The University of Madras is a state public university based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is among the three oldest modern universities in India, founded in the same year as the Universities of Calcutta and Bombay. It functions as both an affiliating and a residential university, and has historically played a central role in higher education in southern India.
| Name | University of Madras |
|---|---|
| Type | State public university |
| Established | 1857 |
| Location | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| Founding statute | Madras University Act, 1857 |
| Model | Originally based on the University of London |
| Function | Affiliating, teaching and research university |
The University of Madras was incorporated by an Act of the Legislative Council of India on 5 September 1857. Its creation followed the recommendations of Sir Charles Wood's Despatch of 1854, which proposed the establishment of universities in the Presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. In its early decades the university operated principally as an examining body, conferring degrees on students taught at affiliated colleges across the Madras Presidency, an area that covered much of present-day Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Odisha.
The university operates from several campuses in Chennai, the principal ones being:
The University of Madras offers programmes across the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, commerce, management, law and education. It comprises a large number of university departments organised into schools, and affiliates colleges in Chennai and surrounding districts. The university also runs an Institute of Distance Education, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses to learners across India.
As one of the earliest modern universities in India, the University of Madras has shaped higher education and public life in the region for more than a century and a half. Its alumni include Nobel laureates C. V. Raman and S. Chandrasekhar, mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, philosopher and former President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, statesman C. Rajagopalachari, and several leaders, scientists and writers from southern India. The Senate House on the Marina is a recognised heritage landmark of Chennai.