University College Birmingham   University College Birmingham Summer Row, Birmingham, UK /../webroot/files/Institutions/cover_photo/1534222711University-College-Birmingham.jpg

The origins of our College can be traced back to the late nineteenth century with the foundation of a Municipal Technical School offering cookery and household science courses. The School operated from a number of sites around the City and the archives record the establishment of a cookery room in 1916 and domestic cookery classes in 1918. In 1927 the name of the School was changed to the Central Technical College. By the 1950s the College had been renamed the College of Technology and a department of Bakery and Domestic Science had been established.In 1956 Birmingham's Chief Education Officer, E L Russell, recommended to the Local Education Authority the setting up of a separate college dealing with catering, bakery and domestic science. The new College of Bakery, Catering, Domestic Science and Associated Studies opened to students in 1957. The following year, the name was changed yet again to the Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Arts. The College continued to operate on many sites across the City until 1968 when HRH The Duke of Edinburgh opened our main site in Summer Row. Another name change, in the late 1980s, to the Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies, was designed to recognise the diversification of the College's programmes.The College has long enjoyed very close links with the industries it serves; a point highlighted in the commendation for our Queen's Anniversary Award for Higher and Further Education in 1998. Links with industry take many forms ranging from bespoke training to product development. Industry has also been very generous in its support of the College, sponsoring facilities and donating state-of-the-art equipment. In August2008 we launched BusinessHub to support further expansion of our work with industry.