When
Thomas Burgess was appointed
Bishop of St David's in 1803, he saw a need for a college in which Welsh
ordinands could receive a higher education. The existing colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were out of the geographical and financial means of most would-be students. Burgess had no Welsh connections; he was born in Odiham, Hampshire in 1756. After education at
Winchester College and
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he had short stays in
Salisbury and
Durham before being appointed to his first bishopric in Wales in 1803. Burgess intended to build his new college to train priests in
Llanddewi Brefi which, at the time, was similar in size to Lampeter but ten kilometres from it and with an honoured place in the Christian history of Wales. When Burgess was staying with his friend
the Bishop of Gloucester in 1820, however, he met
John Scandrett Harford, a wealthy landowner from
Gloucestershire. Harford donated the Castle Field site in Lampeter, named after the
Norman castle once contained in the field. This is the site on which the present University stands. '''St David's College''' was thus founded just outside Lampeter; the foundation stone was laid in 1822. Burgess left St. David's in 1825 to become
Bishop of Salisbury but work on the college continued, largely supervised by Harford. The £16,000 required to erect the college had been raised from public donations, a government grant and highly publicised gifts, including one from
King George IV. The main college building was completed in 1827 and the college officially opened on
St. David's Day of that year, welcoming its first 26 students. As such, it was the oldest institution of higher education in Wales, and the third oldest in
England and Wales, receiving its first charter in 1828. In 1852, the college gained the right to award the degree of
Bachelor of Divinity (BD) and, in 1865, the degree of Bachelor of Arts (BA), long before the other colleges in Wales gained their own degree awarding powers. As early as 1865, when a campaign had commenced to establish a University for Wales, there were suggestions that the college should take on this function. However, they were opposed by those who believed it should retain its original purpose as a theological college. Although it continued as a centre of clergy training until 1978, there was always a proportion of students who did not intend to be ordained. The 1896 charter specifically stated that the college could accept anyone, regardless of whether they intended to take Holy Orders. Since 1925, it had been possible to study for a BA at the college without studying any theology at all. However, throughout the college's history, non-ordinands had been in a minority. In the 1950s the number of ordinands declined sharply and the college faced possible closure unless it could secure government funding. Principal
J.R. Lloyd Thomas did not spare himself in the fight for survival and, in 1960, after much negotiation,
University College, Cardiff, agreed to sponsor Saint David's. Thus the government finally began to assist SDC financially. Following the appointment of
Rowland Williams as vice principal in 1849, and inspired by the "
muscular Christianity" movement, the college passed a rule in 1850 stating that students "should spend their spare time in healthful exercise rather than in clownish lounging about the shops or market place". This led to the formation of a cricket team, which played its first match (against Lampeter Town) in 1852. Williams is thought to have introduced
rugby union at Lampeter in the 1850s, where the first recorded rugby game in Wales was played (against Llandovery College) in 1866. In 1971, the college became a member of the federal University of Wales and suspended its own degree-awarding powers. It became '''St David's University College
(SDUC). By this time, the college had begun shifting its specialisms and, whilst theology continued to be a strong point, students could choose from a much wider range of liberal arts subjects. In 1996, the Privy Council—in response to a petition from the university—agreed to change its title again to the University of Wales, Lampeter''' in line with moves elsewhere in the university and the recognition of its growth and changing status. In September 2007, the University of Wales become confederal rather than federal in nature, effectively giving Lampeter independent university status. Unlike other former Wales colleges however, the institution's name remained unchanged. The university specialised in Theology,
Religious Studies, philosophy,
Classics,
Anthropology,
Archaeology,
English and History. Prior to the merger, the university was also growing in disciplines from the
liberal arts and
social sciences such as Film and Media Studies, Information Society Studies, Business Management, Chinese Studies and Voluntary Sector Studies. However, in the last two decades several other departments which taught subjects in their own right closed, notably French, German and
Geography. The university had research and consultancy departments, including the Centre for Beliefs and Values, Centre for Enterprise, European and Extension Services, Archaeological Services and the Centre for the Study of Religion in Celtic Societies. In the early 1990s, there also existed an influential
Human geography department at the college. This was closed in 2001 but the
diaspora of the Lampeter Geography School continue to have an influence on their field. In 2008, the
Quality Assurance Agency concluded that, although the quality of Lampeter's degrees was satisfactory, they had 'limited confidence' in the institution's quality assurance procedures and systems. Further to this assessment, the
Higher Education Funding Council for Wales commissioned a further report which found "very real problems of leadership and management" at the university. As a direct result, on 14 December 2008, the university announced that it was in merger talks with
Trinity College, Carmarthen with the intention of forming a new university in Wales. In July 2010, it was announced that the Queen had approved an order granting a supplemental charter to Lampeter which would create the new
University of Wales, Trinity Saint David and which would accept its first students in September 2010 at which time the University of Wales, Lampeter would formally cease to exist. == University buildings ==