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Join us as we explore the captivating story of how Bangor University came to be.
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The story of how Bangor University started is a captivating one.
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I'm Mari, studying Childhood and Youth studies here at Bangor University and this is the first in a series of six films where we
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explore the history of Bangor University and how the small University on the Hill became the global influence that is today.
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Here to take us on this fascinating journey is Gari Wyn, local historian, businessman, and graduate from Bangor University School of History.
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So what can you tell us about how this story began? {Gari} Well, it all started in in the 1880s, and the first college was opened in 1884.
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But we're standing here now in the new college, which was opened in 1911.
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And right above us, we have the central tower of the college, which has four statues on it.
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The ones we see from here are David, the patron Saint of Wales.
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Next door to him is Llywellyn Ap Griffith. On the other side, we have Owen Gwynedd, who's buried in Bangor Cathedral down the road here,
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down at the bottom of the hill, and also Owain Glyndwr
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And the important person amongst those four is Owain Glyndwr because he had the vision in 1404 to have an independent Parliament
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for Wales and an independent church for Wales and possibly more significance for us here,
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an independent self autonomous university for Wales.
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And how long did that take? {Gari} Well, when you work it out, it's 480 years isn't.
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And with the drive and the vision of the people of Gwynedd and Anglesey, we finally had what Owain Glyndwr hoped he would have in 1404.
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It's all started with the local people getting behind the local business leaders,
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securing this building called the Penrhyn Arms and adapting it to be the university.
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The doors opened and the processions came from all over for the opening ceremony.
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I suppose you could say it was one of the earliest records of crowdfunding.
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That's a good way of putting it. The whole community came together.
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A non-conformist, traditional, old fashioned Welsh community farmers, poor farmers,
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wealthy farmers, prominent businesspeople and especially the Quarrymen.
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The Quarrymen actually gathered together 1200 pounds of their own money to start off the
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conversion of the Penrhyn Arms Hotel to turn it into some kind of modern university.
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And this was a massive challenge at the time.
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The next step, obviously, was to gather the rest of them, and actually came to 35,000 to add that to the building.
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Then we had a great procession to open the building in front of the Penrhyn Port here and down at the sea,
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and opened the building in October 1884. That actually was a fantastic day in the history of Bangor.
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We had a great procession and we should remember that Bangor High Street is the longest high street in Wales.
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So the culmination of the day was 3000 people, a cross-section of all people in the local society, and we were on the way.
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This obviously is the foundation of the education that you are receiving here today.
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And how many students were registered here back then?
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Well, there were 58 in the first year. But the staggering statistic is that there were 19 women out of those 58.
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And that was totally unheard of throughout education in the whole of the UK at the time.
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And for this to happen, the little city of Bangor shows that we've always been on the forefront of education,
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always thinking of new ideas and developing and evolving as we go along.
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Do we know anything about those first female students?
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We have a lot of information about them. Probably the most prominent one was Margaret Verney, a member of the Plas Rhianfa family on Anglesey.
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She became the first woman graduate. But more important is that she gave 30 years of her life towards promoting women's education.
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And she became a member of the university council, which she remains for for the next 30 years.
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And she contributed greatly to the history of the University of Wales and to women's Eduication in the UK generally.
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Hello, Sian. What can you tell us about the first principal and professors here? Who were the first to teach?
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Well, how did a Hill, an Irishman of German descent.
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Was the first principle here. And he played an important role in establishing the university for nearly 50 years.
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He learned Welsh fluently. He had the vision for the for the college, and he established and bought new people around him.
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And how did the university establish itself and develop financially?
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Again, by making connections. We had people like William Rathbone, the Liverpool MP who became an MP for Caernarfonshire also.
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But later on, as Lloyd George became more prominent and liberalism,
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he pulled in very wealthy business people from Merseyside and also from all parts of North Wales and everybody contributed.
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He started new subjects, a forestry, for example.
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Also the classics came to Bangor with possibly more pioneering than anything was his contribution to agriculture,
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because agriculture was obviously a prominent part of the life of everybody here in Gwynedd and Anglesey.
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What a great way to end this, first in a series of films.
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Thanks. Follow the next part of this fascinating story by joining us in part two.
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The vision of 1884, the growth of the university and its buildings.

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This is Bangor University, one of the first universities built in Wales and now within the top five in the UK.

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I'm Mari studying childhood and youth studies here at Bangor University.

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And this is our second in our series of six films where we explore the history of Bangor University and how the vision of 1884 evolved.

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Here to take us on this fascinating journey is Gari Wyn a local historian, businessman and graduate from the Bangor University School of History.

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So what can you tell us about how this part of the story starts?

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Well, from 1884 onwards, the college gradually expanded from its base down there by the port in the old Penrhyn Hotel.

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We needed a bigger university going gradually from an University of 60 students gradually by about 1890 to about 600 students.

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All of a sudden, the rural communities called for a new college.

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Between 1884 and 1893, the college evolved and more prominent local people, local businesspeople,

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local farmers and the coming of Lloyd George as an MP in 1890 made it inevitable that before long a new grand university would have to be developed.

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We're now obviously standing beneath the climax of the progress which was going to be built by 1911.

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So we needed money. The college and the MP's, such as William Rathbone and Asquith in London, also was behind this a prime Minister to be before long.

