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This paper discusses the history of outdoor education at a university in the South West England, starting in 1840.

This research uses secondary sources of data; original unpublished work from the university archive is used alongside published works on the university founders and first principals, as well as sources on the developments of outdoor education in the UK.

Both founding principals were driven by their strong values of social justice and their own experiences of poverty and inequality, to establish a means for everyone to access high-quality education regardless of background or means. They saw education as key to providing a pathway out of poverty and towards opportunity and achievement for all. Kay-Shuttleworth, founder of St John's, wrote that “the best book is Nature, with an intelligent interpreter”, whilst Derwent Coleridge, St Mark's first principal, had a …