Prifysgol Bangor University has been at the intellectual centre of my life. At 17, in a spirit of inverted snobbery which has been a trait since, I refused to take my old grammar school headmaster’s advice to apply to Jesus College, Oxford. Instead I worked to win a William James Lewis Scholarship to the University College of NorthWales – as it was called then – in Bangor. In a move typical of the ‘family University’ which we still are even at 11,000 students, I was following in my father’s footsteps.

He had been a star of Professor Ifor Williams’s pioneering Welshlanguage translations...

A. J. Mundella’s remark at the opening of the University College of NorthWales in 1884 encapsulated both the romance and the struggle which characterized the University College’s origins. Mundella, Vice-President of the Board of Education in Gladstone’s government, made a stirring speech, frequently punctuated with applause, and 18 October 1884 was a day of jubilation in Bangor. A mighty campaign had triumphed. Yet the University College had had a difficult and contentious birth.

The drive for university education in Wales had always been inextricably bound up with campaigns for Welsh nationhood. Indeed, had Owain Glyndŵr’s uprising triumphed in the early...

Despite trials and tribulations in its early years, the University College of NorthWales had created a secure foundation. Around the turn of the century, more of its founding fathers – the first professors – began to move on. Gray, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1896, moved to Glasgow three years later to succeed his mentor, Lord Kelvin. Dobbie left in 1903 and was elected FRS the following year; he was knighted in 1915 for his service as Principal of the Government Laboratories. BallardMathews left for Cambridge in 1896, and he too became a Fellow of the Royal...

The appointment of Reichel’s successor in 1926 was by no means a smooth affair. The Council cast its net widely, and toyed with a substantial number of names. Four applications were received, and three were rejected as unsuitable; none of the three wasWelsh. Wynn Wheldon (the Registrar), W. Garmon Jones (Professor of History at Liverpool and son-in-law of J. E. Lloyd), Ifor Williams and Ifor L. Evans of Cambridge (later Principal at Aberystwyth) were among the names put forward. However, a number of those suggested did not actually wish to be considered. The Selection Committee, chaired by Lord Kenyon and...

When the war ended at last, bells rang out in Bangor cathedral and the University College buildings seemed, it was said, to blaze with light. An open-air service of thanksgiving was held in the College grounds the day after VE day. The treasures of the National Gallery had been removed, and Prichard-Jones Hall was put to use again for a ball and for graduation ceremonies. After recuperating fromhis illness, Principal Emrys Evans resumed his duties in the summer of 1946 in time to host a visit from King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 18 July; they inspected the Library...

It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when the symptoms became widely apparent, but the earliest days of Charles Evans’s Principalship were to bring him personal torment, which was to impinge on his period in office and indeed his life. In the late 1950s, at around the age of 40, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It is understood that Evans’s wife, Denise Morin – a notable climber herself – became aware of the condition on their honeymoon.¹ Evans told the writer Jim Perrin many years later that a fractured skull sustained when assisting an injured climber on Tryfan in 1942 was contributing...

As the squabbles over the integration of the Colleges of Education were dying away, the Council received, in June 1976, a document from the Cymric Society of Welsh students outlining requests for an increase in the use of Welsh in the College. The Council’s reaction was to agree that the matter should be debated at its next meeting in October.1When the Council meeting took place on 27 October, three representatives of the society were allowed into the Council Chamber to put their case, following a slight disturbance outside the door. Essentially, they wanted a clear language policy. The Council felt...

The year 1984 was, on more than one count, a critical juncture in the history of the University College of NorthWales. It marked, first and foremost, the centenary of the institution, which helpfully provided a break in the clouds, an opportunity to breathe again. There were formal celebrations in October 1984 – including a procession to the remains of the Penrhyn Arms, and the presentation to the University College of an impressive mace by the Old Students’ Association – and the launch of a new appeal, facilitated by the foundation of a Development Trust. There were social occasions too, including a staff...