Highfield Campus 100: the 21st century

And so we reach the final Special Collections blog looking at the development of the University over the last 100 years.

As we moved into the new millennium, there was a change at the helm of the University with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Howard Newby, departing and being replaced by Professor Bill Wakeham. Following the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which placed Southampton in the top ten of research-led universities in the UK – and which was described by Bill Wakeham as “spectacular by anybody’s standard” – Professor Wakeham produced his “Vision and Strategic Direction for the University of Southampton to 2010” setting out the future organisation and direction for the University.

Members of Athletics Union, with the Vice Chancellor, who recreated the relay run from London to Southampton to mark the golden jubilee of the University, 2002 [MS1/Phot/19/256]

In 2002, and again in 2012, the University also looked back to its history, celebrating first its golden and then diamond jubilee of gaining University status in 1952. One of the events in 2002 was to recreate the relay run by members of the Athletics Union from London to Southampton: in 1953 this had been to carry a message of congratulations from the Chancellor of the University of London delivered to the Chancellor of Southampton, the Duke of Wellington.

60at60: for diamond jubilee celebrations of the University of Southampton

Indeed, 2012 was to be a double celebration, since it also marked the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Hartley Institution in 1862. The Hartley Institution, which was based in the High Street, Southampton, was officially opened by the then Prime Minister, third Viscount Palmerston, who travelled from his home in Romsey for the event. Papers of Lord Palmerston form part of the Broadlands Archives, one of key collections of the Special Collections, and for which the University undertook a major fundraising campaign in 2009 to ensure that they remained in the UK.

Lord Palmerston arriving for the opening of the Hartley Institution, 1862 [MS1/Phot/39 ph3026]

The near two decades since 2000 has seen considerable development of the Highfield campus with amongst others the extension of the Hartley Library, opened in  November 2004; the re-development and extension of the George Thomas Building housing Professional Services and Student Services; and the Life Sciences building which won an architectural award in 2011. In 2005, a major fire partially destroyed the Mountbatten Building on campus: it successor, also called Mountbatten Building – providing accommodation for the School of Electronics and Computing Science and Optoelectronics Research Centre – was formally opened in 2009. The Highfield campus continues to be developed and reshaped, with the newest building, the aptly named Centenary Building, currently being completed. Developments in sports facilities, both at Highfield campus and elsewhere, will be covered in a successive blog next week.

Hartley Library extension opened 2004

The new millennium also saw developments in other ways: 2004 was the year that the first female Esquire Bedell was appointed at the University. Jo Nesbitt of the International Office was the appointee and it was claimed she was the first women to hold this ceremonial post in any university in the UK. The role was created in 1953 for the first University graduation and for, according to the Rag Magazine of the time, a tall male postgraduate “with a great love of ceremonial born in him”.

Jo Nesbitt featured in Hartley News, 2004

Graduations in 2004 were the first time that the ceremonies were broadcast live to allow all guests to see the proceedings. Graduations ceremonies now take place a number of times a year to accommodate increasing numbers of graduates and the expansion of University activities not just across several campuses in Southampton and Winchester but overseas. Southampton has a campus in Dalian, China – part of its collaboration with the Dalian Polytechnic University – and the Southampton’s Malaysia campus opened in October 2012 offering degrees in engineering. The Confucius Institute, which promotes Chinese culture and language, also was launched at the University in 2012.

Light Opera Society production of The Pirates of Penzance, 2000 [MS1/Phot/10/7/1]

Student life in the millennium is both very different and in some ways familiar with that in the decades since 1919. Student activism, details of which have been touched upon in previous blogs – such as protests in the 1960s – continued in the recent decades, encompassing such issues as higher education loans and climate change.  The opportunities for distraction of social and sporting activities is yet more multiple and varied. The number of clubs and societies supported by the Student Union has risen in the period since 2000 to 300, spanning an array of subjects from Ancient History to Women in Business, numerous performing arts societies and over 80 different sporting activities ranging from court sports to clubs such as windsurfing and sailing.

Mountaineering Club putting their skills to work around campus [MS1/Phot/19/263/1]

The University also can boast that it has sent a competitor to every summer Olympics since 1988 and in the millennium Southampton has seen success in Olympic sailing events. In Sydney 2000, rowing silver medalist Guinevere Batten competed with her sister Miriam in the women’s quadruple skulls. Subsequent successes include Pavlos Kontides who at the London Olympics, 2012, won Cyprus’s first ever Olympic medal, a silver in the Laser class sailing, and a gold medal for Giles Scott in the Finn heavyweight dingy class at Rio in 2016.

Sailing Club in action [MS1/Phot19/266]

As we approach the anniversary of the move to Highfield in autumn 1919, there is change at the helm of the University with the arrival of a new Vice Chancellor, Professor Mark E.Smith, marking another new phase in the institution’s story.

If these series of blogs have whetted your appetite for more about the development of Highfield over the last 100 years, then do check out Special Collections twitter account and the new series Highfield in 100 objects starting in October.