The University of London, founded in 1836, is a federation of colleges which together constitute one of the world's largest universities. Somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of all UK students attend one of its colleges, which include some of the most prestigious places of study in the world. Many universities in Britain and abroad began life as associate colleges of the university, offering its degrees under licence. In recent years this aspect of the university's work has revived, because of globalisation, and an increasing number of overseas academic institutes offer University of London diplomas and degrees.
The university at first comprised just two colleges, University College London (UCL) and King's College London (KCL), but now has over 15, many of which are major institutions in their own right. Besides UCL and King's, the most famous are the London School of Economics (LSE), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Imperial College, and Queen Mary (QMUL).
The university is a federal body made up of a number of highly autonomous colleges and institutes, widely scattered across greater London. For most practical purposes, its constituent colleges are usually treated as individual universities. Under English law, some of these are Recognised Bodies with the authority to grant their own degrees (which means that they enjoy the same status as other institutions with their own degree-awarding power), while others are Listed Bodies that offer courses leading to degrees from the University of London (which means that they have the same status as the constitutent institutions of the University of Wales and the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham).
Colleges and institutions
The colleges and institutes of the University are, as of October 2003:
Recognised bodies
- Birkbeck, University of London
- Goldsmiths College
- Heythrop College
- Imperial College London, incorporating Imperial College at Wye
- Institute of Cancer Research
- Institute of Education
- King's College London (KCL), incorporating the Institute of Psychiatry and The Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine
- London Business School
- London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) incorporating Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry
- Royal Academy of Music
- Royal Holloway
- Royal Veterinary College
- School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), incorporating the London School of Jewish Studies
- School of Pharmacy
- University College London (UCL), incorporating the Eastman Dental Institute, the Institute of Child Health, the Institute of Neurology, the Institute of Ophthalmology, the Royal Free and University College Medical School, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), and the Slade School of Fine Art
- St George's Hospital Medical School
Colleges no longer in existence
Some colleges of the University of London have been amalgmated into larger colleges or their work transferred elsewhere. These include
- Chlesea College of Science and Technology - Hortensia Road, Chelsea
- Queen Elizabeth College - Campden Hill Road, Kensington
Listed bodies
- British Institute in Paris
- Courtauld Institute of Art
- School of Advanced Study comprising the following institutes:
- Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
- Institute of Classical Studies
- Institute of Commonwealth Studies
- Institute of English Studies (including the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies),
- Institute of Germanic Studies
- Institute of Historical Research
- Institute of Latin American Studies
- Institute of Romance Studies
- Institute of United States Studies
- The Warburg Institute
- University Marine Biological Station, Millport
Notable alumni and attendees
Notable persons who graduated from or otherwise attended the University include:
- Christopher Addison
- Akbar S. Ahmed
- Richard Aldington
- Mulk Raj Anand
- David Attenborough
- Alfred Austin
- Thomas John Barnardo
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Arnold Bennett
- William Henry Bragg
- Raymond Briggs
- Robert Browning
- John Cale
- Alan Campbell
- William Benjamin Carpenter
- Graham Chapman
- G.K. Chesterton
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Coldplay members Chris Martin, William Champion, and Johnny Buckland
- Alex Comfort
- Bernard Cornwell
- Francis Crick
- Robert William Dale
- Hugh Dalton
- Valerie Davey
- Louis Essen
- John Ambrose Fleming
- Denis Follows
- Michael Foster
- Mohandas Gandhi
- Greer Garson
- Ann Granger
- Peter Griffiths
- Peter Hain
- Michael Halliday
- Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell
- Chaim Herzog
- Damien Hirst
- Thomas Hodgkin
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Charles Ingram
- Hirobumi Ito
- Mick Jagger
