Bangor University 1884-2009. David Roberts

      

      BANGOR UNIVERSITY, 1884–2009

      BANGOR UNIVERSITY 1884–2009

      DAVID ROBERTS

      © David Roberts, 2009

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.

       www.uwp.co.uk

       British Library CIP Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      ISBN 978-0-70832-226-0

      e-ISBN 978-1-78316-385-4

      The rights of David Roberts to be identified as author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

       To the students and staff – past, present and future – of Bangor University

       Contents

List of illustrations

Abbreviations

Foreword

Preface

1 ‘North Wales and his wife will be there’: The Beginning, 1884–1892

2 ‘Little Balliol’: Growth and Development, 1893–1927

       3 ‘The strange and beautiful hillside college at Bangor’: Recession and War, 1928–1945

       4 ‘The whole place had a sort of family feeling’: Reconstruction, 1945–1957

       5 ‘Universities have a duty to try to find places for all those who wish to enter’: The Challenges of Expansion, 1958–1976

       6 ‘We are drifting into very perilous waters’: Confrontation and Crisis, 1976–1984

       7 ‘I am sure that a radical approach is right’: Responding to Change, 1984–2009

       Notes

       List of Illustrations

1Foundation Day – 18 October 1884 – at the Penrhyn Arms.

2The first Senate, with Reichel in the centre (seated).

3Sir Harry Reichel, Principal, 1884–1927.

4W. Cadwaldr Davies, the first Registrar.

5Earl of Powis, the first President.

6William Rathbone, President, 1892–1900.

7A student production of ‘Twelfth Night’ on St. David’s Day, 1903.

8Certain goings-on attract light-hearted banter in the press.

9King Edward VII lays the foundation stone for the Main Building in July 1907.

10The bilingual foundation stone – in Welsh and Latin.

11The opening of the Main Building, 1911. Lord Kenyon opens proceedings, with King George V seated on the stage.

12John Morris-Jones (left) and David Lloyd George outside Prichard-Jones Hall after the opening of the Main Building.

13Kate Roberts, the distinguished Welsh writer, graduated in 1912.

14The College’s Officer Training Corps, being inspected by the Principal in 1912.

15A Physics Laboratory.

16The College rugby team in 1925/26.

17Sir John Edward Lloyd, simultaneously Professor of History, Registrar and Honorary Librarian.

       18Sir Emrys Evans, Principal, 1927–1958.

       19F. W. Rogers Brambell on the marine zoology Easter course, 1933. Dates of terms were set in accordance with information on the tides – ‘Brambell’s tides’ as they were known.

       20Sir Ifor Williams, Professor of Welsh and ‘doyen of Celtic scholars’.

       21Wynn Wheldon, Registrar, 1920–33.

       22Students and sandbags on the terrace of the Main Building during the Second World War.

       23The improvised Physics laboratory in 1942 in an old bicycle shop on Bangor High Street. (Reproduced by kind permission of UCL Library Services and UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy).

       24Valuable National Gallery paintings being unloaded at the Prichard-Jones Hall in 1939 (reproduced by kind permission of BRB [Residuary] Ltd.).

       25The Main Building in the late 1930s.

       26The ‘Adult Training Orchestra’, conducted by E.T. Davies, the first Director of Music, who established