King's College London Information

Kings College London (informally Kings or KCL) is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, and a founding college and member institution of the federal University of London. Kings was established in 1829 by King George IV and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, when it received its first royal charter (as a university college), and claims to be the fourth oldest university institution in England. In 1836, Kings became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. In the late 20th century, Kings grew through a series of mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology (in 1985), the Institute of Psychiatry (in 1997), the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guys and St Thomas Hospitals and the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (in 1998).

Kings has five campuses: its historic Strand Campus in central London, three other Thames-side campuses (Guys, St Thomas and Waterloo) and one in Denmark Hill in south London. In 2017/18, Kings had a total income of £841.1 million, of which £194.4 million was from research grants and contracts. It is the 12th largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment. It has the fifth largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, and the largest of any in London. Its academic activities are organised into nine faculties, which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres, and research divisions.

Kings is generally considered part of the golden triangle of research-intensive English universities alongside the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London, and The London School of Economics. It is a member of academic organisations including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association, and the Russell Group. Kings is home to six Medical Research Council centres and is a founding member of the Kings Health Partners academic health sciences centre, Francis Crick Institute and MedCity. It is the largest European centre for graduate and post-graduate medical teaching and biomedical research, by number of students, and includes the worlds first nursing school, the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery.

Globally, it was ranked 33rd in the 2020 QS World University Rankings, 35th in the 2019 CWTS Leiden Ranking, 36th in the 2020 THE World University Rankings, and 51st in the 2019 ARWU. Kings was ranked 42nd in the world for reputation in the annual Times Higher Education survey of academics for 2018. Nationally it was ranked 25th in the 2020 Complete University Guide, 35th in the 2019 Times/Sunday Times University Guide, and 63rd in the 2020 Guardian University Guide.

Kings alumni and staff include 12 Nobel laureates; contributors to the discovery of DNA structure, Hepatitis C and the Higgs boson; pioneers of in-vitro fertilisation, stem cell/mammal cloning and the modern hospice movement; and key researchers advancing radar, radio, television and mobile phones. Alumni also include heads of states, governments and intergovernmental organisations; nineteen members of the current House of Commons and seventeen members of the current House of Lords; and the recipients of three Oscars, three Grammys and an Emmy.

Kings College, so named to indicate the patronage of King George IV, was founded in 1829 in response to the theological controversy surrounding the founding of "London University" (which later became University College, London) in 1826. London University was founded, with the backing of Utilitarians, Jews and Nonconformists, as a secular institution, intended to educate "the youth of our middling rich people between the ages of 15 or 16 and 20 or later" giving its nickname, "the godless college in Gower Street".

The need for such an institution was a result of the religious and social nature of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which then educated solely the sons of wealthy Anglicans. The secular nature of London University was disapproved by The Establishment, indeed, "the storms of opposition which raged around it threatened to crush every spark of vital energy which remained". Thus, the creation of a rival institution represented a Tory response to reassert the educational values of The Establishment. More widely, Kings was one of the first of a series of institutions which came about in the early nineteenth century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and great social changes in England following the Napoleonic Wars. By virtue of its foundation Kings has enjoyed the patronage of the monarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury as its visitor and during the nineteenth century counted among its official governors the Lord Chancellor, Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Mayor of London.

The simultaneous support of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (who was also Prime Minister of the United Kingdom then), for an Anglican Kings College London and the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which was to lead to the granting of almost full civil rights to Catholics, was challenged by George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea, in early 1829. Winchilsea and his supporters wished for Kings to be subject to the Test Acts, like the universities of Oxford, where only members of the Church of England could matriculate, and Cambridge, where non-Anglicans could matriculate but not graduate, but this was not Wellingtons intent.

Winchilsea and about 150 other contributors withdrew their support of Kings College London in response to Wellingtons support of Catholic emancipation. In a letter to Wellington he accused the Duke to have in mind "insidious designs for the infringement of our liberty and the introduction of Popery into every department of the State". The letter provoked a furious exchange of correspondence and Wellington accused Winchilsea of imputing him with "disgraceful and criminal motives" in setting up Kings College London. When Winchilsea refused to retract the remarks, Wellington – by his own admission, "no advocate of duelling" and a virgin duellist – demanded satisfaction in a contest of arms: "I now call upon your lordship to give me that satisfaction for your conduct which a gentleman has a right to require, and which a gentleman never refuses to give."

