University in Leeds, United Kingdom
How does this school stack up?
The city of Leeds lies at the northern edge of the English Midlands, the geographical region of the UK where the Industrial Revolution primarily took place. Leeds was especially important as a center of textile manufacturing, which led the way toward the explosive growth of British industry and empire during the Victorian era.
All of this helps explain why the University of Leeds traces its roots to the early nineteenth century, with the founding of the Leeds School of Medicine in 1831. In 1874, the medical school was absorbed into the newly founded Yorkshire College of Science, which in turn was expanded into a full liberal-arts school and renamed Yorkshire College in 1884.
Only three years later, in 1887, Yorkshire College became incorporated into Victoria University, a short-lived, regional, public university system based in neighboring Manchester that included campuses in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool.
However, rivalries between Manchester and Leeds proved to be too strong, and in 1904 the Leeds campus—the successor to Yorkshire College—went its own way, receiving its own separate royal charter as the University of Leeds.
Leeds can boast affiliation with three Nobel Prize laureates, namely:
Other Leeds-connected scientists include:
Other distinguished Leeds-affiliated individuals include:
Who are University of Leeds's Most influential alumni?
University of Leeds's most influential alumni faculty include professors and professionals in the fields of Earth Sciences, Literature, and Biology. University of Leeds’s most academically influential people include Stephen Jay Gould, Wole Soyinka, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.