In 1859, Owens College was approved as a provincial examination centre for matriculation candidates of the University of London.

[4] Distribution was then in the hands of Sherratt & Hughes of Manchester; from 1913 the distributors were Longmans, Green & Co. though this arrangement came to an end in the 1930s.

In the mid-1960s the university and the city corporation commissioned Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley to produce a new plan for the campus.

The final report was issued in 1966; it recommended removing traffic from Oxford Road to the adjacent main routes east and west, and building of the Precinct Centre – subsequently constructed in 1970–1972.

In later years many administrative changes were made that increased the independence of the Director of Estates and Services, the Director of the Manchester Computing Centre, and eventually combined the offices of registrar and bursar as that of registrar and secretary, the last holder of this post was Eddie Newcomb (1995–2004).

[13] In the early decades of Owens College, a few outstanding faculty members set high standards for the new institution.

These included statistician Stanley Jevons, jurist James Bryce, William Eyre Walker (Art Master) and particularly Henry Enfield Roscoe Professor of Chemistry and Principal of the college.

[14] It also educated the young J. J. Thomson before he went to Trinity College, Cambridge Since the later 1800s, many notable people have worked and studied at the Victoria University of Manchester as, for example, Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Virgilian context referred to Pyrrhus, appearing in shining armour 'like a snake which has sloughed its skin, reaching upwards with an effort towards the sun'; the motto was chosen by the Professor of Latin at the time (Augustus Wilkins) and the coat of arms was applied for – suggesting both the idea of the institution striving towards excellence, and the city (with its particularly high annual rainfall) 'reaching upwards with difficulty towards the sun'.