By Professor Robert Van de Noort
As we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, it is worth remembering there is another 96-year-old institution in Berkshire. A full 35 days before the then Princess Elizabeth was born in 1926, England’s 10th university was created – the University of Reading. Courtesy of a Royal Charter of Incorporation granted by the Queen’s grandfather – George V – the former University College Reading was given permission to confer its own degrees, meaning Reading now had equal status with its former parent institution, a few miles upstream the river Thames.
We are proud of our many royal connections.
That Royal Charter stipulated that George V, and his heirs, would hold the status of Visitor of the University, and Queen Elizabeth II remains personally connected to the University of Reading to this day. If you have been to our Whiteknights campus, you might know the name of the road leading from the main entrance on Shinfield Road is known as Queen’s Drive, in honour of our royal Visitor.
Of course, we are based in Berkshire, a county that plays not only host, but is also home to the Royal Family. And the Queen has certainly visited us many times. Early in her reign in 1957, Her Majesty came to Reading to open one of the first purpose-built academic buildings on Whiteknights – the Faculty of Letters. The building is still there and being used every day, although it is now named after another trailblazing female, England’s first female professor, Edith Morley.
Her Majesty returned in 1992 to open another building, the Department of Microbiology. And a decade ago, in 2012, Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Henley Business School’s Greenlands campus, alongside 4,000 guests, as part of the UK-wide Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
We have also been fortunate to be blessed with the Queen’s royal patronage for our leading role in British higher education, through the award of five Queen’s Anniversary Prizes over the past 25 years – for our work studying Shakespeare, weather, archaeology, typography, and most recently, climate change.
It is strange to think of a person as ‘an institution’, but after 70 years on the throne that is what the Queen is. The University is similarly an institution. We are not a collection of science labs, lecture theatres and residential halls. We are a group of people – many thousands of students, academics and other staff. We are also made up of our former students, and the members of the communities in which we are located. As resident of Reading or Wokingham, you too are part of this institution. Like any institution, together we are bigger than the sum of our parts, and together, we stand for something important.
Professor Robert Van de Noort is the vice-chancellor of the University of Reading
