University College , was laid in 1927 by Prince Albert, the
Duke of York (who later became king as
George VI). The college was built on land donated by
Hull City Council and by two local benefactors,
Thomas Ferens and G F Grant. A year later the first 14 departments, in pure sciences and the arts, opened with 39 students. The college at that time consisted of one building, now named the Venn building (after the mathematician
John Venn, who was born in Hull). The building now houses the administrative centre of the university. Other early buildings include the Cohen Building, which originally housed the college library, and Staff House, now named Canham Turner building, built in 1948 as the Students' Union. Another early structure was the Chemistry Building, built in 1953. With the rapid expansion of student numbers which took place in the 1950s many academic departments were housed in temporary buildings, colloquially known as 'huts', which gave the campus the feel of an 'academic army camp'. The Dennison Centre on Cottingham Road was formerly the Brooklands Officers Hospital opened by the Red Cross in 1917. The author
J. R. R. Tolkien was a convalescent patient at Brooklands and his connection is marked by a blue plaque. Though many of the older buildings on Hull's campus are of
red brick it is not a
redbrick university in the strictest sense of the term, as it was not founded as part of the civic university movement of the late
Victorian and
Edwardian eras. Hull, with its origins in the 1920s, has been categorised as a 'younger civic university' (also referred to as a "Whitetile university") and it is placed between the 'redbricks' and the 'plateglass universities' founded in the 1960s. The first principal of the college was
Arthur E. Morgan (1926–1935), the second was
John H Nicholson (1935–1954), who also served as the university's first vice-chancellor when the college was granted university status (1954–1956).
Coat of arms The university coat of arms was designed by Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig in 1928. The symbols are the torch for learning, the rose for Yorkshire, the ducal coronet from the arms of the City of Hull, the fleur-de-lys for Lincolnshire and the dove, symbolising peace, from the arms of Thomas Ferens. These symbols were later reused to create the current university logo. The motto,
Lampada Ferens (Bearing the Torch), incorporates the name of the university's founding father within a Latin pun.
Royal charter The college gained its
royal charter on 6 September 1954. This empowered it to award degrees of its own, making it the 3rd university in Yorkshire and the 14th in England. The twenty six years between the formation of the university college and the awarding of the charter were the shortest such period in the history of university formation in England up to that time. Within a year of the charter being granted applications to study at the new university had doubled, and in 1956 student numbers topped 1,000 for the first time.
The mace The academic authority and autonomy of the university is symbolically embodied in the ceremonial mace. Made of gilt silver, and incorporating devices from the Hull University coat of arms, the mace was presented to the university in December 1956 by the Lord Mayor of Hull. As a gift from the city it also reflects the close relationship between "town and gown" existing in Hull. The mace is carried in procession and displayed at all major university ceremonies. During the 1950s and 1960s a considerable number of academic buildings were built, including the Larkin and Wilberforce Buildings (originally given other names). The 'Martin Plan' of 1967, Sir
Leslie Martin was the university architect, envisaged a campus with its tallest buildings in the centre surrounded by buildings diminishing in height towards the perimeter. In the course of the 1960s most of the departments housed in temporary structures were moved into new purpose-built premises. However, Biochemistry was still partially located in a 'hut' to the rear of the Venn building into the early 1980s.
Liquid crystal technology In 1972
George Gray and Ken Harrison created room-temperature stable
liquid crystals in the university chemistry laboratories, which were an immediate success in the electronics industry and consumer products. This led to Hull becoming the first university to be awarded the
Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for the joint-development of the long-lasting materials that made
liquid crystal displays possible.
Expansion in the 21st century In 2000 the university bought the site of
University College Scarborough on Filey Road,
Scarborough, plus two linked buildings on the same road. This became the University of Hull Scarborough Campus. A further significant expansion took place in 2003, when the buildings of the former
Humberside University campus, which were situated immediately adjacent to Hull University's main campus, were purchased. The acquisition increased the size of the Cottingham Road campus by more than a third. It was the largest single act of expansion in the history of the university. Hull University fully occupied the newly acquired premises in the 2005 academic year; the area becoming the university's West Campus. The site now houses the
Hull York Medical School and the relocated business school, which is located in three of the most prominent buildings – Wharfe, Derwent and Esk.
Hull History Centre The
Hull History Centre, which opened in 2010, is located in a new building on Worship Street in Hull city centre. It unites the holdings of Hull City Library's Local Studies collections and Hull University's archives and is run in partnership between the City Library and University Library.
City of Culture 2017 under the installation 'Blade', part of the
Hull UK City of Culture 2017 celebrations The university was a principal partner of the city's bid to become
UK City of Culture in 2017. As well as being involved in the planning and preparation of the bid, the university and its staff and students have been involved in many of the events of the year. For example, during the initial three-month season,
Hull Maritime Museum displayed a multimedia installation depicting a
Bowhead whale The installation was designed by students from
Hull School of Art and Design with music by students from Hull University. The opening event of the whole year, from 1–7 January, included a multimedia projection called
Arrivals and Departures which was greatly influenced by the work of Dr Nick Evans on migration patterns into and through Hull. The installation was projected onto
The Deep using stop-frame animation, image and sound.
Staff cuts and restructuring In June 2024, University of Hull Vice-Chancellor
Professor David Petley announced plans to cut up to 150 jobs (14% of the workforce) in response to a reduction in international student applications. The number of redundancies was later reduced to 127. In November 2024, it was announced that the university would close its chemistry department and that the number of schools would be reduced from 17 to 11. On 10 December 2025, Professor David Petley stepped down as Vice-Chancellor and subsequently became Vice-Chancellor of
Nottingham Trent University. ==Campuses==