Lindsay wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, tentatively requesting such sponsorship.
An exploratory committee was established by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and, having secured public funding from the UGC in January 1948, the committee acquired Keele Hall on the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme from its owner, Ralph Sneyd. The Hall was purchased together with the bulk of the Sneyd estate and a number of prefabricated structures erected by the Army during the Second World War for £31,000.
In August 1949 the university college was granted the right to award its own degrees. The first graduate was George Eason, who had studied mathematics at Birmingham University and gained a BSc in 1951. He received his MSc in 1952 from Keele. In 1954 the first graduate studying fully at Keele was Margaret Boulds, who received a dual honours degree in philosophy and English.
==== Receiving university status ====
Growing steadily to 1,200 students, the university college was granted university status in 1962, receiving a new royal charter in January that year, and adopting the name "University of Keele". Alternatives were considered, including "The University of Stoke" or "Stoke-on-Trent", but both were rejected because the estate is situated in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme. "Staffordshire University" was also discussed (this is now the name of the former North Staffordshire Polytechnic). The university is a short distance west of the civil parish of Keele, and it was decided to name it after the village. It is the only establishment of higher education in the UK to be named after a village, and this has long attracted questions as to its location. Together with Reading, Nottingham, Southampton, Hull, Exeter and Leicester, all university colleges founded a short time before or after the First World War, Keele was identified as one of the "younger civic universities" by the Robbins Report.
In 1968 the Royal Commission on Medical Education (1965–68) issued the Todd Report, which examined the possibility …
