Nell Hayes, School of History

The Colonial History of the University of Leeds

The University of Leeds prides itself on diversity and inclusivity in everything that we do here. As such, students are becoming more integral in shaping the university’s future and have been afforded the opportunity to explore our institute’s background. This is done in the hopes that it might allow us to broaden our horizons and continue our work towards meeting our decolonising principles.

My project therefore explores the colonial history of the University of Leeds. It explores our university funding, looking at our origins as the Yorkshire College, as well as how we present our history today. It took me down a range of avenues, including lots of archival and library visits, finding texts, commissions, medals, and a whole host of other material that helped me work towards beginning to understand our history. This presentation therefore will briefly summarise the project, lay out some of the interesting things that I found out, and most importantly offer practical suggestions for what I believe needs to be done to take this research even further.

My hope for this project was to produce information that might capture the interest of anyone, not just historians, and to explore the student experience of accessing material on this matter as to gain a better sense of what it means to be a student researching our historical background. This project has shown me that that a chequered past is not something to be ashamed of, but rather something to learn from so that we can acknowledge where we must invite change. After all, how can we expect to understand our institution if we have no idea where we came from? This project is hoping to answer that very question.

BA History, Final Year
I am a third year History student with a particular love for East Asian history. As such, I am currently learning Mandarin, and love historical research, particularly around China and Japan. I am fascinated by education and am hoping to continue working in academia once I graduate, aiming to use this experience to work towards getting a PhD!