Despite the growing numbers of candidates for its examinations, and its extension of offerings, by the mid-1870s serious questions were being raised about the long-term future of the University of London. This questioning was preliminary to what developed into a major struggle, which began in earnest in 1884, after the Senate’s apparent disinclination to contemplate any significant degree of change, and was to continue until practically the end of the century. Before attempting any narrative and analysis of that struggle, it is as well to offer a brief overview of the major issues and the parties involved.

In a strictly academic context, the overwhelming question which hung over the University of London was whether it really could justify being called a university at all. It was an examining board, whose matriculation examination was widely used at secondary level as a school-leaving qualification. And to those who matriculated and passed its more advanced examinations successfully, it awarded degrees. It did not teach, and since 1858, save for candidates for medical degrees, who had to attend recognised medical schools, its examinations were open to anyone over defined age limits, irrespective of how they prepared themselves – whether by attending courses at institutions, or by purely private study, or by a mixture of the two. The sole research activity of the University began only in 1871, at the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution, and had little or no connection with the examining function.

The arguments about the merits of open examinations as a means of encouraging candidates whose social and personal circumstances preclude them from attendance at orthodox teaching establishments are not peculiar to the nineteenth century. But in the case of the University of London, the abandonment of the pre-1858 practice, which had required all candidates, not only those taking medical examinations, to have attended recognised educational institutions, exacerbated the controversy about the quality of the achievement of those who received the rounded education claimed for collegiate study, as compared with that of those unattached examinees who, allegedly, had experienced only narrow ‘cramming’ in order to pass specific tests. The political overtones of that debate were obvious enough in an era of persistent demand for a broader franchise, for non-discrimination on religious grounds, and for social and educational improvement, all set against a background of enormous population growth.