DMU History

149 Years of DMU

Katharine Short

Classes at the Leicester School of Art started on 1st March 1870 – 149 years ago!

Have you ever wondered how the School of Art became De Montfort University? This chart should help:

Special Collections recently launched an appeal for former staff and students to get in touch with their memories or archive collections ahead of the landmark 150th anniversary next year. We’ve had some wonderful memories:

“The Fletcher Building, Floor 9. Scary paternoster. Always misbehaving and stranding folk in the basement. Or up above the ceiling. You’d hear them calling for help. See just their lower legs or upturned faces. Nah. Nothing doing till the janitor got there.”

(Memory of a student of History of Art, 1985)

We’ve also had a range of items donated to the archive collections, including gig tickets:

 

Archives Appeal – Visit from Helen Dunn

Katharine Short

As part of our appeal for former staff and students of DMU and predecessors to share their memories with us, we’ve recently hosted former lecturer in knitwear Helen Dunn. Helen studied at Leicester Polytechnic and returned a few years later to take up a teaching post.

It was wonderful to have Helen look through some materials from the archive with us. She remembered so many of her students and was able to explain the set-up of the courses, how they changed over time and what was required of the students, particularly on the BA Hons Fashion Design (Knitwear). It was especially interesting to hear about connections with industry and how many students had the opportunity to design for big-name fashion retail companies.

If you have any memories or archive materials you would like to share please get in touch!