The beginnings of the university

Following the end of the Napoleonic war, London was pre-eminent among the capitals of Europe. This pre-eminence, however, had been secured, above all, by the exercise of military, maritime and financial power. For the liberal and progressive groups in the city, victory in war was not in itself enough. In England, at that time, higher education was monopolised by the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which were traditional, complacent, and socially and religiously exclusive. Further afield, most of the great cities of mainland Europe had long had universities, for example Amsterdam (since 1632), Lisbon (since 1288), Madrid (since 1508), Rome (since 1303) and Vienna (since 1365).

During the 1820s, the poet Thomas Campbell and the politician Lord Brougham led an initiative which raised enough money to buy the site in Gower Street on which University College (henceforth UCL) was founded in 1826. Conservative opposition to this development was led by the archbishop of Canterbury, the duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and led to the founding of the rival King's College (henceforth KCL) in 1829. The inevitable controversy as to which of the two institutions should be accorded a royal charter, entitling it to award degrees, was resolved by the establishment of ‘the University of London’ in 1836, through which each of the colleges was required to present its students for graduation.