Campus Under Construction


Bowland Tower 1968


Remarkably, Lancaster was able to identify alumni from over half the world’s 193 nations after only twenty years from its foundation; just one more example of an institution that has achieved outstanding and often understated success in its first sixty years.


1960s


1970s


80’s


Lancaster Alumni - The First Sixty Years


It is interesting to reflect on a period of the University’s history that began with its roots in the continuing post- war redevelopment of the late 50s and early 60s and now extends its influence and its alumni across every profession and in every corner of the land and the world in a complex new millennium.


We began very modestly, of course, with the first 330 students located at St Leonard’s House in central Lancaster, lectures in the Grand Theatre and socialising at the Shakespeare, and a strong culture of innovation and radical enthusiasm. Our first graduation ceremony, at the Ashton Hall, took place in December 1965 when small groups of business and science postgraduates from Bowland and Lonsdale Colleges received their degrees from Princess


12 | STEPS 2024


Alexandra and the academic procession would have been seen walking between St Leonard’s House and the Town Hall. By 1973, we had achieved the modest total of 5,842 alumni, from across 74 nations; members of our first four colleges and mostly located at Bailrigg from 1968 onwards.


By 1983 we had added another 16,771 graduates, including some from 111 countries, but these were anxious years, dominated by the straitjacket of the Thatcher cutbacks when she first formed a government. Student numbers actually fell for a time, and capital works investment came to a standstill. A further graduating cohort of 22,083 from 1984 to 1993, including those from 118 countries, highlights the recovery from these constraints


to a period of rapid growth and rising research reputation under our third Vice-Chancellor, Harry Hanham.


Despite the retrenchment that resulted from an extensive and essential capital programme and consequential cash flow difficulties during the first part of the 1994 to 2003 decade, the University was pleased to see another 39,000 graduates, involving 153 countries, take on the world outside and make it their own. We also launched the major re-development of the colleges, beginning with the second attempt to provide adequately for postgraduate members of the Graduate College, continuing the move to Alexandra Park of Lonsdale and Cartmel Colleges and completing the expansion of the remaining six undergraduate colleges.


90’s


Underpass 1960s


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