The University of Northampton Archive

About the Archive

The University of Northampton Archive was officially opened in September 2010 and houses the historical records of the institution. These date back to 11 March 1867 when a free public lecture on science and art was held in Northampton Town Hall. As a result of its popularity, evening classes in electricity and magnetism were started in October of the same year and the journey to today's University of Northampton began.

Staff and students of the University as well as members of the public are welcome to visit the Archive Monday to Friday between 9.30am and 4pm.

This image shows The Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) at the grand opening of what is now The University of Northampton, Avenue Campus.

Our collections

As well as the collections relating to the University and its predecessors the archive contains several smaller collections that have relevance to the activities of our staff and students. Of particular prominence is the archive of design ephemera that was collected by Angela Reeves.

Northampton College of Technology and Further Education
Northampton School of Art
Northampton College of Education
Nene College
University College Northampton
The University of Northampton
Angela Reeves Archive
Institute of Secondary Studies - Centre for the Study of Comprehensive Schools
Sue Ralph Archive on Disability Issues
The Northamptonshire Grammar School - First Headmaster's papers

The creation of an online catalogue is currently in progress. The intention is to make our entire archive catalogue available electronically but as this is a work in progress please bear it in mind when carrying out online searches.

Electronic versions of outline box lists for those collections not currently appearing on the catalogue are available.

Images

The University Archive contains numerous images of events and occasions relating to its history and that of its predecessors. While these will, in time, be added to our online catalogue, many can currently be viewed on The University of Northampton archive on Flickr.

Video material

Due to the lack of proper storage facilities and costs to create such a facility at the University, the decision has been taken to deposit our collection of video material with the Media Archive for Central England (MACE)

Rules and regulations

Please see the University Archive Rules.

Donations

The University welcomes donations of new material that relates to the history of the University and its predecessor institutions or to the activities of its staff and students.

If you would like to consider donating collections to the archive, please see the following for additional guidance:

Copyright

The University of Northampton takes copyright seriously and only makes content available in its Archive Catalogue in accordance with current UK legislation.

All reasonable effort is made by The University of Northampton to obtain copyright holders' consent before publishing the images represented in our Archive Catalogue. We would like to ask that any copyright owners who are not properly identified in our Archive Collections contact us so that we may make the necessary corrections or removals.