The result was a duel in Battersea Fields on 21 March 1829. Winchilsea did not fire, a plan he and his second almost certainly decided upon before the duel; Wellington took aim and fired wide to the right. Accounts differ as to whether Wellington missed on purpose. Wellington, noted for his poor aim, claimed he did, other reports more sympathetic to Winchilsea claimed he had aimed to kill. Honour was saved and Winchilsea wrote Wellington an apology. "Duel Day" is still celebrated on the first Thursday after 21 March every year, marked by various events throughout Kings, including reenactments.

Kings opened in October 1831 with the cleric William Otter appointed as first principal and lecturer in divinity. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided over the opening ceremony, in which a sermon was given in the chapel by Charles James Blomfield, the Bishop of London, on the subject of combining religious instruction with intellectual culture. Despite the attempts to make Kings Anglican-only, the initial prospectus permitted, "nonconformists of all sorts to enter the college freely".William Howley: the governors and the professors, except the linguists, had to be members of the Church of England but the students did not, though attendance at chapel was compulsory.

Kings was divided into a senior department and a junior department, also known as Kings College School, which was originally situated in the basement of the Strand Campus. The Junior department started with 85 pupils and only three teachers, but quickly grew to 500 by 1841, outgrowing its facilities and leading it to relocate to Wimbledon in 1897 where it remains today, though it is no longer associated with Kings College London. Within the Senior department teaching was divided into three courses: a general course comprised divinity, classical languages, mathematics, English literature and history; a medical course; and miscellaneous subjects, such as law, political economy and modern languages, which were not related to any systematic course of study at the time and depended for their continuance on the supply of occasional students. In 1833 the general course was reorganised leading to the award of the Associate of Kings College (AKC), the first qualification issued by Kings. The course, which concerns questions of ethics and theology, is still awarded today to students and staff who take an optional three-year course alongside their studies.

The river frontage was completed in April 1835 at a cost of £7,100, its completion a condition of Kings College London securing the site from the Crown. Unlike those in the school, student numbers in the Senior department remained almost stationary during Kings first five years of existence. During this time the medical school was blighted by inefficiency and the divided loyalties of the staff leading to a steady decline in attendance. One of the most important appointments was that of Charles Wheatstone as professor of Experimental Philosophy.

At this time neither Kings, "London University", nor the medical schools at the London hospitals could confer degrees. In 1835 the government announced that it would establish an examining board to grant degrees, with "London University" and Kings both becoming affiliated colleges. This became the University of London in 1836, the former "London University" becoming University College, London (UCL). The first University of London degrees were awarded to Kings College London students in 1839.

In 1840, Kings opened its own hospital on Portugal Street near Lincolns Inn Fields, an area composed of overcrowded rookeries characterised by poverty and disease. The governance of Kings College Hospital was later transferred to the corporation of the hospital established by the Kings College Hospital Act 1851. The hospital moved to new premises in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in 1913. The appointment in 1877 of Joseph Lister as professor of clinical surgery greatly benefited the medical school, and the introduction of Listers antiseptic surgical methods gained the hospital an international reputation.

In 1845 Kings established a Military Department to train officers for the Army and the British East India Company, and in 1846 a Theological Department to train Anglican priests. In 1855, Kings pioneered evening classes in London; that Kings granted students at the evening classes certificates of college attendance to enable them to sit University of London degree exams was cited as an example of the worthlessness of these certificates in the decision by the University of London to end the affiliated colleges system in 1858 and open their examinations to everyone.

In 1882 the Kings College London Act amended the constitution. The act removed the proprietorial nature of Kings, changing the name of the corporation from "The Governors and Proprietors of Kings College, London" to "Kings College London" and annulling the 1829 charter (although Kings remained incorporated under that charter). The act also changed Kings College London from a (technically) for-profit corporation to a non-profit one (no dividends had ever been paid in over 50 years of operation) and extended the objects of Kings to include the education of women. The Ladies Department of Kings College London was opened in Kensington Square in 1885, which later in 1902 became Kings College Womens Department.

The Kings College London Act 1903, abolished all remaining religious tests for staff, except within the Theological department. In 1910, Kings was (with the exception of the Theological department) merged into the University of London under the Kings College London (Transfer) Act 1908, losing its legal independence.

During World War I the medical school was opened to women for the first time. The end of the war saw an influx of students, which strained existing facilities to the point where some classes were held in the Principals house.

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