The Battle for University Status... 1900 to 1950

"SSHH...Clap. Pat! Pat!
Pat! (on knees)
Dala fa
Sprago fa
Kicko fa
I-wara, I-wara, I-wara
Pui? Pui? Pui?
The Coll! The Coll! The Coll!"

The College Yell, according to the University College Diary 1931-32.

The College was beginning to harbour ambitions to become a university and the University Grants Committee (UGC) visited Exeter in 1922 to assess its case. Principal Hetherington was able to show Committee members an impressive new home for the aspirant university thanks to the donation of the Streatham estate by former Exeter Mayor W H Reed. The Committee didn.t believe the College was yet ready to become a university, but allowed it the next best thing . University College status (with a grant). Reed Hall, the centrepiece of the Streatham estate, became a hall of residence in 1925.

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Visit of HRH Prince of Wales to lay the foundation stone of the Washington Singer Laboratory, 7 June 1927.
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The push for university status required more academic buildings to be created on the almost empty 120 acres of the Streatham estate. In 1931 the architect Vincent Harris produced a plan which incorporated the Washington Singer labs completed the same year. However, only one other building, the Roborough Library (1940), was completed on the Streatham estate before the end of World War II. It was named after Henry Lopes, who became Lord Roborough shortly before his death in 1938.

"From lurid gleams and smoke and sparks and roarings I felt as if all Exeter was burning…The College was certainly burning…A Polish don, three medical women and a demented man were struggling with a hose in which there was almost no pressure…On the other side of a very narrow lane several houses were blazing and the one next the Registry with all our papers and records in it, was blazing worst of all…We examined four rooms adjoining the fiery furnace, and in each the fire was coming through at the floor line…We opened the door of a fifth room and fled before the smoke. The poor old Registry was doomed."

Principal Murray's account of the bombing of the Registry in 1942.

World War II brought evacuated students to the College to continue their studies. Mardon Hall was used as a rest centre for American troops and half of Washington Singer by the Royal Aircraft Establishment. The Baedecker Raids by the Luftwaffe in 1942 destroyed the Registry (and most of the College records), which occupied an old building near Gandy Street.