Celebrating 140 years of Bangor’s academic excellence and global impact.
2024 marks the 140th Anniversary of 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁϳԹÏ, celebrating 140 years of academic excellence, world leading research, and transformative student experiences.
Join us as we revisit the legacy that began in 1884, and stay tuned as we share news on captivating events, and heart-warming stories to celebrate this big milestone.
The Beginnings
In the early 1880's a 3,000-strong procession of Gwynedd farmers, quarrymen and their families marched for education down Bangor High Street. They raised £1,200 to transform an old coaching inn, Penrhyn Arms into what was then known as University College of North Wales.
The University opened its doors on the 18th October 1884 to 58 students and had ten members of staff. Students were initially conferred degrees by the University of London, until 1893 when Bangor became one of the three original constituent colleges of the University of Wales.
The very first student to enrol at 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï was female. Mary Ellen Williams was a lady of ordinary background, not one of wealth and stature as you might expect. She was a local girl, the daughter of a grocer. Female students actually made up a third of the student population in those formative years – which was unusual for its time.
One of the first females to graduate from the University was Margaret Verney from Plas Rhianfa on Anglesey.
Women were to contribute greatly to the growth of university education in Wales.
In 1903, Bangor's city council donated a 10-acre plot of land overlooking the city for construction of a new, bigger university building. Lewis D Jones (Llew Tegid), a local headteacher, led fundraising efforts across Gwynedd and Anglesey to help fund the new building. Thousands of farmers, quarrymen, local people contributed towards the goal of raising a huge £120,000.
The foundation stone was laid in 1907, and four years later in 1911 the main building was opened by Royal visit.
History of 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï in Film
Throughout this Anniversary year, the University is launching a series of six films telling the captivating story of the history of Bangor. Join local historian and businessman, Gari Wyn as he takes us on a journey through campus and the city of Bangor, with some special collections also showcased by 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁϳԹÏ’s Archives Department.
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Join us as we explore the captivating story of how 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï came to be.
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The story of how 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï started is a captivating one.
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I'm Mari, studying Childhood and Youth studies here at 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï and this is the first in a series of six films where we
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explore the history of 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï and how the small University on the Hill became the global influence that is today.
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Here to take us on this fascinating journey is Gari Wyn, local historian, businessman, and graduate from 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï School of History.
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So what can you tell us about how this story began? {Gari} Well, it all started in in the 1880s, and the first college was opened in 1884.
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But we're standing here now in the new college, which was opened in 1911.
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And right above us, we have the central tower of the college, which has four statues on it.
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The ones we see from here are David, the patron Saint of Wales.
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Next door to him is Llywellyn Ap Griffith. On the other side, we have Owen Gwynedd, who's buried in Bangor Cathedral down the road here,
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down at the bottom of the hill, and also Owain Glyndwr
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And the important person amongst those four is Owain Glyndwr because he had the vision in 1404 to have an independent Parliament
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for Wales and an independent church for Wales and possibly more significance for us here,
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an independent self autonomous university for Wales.
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And how long did that take? {Gari} Well, when you work it out, it's 480 years isn't.
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And with the drive and the vision of the people of Gwynedd and Anglesey, we finally had what Owain Glyndwr hoped he would have in 1404.
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It's all started with the local people getting behind the local business leaders,
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securing this building called the Penrhyn Arms and adapting it to be the university.
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The doors opened and the processions came from all over for the opening ceremony.
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I suppose you could say it was one of the earliest records of crowdfunding.
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That's a good way of putting it. The whole community came together.
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A non-conformist, traditional, old fashioned Welsh community farmers, poor farmers,
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wealthy farmers, prominent businesspeople and especially the Quarrymen.
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The Quarrymen actually gathered together 1200 pounds of their own money to start off the
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conversion of the Penrhyn Arms Hotel to turn it into some kind of modern university.
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And this was a massive challenge at the time.
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The next step, obviously, was to gather the rest of them, and actually came to 35,000 to add that to the building.
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Then we had a great procession to open the building in front of the Penrhyn Port here and down at the sea,
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and opened the building in October 1884. That actually was a fantastic day in the history of Bangor.
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We had a great procession and we should remember that Bangor High Street is the longest high street in Wales.
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So the culmination of the day was 3000 people, a cross-section of all people in the local society, and we were on the way.
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This obviously is the foundation of the education that you are receiving here today.
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And how many students were registered here back then?
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Well, there were 58 in the first year. But the staggering statistic is that there were 19 women out of those 58.
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And that was totally unheard of throughout education in the whole of the UK at the time.
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And for this to happen, the little city of Bangor shows that we've always been on the forefront of education,
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always thinking of new ideas and developing and evolving as we go along.
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Do we know anything about those first female students?
