A few miles north of Plymouth city centre, close to Derriford Hospital, Plymouth Marjon University occupies a single campus on the northern edge of the city in Devon. Known informally as Marjon, the institution’s formal name is the University of St Mark and St John, and it gained full university status in 2013, having previously held University College status since 2007. Professor Claire Taylor has been Vice-Chancellor since 2023.
Origins in London
The university’s roots stretch back to two separate London colleges founded in the nineteenth century. St Mark’s College in Chelsea was established in 1841 by the National Society, the body now known as the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. Its first principal was the Reverend Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who placed particular emphasis on Latin study and chapel worship. During the First World War, the college buildings were taken over by the War Office to create the 2nd London General Hospital, used by the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. The former chapel of St Mark’s College, designed by Edward Blore, survives on the Fulham Road in Chelsea and is now a private residence. The second predecessor, Battersea Training College, was founded in 1840 at Old Battersea House by Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth and Edward Carleton Tufnell as a private teacher training institution. Kay-Shuttleworth transferred it to the National Society in 1843, and it was renamed St John’s College, Battersea around 1879. The two colleges merged in 1923 to form the College of St Mark and St John in Chelsea, with the nickname Marjon coined at that point by combining the opening syllables of both names.
Move to Plymouth and University Status
By 1973 the Chelsea campus had become too small for the growing institution, prompting the move to Plymouth. Affiliation with the University of Exeter followed in 1991, which allowed the college to run undergraduate and postgraduate programmes leading to Exeter degree awards. University College status came in 2007, and full university status was granted in 2013 under the name Plymouth Marjon University. A major investment programme completed in that same year brought new sport and exercise science laboratories, indoor and outdoor sports facilities, a theatre, a media centre and a music studio to the Plymouth campus. Residential accommodation is available on site, with all first-year students guaranteed a place.