Universities in the Age of Reform, 1800-1870

This book considers a crucial moment in the development of English higher education. During the Age of Reform innovative ideas about the role and purpose of a university were moving at an unprecedented pace. Proposals for new institutions in all parts of the country were developing quickly and resulted in the foundation of Durham University, London University (later re-styled University College, London), and King’s College, London. Matthew Andrews examines the period through the foundation of these three different yet important institutions.

It also provides a new and comprehensive history of the early decades of Durham University, the first fully researched contemporary account of this important national institution since 1932. While normally overshadowed by the London institutions, this book demonstrates not only that Durham attempted to produce a far broader institution than any historian has given its founders credit for, but that a remarkable attempt at a third-way in English higher education has been neglected.