Politics and a Petition

Abstract

In 1909 University College Bristol became an autonomous university and in 1910 Professor Richard Cowl, who had been Professor of English Literature at University College Bristol, and for the university’s first year of autonomy, was not reappointed to his post. Three years later, in a petition to Viscount Haldane of Cloan, who was the Chancellor of the new university as well as being Lord Chancellor, it was implied that this was due to personal animosity among the Council of the University (Morning Post, 1913). Ross was one of the signatories of the petition, which consisted of a large group of distinguished public figures and academics, including Christopher Addison MP, who later became the first Minister of Health and Viscount Addison, the composer Granville Bantock, who was then Professor of Music at Birmingham, and Arthur Keith, the Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons.