University of Bristol

[8] It received its royal charter in 1909,[9] although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had been in existence since 1876.[11] The university is organised into six academic faculties composed of multiple schools and departments running over 200 undergraduate courses, largely in the Tyndalls Park area of the city.[23] The university was able to apply for a royal charter due to the financial support of the Wills and Fry families, who made their fortunes in tobacco plantations and chocolate respectively (while there was no funding from Edward Colston).[32] Today, it houses parts of the academic provision for earth sciences and law, and graduation ceremonies are held in its Great Hall.[37] It has since housed several Nobel Prize winners: Cecil Frank Powell (1950);[38] Hans Albrecht Bethe (1967);[39] and Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1977).[26][31] During World War II, the Wills Memorial was bombed, destroying the Great Hall and the organ it housed,[10] along with 7,000 books removed from King's College London for safe keeping.[10] In the same year, Bristol began offering special entrance exams and grants to aid the resettlement of servicemen returning home.Today, Queen's Building caters for most of the teaching needs of the faculty and provides academic space for the "heavy" engineering subjects (civil, mechanical, and aerospace).With unprecedented growth in the 1960s, particularly in undergraduate numbers, the Students' Union eventually acquired larger premises in a new building in the Clifton area of the city, in 1965.[47] In 2007, research activities were expanded further with the opening of the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (ACCIS) and The Bristol Institute for Public Affairs (BIPA).In January 2005, the School of Chemistry was awarded £4.5m by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to create Bristol ChemLabS: a Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL),[52] with an additional £350k announced for the capital part of the project in February 2006.The armorials on the Founder's Window represent all of the interests present at the founding of the University of Bristol including the Wills and Fry families.[62] Goldney gardens entered the property of the University of Bristol through George Wills who had hoped to build an all-male hall of residence there.[65] Many of the more modern buildings, including Senate House and the newer parts of the HH Wills Physics Laboratory, were designed by Ralph Brentnall using funds from the University Grants Committee.These can only be made with the consent of the senate, the chief academic body in the university which also holds responsibility for teaching and learning, examinations and research and enterprise.The icons in the logo are the sun for the Wills family, the dolphin for Colston, the horse for Fry and the ship-and-castle from the medieval seal of the City of Bristol, as also used in the coat of arms.It is for delivering research contributing to the development of a Smart City and deploying a city-scale open and programmable testbed for experimentation and digital innovation.[128] The collaboration of two organisations started in April 2015 and ended in December 2019 with Bristol City Council taking full control of BiO's operations.[129] It has completed many technical trials and experiments including open access to Wi-Fi as a reduction of the digital divide and development for Smart City technology.The union oversees three media outlets: UBTV, the Bristol University Radio Station (BURST) and the student newspaper Epigram.[133] Accommodation for students is primarily in the central precinct of the university and two areas of Bristol: Clifton and Stoke Bishop, known respectively as the West and North Villages.[134][140] Manor Hall comprises five separate buildings, the principal of which was erected from 1927 to 1932 to the design of George Oatley following a donation from Henry Herbert Wills.Academics in computer science include, David Cliff, inventor of the seminal "ZIP" trading algorithm, Peter Flach, Mike Fraser, professor of human-computer interaction, Julian Gough and Nigel Smart.Notable mathematicians who have worked in the department of mathematics include Hannes Leitgeb, Philip Welch, Ben Green, Andrew Booker, Julia Wolf, Jens Marklof, John McNamara, Howell Peregrine, Christopher Budd John Hogan, Jeremy Rickard, Richard Jozsa, Corinna Ulcigrai, David Evans and the statistician Harvey Goldstein.[166] Bristol alumnus Paul Dirac went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for his contribution to the formulation of quantum mechanics and is considered one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century.Writers to have studied at Bristol include Dick King-Smith; Sarah Kane; Angela Carter; Dorothy Simpson; David Gibbins; Julia Donaldson; Olivier award-winning playwright Laura Wade; Maddie Mortimer; Holly Smale; and David Nicholls, author of the novel Starter for Ten, turned into a screenplay set in the University of Bristol.[169] In government and politics, notable alumni include Albert II, Prince of Monaco; Prime Minister Hun Manet of Cambodia; former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik, who was president of Bristol University Students' Union; Sir Jonathan Evans, former head of MI5; Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission from October 2012 to January 2017; Karen Ramagge Prescott, the first female Speaker of the Gibraltar Parliament and Paul Boateng, the UK's first Black Cabinet Minister.In current affairs, former students include journalist and McMafia author Misha Glenny; BBC News Chief Political Correspondent James Landale (who founded the university independent newspaper Epigram); author and journalist Julie Myerson; editor-in-chief of the Telegraph Media Group William Lewis; editor-in-chief of The Observer Will Hutton; Radio 4 presenter Sue Lawley; newsreader Alastair Stewart; and Sky News US Correspondent Dominic Waghorn.[170] In entertainment, former students include rapper Shygirl; singer James Blunt; illusionist Derren Brown; comedians Jon Richardson, Marcus Brigstocke (who did not graduate), Matt Lucas and David Walliams;[171] actors Simon Pegg, Chris Langham and Pearl Mackie; anime YouTuber Gigguk; Brass Eye creator Chris Morris; and Stath Lets Flats creator Jamie Demetriou.Other alumni include Anne McClain, member of the 2013 NASA Astronaut Class;[172] mathematician Iain Gordon; long jumper Jazmin Sawyers; Luke Bond, an organist at Windsor Castle; and baker Kim-Joy Hewlett.