Happy 191st birthday to University College London!
On February 11 1826, the institution today known as University College London, or UCL, was founded. Back then, it was called London University and it was the first of its kind in London and the first completely secular university in England.
Photo: Left: the Wilkins building in 1956 (Dr. Neil Clifton), right: same place in 2017 (Lisa Nordbo Fiil)
Influenced by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, the university represented a new way of understanding education. By allowing students who weren’t necessarily rich or members of the Church of England, London University reflected Bentham’s thoughts on secularism and equality. In fact, women were allowed to study here from as early as 1878. Even though Jeremy Bentham wasn’t directly involved with founding the university, his body can, curiously, be found on the campus, more specifically at the end of the South Cloisters. Here sits his skeleton, dressed in his clothes and surmounted with a wax head.
Today, the UCL can be found several places in London and even in Australia and Qatar, but the Wilkins building on Gower Street has been a part of the university ever since it opened its doors to students of any religion, race or class. So far, this has resulted in a least 29 Nobel Prize winners and the invention of the telephone, the discovery of five of the noble gasses and the co-discovery of hormones.
