University of Birmingham
(1900-present)

place and University (from 1900)

Aged 124

The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery), and Mason Science College (established in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason), making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter. The present iteration of the university was modeled after Cornell University. It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21. The student population includes 23,155 undergraduate and 12,605 postgraduate students in 2019–20, which is the 7th largest in the UK (out of 169). The annual income of the university for 2020–21 was £774.1 million of which £168.3 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £738.5 million. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the University of Birmingham ranked equal 13th out of 129 institutions on grade point average, up from equal 31st in the previous REF in 2014. The university is home to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, housing works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet; the Shakespeare Institute; the Cadbury Research Library, home to the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts; the Lapworth Museum of Geology; and the 100-metre Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, which is a prominent landmark visible from many parts of the city. Academics and alumni of the university include former British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, the British composer Sir Edward Elgar and eleven Nobel laureates.

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Commemorated on 2 plaques

Here stood Sir Josiah Mason's Science College, later Mason University College, the nucleus of the University of Birmingham. It was founded upon the wealth and vision of Josiah Mason, a Kidderminster carpet weaver's son who had prospered by the manufacture of split rings and steel pens. He laid the first stone on his 80th birthday, 23rd February 1875. The College became the University upon the grant of a Royal Charter in 1900, and the building continued to accommodate the Faculties of Arts and Law until shortly before its demolition in 1963.

Below Josiah Mason plaque - former Central Library, Birmingham, United Kingdom where it sited (1900-1963)

For the successful restoration and extension of The Lapworth Museum of Geology by The University of Birmingham

Lapworth Museum of Geology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom where it sited (1900)