Milestones in our history

1859

The town’s new School of Art opens with 110 pupils on Monday 17 January 1859 in ‘an excellent room provided by the liberality of the town council’. The excellent room is, in fact, one of the kitchens of Brighton’s Regency gem, the Royal Pavilion, which Queen Victoria sold to the town in 1850.

Brighton School of Art and Science, designed by John G Gibbins.

1876

The art school moves to a specially constructed building in Grand Parade and gets a new name, the School of Art and Science. Prime Minister William Gladstone witnesses the laying of the foundation stone. The official opening on 2 February 1877 is a town event of some magnificence, with a royal couple, the Marchioness and Marquis of Lorne, as the principal guests.

1897

A decision to establish a Municipal School of Science and Technology is made in around 1893 and a central site secured at Richmond Terrace. The ceremonial foundation stone is laid by the Mayor of Brighton on 2 October 1895, and teaching in the new premises commences in September 1897.

There are 600 students who are mostly part-time and from building trades, but they do include 70 three-year science and art department pupils who transferred from the Higher Grade School in York Place.

1909

In 1909, Richmond Terrace becomes home to the newly established Brighton Municipal Training College, created to offer a two-year full-time certificate course for trainee teachers.

The training college has a principal, four colleagues and 57 students, about one-third of whom are men. Students receive loans provided by local authorities and will repay these by working as newly certified teachers in the authorities’ schools. It expands into 9–10 Hanover Crescent in 1918, and by 1950 grows to accommodate 230 students.

1949

The Chelsea School celebrates its 50th year by moving to a new home in Eastbourne. Originally founded in London in 1898 by Dorette Wilke as an institution to train women and girls in physical education, it was evacuated to Borth in Wales in 1939 before coming to the south coast. The burgeoning sports school, as part of the East Sussex College of Higher Education, merges with Brighton Polytechnic in 1979.

58–67 Grand Parade, Brighton, circa 1970. Courtesy of School of Art Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.

1958

Ernest Alfred Sallis Benney’s longstanding negotiations for a new home for the arts at Grand Parade gain approval, with plans for a striking modern design. Percy Billington’s original ideas are augmented by Sir Hugh Casson in a three-phase project completed in 1969.

Principal between 1934–1958, and ambitious for internationalisation and a close relationship with creative industries, Sallis Benney’s name is given to the purpose-built university theatre in the new Grand Parade building.

1962

In 1962, Preston Technical Institute assumes the title Brighton Technical College, responsible for all the non-advanced day and evening courses, while the existing Brighton Technical College becomes the Brighton College of Technology, intended for more advanced studies.

A ten-storey purpose-built home for the Brighton College of Technology is constructed in 1962/63. This will be opened officially in February 1966 by Nobel prize-winning nuclear physicist Sir John Cockcroft, whose name is given to the building.

Photo © Ken Powell – mybrightonandhove.org.uk.

Photo © Ken Powell – mybrightonandhove.org.uk.

1965

The 32-acre Falmer campus is opened in 1965 as home to the Brighton College of Education. The teacher training facility has long outgrown both its original Brighton Municipal Training College location in Richmond Terrace and subsequent move to Eastern Terrace. Renamed in 1964, it begins to take male students, having only taken female students between 1919–1961.

1970

With their new buildings complete, the College of Art at Grand Parade and Brighton College of Technology in Moulsecoomb merge to form Brighton Polytechnic. Margaret Thatcher, Education Secretary in the newly elected Conservative government, signs the certificate to confirm the institution’s new polytechnic status.

1976

The Brighton College of Education joins with Brighton Polytechnic to give the institution a third campus at Falmer.

Meanwhile, the seven-storey Watts building, named after Brighton Technical College’s principal at the time of the early 1960s developments, GE Watts, is constructed alongside the 1963 Cockcroft Building in Moulsecoomb.

1977

The polytechnic invests in Mithras House and the land around it on Lewes Road. The building is a 1960s addition to the Allen West & Co Ltd electrical works complex dating from 1939. With the earlier buildings demolished and a name reflecting the belief that a Roman Mithraeum temple once stood near the site, it is established as a department of architecture and construction studies and provides a home for central administration for over 40 years.

1979

The East Sussex College of Higher Education, including the Chelsea School, merges with Brighton Polytechnic, creating an Eastbourne campus and establishing what will become an internationally reputed department of sports science and culture. Sport and health subjects will be consolidated at the Brighton Falmer Campus in 2024.

1992

Along with many other polytechnics, Brighton is granted university status and becomes the University of Brighton.

1994

The Sussex and Kent Institute of Nursing and Midwifery becomes part of the university, increasing the provision of courses taught in Eastbourne’s Leaf Hospital.

1995

The university launches its first website in October 1995 supported by the institution’s researchers in the computer science Usability Group. A site featuring short pieces of text and hyperlinks, it highlights the university’s ‘distinctive history, cultural exuberance and cosmopolitan way of life’. This early embrace of communications technologies will continue, with social media appearing in March 2009, initially used to support public arts engagement.

2003

The Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) opens as a partnership between the University of Brighton, the University of Sussex and the Universities Hospitals Trust. A donation of £1 million is received into BSMS from pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

2003

The University Centre Hastings opens in September 2003 and will be managed by the University of Brighton for 14 years. In 2009, as the original partners play lesser roles, it is designated a campus of the university, with specialisms that include degrees in journalism and media production.

In September 2017, degree provision in the town is transferred to East Sussex College Hastings while the university’s media specialisms are consolidated at Brighton’s City campus.

Selected works displayed at the 150th anniversary celebrations of the original School of Art, featuring past students Sally Doust, Keith Tyson, Peter Richardson, Barbara Hulanicki, Emily Gravett Alison Lapper and Chris Ridell, along with past staff Raymond Briggs, Anthony Gormley, George Hardie and Louis Ginnett.

2009

2009 is a landmark year with the 150th anniversary of the School of Art celebrated through an exhibition and publication featuring many household names in a roll call of former students and staff.

The year also marks 100 years since the establishment of the first teacher training college in Brighton, 15 years of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, and the 10th anniversary of the Brighton Business School.

2022

After years of negotiation and planning, our Moulsecoomb ‘Big Build’ is completed, transforming the campus as part of a master plan that includes the neighbouring Preston Barracks site and promising significant and lasting benefits for staff, students and the local community. The development includes student accommodation, a new building for the School of Business and Law, a multi-storey car park and an accessible pedestrian bridge to connect the campus across the Lewes Road, as well as fitness facilities and the Students' Union cafe and bar.

2024

As part of a major estates strategy, we complete a significant redevelopment programme at Falmer, consolidating all our sport and health courses at a single Brighton campus and closing the Eastbourne campus. The redevelopment includes the conversion of a former private health club into a mixed-use academic and leisure facility and the repurposing of existing spaces to provide a better experience for students and staff.

At the same time, Mithras House at Moulsecoomb brings together the humanities and social sciences subjects that were spread across campuses.

Today

Boasting three campuses in Brighton, we enjoy a reputation as a leading modern university, with around 7,000 academic awards made each year and a prized portfolio of impact-driven research and knowledge exchange.

The university has developed over the years as an institution that delivers socially purposeful higher education and research. It serves and strengthens society and underpins the economy, contributes critically to the public good and equips its graduates with the skills to succeed. We are proud to be of service to all who find a home here and to diverse communities locally, nationally and internationally.