Redbrick

Origin of: Redbrick

Redbrick

Term used to describe universities other than Oxford and Cambridge and hence somewhat inferior, although this negative connotation has since largely died out. So-called because of the late Victorian architecture of some universities that used red brickwork. It was coined in this context by Edgar Allison Peers, Professor of Spanish at the University of Liverpool, under the pseudonym Bruce Truscot in his book entitled Redbrick University (1943).