Talk:Third-oldest university in England debate

Durham name

The University of Durham section states that it's "now Durham University". However, for legal and formal purposes, including the charter and the granting of degrees, it is still the University of Durham. Since these are the criteria under which we're examining universities in this page, I would say it's better leave it at 'University of Durham'. Anyone else wish to comment? -- Strib 00:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering again, I suspect "Durham University" would be the better section title to use. The alternative raises problems with the names for other institutions.

Broadly we can use one of three naming conventions:

The name when the institution started (by its own claim date). This however would result in UCL being listed as "University of London", whilst amongst the other institutions listed we'd have the "London Mechanics Institute", a name not used for the last 140 years (and which many alumni, myself included, would not recognise at all).

The current "legal and official name". I don't think it's helpful to use these when they diverge from the current brand name. (Using them in a historic context when they were the brand name at the time is different.) My own current institution is probably one of most notable divergences in this area - "Queen Mary and Westfield College" (and the acronym "QMW") is as much the legal and formal title as "University of Durham" is, but it is actively discouraged in favour of Queen Mary, University of London ("QMUL"). (I've been in University of London meetings where references to "Queen Mary and Westfield" or "QMW" are invariably corrected by QMUL people present.) Consistency on legal names would bring up these problems whilst inconsistency could turn into a mess.

Use the institution's current brand name, as used on the relevant Wikipedia article.

Since we're talking about the third oldest current institution (and the first University of Northampton doesn't get a look in) really it should be by current names. Timrollpickering 01:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Great page!

You've done very well here. Thanks for this page. --Duncan 16:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Definition of England

Although England (meaning England and Wales) is a relevant point, due to the Act mentioned in the article, I don't see the relevance of England (meaning UK), England has never meant UK, and, as mentioned in the article, it instantly nullifies the debate by including St. Andrews, not only that, but it is also nullified by the 4 other Ancient Universities that are or have at some point been in part of the UK outside England. The way I see it, the debate is about who gets to be crowned "first of the new universities", i.e. which establishment first challenged the monopoly of the two public menaces, laying the foundation for following universities. I have never heard of anyone claiming St. Andrews to be the third oldest English University. PRB 15:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Who was it who said the past is a foreign country where they do things differently? Insistence on rigid geographic precision was not universally used in the past - see the A. J. P. Taylor quote in the Oxford History of England article. In the preface to his volume he goes on to give examples such as Andrew Bonar Law describing himself as "Prime Minister of England" (1922-1923) despite not being "English" at all by present day considerations. Law's successor, Stanley Baldwin (1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937), famously complained about the way that so often whenever someone said "England" there would be "some fellow at the back of the room shouting 'Britain'".

More tellingly look at the way the UK is frequently called "England" around the world. (See British Isles (terminology) for some of this confusion.) From an international and historical perspective the mixed use of the terminology makes it relevant even if legally it was more precise. Timrollpickering 16:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

True, but there is no debate over the third oldest university in that kind of England, as it is clearly St. Andrews by about 40 years on its closest rival (Glasgow), and by about 400 years on the oldest university involved in the debate.PRB 13:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

True though as the debate is generally within the confines of the current (domestic) use of "England" it's not a surprise that this comes up. But including the information on St Andrews and the distinction is useful as often there is confusion internationally. Timrollpickering 18:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Notability and verifiability

Is there really such a debate? Can someone cite some sources to establish that there is one? All I can see is a debate raging between Wikipedia editors. Is the same debate happening in the world outside WP? Or is this article just a piece of self reference? Please, esablish the notability of the debate with verifiable sources. The guidelines and policies do require that much from an article. Aditya Kabir 14:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

It's true that the debate per se does need some sourcing. The reason this page existed, though, was that many independent articles asserted, with sources, that their university was the third oldest in England. A few sources: "Durham, the third oldest university in England, after Oxford and Cambridge, is a leading centre for education and research." "because (UCL) was actually founded in 1826 it is generally recognised as the third oldest university in England, after Oxford and Cambridge" "The University of London was granted its first charter in 1836 and is the third oldest university in England." "(Manchester) can claim to be both the newest and the third oldest university in England!"

