These universities were distinguished by being non-collegiate (and thus, at the time, non-residential) institutions founded as university colleges that admitted men without reference to religion and concentrated on imparting to their students "real-world" skills, often linked to engineering.
The second wave of civic universities differed from the later "plate glass universities" in that they all evolved from local university colleges founded before WWII and all prepared students for external University of London examinations before being granted full university status.