Hugh Jones Journalist Profile

Articles

Higher education postcard: Queen Alexandra’s House

1 week ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from South Kensington!I’ve told elsewhere the story of how the Imperial Institute was founded following the Great Exhibition of 1851, and how the South Kensington site became a hub for colleges, museums and culture. And naturally, where there are students, there is a need to house students. And one group of students, in particular, exercised the Victorian imagination: women.
Higher education postcard: University of Buckingham

2 weeks ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

It’s a commonplace that the University of Cambridge was founded by scholars fleeing Oxford. Today’s postcard comes from a university with a similar origin myth, albeit quite a lot less medieval. And a lot newer too. We need to start in 1967, in May to be precise, when Dr John Paulley, an inveterate writer of letters to the times, had one published on the subject of university education.
Higher education postcard: University of Cambridge, the Senate House

3 weeks ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Cambridge!Today’s card shows the Senate House at the University of Cambridge. Building started in 1722, the Senate House opened in 1730, and it was completed in 1768 (yes, that is the right order of events). It was designed by the Jameses Gibbs and Burroughs (the latter being master of Gonville and Caius); woodwork by James Essex the Elder; and ceiling plaster by Artari and Bagutti. As the name suggests, it was built as a meeting place for the university’s senate.
Higher education postcard: University of the Balearic Islands

4 weeks ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Oh this year we’re off to sunny Spain! (If you’re old enough, you’ll know.) But we’re not taking the Costa Brava plane, instead we’re off to Mallorca. In 1483 King Ferdinand of Aragon (yes, that one; half of the double-act Ferdinand and Isabella) authorised the establishment of the Estudi General Lul-Lià in Palma, on the island of Mallorca. This was a college named in honour of Ramon Llull. Ramon Llull, philosopher and theologian, who lived from 1232 to 1316, and was a native Mallorcan.
Higher education postcard: University of Greater Manchester

1 month ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Bolton. Definitely Bolton. In 1824, a mechanics’ institute was established in Bolton. Mechanics’ institutes were a new phenomenon – the first was established in Scotland in 1821. They were, in essence, a subscription-based club which provided an opportunity for education, aimed at the better-off members of the working class. As the 1857 advert in the Bolton Chronicle shows, it was still going fifty years later. You can see the 1857 subscription fees in the advertisement.
Higher education postcard: Hughes Hall, Cambridge

1 month ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Cambridge – and unlike last week, this time we’re definitely in England. It is 1878, and the Cambridge Independent Press of 7 December reports that the university has taken steps to enable the training of teachers. The Teachers’ Training Syndicate (its Cambridge-ese for a committee or working group, I think) is to be established, to oversee programmes of training for students intending to become school teachers, and the colleges at which they train.
Higher education postcard: Grey College, Durham

2 months ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

It’s 1959, and Durham University is still a federal university, with colleges in Durham and Newcastle. And expansion in Durham was underway. Elvet Hill, just south of the River Wear, had already seen St Mary’s College move in 1952 from its old site; and now a new college was being built. The college was to be named Grey College, after Charles Grey, Prime Minister when the university was founded (Grey may also have been the earl who inspired the eponymous tea).
Higher education postcard: statuary

2 months ago | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Oxford!Many – perhaps even most – universities have a statue or two. But few have a statute which is as troublesome as one of those belonging to Oriel College, Oxford. You can see the statue in question in the alcove directly above the door in the postcard – the one on its own at the top; not one of those along the first floor. And I bet by now you’ve guessed the statue.
Higher education postcard: New College, Oxford

Mar 27, 2025 | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Oxford!As I write this blog, the spring statement is two days away, and I have no idea (although I can make a guess!) how Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ statement has gone down with people. Reeves studied for her first degree at New College Oxford, and so that’s where we’re going today. This being Oxford, New College is obviously a very old college. It was founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Winchester.
Higher education postcard: Purdue University

Mar 20, 2025 | wonkhe.com | Hugh Jones |Mark Leach

Greetings from Indiana!In 1862 the United States passed the first of a series of laws – known as the Morrill Land-Grant Acts – which allowed states to sell federally owned land to fund the creation of colleges. These colleges – known now as land-grant universities – form a large chunk of the US higher education system. And its important to note – as America tries to forget its history – that the land sold to fund them was often bought, granted by or stolen from Native American tribes.