1910
Chemistry and Physiology Building opens
The Chemistry and Physiology Building in Woodland Road is completed at a cost of £50,000 and opened on 15 November by William Henry Wills (Lord Winterstoke), brother of Henry Overton Wills III. The designer is George Oatley, a well-known Bristol architect, who also designed the Wills Memorial Building.
Engineers hard at work
The first intake of engineering students work industriously in the Automobile Engineering Lab. Later they take their exams in the Merchant Venturers' Building and, afterwards, enjoy a well-earned rest in the common-room.
Students in the lab
Early lab work.
See how our labs have developed: 1927, 1930, 1937, 1942, 1943, 1950, 1975, 1995 and 1999.
Death of first Chancellor
Henry Overton Wills III, the first Chancellor of the University, dies.
Opening of University Athletic Ground
The University Athletic Ground is opened by George A. Wills, son of Henry Overton Wills III.
Park Street before the war
A typical view of Park Street in the years before the war.
Second Chancellor appointed
Liberal and Labour politician Richard Burden Sanderson Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane of Cloan (pictured here with King George V) is appointed second Chancellor of the University, following the death of Henry Overton Wills III. Haldane was of the opinion that a university is a place where 'the professor as well as the student is making his voyage of discovery'.
Past and future Chancellors include:
Henry Overton Wills III
The Right Honourable Winston Churchill MP
Henry Somerset, the 10th Duke of Beaufort
Professor Dorothy Hodgkin
Sir Jeremy Morse
Right Honourable the Baroness Hale of Richmond
Politicians receive honorary degrees
The Rt Hon Herbert Henry Asquith MP (then Prime Minister) and the Rt Hon Arthur James Balfour MP (former Prime Minister) each receive an honorary degree from the University.
National Fruit and Cider Institute established
On 12 July, the National Fruit and Cider Institute is established in Long Ashton.
Wills brothers promise University a new building
George A. and Henry Herbert Wills promise a building to the University in memory of their father, Henry Overton Wills III.
New properties acquired by University
The Bristol Blind Asylum and neighbouring Volunteers' Drill Hall on Queen's Road are acquired for the University by George and Henry Herbert Wills, thereby completing the University's ownership of an area of land now known as 'The Triangle', made up of University Road, Woodland Road and Queen's Road.
Suffragettes attack University
The University's athletic pavilion at Combe Down, built in 1911 at a cost of £2,000, is burnt to the ground. The arson attack is believed to be the work of suffragettes.
Students v suffragettes
Students attack a suffragette's shop in Queen's Road in revenge for an earlier arson attack, believed to have been conducted by suffragettes, on the University's athletic pavilion at Combe Down.
Students gather for group photo
A group shot of students in 1914.
To see how students have changed through the years, see:
1968, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987 and 1996.
Tenders sought for Wills Memorial Building
On 12 and 19 February, a call for tenders to build the Wills Memorial Building appears in The Builder and The Building News. Building was delayed by the First World War and completed in 1925 at a cost of £501,566.
Women encouraged to study medicine
A letter in the Times and Mirror on 12 June from Emily Garaway and Dina Portway of the Bristol Branch of University Women encourages women to study medicine in Bristol because of the urgent need for more doctors, the career opportunities it offers and its suitability for women of all ages, including 'older women, who may now, for the first time, have to consider the necessity of earning their own living'.
Patriotic plea for women to work on the land
The Earl of Selbourne, President of the Board of Agriculture, holds a large meeting of prominent agriculturists at the University on 16 September to discuss food production in the West Country during the war years. He encourages those present to produce more 'meat, bacon, milk, cheese, wheat, oat and potatoes' and to issue a patriotic plea to women to work on the land.
University's 'splendid record of war work'
An article in the Western Daily Press on 20 September praises the special contribution to the war effort made by the University, in particular the Department of Agricultural and Horticultural Research through its work in the 'preservation of fruit and vegetable', 'the utilisation of cider fruit for jelly making' and 'the increase of land under cultivation for wheat and other food products'.
'Sandwich scheme' for engineers introduced
Professor Julius Wertheimer, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, proposes to introduce a new 'sandwich scheme' for engineers that combines university education with work placements in engineering companies. 20 leading engineering companies back the scheme.
University used as army training camp
The University is used as a training centre for army officers and the University magazine, The Nonesuch, notes that:
'The body of men in training will amount to about one thousand. In full marching order they will extend for one mile ? from the University to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. There will therefore be a matter of some three thousand officers trained during the year.'
University men killed in action
Bristol staff and students killed in action are remembered in The Nonesuch student magazine.
Fruit-growing courses for disabled officers
The Ministry of Munitions arranges with the University to establish a twelve-month course in fruit growing for disabled officers returning from the war. It offers 'liberal grants' to those unable to afford the £100 maintenance costs and £25 University fees.
New research on 'industrial fatigue'
Nature and The Lancet report on research by Professor A. F. Stanley Kent, Chair of Physiology, into the new field of 'industrial fatigue' in munitions and other industrial workers, which is caused by 'muscular and mental fatigue, worry, bad atmosphere, ill health and starvation'. Professor Kent also reports on the 'Monday effect' that affects 'men and women who misuse their leisure by excessive drinking or other dissipation'.
Weekend classes for miners
The University introduces Saturday afternoon classes for miners.
POW donates £5,000 to University
The wife of Captain Douglas Pass, a prisoner- of-war at Asion Kari Hissar in Turkey, donates £5,000 in war bonds and War Loan on his behalf to the University to help with the building of proposed residential quarters for male students in the grounds of Royal Fort House.
Scientists turn apples into potatoes
Due to the prolongation of the war, the National Fruit and Cider Institute at Long Ashton suspends its usual work and, at the request of the Board of Agriculture, sets about maximising food production by intercropping all available land with potatoes and vegetables and helps the government with new schemes for food production and preservation.
Student soldiers welcomed back
The University opens its doors to students whose studies were interrupted by the war and to returning officers and soldiers wanting to gain a university education. A special dispensation is given to returning students whose period of war service or work is 'equivalent to the same period of study in the University, provided the period does not exceed one academic year'.
First woman appointed to senior post
Helen Wodehouse is appointed Professor of Education, thereby becoming the first female Chair in the University and one of the first women in any British university to hold such a post. She held the post until 1931, when she became Mistress of Girton.