Cardiff University

Cardiff University (Welsh: Prifysgol Caerdydd) is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed University College, Cardiff in 1972 and merged with the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in 1988 to become University of Wales College, Cardiff and then University of Wales, Cardiff in 1996. In 1997, it received degree-awarding powers, but held them in abeyance. It adopted the operating name of Cardiff University in 1999; this became its legal name in 2005, when it became an independent university awarding its own degrees.

Cardiff University is the only Welsh member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities. Academics and alumni of the university have included four heads of state or government and two Nobel laureates. As of 2023,^[update] the university's academics include 17 fellows of the Royal Society, 11 fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering, seven fellows of the British Academy, 21 fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences and 32 fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences.

The foundation of the university college in Cardiff that was to become Cardiff University was part of the Welsh university movement of the second half of the 19th century, which also led to the foundation of the colleges at Aberystwyth and Bangor (now Aberystwyth and Bangor universities) and the federal University of Wales. The movement began at a meeting in London in 1854 called by Hugh Owen, including leaders of Welsh theological colleges and members of parliament. This meeting discussed establishing university colleges in Wales along the same lines as the Queen's Colleges established the previous decade in Ireland, and produced a formal proposal, the "Outline of Constitution for Proposed Welsh Queen's Colleges".

Discussions on the founding of a university college in South Wales were revived in 1879, when a group of Welsh and English MPs urged the government to consider the poor provision of higher and intermediate education in Wales and "the best means of assisting any local effort which may be made for supplying such deficiency."

In August 1880, William Ewart Gladstone's government appointed a departmental committee to conduct "an enquiry into the nature and extent of intermediate and higher education in Wales", chaired by the 1st Baron Aberdare and consisting of Viscount Emlyn, the Reverend Prebendary H. G. Robinson, Henry Richard, John Rhys and Lewis Morris. The Aberdare Report, as it came to be known, took evidence from a wide range of sources and over 250 witnesses and recommended a college each for North Wales and South Wales, the latter to be located in Glamorgan and the former to be the established University College of Wales in Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University). The committee cited the unique Welsh national identity and noted that many students in Wales could not afford to travel to University in England or Scotland. It advocated a national degree-awarding university for Wales, composed of regional colleges, which should be non-sectarian in nature and exclude the teaching of theology.

After the recommendation was published, Cardiff Corporation sought to secure the location of the college in Cardiff, and on 12 December 1881 formed a University College Committee to aid the matter. There was competition to be the site between Swansea and Cardiff. On 12 March 1883, after arbitration, a decision was made in Cardiff's favour. This was strengthened by the need to consider the interests of Monmouthshire, at that time not legally incorporated into Wales, and the greater sum received by Cardiff in support of the college, through a public appeal that raised £37,000 and a number of private donations, notably from the 3rd Marquess of Bute and Lord Windsor. In April, Lord Aberdare was appointed as the college's first president. The possible locations considered included Cardiff Arms Park, Cathedral Road, and Moira Terrace, Roath, before the site of the Old Royal Infirmary buildings on Newport Road was chosen.

The University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire opened on 24 October 1883 with courses in biology, chemistry, English, French, German, Greek, history, Latin, mathematics and astronomy, music, Welsh, logic and philosophy, and physics. It was incorporated by royal charter the following year; this was the first charter in Wales to allow the enrolment of women and to specifically forbid religious tests for entry. John Viriamu Jones was appointed as the college's first principal at the age of 27. As the college was not an independent university and could not award its own degrees, it prepared its students for the examinations of the University of London or for further study at Oxford or Cambridge.

In 1888 the university college at Cardiff and the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) proposed to the University College Wales at Aberystwyth joint action to gain a university charter for Wales, modelled on that of the Victoria University, a federal university in northern England with colleges in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. This led to a charter being granted to the University of Wales in 1893, with the colleges becoming members of the new university. The position of operational head would rotate among heads of the colleges.