University of Lincoln

19th and 20th centuries

The University of Lincoln developed out of several educational institutions, including Hull School of Art (1861), Hull Technical Institute (1893), the Roman Catholic teacher-training Endsleigh College (1905), Hull Central College of Commerce (1930), and Kingston upon Hull College of Education (1913). These merged in 1976 into Hull College of Higher Education, with a change of name to Humberside College of Higher Education in 1983, absorbing several courses with international reputations and recruitment established by Grimsby College of Technology in fishing, food and manufacturing, which were delivered across both sites.

In 1992 it was one of many UK institutions to become full universities, as the University of Humberside.

The university developed a new campus to the southwest of Lincoln city centre, championed as a key regeneration policy by the new coalition administration of Lincolnshire County Council, on a site overlooking the Brayford Pool. Links with Grimsby College were severed and the university's campuses in Hull closed. It was renamed the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside in January 1996, entering its first 500 Lincoln based students in September 1996.

Queen Elizabeth II opened the university's main Lincoln campus, the first new city-centre campus built in the UK for several decades. Over £375 million has been invested at Brayford Pool, transforming a city-centre brownfield site, revitalising the area and attracting investment from the retail, leisure and property sectors. Economists estimate that the university has created at least 3,000 new jobs in Lincoln and generates more than £250 million a year for the local economy – doubling previous local economic growth rates, which Rob Parker, who led the council that pushed the redevelopment project through, cited facilitating the university campus as his greatest achievement in politics.

21st century

With another change of name to the University of Lincoln in October 2001, the university moved its main campus from Hull to Lincoln in 2002.

On 28 October 2004, the National Centre for Food Manufacturing at Holbeach was reopened by John Hayes, Member of Parliament for South Holland and the Deepings, after redevelopment as a specialist food-science technology park. The consolidation involved the University of Lincoln acquiring the Leicester-based De Montfort University's schools in Lincolnshire: the Lincoln School of Art in uphill Lincoln, and the Lincolnshire School of Agriculture's sites at Riseholme, Caythorpe and Holbeach. Caythorpe was later closed and its activities moved to Riseholme. Courses held in Grimsby were also moved to Lincoln at that time.

Through the late 1990s, the university's sites in Hull were scaled down as the focus shifted towards Lincoln. In 2001 this process took a step further when it was decided to move the administrative headquarters and management to Lincoln and to sell the Cottingham Road campus in Hull, the former main campus, to its neighbour, the University of Hull. The site now houses the Hull York Medical School. Until 2012 the university maintained a smaller campus, the Derek Crothall Building, in Hull city centre. Another campus and student halls in Beverley Road, Hull, were also sold for redevelopment.

In 2012 all agricultural further education provisions were transferred from Riseholme College to Bishop Burton College. Bishop Burton College has now moved into a new, purpose-built site at the Lincolnshire Showground with only limited use of the Riseholme Campus which from 2021 has mainly reverted to the University of Lincoln. Development of the site has not been decided but the university has purchased the recently vacated Lawress Hall a former training, conferencing and wedding venue on an adjacent site which was formerly owned by the Government.

Libraries

The university Libraries and Learning Skills department has three libraries: the main University Library, a Library at the Holbeach Campus which is part of the National Centre for Food Manufacturing, and the Ross Library for Biomedical and Health Sciences at the Lincoln Medical School.

The University Library occupies the Great Central Warehouse (GCW) building, a renovated industrial railway-goods warehouse. It opened in December 2004 on the Brayford campus. In total it houses over 300,000 books, journals and other reference materials.

The Great Central Warehouse building was built in 1907 by the Great Central Railway. It spent the second half of the 20th century as a builder's warehouse, before falling into disrepair in 1998. It was converted into a library by the university's in-house team of architects and was formally opened in 2004 by the chief executive of the UK's Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. In 2005, the conversion won gold and silver for conservation and regeneration at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Regional Awards in Leicester. It has also gained awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Live music

Built in 1874 by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, the Engine Shed was the one surviving four-track, dead-end railway building in Lincolnshire. It opened as a refitted entertainment venue in September 2006 as the region's largest live music venue. It consists of the Engine Shed, the Platform and Tower Bar, which combined can accommodate up to 2,000 people. In 2014 the university transferred control of The Engine Shed to the Students' Union.