Handbook for Members of the Council - University of Reading

History of the UniversityIn 1892 Christ Church, Oxford, commissioned Mr (later the Rt HonSir) Halford Mackinder to develop a College in Reading. Mackinder,famous for making the first ascent of Mount Kenya, was responsiblefor establishing the study of Geography as a new discipline inuniversities, and had a distinguished career as Director of the LondonSchool of Economics, a Member of Parliament and a Commonwealthstatesman. He became the first Principal of the Extension Collegeof the University of Oxford which was established as a result of theChrist Church initiative. Two existing institutions in Reading, aSchool of Art founded in 1860 and a School of Science dating from1870, were incorporated into the Extension College. In 1902 theCollege, then in Valpy Street, qualified for inclusion in the list ofinstitutions receiving a Treasury grant and in 1904, through thegenerosity of Mr Alfred Palmer, it moved to a larger site in LondonRoad. Large sums were raised to provide laboratories, classrooms,studios, the Great Hall and other buildings, and the Rt Hon GeorgeWilliam Palmer presented an endowment fund of £50,000. In 1926University College, Reading was incorporated as the University ofReading, able to award its own degrees. Dr W M Childs, who hadsucceeded Mr Mackinder as Principal of the College in 1903, thusbecame the first Vice-Chancellor of the University, which was theonly University to be granted a Royal Charter between the two WorldWars. The armorial shield of the University incorporates in its upperhalf three shells, representing the shield of Reading Abbey; theengraved cross below represents the arms of Christ Church, Oxford,with a Lancastrian rose (which forms part of the arms of the RoyalCounty of Berkshire) superimposed. The shell was in former timesthe symbol of a pilgrim. Another name for a pilgrim was “palmer”;thus the generosity of the Palmer family is neatly commemorated inthe University arms.In 1947 Whiteknights, a 300-acre park which is the remnant ofthe medieval manorial estate of Earley or Erleigh Whiteknights,was bought for the University. Landscaped in the 18th century, itwas ornamented considerably between 1798 and 1819 under theownership of the Marquis of Blandford (who became Duke of Marlborough).Later, the original manor house having gone, the estatewas divided into six leaseholds containing Victorian family houseswhich were lived in until some 40 years ago. Today the site accommo-7