Broadcast: News items

Engineering 1 building

The three Engineering buildings on campus will be renamed this summer to honour two former Chancellors and the founding Dean of Applied Sciences at Sussex. 

• Engineering 1 will be renamed after Lord Shawcross, one of the University's founding fathers and the longest-serving Chancellor in its history, who died in 2003 aged 101.
• The Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who replaced Lord Shawcross as Chancellor in 1985, will give his name to the Engineering 2 building (renamed as Richmond)
• Engineering 3 will be called the John Clifford West building. 

Lord Shawcross's son, William, accepted the invitation on behalf of the family. He said: "We would be delighted by your proposal to name one of the University buildings after my father. He loved the University. Thank you!" 

Lord Shawcross was a key figure in the establishment of the University and served as Chancellor for 20 years until stepping down in 1985. 

Aptly, he supported the development of architect Sir Basil Spence's innovative building designs. In his memoirs, Lord Shawcross recalled: "I was at an early stage appointed chairman of the buildings committee for the whole university ... This was not always easy but the redoubtable Basil Spence and I got on well together." 

The Richmond building will be a lasting reminder of the contribution made to Sussex by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon during his Chancellorship lasting 13 years and prior to that as Treasurer. He said: "I am honoured that you should want to name a building on the campus after me." 

Professor John Clifford West CBE said he was "delighted" that Engineering 3 would take his name. He said that his time in the Royal Navy made him "realise that the pre-war division of engineering in independent departments of civil, mechanical, electrical [engineering] etc. was not the way forward. I put to the University of Sussex the concept of a School of Applied Sciences." 

"Your suggestion that one of the engineering buildings could be named after me I regard as a very great honour." 

The University has also announced this year that:

• the Gardner Centre is to reopen as the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, named after Lord Attenborough, who stepped down as Chancellor in 2008;
• EDB (the Educational Development Building) will be renamed the Silverstone building in honour of the first Professor of Media and Communication at Sussex (Roger Silverstone);
• the new teaching building at the heart of campus will be the Fulton building when it opens in the summer 2010. Lord Fulton was the first Vice-Chancellor of Sussex.