One of England’s older civic universities, the University of Reading traces its origins to the Schools of Art and Science established in Reading, Berkshire, during the 1860s and 1870s. In 1892, Christ Church, Oxford, founded an extension college on the site, initially operating under the unwieldy title of The University Extension College in Conjunction with the Schools of Science and Art, Reading, before adopting the shorter name that spring. The college’s first home was the old hospitium building behind Reading Town Hall, and its first president was the geographer Sir Halford John Mackinder. The Schools of Art and Science were transferred to the new college by Reading Town Council in the same year it opened.
From College to University
The institution was incorporated in 1896 and gained approval for Parliamentary funding in 1901, prompting a name change to University College, Reading in 1902. Three years later, the Palmer family – connected with the biscuit firm of Huntley and Palmers – donated the site that now forms the university’s London Road Campus. The same family backed the opening of Wantage Hall in 1908 and the Research Institute in Dairying in 1912. A first application for a royal charter in 1920 was unsuccessful, but a second petition in 1925 succeeded, and on 17 March 1926 King George V granted the charter. This made Reading the only new university created in the United Kingdom between the two world wars, a distinction that places it in a narrow category of British institutions. It is generally classed as a red brick university, reflecting its 19th-century civic foundations.
Campuses and Scale
Reading now operates four campuses. The London Road and Whiteknights campuses are both within Reading itself; Whiteknights Park was purchased by the university in 1947 and has since become its principal campus. The Greenlands campus occupies a position on the banks of the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, while a fourth campus operates in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia. Since 2016 the university has been arranged into 16 academic schools. For the 2024-25 academic year, its annual income was £347.8 million, of which £33.9 million came from research grants and contracts, against an expenditure of £366.1 million.