Situated in Leicester city centre, De Montfort University (DMU) is a public university with roots stretching back to 1870, when the Leicester School of Art was established on a voluntary basis. Today it has grown into an institution with approximately 27,000 full and part-time students, 3,240 staff, and an annual turnover of around £168 million. Its name comes from Simon de Montfort, a 13th-century Earl of Leicester, adopted when the university received degree-awarding status under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.
From Art School to University
The institution’s early decades were shaped by the demands of late Victorian industry. The original School of Art expanded to include engineering, building, and machine drawing, and by 1897 the existing premises were already outgrown. A fundraising effort of £25,000 produced what was described at the time as a very handsome school built to last a hundred years. That building, the Hawthorn Building, still stands on campus today and now houses the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. At the time of its first phase of construction, it accommodated 500 art students alongside 1,000 technical students. Extensions followed in 1909, 1927, and again in 1938-39, with the Duchess of Atholl laying the foundation stone of the west wing in 1927. By that point the establishment had become known as The Leicester Colleges of Art and Technology. Recognition from the University of London came in 1930 for an external Pharmacy degree and again in 1934 for Engineering, steadily broadening the academic offer.
Structure and Recognition
DMU is currently organised into three faculties: Business and Law; Health and Life Sciences; and Technology, Arts, and Culture, the last of which was formed in September 2025 by merging the former Computing, Engineering and Media faculty with Art, Design, and Humanities. The Department for Education awarded the university a Silver rating in the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework, and DMU holds membership of the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Since 2018, it has operated as a United Nations Sustainable Development Hub, with a particular focus on Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.