William Sands Cox in the context of "Kenilworth"

The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery), and Mason Science College (established in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason), making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter, and the first English unitary university. It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21.

The student population includes 24,585 undergraduate and 12,250 postgraduate students (2023/24), which is the 11th largest in the UK (out of 169). The annual income of the university for 2023–24 was £926 million of which £205.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £726.5 million. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the University of Birmingham ranked equal 13th out of 129 institutions on grade point average, up from equal 31st in the previous REF in 2014.

Queen's College was a medical school in central Birmingham, England, and a predecessor college of the University of Birmingham. It was founded by surgeon William Sands Cox in 1825 as The Birmingham Medical School, a residential college for medical students. Cox's ambition was for the college to teach arts, law, engineering, architecture and general science. It was the first Birmingham institution to award degrees, through the University of London.

Cox went on to found the Queen's Hospital in Bath Row (Drury & Bateman, opened 1841) as a practical resource for his medical students. The 1828 Medical School became the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine in 1836. It became the Queen's College in 1843 by royal charter.