The University of Allahabad is a central university in Prayagraj with origins in the nineteenth-century development of modern higher education in northern India. Its institutional story is closely connected with Muir Central College, conceived under Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Muir. The college’s foundation stone was laid on 9 December 1873, creating an academic centre that later formed an important part of the university. The University of Allahabad itself was established on 23 September 1887 by Act XVIII, making it the fourth university founded in British India after Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. It initially functioned largely as an examining and degree-conferring institution with a broad territorial jurisdiction. The university held its first entrance examination in March 1889. The Indian Universities Act of 1904 redefined its jurisdiction, while the early twentieth century brought the development of its own landmark buildings, including the Senate House, library and Law College complex designed by Swinton Jacob. A new University of Allahabad Act in 1921 transformed the institution’s structure and ended Muir Central College’s independent existence. By the late 1920s, Allahabad had moved toward a unitary and residential university model. The institution has produced major traditions in humanities, social sciences, law, science and public life, with several departments tracing their history to the pre-independence period. The Department of Medieval and Modern History, for example, was established in 1912, while Ancient History later developed as a separate academic unit. The university became a Central University again under the University of Allahabad Act, 2005. Its long institutional continuity, historic campus architecture and role in Indian intellectual and public life make it one of the country’s most historically significant universities. The campus remains notable for the coexistence of nineteenth-century institutional origins, early twentieth-century academic buildings and a modern central-university structure, giving Allahabad University an unusually continuous record of teaching, examinations and research.