History and heritage
Our Faculty has a proud and storied history, illuminated with famous names and groundbreaking achievements.
It was here that Ernest Rutherford began his work on 'splitting of the atom', that Tom Kilburn and FC Williams built the world's first electronic stored-program computer - The Baby - and that Alan Turing laid the foundations for artificial intelligence.
You can trace the roots of our commitment to advancing women in science and engineering throughout our history, with trailblazers such as pioneering engineer (and motorbike racing champion) Beatrice Shilling, and mould-breaking botany researcher (and 'Japanese seaweed saviour') Kathleen Drew-Baker.
Manchester was the world's first industrial city - and this spirit of innovation runs through our Faculty. We're the birthplace of chemical engineering, and it was here that Bernard Lovell built the first-ever steerable radio telescope.
As recently as 2010 Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for isolating the 'wonder material' graphene - joining an illustrious list of more than 20 Nobel Prize laureates from our University.
Some of our Heritage Heroes
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Ernest Rutherford
In his time at Manchester between 1907 and 1919, Ernest Rutherford (pictured here with fellow physicist Hans Geiger) laid the groundwork for the creation of nuclear physics.
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Kathleen Drew-Baker
A lecturer in botany and a researcher at Manchester from 1922 until her death in 1957, Kathleen Drew-Baker is revered in Japan as 'Mother of the Sea' after her research helped save the sushi industry.
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Beatrice Shilling
Beatrice Shilling, who graduated from Manchester with an MSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1933, suggested important tweaks to RAF planes during World War Two, helping Britain match the Luftwaffe.
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FC Williams and Tom Kilburn
Built in Manchester by Tom Kilburn and FC Williams, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine - The Baby - executed its first program in 1948, becoming the world's first stored-program electronic computer.
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Alan Turing
Mathematician, codebreaker and 'father of computer science' Alan Turing remained at Manchester from 1948 until his death in 1954. This memorial sits a stone's throw from the University's North Campus.
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Bernard Lovell
Construction of the 76-metre Lovell Telescope, named after physicist and radio astronomer Bernard Lovell, finished in 1957. It's part of the University's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics.
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Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for their seminal work, conducted at Manchester, that led to the isolation of graphene.
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