King's College London
King's College London is the largest college of the
federal University of London, and, having received its
royal charter in
1829, is
England's third oldest university institution. King's is a member of the
Russell Group of UK universities; along with
Oxford,
Cambridge, and other prestigious London institutions (
LSE,
UCL and
Imperial), it also forms part of the
Golden Triangle of UK universities. [
1] King's is consistently ranked as one of the leading 20 European universities and the top 100 globally. [
2]. With over 25,000
students and
staff, King's is larger than most UK universities; is the largest centre for the education of
healthcare professionals in
Europe; and is home to four
Medical Research Council Centres â€" more than any other UK university. King's occupies four
Thames-side
campuses in
Central London and one in
Denmark Hill, South London, making it the capital's most central university.
King's, so named to indicate the
patronage of
George IV, was founded in
1829 as a more
accessible alternative to the Universities of
Oxford and
Cambridge, which only educated the sons of the
wealthy classes. King's founding was also assisted by the Crown, the
Church of England and the government, amid popular opposition to the
humanist institution now known as
University College London [
3]. Indeed a duel was fought [
4] over the College's honour between the
Prime Minister, the
Duke of Wellington, and the Earl of Winchilsea who questioned the
Prime Minister's support for
Catholic and
Anglican institutions; nobody was injured. Friendly rivalry between the two colleges continues today (See
Trivia). The two colleges were federated into the
University of London when it was established by charter in
1836.
The first qualification issued by King's was the
Associate of King's College, or AKC. 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 standard
degree. Successful completion entitles the
graduate to bear the letters AKC after their name.
The College today is the product of King's mergers with a number of other institutions over the years, including
Queen Elizabeth College, Chelsea College, the
Institute of Psychiatry, and the
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals.
Florence Nightingale's original training school for nurses is now incorporated as the
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery. Perhaps the most famous scholarly research performed at King's was the work by
Rosalind Franklin and
Maurice Wilkins that was essential to the discovery by
James D. Watson and
Francis Crick of the structure of
DNA.
There are now nine schools of study: in addition to the
Institute of Psychiatry, the Institute of
Dentistry and the
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, there are Schools of
Law,
Medicine,
Social Science &
Public Policy,
Humanities,
Biomedical & Health Sciences and
Physical Sciences &
Engineering.
The five campuses of King's are:
* The
Strand Campus near
Covent Garden. Most of the Schools of Humanities, Law, Social Science & Public Policy, and Physical Sciences & Engineering are housed here. The Maughan Library, situated in
Chancery Lane, is a few minutes away. (nearest
tubes:
Temple,
Covent Garden)
* Across the Thames, the
Waterloo Campus near the
South Bank Centre consists of the
James Clerk Maxwell Building, the
Franklin-
Wilkins Building; and the Stamford Street Apartments. The School of Biomedical & Health Sciences and the
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery are based here. (nearest tube:
Waterloo)
* The
Guy's Campus at
London Bridge houses parts of the Dental Institute and School of Medicine and the School of Biomedical & Health Sciences (nearest tubes:
London Bridge,
Borough)
*
St Thomas' Campus, facing the
Houses of Parliament across the
Thames, houses parts of the School of Medicine and the Dental Insitute (nearest tube:
Westminster)
* Further South, the
Denmark Hill Campus, the only one not situated on the River Thames, houses the
Institute of Psychiatry, part of the Dental Institute and part of the School of Medicine (nearest station:
Denmark Hill)
Refurbishment
King's is coming to the end of a
decade of restorative and
refurbishment projects, with investment of over £500 million [
5]. These include the Franklin-Wilkins building in the
Waterloo campus, the largest university building in the UK; the Maughan
library in
Chancery Lane, the most elaborate university library project ever undertaken in the UK; and the renovation of the
chapel in the
Strand campus at a cost of £750,000.
The nine Schools of study at King's are as follows:
*
Dental Institute*
Institute of Psychiatry*
School of Biomedical & Health Sciences*
School of Humanities*
School of Law*
School of Medicine*
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery*
School of Physical Sciences & Engineering*
School of Social Science & Public PolicyA complete list of
undergraduate courses taught at King's can be found
here.
The various
postgraduate courses offered at King's can be divided into
taught programmes and
research programmes.
