Harper Adams University

Harper Adams University, founded in 1901 as Harper Adams College, is a public university located close to the village of Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire, England. Established in 1901, the college is a specialist provider of higher education for the agricultural and rural sector. It gained university college status in 1998, and university status in 2012. The university provides more than 50 foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes to students from over 30 countries. The university is set within a 550 hectare (1360 acre) working farm.

Harper Adams College, which would become the university, was founded in 1901. Its first principal was Headworth Foulkes (1901–1922). Thomas Harper Adams, a wealthy Shropshire gentleman farmer, died in 1892, bequeathing the estate which was the original foundation. The college had just six students to begin with.