Against a background of reconstruction and development, the
Vice-Chancellors of United Kingdom Universities established
a special commission under the High Court Judge Sir Cyril
Asquith to "consider the principles which should guide the
promotion of higher education, learning and research and the
development of universities in the colonies."

The sub-committee of the Asquith Commission set up to
report on the needs of the West Indies became known as the
Irvine Committee after its chair, Sir James Irvine, Vice- Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews. The other permanent members of the Irvine
Committee were Margery Perham, Fellow of Nuffield College and a Reader in Colonial
Administration at the University of Oxford; Raymond Priestley, Principal and Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Birmingham; Hugh Springer, a lawyer and member of the Barbados House
of Assembly who later became the University's first Registrar; and Philip Sherlock, Secretary of
the Institute of Jamaica and formerly headmaster of Jamaica's oldest secondary boys school.

In 1944 the Irvine Committee recommended the establishment of a single University of the West
Indies at the earliest possible date, which subsequently led to the establishment of the University
College of the West Indies. The Irvine Report is available for viewing at the University Archives, Mona
under Archives Accession No.MA96.2.