Barefoot in the park

In Nottingham, that dismal town
where I went to school and college
They've built a new university
for a new dispensation of knowledge

Built it most grand and cakeily
out of the noble loot
derived from shrewd cash-chemistry
by good Sir Jesse Boot

This is not Lawrence's finest poem, but it does reveal the extent of his quarrel with the University of Nottingham, as it was written many years after he had left the University College, as it was then. His hostility may have been partly due to his disillusion with the standard of teaching he experienced there in 1906.

But this seems especially ironic today, since not only has the university provided a home for the only statue of Lawrence in the world (as far as I know), but also hosts the DH Lawrence Research Centre, the DH Lawrence Pavilion, and helps to support the DH Lawrence Heritage Centre in Eastwood. Most would consider that this repays anything that the university owes to one of its most renown students.

The statue can be found outside the east entrance to the Law and Social Science building.