Main article: King's College London Students' Union''
King's College London Students' Union (KCLSU) is the oldest in London, founded just before University College London Union, and provides a good range of activities and services: over 50 sports clubs - including the Boat Club, that rows on the River Thames, and the Rifle Club that uses the college's shooting range on the Main Strand Campus-, 60 societies, a wide range of volunteering opportunities, 2 bars, 2 nightclubs, shops, eating places and a gym. Recently, a third site was opened at the Waterloo campus.
A former President of KCLSU, Sir Ivison Macadam (after whom the Students' Union building on the Strand Campus has since been named) went on to be elected as the first President of the NUS and the Union has played an active role there and in the University of London Union ever since. Competition and rivalries within the University of London between King's and University College London are still fierce but unlike the riots between respective College students in central London that still occurred until the 1950s, things are now limited to the rugby pitch and skullduggery over mascots, with an annual Varsity match taking place between King's College London RFC and UCL RFC.
Tensions were re-ignited on 2 December 2005 when students from LSE (across the road from the Strand campus) diverted off from the annual "barrel run" and caused an estimated £30,000 of damage to the English department [6][7]. Principal Rick Trainor and the then KCLSU President, Matthew Pusey, called for no retaliation and LSE Students' Union were forced to issue an apology as well as foot the bill for the damage repair. While LSE officially condemned the action, a photograph was published in The Beaver (the LSE SU Student Newspaper) which was later picked up by The Times that showed LSE Director Howard Davies drinking with members of the LSE Students Union shortly before the barrel run - and the "rampage" - began.
King's halls of residence offer a range of accommodation to suit the varied needs of students. These include:
*
Brian Creamer House &
The Rectory (self-catered) at
St Thomas' Campus*
Wolfson House (self-catered) at
Guy's Campus*
The Great Dover Street Apartments (self-catered) at
Guy's Campus*
The Stamford Street Apartments (self catered) at the
Waterloo Campus*
King's College Hall (catered) at the
Denmark Hill Campus*
Hampstead Halls (self-catered) in
HampsteadFour of these halls let their rooms to visitors during the summer months when the students leave
King's Conference & Vacation Bureau.
Intercollegiate Halls
King's also has the largest number of bedspaces in the
University of London Intercollegiate Halls, which provide accommodation for those studying at the University. These are also open to the public over the summer:
*
College Hall (currently under reburbishment and female-only) in
Malet Street*
International Hall near
Russell Square*
Lillian Penson Hall (postrgraduates only) in
Paddington*
Nutford House in
Marble Arch*
Canterbury,
Commonwealth,
Connaught and
Hughes Parry Halls in
BloomsburyKing's
graduates have some of the highest average starting
salaries among all UK universities -
The Sunday Times estimates the average starting salary is £20,672: third highest in the
UK. [
8]
See also :Category:Academics of King's College London, :Category:Alumni of King's College London and :Category:People associated with King's College LondonKing's has educated many significant figures since its foundation. Its strong tradition in the sciences might be represented by some recipients of the
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine:
Sir James Black,
Maurice Wilkins,
Sir Charles Scott Sherrington or
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins; or pioneering nurse
Florence Nightingale.
John Keats,
Sir William Gilbert of
Gilbert and Sullivan,
Thomas Hardy and
Michael Nyman are some celebrated examples from the arts; more recently,
Rory Bremner,
David Bellamy,
Martin Bashir and another Nobel
Laureate,
Desmond Tutu, all attended King's.
The Guardian newspaper ranks King's as the fourth best multifaculty university in the United Kingdom; [
9] the
THES ranks King's as twenty-third in Europe and seventy-third globally. [
10]
*King's is one of only 11 UK universities to be ranked in to the top 100 of the
world, according to a league table produced by
Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
*King's was placed third overall in a
2005 THES survey in which 10,000 undergraduates rated universities on
academic reputation, the quality of courses and teaching,
admissions,
campus location and
facilities.
*According to a
Sunday Times survey, King's is 3rd in the UK both for
graduate starting salary and graduate employability.
*Entry to King's is competitive: the
Sunday Times rates it as the 6th most difficult UK university to get into [
11].
*According to the
2005 THES league table, King's is positioned fourth in terms of staff-student
ratio.
*Many departments are considered to be at the top of their field; most notably,
The Guardian newspaper ranks the
English,
Chemistry,
Dentistry, and
American Studies departments as the best in the country.
