The Development of Academic Dress in the University of Warwick

The University of Warwick received its royal charter on 8 March 1965, one of a number of new universities established in the 1960s in response to the Robbins report on higher education, which recommended an immediate expansion in the university sector in the UK. Warwick was one of the first wave of such universities—later dubbed ‘plate-glass universities’—which included Sussex (1961), East Anglia (1962), York (1963), Essex (1964), Lancaster (1964) and Kent (1965). The main proposed site for the new University was an area of farm land lying between Kenilworth Road on the south-east and Westwood Heath Road and the existing Teacher Training College on the north-east. The City of Coventry donated a 234-acre portion of land (bordered on the south-west by Gibbet Hill Road) to the project in March 1960; this was augmented by a further 183 acres (on the other side of Gibbet Hill Road) donated by the County of Warwickshire. [Excerpt]