In 1869 non-collegiate students were admitted at Cambridge.
The entire abolition of tests followed. After being rejected on several occasions in parliament, it was eventually carried as a Government measure, and passed the House of Lords in 1871.
In 1877 the reports of two new commissions were followed by the diversion of a certain proportion of the revenues of the colleges to the uses of the university, especially with a view to the encouragement of studies in natural science; the enforcement of general and uniform regulations with respect to the salaries, selection and duties of professors, lecturers and examiners; the abolition (with a few exceptions) of all clerical restrictions on headships or fellowships; and the limitation of fellowships to a uniform amount.
A remarkable increase in numbers followed at both universities, especially at Cambridge, where the number of undergraduates, which in 1862 was 1,526, rose in 1887 to 2,979. In the academic year 1862-63 the number of matriculations was 448, and in 1906 07, 1,083. The 22 universities and colleges have since been affili ated to the university, including many institutions throughout the empire. The general effect of the reforms inaugurated in 1877 has been the conversion of the college teaching staff into a permanent profession, and the growth of a resident and working university professoriate. At the same time there has been a gradual growth of "inter-collegiate lectures." At Oxford nearly all honour lectures given by college tutors and lecturers were thrown open to all members of the university : the college tutor was recognized by the university as a teacher in the faculty to which he belonged while boards of faculties were instituted. At Cambridge the system of inter-collegiate lectures has been developed. At both the old English universities the great widening of the courses of study open to senior students (honours men), which began about the middle of the i9th century, has been continued. For more recent developments see CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY and OXFORD UNIVERSITY.
For the University of Durham founded in 1657 by Cromwell see DURHAM. In 1871 the corporation of the university, in conjunction with some of the leading landed proprietors in the adjacent counties, founded a college of physical science at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, subsequently designated Armstrong college, and designed to teach scientific principles in their appli cation to engineering, mining, manufactures and agriculture.
Students who had passed the required examinations were made admissible as associates in physical science of the university. There is also at Newcastle the College of Medicine.
The University of London had its origin in a movement initiated in the year 1825 by Thomas Camp bell, the poet, in conjunction with Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, Joseph Hume and influential Dissenters. The first council, appointed Dec. 1825, comprised names representative of nearly all the religious denominations, including (besides those above mentioned) Zachary Macaulay, George Grote, James Mill, William Tooke, Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell and the duke of Norfolk. On Feb. 11, 1826, the deed of settlement was drawn up; and in the course of the year 7 ac., constituting the site of University college, were purchased, the foundation stone of the new buildings being laid by the duke of Sussex on April 30, 1827. In Oct. 1828 the college was opened as the University of London. King's college (incorporated Aug. 14, 1829), opened Oct. 8, 1831, was designed to combine with the original plan instruction in "the doctrines and duties of Christianity, as the same are in culcated by the United Church of England and Ireland." In 1836 it was decided to dissociate the University of London from Uni versity college as a "teaching body," and to limit its actions simply to the institution of examinations and the conferring of degrees—the college itself receiving a new charter, and being thenceforth designated as University college, London, while the rival institution was also incorporated with the university, and was thenceforth known as King's college, London. The charters of the University of London and of University college, London, were signed on the same day, Nov. 28, 1836. In 1869 both the colleges gave their adhesion to the movement for the higher education of women which had been initiated elsewhere, and in 188o women were, for the first time, admitted to degrees.