Perhaps the page would be better titled "claims" rather than "debate", as it is true that little evidence seems to be presented that anyone is debating the topic; but certainly evidence can be presented that competing claims are made. TSP 18:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to note that I've removed Template:Verifiability, not because I dispute that there are verifiability issues here, but because I think it's unacceptably large. It doesn't seem to be in common use, and isn't in any of the relevant template categories - I'm not sure if there's a more usually-employed template for this purpose? I don't think that a template that pushes the actual content almost off the front page is acceptable, though. TSP 18:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it seemed a bit cumbersome. :) But, do we have another banner to replace that one? Verifiability is an issue here, if we continue to call this a debate. Aditya Kabir 08:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that the way the debate is conducted through implicit means by institutions and/or partner institutions (particularly overseas exchange programes) and/or alumni describing their institution as the "third oldest" rather than explicitly challenging one another's credentials (although there is the occassional direct conflict when someone at one challenges another) can make it harder to stand out. Manchester doesn't have "Est 1824" in its current logo for nothing. A quick search on Google suggests a mix between both Durham and UCL, whilst Lexis Nexis articles lean heavily towards Durham but have some significant exceptions - recent Times Higher articles (not an insignificant source) that use the description use it for London whilst one Northern Echo article from a few months ago described how Durham was seemingly thowing in the towel on its claim by celebrating 175 years. Certainly this is an issue that does come up a lot. Timrollpickering 23:31, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that sound like a bit of original research? May be we should tag it with either {{Original research}} or {{Synthesis}} banners. Say what? Aditya Kabir 14:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought that the more pressing issue is how to make this into a useful article, rather than what banners to tag it with while we work that out. Let's move forward.

I think the current situation is certainly better than the previous one, where multiple articles asserted their institutions to be the third oldest university in England, without regard for other articles asserting the same. We just need to make sure we restrict this article to what can actually be sourced, rather than conclusions we may draw from that; which may include altering the name.

Tim - the 175 years refers to 1832, the date of Durham's act of parliament, which predates London's charter and is the basis on which Durham claims the 'third oldest' title. If you could find the Echo article, though, it might be a useful source to the existence of a debate on the topic. TSP 14:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't appear to be on the web (but is in LexisNexis) but is from the Echo, dated April 11 2007. It's headed "THE THIRD OLDEST UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND. . . OR IS IT?" by David Simpson and includes the following highlights:

DURHAM University celebrates its 175th anniversary this year and the history of this esteemed institution is worth commemorating. However, it is perhaps a little surprising to discover that the celebration of such an anniversary would also seem to mark an admission of defeat in the university's once widely-held claim to be England's third oldest University.

It runs through the issues - Durham's charter is younger than London's, but Oxford, Cambridge & the post 92s weren't founded by charter; UCL not having any legal status pre 1836; King's not being a university; the 1832 Act of Parliament specifying Durham as a university. Frankly it's not well researched because, as you point out, celebrating 175 years this year is based on the Act not the Charter. (And another article 8 days later uses "third oldest university" to describe Durham...)

Other articles on LexisNexis also cover this (my connection isn't the best at the moment to pull them up right now), including an amusing 1998 piece on a publuc spat between UCL and Durham (who couldn't explain themselves as there wasn't anyone still around from the 1820s & 1830s!). Timrollpickering 16:04, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone wanted to have ideas to make this article a useful one. So here's idea one - delete. It appears to be original research, and the claim that "there's a huge debate going on" or something has not been established outside original research. Idea two - remove the word "debate" from the title and replace it with the word "claims". Idea three - shift this article to the university wikiproject or something, may be create a subpage. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a debate championship. Aditya Kabir 18:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to care about the fact that there is no debate on the third oldest university outside synthesized information that constitutes original research. Do you think this should go for an AfD? So many intelligent people working on the article,a nd so little regard for the policies and guidelines! Please, do something about it. You are here to make an encyclopedia, not to claim your own raging debate encyclopedic. Aditya Kabir 16:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I apologise if my edit to the post above is deemed rude, but I see no basis for the bold comments being there at all, never mind in bold type. Unless publications by Durham University or colleges forming part of the University of London are to be considered original research then there is certainly evidence to suggest this debate exists. The debate itself is admittedly rather trivial, although on this basis established articles such as the Sea of Japan naming dispute should also be deleted. Just because a wikipedia nominee believes a debate to be trivial, even approaching stupid, this doesn't mean to say that the content is not notable. I personally think the notion that some of the oldest institutions in the country are arguing like 12 year olds about how old they are to be incredibly significant.

