University of Keele

Cambridge and Oxford extension lectures had been arranged in the Potteries since the 1890s, but outside any organised educational framework or establishment. In 1904, funds were raised by local industrialists to support teaching by the creation of a North Staffordshire College, but the project, without the backing of Staffordshire County Council, was abandoned. By the late 1930s, the Staffordshire towns of Longton, Fenton, Burslem, Hanley had grown into the largest conurbation in the UK without some form of university provision. A large area including Staffordshire, Shropshire and parts of Cheshire and Derbyshire did not have its own university. Stoke, in particular, demanded highly…

In late 1985, after a series of cuts in university funding, Keele briefly considered merging with North Staffordshire Polytechnic, but negotiations collapsed. In September 1983, the Secretary of State, via the UGC, had encouraged the idea, asserting that the most radical way of increasing the size of departments and diminishing their number is by the merger of institutions. At the time, Keele had a population of 2,700 students, compared to 6,000 at the less academically exclusive Polytechnic. Edwina Currie, then Conservative MP for South Derbyshire, remarked, "A university which is now below 3,000 students has got problems. It simply isn't big enough". Keele University Science & Business…

Keele University featured prominently in Marvellous, the biographical film about honorary graduate Neil Baldwin broadcast on BBC Two in September 2014. The BBC filmed parts of its surreal comedy A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–1988) at the Keele University campus and students played extra parts.