Qualla: University of Wales Trinity Saint David

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SwanseaMet, CC BY-SA 3.0. When you join two of the oldest higher-education institutions in Wales into a single university, what do you call it? The Welsh answer, settled in 2009 and formally adopted in July 2010, was to take Lampeter's original name - Saint David's College - and bolt it onto the name of Trinity College Carmarthen, producing the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The new university used Lampeter's 1828 royal charter, the oldest such charter in Wales and one of the oldest in England and Wales after Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham. Over the next fifteen years it absorbed Swansea Metropolitan University, the University of Wales itself, two further-education colleges, and learning centres in London, Birmingham, and a Malaysian campus partnered with the University of Malaya. By 2025 it had also closed the Lampeter site that had given it half its name.

Image: SwanseaMet | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: The 1822 Compromise

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Bishop Thomas Burgess of St Davids founded Saint David's College at Lampeter in 1822 because he believed Wales needed somewhere to train Welsh-speaking Anglican clergy without sending them to Oxford or Cambridge. The college received its royal charter from George IV in 1828. Char...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Carmarthen as the New Centre

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Spiritexplorer, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Carmarthen campus is now the academic heart of the federation. Trinity College, founded in 1848 as an Anglican teacher training college, contributed education, performing arts, sport science, theology, and the buildings to teach them in - the 1848 Old Building with its chapel...

Image: Spiritexplorer | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Swansea, Cardiff, and the Coast

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bendavofficial, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 1 August 2013 the university absorbed Swansea Metropolitan University, whose roots reached back to 1897 as Swansea Technical College. The Swansea campuses now hold the Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, the Institute of Education, and the Swansea College of Ar...

Image: Bendavofficial | CC BY-SA 4.0

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: London, Birmingham, Malaysia

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RobinLeicester, CC BY-SA 3.0. A London campus opened in 2012, first in Islington, then moved in 2013 to Winchester House on Cranmer Road in Lambeth, where it teaches business, management, and cloud computing. Birmingham followed in 2018, originally as a learning centre in the Sparkhill district, later expande...

Image: RobinLeicester | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: The Sophia Centre and Other Quirks

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marion Phillips, CC BY-SA 2.0. Among the more unusual things the university hosts is the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, an academic centre devoted to how humans have used the sky - astrology, astronomy, religious cosmology - to make meaning of their lives. There is the Confucius Institute...

Image: Marion Phillips | CC BY-SA 2.0

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: What the Federation Holds

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The alumni list spans the curious range of a multi-component institution. Barry John and Dewi Bebb, the Welsh rugby internationals, both studied at Trinity. Huw Edwards, who became one of the BBC's principal news anchors, took a doctorate in history at Lampeter. Stuart Burrows, t...

Image: Public domain