University of Buckingham

The University of Buckingham (UB) is a non-profit private university in Buckingham, England, and the oldest of the country's six private universities. It was founded as the University College at Buckingham (UCB) in 1973 and admitted its first students in 1976. It was granted university status by royal charter in 1983.

Buckingham was closely linked to Margaret Thatcher, who, as Education Secretary, oversaw the creation of the university college in 1973 and as Prime Minister was instrumental in it being elevated to a university in 1983, thus creating the first private university in Britain since the establishment of the University Grants Committee in 1919. When she retired from politics in 1992, Margaret Thatcher became the university's second chancellor, a post she held until 1998. Buckingham's finances for teaching operate entirely on student fees and endowments; it does not receive direct state funding (via the Office for Students or Research England) although its students can receive student loans from the Student Loans Company. It has formal charity status as a not-for-profit institution dedicated to the ends of research and education.

Some of the founding academics migrated from the University of Oxford, disillusioned or wary of aspects of the late-1960s ethos. On 27 May 1967, The Times published a letter from J. W. Paulley, a physician, who wrote:

"Is it now time to examine the possibility of creating at least one university in this country on the pattern of [the] great private foundations in the USA".

Three London conferences followed which explored this idea.

The university was incorporated as the "University College of Buckingham" in 1976 and received its royal charter as a university from the Queen in 1983. As of May 2016, it is the only private university in the UK with a royal charter.

Its development was influenced by the Institute of Economic Affairs, in particular, Harry Ferns and Ralph Harris, heads of the institute. The university's foundation-stone was laid by Margaret Thatcher, who became the university's chancellor between 1993 and 1998.

The university's principals (to 1983) and vice-chancellors have been: Lord Beloff, former Gladstone Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford; Alan Peacock, founder of the economics department at the University of York and Fellow of the British Academy; Michael Barrett; Richard Luce, now Lord Luce, former Minister for the Arts; Robert Taylor; Terence Kealey; Anthony Seldon and James Tooley.