I agree that this article requires attention, and arguably isn't as neutral as it could be (I think it's reasonably fair, with POV comments inserted but in a consistent manner). However the fact that the neutrality of an article doesn't meet the requirements for GA status isn't sufficient basis for an AfD nomination. If it were then we would have to delete the majority of wikipedia articles. BeL1EveR 11:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

BeL1EveR wanted citations, so, I guess, I should be providing some. Please, read the official policy, where it says - "Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article." Clearly, in this article A and B (rhetorically speaking) has been established well within the guidelines. But, what about C? The debate itself? Unless there is a reliable and verifiable third-party reference that is exists, it doesn't, really. Wikipedia is not about the truth, it is about verifiable and reliable facts.

Yes, there may be evidence to suggest this debate exists, but has that ever been published as a concrete report anywhere? If yes, why not put it in? If no, then how is this article justifiable under existing policies? Well, the Sea of Japan dispute has more than 10 times the amount of citations this article uses, and still is tagged for neutrality. I am not advocating deletion, but I am not advocating a disregard for the policies either. I don't believe it to be trivial, the policies do. And, oh, editing other's comments is not rude, it's vandalism, as stated by the policies. Please, read Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism to find that Modifying users' comments is described as such.

And, finally, please... why can't someone quote a reference that says the debate exists? That would solve the problem instantly. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 12:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Tim Roll-Pickering has mentioned some, but not produced definite citations for any of them - Tim, could you redo that LexisNexis trawl and pull out some quotes and references? TSP 13:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been away a few days and am currently in a catch up position but in a few days' time I'll do the trawl again and add the references. Timrollpickering 21:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Long live Tim. Finally someone proved that the debate exists, instead of just claiming it, or ignoring the maintenance as if they serve the purpose of decorating an article. Thanks and cheers. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 22:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

--- Durham is having its 175 year celebrations this year whereas Kings had it a few years ago, they seem to therefore agree that kings is older.--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.202.226 (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, King's has an earlier foundation date (though still after UCL's of 1826); however, the institution from 1829 until 1836 (when it became part of the University of London) was deliberately and explicitly not a university (though it had a royal charter as a college). King's only gained its own degree-awarding powers in 2003. As this page examines, raw 'foundation date' doesn't mean all that much; the institution that is now the University of Nottingham can trace a foundation date of 1798, but I don't think that anyone seriously contends that it is an older university than Durham or London. TSP 04:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a clear difference between Nottingham University's claim to have been founded in 1798 and the undisputed fact that KCL was founded in 1829. Nottingham's claim is disingenuous, since the date of 1798 refers to the year a school for adults was setup in Nottingham. As far as I am aware, the University of Nottingham does not stand in any relation to that adult school, but even if it did that is irrelevant and would not make 1798 the foundation year of University of Nottingham. So foundation date isn't as meaningless as TSP above makes it out to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.194.10 (talk) 00:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Original name of UCL

According to this article, UCL was originally called "University of London".

According to the [University College London] article, its original name was "London University" (although there is some discussion on the talk page about the accuracy of this).

Richmond University

Richmond is not a UK university, in the sense that it does not have the power to award degrees. It may be a perfectly-respectable third-level institution; but it teaches for degrees validated by the OU and that doesn't make it a university.Kranf (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

University of Northampton (thirteenth century)

This article should really also mention the University of Northampton, which was the third university to be founded in England. Sure, it only existed for four years and it has only been since 2005 that Northampton has a university again, but I say it does merit inclusion in this article. (And no, I don't have time to it myself, sorry.) sephia karta | di mi 21:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see Sephia Karta's comment on the talk page before independently adding the paragraph about the University of Northampton, but she seems to be right. Alex Bouditsky has moved the paragraph about the University of Northampton to "Other Universities" and has called the paragraph "biased" (it isn't, I don't have anything to do with Northampton or its universities), and has changed the paragraph to state that "the third established university *could be*" the University of Northampton. This all comes down to two questions. Was there a University in Northampton in the thirteenth century? There was. I have found two independent sources outside Wikipedia that state that there was a thirteenth century University in Northampton (one is a messy text file from a scanned book, but I have added the other, cleaner, source as a footnote), and that it had royal consent (and possibly a Royal Charter according to the Wikipedia article - I am trying to find a supporting source for that at present, other articles say that it was temporarily supported by the King). And was there any earlier University after Oxford and Cambridge? I can't find anybody who says that there was. As it stands everything that was said in the paragraph is true (hence no bias), and I state plainly that the University is usually ignored in the question of the third University because it only existed briefly and no longer exists. Since there is no bias in the paragraph, and since Northampton's claim is plainly centuries before any surviving English University (outside Oxbridge) can claim to have been founded, I think the paragraph belongs where it was put, at the top of the article. Durham and the University of London colleges were not founded until the nineteenth century. What does everybody else think? ThomasL (talk) 11:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have found one reference to a "quasi-University" in Northampton, but would have to buy access to the full article to see exactly what that means. I have found another couple of articles that seem to support the existence of the University, but with the same limited access. I will try to find more exact information (from these or elsewhere) about the founding of the University. If the Wikipedia article is right then the University was founded officially with a Royal Charter, but I will try to check this. ThomasL (talk) 12:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

