Archive of the University of Liverpool: Faculty Records

This section includes adminisrative records relating to the Faculties and their schools and departments, such as minutes and reports. Also included is material relating to the Faculties and their departments and schools, for example photographs of staff and students, examples of students' work etc.

Before 1896, the University College comprised the Medical School, some Professors and lecturers and a Principal, providing day and evening classes in a variety of subjects. The idea of a faculty structure had not been embraced in provincial universities the way it had been by University College, London, although a Faculty of Medicine existed at both Manchester and Liverpool. John Macdonald Mackay had the idea of establishing the faculty system in the new civic university, ideally resulting in a university based on academic fellowship rather than a managerial university based on the United States' model and avoiding lay governance of the university's affairs. The idea of the Faculty was also to establish a level between staff and Senate. In November 1895, Mackay persuaded Senate to appoint a committee to consider the formation of committees of faculties. The Faculty of Arts had its first meeting on 4 December 1896; although Senate had recommended the establishment of a Faculty of Science at the same time, it did not come into existence until 1902. The Faculty of Engineering was constituted a year later. Under the charter of 1903, there was specific provision for five faculties in the University.

The finding aid is arranged by Faculty. Each Faculty is subdivided into two series: Faculty Records (administrative records) and Records of Schools and Departments within the Faculty (administrative papers, staff and student papers etc.).

Access is open to bona fide researchers unless otherwise stated.

H A Ormerod,History of the University of Liverpool,Chapter 10: Section 1: The Organisation of the Faculty System; Part 1: the Faculty of Arts,pp. 1-14, typescript (incomplete, covers period to 1903 only)

The Relations and Functions and Work of the Senate and Faculty of the modern university in France and England together with an account of the Faculty of Arts in Liverpool,John Macdonald Mackay,Liverpool, 1897 (republished slightly altered as Appendix III of A Miscellany presented to John Macdonald Mackay, LL.D, Liverpool University Press 1914)

In Lighter Moments: a book of occasional verse and prose,John Sampson,Liverpool University Press 1934; this contains a piece called Mr Dooley on How me friend Mackay come to start a Faculty of Arts

Arts, Letters, Society: A Miscellany Commemorating the Centenary of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Liverpool,P E H Hair,Liverpool University Press 1996