University of Manchester

UMIST traced its roots to the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution, founded in 1824 by industrialists as part of a national movement to educate working men. It offered evening classes in basic science for artisans, and its first building stood near St Peter’s Square.⁠[1][2]

The Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, a medical school owned by doctors, was also formed in 1824; it was incorporated into Owens College from 1872.⁠[3]

In 1846 John Owens left £96,942 to found a non-sectarian college. Owens College opened in 1851 in a house on Quay Street in central Manchester.⁠[3]

Its early years were difficult: England had only one comparable modern university college, in London, and most Manchester merchants saw little value in a college education, preferring their sons to enter the family business.⁠[3]

The Mechanics’ Institution moved into a new building on Princess Street in 1853. John Henry Reynolds, a self-taught former shoemaker, later built a programme of classes suited to the region’s industries, and in 1883 he converted the Institution into the Manchester Technical School.⁠[1]

From the 1860s the college’s leading professors modelled it on German universities, which emphasised creating knowledge rather than only passing it on. Research became central in both the humanities and the sciences, and a college education came to be seen as the standard route into the professions.⁠[3]

By 1870 the college needed new premises, and building began on the present Oxford Road site; the first building, now the John Owens building, was completed in 1873. From that year the college also had a chemistry laboratory on Burlington Street and a medical school on Coupland Street, with clinical teaching at the Manchester Royal Infirmary.⁠[3]

On April 20, 1880, Queen Victoria granted the Royal Charter that founded the Victoria University.⁠[4]

Owens College became the first constituent part of this federal university, which the university describes as England’s first civic university; colleges in Liverpool and Leeds later joined it.⁠[3]

Between 1890 and 1914 the university expanded considerably, with new laboratories on Coupland Street. Arts buildings were added south of Burlington Street between 1918 and 1939, and after 1945 the science, engineering and medical departments were rehoused east of Oxford Road.⁠[3]

From 1892 the school was funded by the Manchester Corporation and became the Manchester Municipal Technical School. Modelled on German technical high schools, it opened a large new building, now the Sackville Street Building, in 1902. After the First World War it was renamed the Manchester Municipal College of Technology.⁠[1]

A 1905 agreement made the college’s professors the Faculty of Technology of the Victoria University of Manchester, and its students could take Victoria degrees. Until after the Second World War most courses remained professional or technical, and much teaching took place in evening classes.⁠[1]

After Birmingham received its own university charter in 1900, the colleges of the Victoria University separated. In 1903 Owens College was reconstituted as the Victoria University of Manchester, often called simply “the University of Manchester” or “Owens”.⁠[3]

The corresponding charter was granted on July 15, 1903, and a supplemental charter followed on February 12, 1973.⁠[4]

The Old Quadrangle, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, architect of Manchester Town Hall, was finished in 1903 and included the first galleries of the Manchester Museum.⁠[3]

The university marks 1917 as the year of “Initiating nuclear physics”. Ernest Rutherford’s research in Manchester led to the splitting of the atom, and the university calls Manchester the birthplace of the nuclear age.⁠[2][5]

Rutherford, as Langworthy Professor of Physics, received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Niels Bohr worked with him in Manchester from 1912 and later received the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics.⁠[6]

The economist Arthur Lewis became a professor in Manchester in 1948. He later received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.⁠[6]

On June 21, 1948, a program written by Tom Kilburn ran successfully on the Small Scale Experimental Machine. Nicknamed the “Baby” and designed and built by F.C. Williams (Sir Freddie Williams) and Kilburn, it is regarded as the world’s first stored-program electronic digital computer; its first program found the highest factor of a small number.⁠[7][5]

Williams moved to Manchester in December 1946 and Kilburn joined him there. Their cathode ray tube storage, later known as the “Williams Tube”, could store 2,048 bits by December 1947; to test it thoroughly the team built the small computer, whose stored-program design kept both data and instructions in memory.⁠[7]

The Baby’s success led to the Manchester Mark 1, built in stages from late 1948 to late 1949, whose design became the basis of the Ferranti Mark 1, described as the world’s first general-purpose commercial computer.⁠[7]

On July 29, 1955, a Royal Charter incorporated the Manchester Municipal College of Technology.⁠[4]

In 1956 the college became an independent university college, and its non-degree work moved to other municipal colleges that later became Manchester Polytechnic and then Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1966, during a period of rapid expansion, it was renamed the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), while remaining largely independent of the Victoria University of Manchester.⁠[1]

Shortly after the Second World War, Bernard Lovell built what was then the world’s largest steerable radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire.⁠[5]

The Lovell Telescope was completed in 1957 and remained the largest dish of its kind until 1973, inspiring other large dishes; it is now the third largest steerable radio dish in the world. Jodrell Bank is owned by the university.⁠[8]

