terms of number of students. It offers about 450 undergraduate courses, 280 postgraduate taught and 150 postgraduate research courses to 20,375 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
== History ==
=== Foundations ===
The University College, Swansea, (as it was known then), was established in 1920, opening its doors on 5 October. At the time, it was the youngest of the four colleges of the University of Wales. It was established on the recommendations of a Royal Commission set up in 1916. The college was founded on what were perceived as the needs and the wants of the local area, and Swansea's main industries in particular.
The Park Campus houses the oldest parts of the university's estate, including Singleton Abbey, a large eighteenth-century mansion which was the ancestral home of the Vivian family, having been bought by the prominent industrialist, John Henry Vivian.
Swansea University's foundation stone was laid by King George V in July 1920, welcoming 89 students, of whom eight were female. Subjects taught from the beginning of the college were the sciences, mathematics, metallurgy and engineering. The professors were A.R. Richardson (mathematics), E.J. Evans (physics), J.E. Coates (chemistry), A.E. Trueman (geology), C.A. Edwards (metallurgy) and F. Bacon (engineering).
The university was granted a coat of arms by the College of Heralds in 1921 with the motto Gweddw Crefft Heb Ei Dawn, translated as 'technical skill is bereft without culture.'
Arts subjects were not taught immediately in 1920, but started in the following 'session', 1921–22. The first professors in those initial departments were David Emrys Evans (Classics), W.D. Thomas (English language and literature), Henry Lewis (Welsh), E. Ernest Hughes (History), F.A. Cavenagh (education) and Mary Williams (French). Williams was the first woman to be appointed to a chair in the United Kingdom. This met with some reaction from senior men at the college, one of whom she would later marry.
Saunders Lewis, the well-known Welsh language writer and activist, …
