David A. Hinton (University of Southampton, UK)

The University of Southampton became independent in the 1950s. For a while, it remained integrated in the community, as the constitution of the governing Council shows. Lecturers in what are now the Humanities often contributed to Extra-Mural programmes. This has declined as Extra-Mural became Adult Education and then Continuing Education, pursuing certificate courses and using its own staff. As archaeology was and is a popular subject, this lack of contact is a mixed blessing, though there is no longer a separate external department, and Archaeology has a part-time colleague responsible for the certificate modules.
Excavations by Peter Addyman and David Hill in Hamwic and by Colin Platt in the later medieval town during the 1960s set a standard for involvement and publication. The formation of a city archaeology unit meant that university staff no longer felt an obligation to work within the town, though some have occasionally done so. Concurrently, the university has discouraged the sense that it is the ‘University of Wessex’, although some contacts are maintained, both with the museums and the unit.