Université de Derby

The University of Derby, formerly known as Derby College, is a public university in the city of Derby, England. It traces its history back to the establishment of the Derby Diocesan Institution for the Training of Schoolmistresses in 1851. It gained university status in 1992. The university provides over 300 study programmes at undergraduate level. Undergraduate programmes as well as short courses, foundation degrees and postgraduate degrees cover most academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. Currently, the university is home to around 34,000 students in all areas of study. Over the years, two dozen bodies have contributed to the university's formation. The first of these was founded in 1856 as the Derby Diocesan Institution for the Training of Schoolmistresses. Albeit under different names to reflect maturing objectives, the institution flourished as an individual entity for some 120 years before merging with another developing educational artery to help form what was then known as the Derby Lonsdale College of Higher Education, 1977. The other line of this confluence began in 1853 with the establishment of the Derby School of Art, which in 1870 became the Derby Central School of Art and the Derby Central School of Science. In 1885, the two schools were reformulated into the Derby School of Art and Technical Institution. Less than a decade later, however, in 1892, three more mergers took place and the institution became the Derby Municipal Technical College. In 1928, the Technical College split into the Derby School of Art and the Derby Technical College. By 1955, the two had become the Derby and District College of Art (opened on 22 September 1966 by Paul Reilly, Director of the Council of Industrial Design), and the Derby and District College of Technology (opened by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 15 May 1964), both situated on Kedleston Road, Allestree. The site was formerly Markeaton Golf Course and cost £2.5m, with a foundation stone placed on 5 July 1957 by Lord (Ernest) Hives, a former managing director of Rolls-Royce.