think it should be easier to see the officially registered provision.

Cathedral City	Universities and OfS registered higher education providers
Birmingham	Aston, Birmingham, Birmingham City, University College Birmingham
Bristol	Bristol, UWE, Bristol Baptist College, City of Bristol College, Trinity College Bristol
Canterbury	Kent, Canterbury Christchurch, Creative Arts, Canterbury College (EKC)
Chelmsford	Anglia Ruskin
Chichester	Chichester, Chichester College
Coventry	Coventry, Warwick, Coventry College
Derby	Derby
Ely	
Exeter	Exeter, Exeter College
Gloucester	Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire College
Guildford	Surrey, ACM Guildford, Guildford College (Activate Learning)
Hereford	Hereford College of Arts, Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College, NMITE
Leicester	Leicester, De Montford, Leicester College
Lichfield	South Staffordshire/Staffordshire
Lincoln	Bishop Grossteste, Lincoln, Lincoln College
Norwich	UEA, City College Norwich, Norwich University of the Arts
Oxford	Oxford, Oxford Brookes, City of Oxford College (Activate Learning), Ruskin (UWL) SAE Institute
Peterborough	Peterborough Regional College, University Centre Peterborough
Portsmouth	Portsmouth, City of Portsmouth College
Rochester	Canterbury Christchurch, Creative Arts
St Albans	Oaklands
St Edmundsbury	West Suffolk College
St Pauls	There are providers in London
Salisbury	Wiltshire College and University Centre
Southwark	There are providers in London
Truro	Truro and Penwith College
Wells	
Winchester	Winchester, Southampton, Peter Symonds, Sparsholt
Worcester	Worcester, Heart of Worcestershire College
Blackburn	Blackburn College
Bradford	Bradford, Bradford College
Carlisle	Cumbria, Carlisle College (NCG)
Chester	Chester, Law
Durham	Durham, New College Durham
Liverpool	Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, City of Liverpool College, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
Manchester	Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Royal Northern College of Music, LTE Group (Manchester College & UCEN), Missio Dei, Nazarene Theological College
Newcastle	Newcastle, Northumbria, Newcastle College (NCG)
Ripon	
Sheffield	Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam, Sheffield College
Southwell	Nottingham Trent University
Wakefield	Wakefield College (Heart of Yorkshire College)
York	York, York St John, York College, Northern College of Acupuncture,

If we get back to planning for a higher education sector that will need to grow, then ensuring that there’s provision that people can access is going to be important. Ely might be well enough connected to HE provision, but some of the other cathedral cities might not. And just as the Church of England has taken a considered view of the spatial planning of where its cathedrals are in relation to the population (given that task was started by St Augustine), perhaps someone could have a considered view of whether we have the geography of HE provision right.

Gaining University Title – when does the magic happen?

July 2022 has brought two new universities in England. Over the last 25 years since the Dearing Committee confirmed that there should be a processes for approving new university titles under the powers in the 1992 Act, the actual process has changed, as has the criteria that government has specified. In England, the key criterion is that the provider has ‘full taught degree awarding powers’ – which can only be awarded after an evaluative process run by the QAA (as designated quality body) and if the name chosen by the provider is not confusing.

This month has seen the first title awarded through a process run through the OfS. The title of ‘Northeastern University – London’ has been awarded to NCH – Northeastern, a provider that we first knew as the New College of the Humanities when its founder, A C Grayling, made a big splash in 2011 launching it. It’s come a long way from the days when it was going to charge £18,000 for an ‘Oxbridge’ style humanities degree, now it’s using the regulated £9259. It’s the first provider to get university title through a process run by the OfS, so there’s a press release and a regulatory case report. The OfS has made their process commendably clear, they had an open consultation on the proposed name and published the outcome.

Also gaining university title this month is BIMM. They seem to have been through the old process run by DfE, but the outcome is the same. The new name of the provider is ‘BIMM University Limited’ – the BIMM part having stood for Brighton Institute of Modern Music and more recently British & Irish Modern Music but known as ‘BIMM’. The DfE process is not so open; if they consult on the proposed name, they do so in private and don’t release any information.

It’s very welcome to see new universities; we need more HE provision and it’s clear that England is never going to get over what Tony Crosland called our ‘snobbish caste-ridden hierarchical obsession with university status’. However, one aspect of that obsession remains; there is still an attempt to create a hierarchy around the way that a university is made. That’s not helped by the rather mundane process that making a university now takes.

Where the magic happens.

Under the ‘companies house route’ for university title, the act of becoming a university is run through Companies House. A company can use ‘university’ in its title if it gains the agreement of Companies House to them changing their name. The company makes a resolution that it wants to make a change and then completes a form, attaching the non-objection letter from DfE (or OfS from now on). Companies House then approves this and issues a certificate of incorporation of change of name. You get this certificate for any change of name, there’s nothing special about gaining university title.

It was pleasing that OfS chose to put out a press release about a new university, but at the same time that highlights that DfE made no attempt to acknowledge it’s non-objection of BIMM’s title, who completed their name change on 4 July, a week before Northeastern. As a moment of prestige, the non-objection followed by the issuing of a certification of incorporation of a name change lacks something.

The way that we used to make universities had a bit more glamour. The Privy Council regulates the issuing of royal charters which, before 1992, was the way that universities were made. The process was just as interminable; the UGC provided the quality check and once they were happy a charter was drawn up. The correspondence about this could be considerable and drawn out, but after several drafts the Privy Council office would be happy and then the charter would be approved by the monarch in council. Although 20th Century charters are less beautiful than those from earlier centuries, there’s a majesty to the actual thing, particularly with the seal attached.

The University of Kent’s charter

A university is a university whether it has a charter in a box in the archive or not. What’s interesting is that DfE has become interested again in getting royal charters for the Institutes of Technology which it has been establishing. Clearly they see charters as adding prestige, although it presents a challenge in that the IoTs are not currently separate corporations from the further education corporation that houses them and in many cases the university that is partnering with them won’t have a charter either.

The important thing is we protect university title and then we celebrate when it is awarded. So congratulations to Northeastern University – London and BIMM University. Also, credit to OfS for making something of the award of the title.