In the first few years of its existence several circumstances conspired to enhance the public reputation of the College and to consolidate its position. In its second session the teaching staff received a great accession to its strength by the appointment of Mr. Louis C. Miall as Lecturer in, and afterwards as Professor of Biology. Mr. Miall had already established a reputation as a man of science, as an able and attractive lecturer and a sound and experienced teacher. He brought to the aid of his colleagues a wise judgment and a knowledge of local conditions which under the special circumstances proved most helpful. His appointment at this period was not without its significance as an indication of the broad and liberal views which the majority of the Council entertained as to the scope and functions of the College. It was a wise policy to attach to its fortunes all who could in any way serve its true interests, whether in teaching, in enlisting public sympathy, or in the management of its affairs.
At the beginning of the following session (1876) the professors, who had now formed themselves into an Academic Board holding regular meetings in order to discuss the educational affairs of the College, addressed a memorandum to the Council inviting them to consider the advisability of extending the curriculum so as to include Literature and Classics. They pointed out that they had frequent applications from students for advice as to obtaining the degrees of the University of London, or as to complying with the requirements for open science scholarships at the other Universities, but that, as at present constituted, the College was unable to afford the necessary facilities. They were of opinion that if the College were in a position to enable the students to obtain the science degrees of the University of London its usefulness would be considerably increased, and the wider curriculum might be expected to result in an augmentation of the yearly entry. The Council, on the whole, were not indisposed to consider the suggestion benevolently, but they regretted they were unable to take any action from lack of funds. The matter, however, was not allowed to drop. At that time Mr. Stuart and his syndicate at Cambridge were busy in their attempts to spread culture among the hives of industry, and their missionaries were at work in Leeds under the auspices of a committee of which the late Bishop of Truro (Dr. Gott), then Vicar of Leeds, and the late Sir Edward Baines, one of the truest and most zealous friends the College ever possessed, were active members. These gentlemen approached the governing body with a view of ascertaining whether some arrangement might not be possible whereby the work initiated by the University Extension Movement could be conducted by the College in a more systematic and permanent manner than hitherto, and they undertook on behalf of the Committee to be responsible, for a term of years, for a considerable proportion of the money that would be required to give effect to the suggestion. The result of the negotiation was the establishment of Chairs of Classical Literature and History, and Modern Literature and History, which were filled, respectively, by the appointment of Professor John Marshall, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, afterwards Rector of the High School, Edinburgh, a distinguished classic, and author of an English rendering of the “Odes and Epodes of Horace,” “Xenophon Memorabilia,” and other works; and Professor F. S. Pulling, B.A. (Oxon). This enlargement of the educational work of the College necessitated a slight but significant change in its designation: henceforward it became known simply as the Yorkshire College until it was raised to the rank of a university, when it took the name of the town in which it was situated.