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We have a lot of information about them. Probably the most prominent one was Margaret Verney, a member of the Plas Rhianfa family on Anglesey.
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She became the first woman graduate. But more important is that she gave 30 years of her life towards promoting women's education.
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And she became a member of the university council, which she remains for for the next 30 years.
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And she contributed greatly to the history of the University of Wales and to women's Eduication in the UK generally.
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Hello, Sian. What can you tell us about the first principal and professors here? Who were the first to teach?
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Well, how did a Hill, an Irishman of German descent.
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Was the first principle here. And he played an important role in establishing the university for nearly 50 years.
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He learned Welsh fluently. He had the vision for the for the college, and he established and bought new people around him.
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And how did the university establish itself and develop financially?
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Again, by making connections. We had people like William Rathbone, the Liverpool MP who became an MP for Caernarfonshire also.
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But later on, as Lloyd George became more prominent and liberalism,
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he pulled in very wealthy business people from Merseyside and also from all parts of North Wales and everybody contributed.
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He started new subjects, a forestry, for example.
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Also the classics came to Bangor with possibly more pioneering than anything was his contribution to agriculture,
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because agriculture was obviously a prominent part of the life of everybody here in Gwynedd and Anglesey.
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What a great way to end this, first in a series of films.
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Thanks. Follow the next part of this fascinating story by joining us in part two.
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The vision of 1884, the growth of the university and its buildings.
Part Two - The Vision of 1884
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This is 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁϳԹÏ, one of the first universities built in Wales and now within the top five in the UK.
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I'm Mari studying childhood and youth studies here at 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁϳԹÏ.
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And this is our second in our series of six films where we explore the history of 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï and how the vision of 1884 evolved.
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Here to take us on this fascinating journey is Gari Wyn a local historian, businessman and graduate from the 91¾«Æ·ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï School of History.
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So what can you tell us about how this part of the story starts?
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Well, from 1884 onwards, the college gradually expanded from its base down there by the port in the old Penrhyn Hotel.
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We needed a bigger university going gradually from an University of 60 students gradually by about 1890 to about 600 students.
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All of a sudden, the rural communities called for a new college.
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Between 1884 and 1893, the college evolved and more prominent local people, local businesspeople,
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local farmers and the coming of Lloyd George as an MP in 1890 made it inevitable that before long a new grand university would have to be developed.
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We're now obviously standing beneath the climax of the progress which was going to be built by 1911.
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So we needed money. The college and the MP's, such as William Rathbone and Asquith in London, also was behind this a prime Minister to be before long.
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Was there large amounts of crowd funding?
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This all started with a man called Llew Tegid
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who was appointed as the chief fundraiser towards the building of the new college, and that started in about 1905.
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This culminated in 1907 with the actual unveiling of this stone by Edward VII, as you see, in July 1907.
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Underneath the stone as a matter of interest are the publications in the local press at the time celebrating the actual event underneath the stone.
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Further down here is the name of Henry Hare, the architect who was responsible for this magnificent piece of architecture,
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which can't really be compared to anything in the whole of the UK.
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Yes. Gosh, that's incredible. And here we are in the stunning Shankland Library.
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What can you tell us about this building Gari? Well, the structure of the building was paid for by the Royal Drapers' Society.
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Very apt considering that the woollen industry was so important for the people of this area.
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So they paid for the structure. A man called Owen Owens, who was a foremost department store business man from Liverpool and London.
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He paid for all the wood work which is made by with Austrian Oak.
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We also have a unique feature in the roof of all the coats of arms for the different counties and purchases of Wales between 1907 and 1911
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Thomas Shankland was given the task of creating a massive collection of the most valuable books and rarest books in the history of Wales.
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So we have just one totally unique, unbelievable building,
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which I don't think can be matched by any university anywhere across the world.
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So here we are inside the building. What exactly can you tell us about the history of this hall?
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Well, we need an hour to do it all Mari but as you can see, it's a really majestic building.
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Sir John Pritchard Jones who was given the Baronetcy award for his contribution financially of £15,000 to build this magnificent hall.
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And it was based really on an idea that it would then include a great hall
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and this was basically the Lloyd George's idea, because he did feel that if we were going to have such a fantastic building in Bangor
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as a new university that we would also need a great hall like they did
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in Balliol and Jesus College in Cambridge and as you can see, the building itself held 1500 people.
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We're standing on the balcony now around us, these oak panels from Austria, these great windows, the cultural arms of all of the countries of Wales,
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and possibly more interesting than anything, the first Great Hall in any university in the UK to have what they called electroliers.
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These lights were actually chandeliers infused with electricity and that is a really,
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really pioneering thing for any hall to have in Britain in in the 1911 period.
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Thanks again, Gari. It really does put a different perspective on these corridors that our students walk through daily.
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Join us next time when we discover more about this amazing university.
