Expansion
In 1911 George Wills acquired the Athletic ground at Coombe Dingle and in 1920 he bought the Victoria Rooms which became the Student’s Union building. World War I caused a financial crisis with the University losing around 20% of its fee income but the government agreed to make up this loss because of important contributions which Bristol made to the study of poison gas and explosives. Economic problems continued after the war when it was announced Government funding of Universities was to be cut. On 9 June 1925 the Wills Memorial Building was officially opened by George V and Mary.
It was during the interwar years that Bristol’s reputation as a University began to increase. In 1920 Helen Wodehouse was appointed as Chair of Education, the first woman to be appointed in such a role, and in 1928 Winifred Lucy Shepland was appointed as the first woman Registrar of any British University. The growing strength was exemplified by the ‘poaching’ of academics from other Universities, and the award of a Nobel Prize to Bristol graduate Paul Dirac for his work on quantum mechanics.
From the early years of its formation the University brought Higher Education to working people, with H.G. Leonard, a lecturer in History, becoming President of the Bristol Branch of the Workers’ Educational Association. After the War Government grants allowed the setting up of Departments of Extra-Mural Adult Education. Bristol University also began to have an effect on the city of Bristol, when the University laboratories and the City laboratories combined in order to train health visitors at Canynge Hall. This had a pronounced effect on the City of Bristol’s health, with death rates halving to 11 per 1,000 and the infant mortality rate falling from 165 per 1000 to 57 per 1000. However the state of the medical school was worthy of praise after a report from the Ministry of Health described it as being at "sixes and sevens". The problem was the continuing rivalry between the General Hospital and Bristol Royal Infirmary, Sir George Wills had offered to build a new University Hospital if the two could resolve their differences but this failed to create an agreement between them.
Read more about this topic: History Of The University Of Bristol
Famous quotes containing the word expansion:
“Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“We are caught up Mr. Perry on a great wave whether we will or no, a great wave of expansion and progress. All these mechanical inventions—telephones, electricity, steel bridges, horseless vehicles—they are all leading somewhere. It’s up to us to be on the inside in the forefront of progress.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the same for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)