After doing some more online research: things are less clear-cut than the Wikipedia article on University of Northampton (thirteenth century) suggests, as I can find no evidence of a royal charter (Oxford and Cambridge were not founded by royal charter either). The most important source that I have found, so far, is the letter from the King suppressing the University of Northampton ( http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D3apayEuoZ8C&pg=PA61&dq=1265+northampton+university#PPA62,M1 ) which states that the King "assented" to "the request" of the "clerks" from Cambridge who wanted to "establish a new University" in Northampton, and that now - having changed his mind - he required that "the University should be removed from the town aforesaid" and "that you shall not allow any students to remain there otherwise than was customary before the creation of the said University". This document seems to confirm that the King had authorised the creation of a new University, and that the University was officially considered a University before its closure. ThomasL (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article should mention the University of Northampton but it shouldn’t start with this. Moreover, the main purpose of the article is to show a debate between current universities (see discussion in 2006). If the University of Northampton has nothing common with the current University, why it was put it as the first paragraph. I would highly recommend to change the title of the heading and think how it could be logically located within the current structure Alexbouditsky (talk) 22:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I like having it at the beginning, it gets it out of the way early and avoids the inevitable, "Oh, yeah? Well, what about...?" I changed "ignored" in the last line to "excluded," since by mentioning it you're clearly not ignoring it. Bppubjr (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Newcastle Medical School

Although Newcastle Medical School was part of the University of Durham at a later date, its foundation (predating Durham's Royal Charter, but not its Act of Parliament) was as an independent institution, and it became independent from Durham again when Newcastle became a University. As such, Newcastle University's origins in the medical school seem to be separate from Durham's claim (which is based on the University of Durham's Act of Parliament and Royal Charter), and Newcastle is one of many institutions that can claim to be descended from non-university institutions that offered higher education before Durham and London received their Royal Charters (but were not founded as universities before that date). ThomasL (talk) 14:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This is true; however, though the original School of Medicine and Surgery (before the schism, on Orchard Lane) awarded certificates of attendance, the first qualifications recognized by an external body were certificates validated by the University of London in the 1840s. Admitunit (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is true of most of the institutions listed in that section. They were not degree awarding bodies until they became universities much later. However, the modern universities point to their origins at the earlier time. The University of Manchester, for example, uses "1824" in its logo, despite this being the founding date of a Mechanics Institute that did not award degrees, and which presumably awarded informal qualifications similar to those of the Newcastle School of Medicine. ThomasL (talk) 10:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Cambridge

Surely the honour of being the third oldest foundation belongs to Cambridge, close to Oxford in second, and Stamford University the clear first by some 1900 years. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC).

Academic studies section

I've put on a section on relevant academic studies, which one would hope would be less influenced by the institutional publicity machines than the press. However, the references I was able to track down (mainly using Google Books and Google Scholar) almost all came down in favour of Durham. If anyone knows of other relevant academic studies, particularly ones demonstrating a diversity of opinion, please add them! Robminchin (talk) 00:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Caen University

Given Caen was founded in English Normandy by the John of lancaster Regent of France for his nephew Henry VI - doesn't that make it the third English university - if not the third oldest in England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A0B:E541:60F:0:2096:1045:821:5C5B (talk) 10:55, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I think Caen was founded under the authority of Henry as Duke of Normandy and/or as claimant to the French throne, not under his authority as King of England. It's no more an English university than Dublin (founded by Queen Elizabeth I of England but under her authority as Queen of Ireland). Robminchin (talk) 04:54, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

As Robminchin says, there was still a 'Kingdom of France' that England held at that time under Henry VI, though his reign was disputed, hence Caen was founded by Englishmen. But it cannot be considered to have been in England, which is what this article is about. Mountain^cirque 09:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)