University of Derby
Derby, United Kingdom

The University of Derby (formerly Derby College of Art and Technology or simply Derby College) is a public university in the city of Derby, England. It traces its history back to the establishment of the Derby Diocesan Institution for the Training of Schoolmistresses in 1851. It gained university status in 1992.

The university provides over 300 study programmes at the undergraduate level. Undergraduate programmes, as well as short courses, foundation degrees and postgraduate degrees, cover most academic disciplines and sub-disciplines.

Currently, the university is home to around 34,000 students in all areas of study.

Over the years, two dozen bodies have contributed to the university’s formation. The first of these was founded in 1856 as the Derby Diocesan Institution for the Training of Schoolmistresses. Albeit under different names so to reflect maturing objectives, the institution flourished as an individual entity for some 120 years before merging with another developing educational artery to help form what was then known as the Derby Lonsdale College of Higher Education, 1977.

The other line of this confluence began in 1853 with the establishment of the Derby School of Art, which in 1870 became the Derby Central School of Art and the Derby Central School of Science. In 1885, the two schools were reformulated into the Derby School of Art and Technical Institution. Less than a decade later however, 1892, three more mergers took place and the institution became the Derby Municipal Technical College.

In 1928, the Technical College split into the Derby School of Art and the Derby Technical College. By 1955, the two had become the Derby and District College of Art (opened on 22 September 1966 by Paul Reilly, Director of the Council of Industrial Design), and the Derby and District College of Technology (opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 15 May 1964), both situated on Kedleston Road, Allestree. The site was formerly Markeaton Golf Course and cost £2.5m, with a foundation stone placed on 5 July 1957 by Lord (Ernest) Hives, a former managing director of Rolls Royce. Opened by the Duke the day before, the 35-acre (14 ha) Bishop Lonsdale College in Mickleover was developed for teacher training courses.

At the opening ceremony, the duke said “qualities needed by teachers are the dedication of a saint, the patience of a watchmaker, the sympathy of parents and the leadership of a general”. The Duke spent two days in Derby, staying the night nearby at Okeover Hall near Ashbourne as a guest of the Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. Half of the places at Mickleover were reserved for C of E trainees and the other half for those with no link to Derby Diocese.

The operational split between the two colleges at Kedleston Road was dissolved in 1972 with a mutual initiative for the creation of the Derby College of Art and Technology. Five years afterwards, and as previously noted, the described educational lineage married itself with Derby’s diocesan tradition, which had become known institutionally as the Bishop Lonsdale College of Education at Mickleover. There were about 800 students at Mickleover and 1,200 at Kedleston Road.

After the 1977 union and subsequent formation of the Derby Lonsdale College of Higher Education, four other educational institutions would add their respective sector-related talents. In March 1981, the college held its first graduation ceremony with formal academic caps and gowns with only six degrees (out of 156 courses) being ratified by the CNAA. Previous to this, the college’s degrees were awarded in a ceremony at the University of Nottingham.

The Matlock College of Education, a traditional Church of England teacher training college formed in 1946 at Rockside Hall (now a country hotel), combined with Lonsdale in 1983 to create the Derbyshire College of Higher Education, when the Matlock College was having financial difficulties when funding for teacher training was scaled down when school numbers had dropped. In 1985, this college at Matlock was scaled down significantly and closed in 1986. In 1991 the Southern Derbyshire School of Occupational Therapy united with the college. The Southern Derbyshire School of Radiography did the same in 1992.

In 1992 the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 allowed the Derbyshire College of Higher Education to become the only school of higher education in the country to be upgraded directly to a university. On 31 October 1992, the T block (science subjects, which lies to the north of the North Tower) was opened by Princess Alice.

In January 1994, Britannia Mill (a renovated mill) opened, at a cost of £10M. On 4 March 1994, the B block (business and management subjects, which lies north of the East Tower) was opened by the Conservative MP, Tim Boswell.

Later in autumn 1994, the Atrium was built. In November 1997, the Learning Centre (now renamed ‘University Library’) was officially opened, having been built on a former car park. The University of Derby was fully invested.

In 1998 the University merged with High Peak College of Further Education in Buxton, which is in the North West of the County of Derbyshire. High Peak College was at that time based at premises in Harpur Hill, but moved to the Devonshire Dome in the centre of Buxton in 2005.

In August 2012 the University merged with Leek College in Leek, Staffordshire. In 2013 the University merged all of its further education education provision into Buxton & Leek College. The College operates at the University’s campuses in Buxton, Leek and Kedleston Road in Derby.

In October 2016 the University opened a new campus in Chesterfield in the North-East of the County of Derbyshire. This campus, officially entitled ‘St. Helena’s Campus’, is situated in the buildings of what was originally St Helena’s Grammar School, which were converted by the University.