This chapter provides a historical overview of the pursuit of inclusion in the UK higher education, from the university as an ‘exclusive’ institution to the contemporary expectation that universities should proactively cater to inclusion. The chapter starts with a snapshot into university ‘exclusions’ in the 1800s and follows, up to the early 2000s, two key developments: the framing of higher education ‘purpose’ as a matter of ‘national interest’, and the bringing of fragmented higher education institutions into a nationally useful HE ‘sector’ of activity, justified by the increase in state funding. It is argued that the first development has enabled ‘inclusion’ as an expected societal aim of higher education and an attribute of state regulation, while the second development turned universities into the object of central planning and organisation. With the loosening of state regulation on tuition fees, we later witness a third development: the pursuit of inclusion is shifted away from the government onto individual universities, which are expected to strategise for achieving predefined goals. This is the context in which universities’ organisational commitments to inclusion (OCIs) emerge, in response to a now diverse body of inclusion-oriented independent regulators and charities monitoring them.