The Whitworth Art Gallery, founded in 1889 in memory of the engineer Sir Joseph Whitworth, joined the university in 1958. The John Rylands Library on Deansgate, established in 1899 by the widow of a Manchester merchant, joined in 1972.⁠[3]

In 1994 legislative changes made UMIST a fully autonomous university with its own degree-awarding powers.⁠[1]

The university was one of the 17 original members of the Russell Group, which was established in 1994.⁠[9][10]

Graphene was first isolated in Manchester in 2004, and the university calls the city “The home of graphene”.⁠[11][2]

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the Department of Physics and Astronomy were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics; Geim had been a professor at the university since 2001 and Novoselov became a professor in 2010.⁠[5][6]

In March 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne officially opened the university’s National Graphene Institute. It received nearly £40 million of government support as part of a £90 million government investment in graphene, which also funds the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre in Manchester.⁠[11]

The University of Manchester Act 2004, dated July 8, 2004, transferred all rights, properties, assets and obligations of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST to the University of Manchester and dissolved the two bodies.⁠[4]

Under the Act, if a Royal Charter incorporating the new university was granted, the appointed day would be October 1, 2004, or the date the Charter came into effect, whichever was later.⁠[12]

The university states that the two institutions, which had worked closely for about a century, officially combined on October 22, 2004, forming the largest single-site university in the UK.⁠[13]

At its 43rd session in Baku, Azerbaijan, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed Jodrell Bank Observatory on the World Heritage List, making it the UK’s 32nd World Heritage Site.⁠[8]

The Christabel Pankhurst Institute for Health Technology and Innovation was launched in 2021 as part of the Greater Manchester Local Industrial Strategy. It draws on the university’s strengths in artificial intelligence, digital health and advanced materials to develop technology-based health and care solutions.⁠[14]

On November 16, 2023, the institute’s flagship building at the centre of the Oxford Road Corridor campus was officially opened. Its five founding partners are the University of Manchester, Bruntwood SciTech, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Health Innovation Manchester and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.⁠[14]

In February and March 2022, university staff, members of the Board of Governors and General Assembly, and eligible alumni nominated the next Chancellor. Nazir Afzal received the most nominations and was the only candidate to reach the threshold of twenty nominations from electors; he succeeded the poet Lemn Sissay, who had served a seven-year term, on August 1, 2022.⁠[15]

Afzal was previously Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England and was appointed OBE in 2005. He was formally installed on October 12, 2022, at the university’s annual Foundation Day, which is held every October to mark the 2004 merger.⁠[16]

The university marked its bicentenary throughout 2024 with events on campus, across Manchester and internationally, including the Universally Manchester Festival in June 2024, the planting of 200 trees with City of Trees, a celebration of 20 years of graphene, and Bicentenary PhD studentships and fellowships for more than 200 early career researchers.⁠[17]

Following a global search that began in March 2023, the university announced on December 20, 2023, that Professor of Political Philosophy Duncan Ivison would become its next President and Vice-Chancellor from August 1, 2024, succeeding Nancy Rothwell, who had held the post for 14 years.⁠[18]

Ivison was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney, where he had also been Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He holds a BA in Political Science from McGill University and an MSc in Political Theory and a PhD from the London School of EconomicsLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceThe London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a specialist social science university in central London, founded in 1895 by members of the Fabian Society. It is known for research in economics, politics and social policy, and its alumni and staff include many Nobel laureates and national leaders.Open the full entry.⁠[18]

In the 2024/25 financial year the university’s total income was over £1.4 billion, £57.1 million more than the year before. Tuition fees brought in £763.6 million, 54% of income, with international students accounting for 64% of fee income. Total expenditure was £1,337.5 million and the adjusted operating surplus £84.4 million, or 5.9% of income; cash and short-term investments stood at £574 million at the end of July 2025.⁠[19]

As of November 2026 the university’s website states that it has more than 44,000 students, 12,000 staff and 550,000 alumni from 190 countries. It ranked fifth for research power in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 and was placed sixth in the UK and 51st in the world in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities.⁠[20]

The university’s strategy, “From Manchester for the world”, targets 2035 and was shaped by more than 12,000 colleagues, students, alumni and civic, industry and community partners. It sets five goals, including flexible and personalised learning, challenge-led research with rapid impact, and becoming Europe’s most inclusive and impactful innovation ecosystem.⁠[21]

The university counts 26 Nobel laureates among its current and former staff and students, including J.J. Thomson (Physics, 1906; student), James Chadwick (Physics, 1935; student and researcher), John Cockcroft (Physics, 1951; student), Joseph E. Stiglitz (Economic Sciences, 2001), John Sulston (Physiology or Medicine, 2002) and Simon Johnson (Economics, 2024; master’s degree in economics).⁠[6]

University of Manchester: Official website: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[20]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-manchester/ (opens in a new window).⁠[22]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/universitymanchester (opens in a new window).⁠[22]