The University of Sussex

Abstract

The ‘modern’ universities of England and Wales, which followed after a gap of four to five centuries the medieval foundations of their predecessors, owe their origins almost without exception to local initiative. Their 19th- and 20th-century sponsors wanted freedom from religious tests as a condition of entry, a different sort of education to suit the scientific and industrial age, better opportunities for the unprivileged boy or girl. As State funds could not be looked for, local financial backing — both public and private — was necessary to launch and maintain the new ventures in higher education and research of young colleges and universities. All, though with varying measures of success, had to seek from local benefactions the capital resources for sites and buildings. From such a start there were immense gains to be set against a small number of debits. The urban communities were drawn into close and contagious sympathy with their universities; the universities, enjoying the confidence of their regions, rested on a basis more secure than they could have enjoyed in their early years by any other means. If there were bonds of a somewhat parochial nature to be burst before the new institutions came to their full stature as members of the international company of universities, the price was a small one to pay for an upbringing in so generous and encouraging a nursery.