By the University of London Act, 1898, and the statutes of the commissioners named therein (issued in 1900), the University of London was reconstituted. For its rapid development since this reorganization see the section under LONDON.
The Owens college, Man chester—so called after its original founder—was founded on March 12, 1851. This formed the nucleus of the university, which received its charter on April 20, 188o, as the "Victoria University of Manchester." Since then, Liverpool (q.v.) (1881) and Leeds (q.v.) (1904), the Mason University college at Birmingham (1900) and the University college at Sheffield (19o5) have attained university rank.
In 1747 an act of parliament was obtained for the union of the two colleges of St. Salvator and St. Mary. In 1880 the university college at Dundee was instituted as a general school both of arts and sciences in similar connection. Glasgow, in the year 1577, received a new charter, and its history from that date down to the Restoration was one of almost con tinuous progress. The re-establishment of episcopacy, however, involved the alienation of a considerable portion of its revenues, and the consequent suspension of several of its chairs. With the Revolution of 1689 it took a new departure, and several additional chairs were created. The act of 1858 made great changes in all the four universities. In Aberdeen, King's college and Marischal college, with their independent powers of conferring degrees, were amalgamated. In Glasgow, the distribution of the "nations" was modified in order more nearly to equalize their respective numbers.
complete transformation of both the organization and the curriculum of each university was effected by the commission of 1889. The government was transferred from the senatus to the courts, which were further to include representatives from the senatus, the general councils of graduates, and the municipality within which the university is situated. The principal, the lord rector, his assessor, the chancellor's assessor, and the lord provosts of the cities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the pro vost of St. Andrews also have seats in the courts of their respective universities. The provost of Dundee occupies a seat in the uni versity court of St. Andrews. To the court is entrusted the man agement of the property and finances, and, in most cases, such patronage as does not belong to the Crown; but, in the case of Edinburgh, the patronage of some of the older chairs is in the hands of a body of curators. Disciplinary powers are retained by the senatus, and the general council remains, as under the act of i858, a purely advisory body. Another advisory body—the stu dents' representative council—was added by the commission. The curriculum of all the faculties (except divinity) was reorganized; the most important alterations consisted in the abolition of the once sacred six as compulsory subjects in arts (Latin, Greek, mathematics, natural philosophy, logic and moral philosophy). The
curriculum was greatly widened, an elaborate scheme of "options" introduced, and a new system of honours degrees was established. The length of residence required was reduced from four years to three, and the courts were empowered to institute summer ses sions, and to admit women to lectures and degrees in all faculties.
There has been, since the act of 1858, a great development of university life in Scotland. All the four universities of Scotland were aided from time to time in the last century by grants from Government, and in 1905 received a material addition to their resources by the donation of L2,000,000 from Mr. Carnegie.
Trinity college, Dublin, was founded in 1591. A royal charter nominated a provost and a minimum number of three fellows and three scholars as a body corporate. The first five provosts of Trinity college were all Cambridge men, and under the influence of Archbishop Loftus, the first provost, and his successors, the foundation received a strongly Puritan bias, but the policy of Laud and Wentworth was to make the college more distinctly Anglican as regards its tone and belief. At the Restoration its condition was found to be that of a well-ordered home of learning and piety, with its estates well secured and its privileges unimpaired. Under Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who succeeded to the vice-chancellorship, its progress in learning was considerable, and the statutes underwent a further modification. Prior to the year 1873 the provostship, fellowships and foundation scholarships could be held only by members of the Church of Ireland ; but all such restrictions were abolished by Act 36 Vict. c. 21. Other university institutions established in Ire land were the Queen's university (founded 185o), reconstituted in 188o as the Royal University, and the Queen's colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway founded in Dec. 1845. A scheme for the re organisation of university education in Ireland put forward by James Bryce in 1907 failed of acceptance. Eventually Augustine Birrell carried a measure by which Trinity college was left intact, while two new universities were created, one in Dublin (to-day the National University of Ireland), and one in Belfast, the for mer involving the erection of another college (towards the expense of which the Government was pledged to contribute) and the in corporation of the Queen's colleges at Cork and Galway; while the college in Belfast was to form the nucleus of the second uni versity. The new university in Dublin had a nominated senate of 35 members, of whom the great majority were Roman Catholics; that of Belfast had a similar body, of whom all but one were Protestants. In all these new centres there were no religious tests either for professors or students.