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Was there large amounts of crowd funding?

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This all started with a man called Llew Tegid

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who was appointed as the chief fundraiser towards the building of the new college, and that started in about 1905.

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This culminated in 1907 with the actual unveiling of this stone by Edward VII, as you see, in July 1907.

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Underneath the stone as a matter of interest are the publications in the local press at the time celebrating the actual event underneath the stone.

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Further down here is the name of Henry Hare, the architect who was responsible for this magnificent piece of architecture,

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which can't really be compared to anything in the whole of the UK.

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Yes. Gosh, that's incredible. And here we are in the stunning Shankland Library.

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What can you tell us about this building Gari? Well, the structure of the building was paid for by the Royal Drapers' Society.

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Very apt considering that the woollen industry was so important for the people of this area.

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So they paid for the structure. A man called Owen Owens, who was a foremost department store business man from Liverpool and London.

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He paid for all the wood work which is made by with Austrian Oak.

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We also have a unique feature in the roof of all the coats of arms for the different counties and purchases of Wales between 1907 and 1911

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Thomas Shankland was given the task of creating a massive collection of the most valuable books and rarest books in the history of Wales.

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So we have just one totally unique, unbelievable building,

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which I don't think can be matched by any university anywhere across the world.

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So here we are inside the building. What exactly can you tell us about the history of this hall?

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Well, we need an hour to do it all Mari but as you can see, it's a really majestic building.

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Sir John Pritchard Jones who was given the Baronetcy award for his contribution financially of £15,000 to build this magnificent hall.

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And it was based really on an idea that it would then include a great hall

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and this was basically the Lloyd George's idea, because he did feel that if we were going to have such a fantastic building in Bangor

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as a new university that we would also need a great hall like they did

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in Balliol and Jesus College in Cambridge and as you can see, the building itself held 1500 people.

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We're standing on the balcony now around us, these oak panels from Austria, these great windows, the cultural arms of all of the countries of Wales,

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and possibly more interesting than anything, the first Great Hall in any university in the UK to have what they called electroliers.

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These lights were actually chandeliers infused with electricity and that is a really,

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really pioneering thing for any hall to have in Britain in in the 1911 period.

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Thanks again, Gari. It really does put a different perspective on these corridors that our students walk through daily.

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Join us next time when we discover more about this amazing university.

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Join me, Mari, as we explore the history of Bangor University and the key people involved.

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Hi Gari. Why are we here in Glanadda Cemetery?

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Well, we are right at the centre of the cemetery here, where a number of prominent people

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who played such an important part in the establishing of the early years of the university

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as we come down to the corner here, we come to William Cadwaladr Davies, the first secretary, the first registrar of the college, a Bangor boy from Hirael district

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at the bottom here who played

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a very prominent part in the establishment of the body of the University of Wales ten years after the university was sold.

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We have a number of other people here around as well, Llew Tegid

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the man who was responsible for collecting all the money. And on the other side, the mayor of Bangor, Sir Henry Lewis.

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But just nearby, we have another very, very important player in the in the whole story.

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So here we are at the grave of Sir Isambard Owen, why are we here?

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Isambard Owen was very influential in all aspects of development of the college.

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He also played an important part in the development of universities in London, in Paris and in Durham.

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So he's one of the possibly one of the the most important people in the history of university education in the whole of the United Kingdom.

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Right. So we're here in Neuadd Reichel and was this building named after Harry Reichel who was the first principal of the university

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Harry Reichel, from his Irish and German descent,

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was the first headmaster or first principal of the college from 1884 till 1927.

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And yes, this building which is a hall of residence was built in his memory.

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He's a very, very important part of the development of not only the University of Bangor,

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but of education in Wales and also in parts of the UK as well, because he was a pioneer in developing new departments.

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For example, in Bangor he united all the religious denominations to create one theology departments.

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He created the classics departments. He created the forestry departments under very important and significant agricultural departments.

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So the realms of the influence he has had on education in, within the University of Wales is just unbelievable.

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From this same period, Sir J. E. Lloyd became registrar of the College.

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He published research and the volumes of notes on the history of Wales to this day,

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his work on the history of the Middle Ages and Owain Glyndŵr remain the main source of the history of Wales in that period.

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A prominent woman also in the history of the College was Mary Rathbone,

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a member of the famous Rathbone family from Liverpool, who had grown up in Llandegfan, Anglesey.

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Was she related to William Rathbone, who helped set up the university?

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Didn't we speak about him in our previous film? Yes, they were a very influential family.

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During that time, Mary became a member of the University Council,

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and she was also a generous patron of the cause of women's education throughout the United Kingdom.

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She was also a member of the board, which was responsible for the great fight for the rights of women to have independent halls of residence.

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So there was a female only halls of residence then?

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The first official one was probably the one that was opened in 1893, which was the University Hall.

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The first girls in the college would range in age between 16 and 26 years of age.

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and finally in 1893, Reichel made sure that they had the money and they built the new University Hall, which is presently Rathbone Hall.

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And that was the start of a totally independent way of life for the young women within education in Wales.

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And that was at the time, something really pioneering that hadn't happened in most universities throughout the United Kingdom.

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I think everyone would agree we've come such a long way since then.

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Join us next time as we move to more recent history to find out how the university embraced bilingualism.