- George Jessel
- William Stanley Jevons
- Nancy Johnson
- Tessa Jowell
- William Joyce
- Charles K. Kao
- Boris Karloff
- John F. Kennedy
- Jomo Kenyatta
- Junichiro Koizumi
- David Lammy
- Emily Lau
- Ambrose Lau Hon-chuen
- Bernard Lewis
- Joseph Lister
- Bronislaw Malinowski
- Nelson Mandela
- Karl Mannheim
- Brian May
- Desmond Morton
- Charles F. Newcombe
- Bill O'Reilly
- Humphry Osmond
- Talcott Parsons
- Lynden Pindling
- Enoch Powell
- Romano Prodi
- B. Carroll Reece
- Paul Robeson
- David Rohl
- Ilich Ramírez Sánchez aka Carlos the Jackal
- Ernest Satow
- John Ralston Saul
- Elizabeth Smart
- Stephen Smith
- Robert Sobukwe
- George Soros
- Marie Stopes
- Aung San Suu Kyi
- Goh Keng Swee
- Robert Swinhoe
- Larry Trask
- Suzanne Tremblay
- Pierre Trudeau
- Desmond Tutu
- Henry Wace
- Sidney Webb
- H. G. Wells
- David Wilson
- Robert Winston
- Fei Xiaotong
- Harmodio Arias (1886-1962) - President of Panama,1932-1936
- Oscar Arias (b. 1941) - President of Costa Rica and Nobel Prize Winner
- Pedro Gerardo Beltran Espanto (1897-1979) - Prime Minister of Peru, 1959-1961
- Errol Walton Barrow (1920-1987) - Prime Minister of Barbados, 1962-1966, 1966-1976, 1986-1987
- Marek Belka (b. 1952) - Prime Minister of Poland, 2004-present
- Heinrich Brüning (1885-1970) - Chancellor of Germany, 1930-1932
- Kim Campbell (b. 1947) - Prime Minister of Canada, June-November 1993
- Eugenia Charles (b. 1919) - Prime Minister of Dominica, 1980-1995
- John Compton (b. 1926) - Premier of Saint Lucia, 1964-1979, and Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, February-July 1979 & 1982-1996
- Sher Bahadur Deuba (b. 1943) - Prime Minister of Nepal, 1995-1997, 2001-2002, 2004-present
- Tuanku Jaafar (b. 1922) - Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia, 1994-1999
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) - President of the U.S.A. 1961-1963
- Jomo Kenyatta (1891-1978) - First President of Kenya, 1964-1978
- Mwai Kibaki (b. 1931) - President of Kenya, 2002-present
- Thanin Kraivichien (b. 1927) - Prime Minister of Thailand, 1976-1977
- Yu Kuo-Hwa (1914-2000) - Premier of Taiwan, 1984-1989
- Hilla Limann (1934-1998) - President of Ghana, 1979-1981
- Pumarejo Alfonso Lopez - President of Colombia, 1934-1938, 1942-1945
- Michael Manley (1924-1997) - Prime Minister of Jamaica, 1972-1980, 1989-1992
- Kamisese Mara (1920-2004) - Prime Minister of Fiji 1970-1992, President of Fiji 1994-2000
- Queen Margrethe II (b. 1940) - Queen of Denmark, 1972-present
- Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) - First President of Ghana, 1960-1966
- Percival Patterson (b. 1935) - Prime Minister of Jamaica, 1992-present
- Romano Prodi (b. 1939) - Prime Minister of Italy, 1996-1998 and President of the European Commission, 1999-present
- Navinchandra Ramgoolam (b. 1947) - Prime Minister of Mauritius, 1995-2000
- Veerasainy Ringadoo (1920-2000) - First President of Mauritius, March-June 1992
- Moshe Sharett (1894-1965) - Prime Minister of Israel, 1953-1955
- Constantine Simitis (b. 1936) - Prime Minister of Greece, 1996-2004
- Anote Tong (b. 1952) - President of Kiribati, 2003-present
- Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000) - Prime Minister of Canada, 1968-1979, 1980-1984
Other prominent alumni
- Sir Roy Allen (Economist and Mathematician)
- Sir David Attenborough (TV Presenter)
- Cherie Booth QC (wife of Tony Blair)
- Ed Broadbent (Canadian socialist opposition leader)
- Ralph Bunche (Nobel prize winner)
- Ronald Coase (Nobel prize winner)
- Edwina Currie (politician, author, radio presenter)
- Hugh Dalton (former Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Frank Dobson (former Health Secretary
- Marc Grossman (U.S. Under Secretary of State)
- Haakon Magnus (Crown Prince of Norway)
- Margaret Hodge (British MP, Minister for Children)
- Robert E. Hunter (Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO)
- Mick Jagger (Musician)
- Anthony Kennedy (U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice
- Robert Kilroy-Silk (TV Presenter)
- Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England)
- Bernard Levin (journalist)
- Sir Arthur Lewis (Nobel prize winner)
- Merton Miller (Nobel prize winner)
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan (former U.S. Senator)
- Robert Mundell (Nobel prize winner)
- Philip Noel-Baker (Nobel prize winner)
- Jules O'Riordan (aka Judge Jules) (Radio 1 DJ)
- Jacques Parizeau, Quebec separatist leader
- Alice Paul, American suffragist
- Sir Karl Popper (philosopher)
- Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury Secretary
- Charles Saatchi (Founder, Saatchi and Saatchi)
- Maurice Saatchi (Founder, Saatchi and Saatchi)
- Carlos the Jackal (criminal)
- George Soros (Billionaire)
Some statistics
- Student population: 115,000
- External Programme: 32,000 additional