*The
Department of Philosophy is a bastion for the Anglo-American tradition in analytic philosophy, and is one of the largest and most distinguished in the country. It received a 5* rating (the highest rating) in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise and 24 (the highest rating) in the 2001 Quality Assurance Assessment Subject Review of Teaching. Its particular research strengths are in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Psychology; Philosophy of Science, Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Language, and Linguistics.
*King's is a member of the
Russell Group of research universities and, in addition to the departments listed above, is highly distinguished in
Law,
Medicine, and
Music: home of some world authorities on
Mozart (
Cliff Eisen) and
Wagner (
John Deathridge).
*Moreover, unique to the UK, is the top ranked
Department of War Studies, and supported by facilities such as The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives [
12], the
Centre for Defence Studies, and the
King's Centre for Military Health Research.
*The College has had 24 of its
subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for
research quality, demonstrating excellence at an
international level, and it has recently received an excellent result in its audit by the
Quality Assurance Agency. It is in the top group (of six universities) for research earnings.
*In February 2006,
UCAS revealed that, offset by a fall in applications for the vast majority of UK universities, King's received 4.0% more than the previous year [
13].
*In August 2005 the
Guardian newspaper stated that
LSE,
Imperial College, King's and
UCL each 'have international reputations that in this country only
Oxbridge can beat' [
14].
*It has the fifth largest endowment of UK universities at £100m (
2002), the fourth largest endowment per student, and has credit ratings of AA-/Stable/A-1 (
Standard & Poor's). King's has an annual
turnover of nearly £375 million.
King's has a wholly owned and dedicated
technology transfer, enterprise, and innovation company known as
KCL Enterprises: one of the most successful in the UK. KCL Enterprises are responsible for business development and commercialisation and for the management of the university's research grants and contracts. In collaboration with KCL Enterprises, King's actively encourages its staff to commercialise its research and as a result has given rise to a large number of
spin-out companies based on academic research. These include Proximagen Neuroscience Plc, and Cerogenix Ltd.
*
King's College School was created as King's Junior Department at the time of the College's founding. Originally situated in the basement of the
Strand campus, the School relocated
Wimbledon in
1897. King's College School is no longer associated with King's College London.
*
Aldwych tube station, a well-preserved but disused
London Underground station, is part of the King's
Strand campus. Its constant use as a
filming location makes it supposedly the most
profitable station on the tube network.
* The School of Medicine, which admits 360
undergraduates every year, is the largest in the UK.
* King's graduation ceremonies are held in
Southwark Cathedral and the
Royal Festival Hall.
* The College mascot, "
Reggie", was lost for many years in the 1990s. It was recovered after being found dumped in a field, restored at the cost of around £15,000 and placed on display in the Students' Union. Protected in a glass case, it is filled with concrete to prevent theft, particularly by
UCL students who once castrated it. (King's students had also stolen one UCL mascot, Phineas, and played football with the head of another,
Jeremy Bentham). There are two further "Reggies" in existence: a
papier-mâché Reggie outside the Great Hall at the Strand Campus, and a small incarnation displayed during
Graduation ceremonies.
*
RADA is administered through King's, and its students
graduate alongside members of the Departments which form part of the School of Humanities.
* King's is featured in the novel
The Da Vinci Code by
Dan Brown; the Reading Room of the Maughan Library is described as an '
octagonal chamber'. The Library, however, was not used in filming for the
novel's screen adaptation.
*
KCl is also the chemical formula for
potassium chloride.
* King's Drug Control Centre currently holds the official UK
contract for running
doping tests on UK athletes, and will likely continue to do so until the
2012 Olympics, to be held in London.
* King's runs the London Air Quality Network [
15].
* F.J.C. Hearnshaw (1929).
The Centenary History of King's College London. George G. Harrap & Co.
* Gordon Huelin (1978),
King's College London, 1828-1978.
* Christine Kenyon Jones (2004),
King's College London: In the service of society.
*
Russell Group*
University of London*
Education in London*
Guy's Hospital*
St Thomas Hospital*
King's College Hospital*
'Golden Triangle'*
King's College website*
University of London*
King's College London Libraries*
King's Conference & Vacation Bureau*
King's College London 175th Anniversary website - includes complete history
*
KCLSU*
KCL Enterprises#There remains debate about which university holds the title as 'England's third-oldest'. Some institutions can trace ancestry back centuries; however, such institutions cannot claim 'university' status until a
Royal Charter has been granted. In 1829, King's became the third establishment to receive a Royal Charter, making it - technically - England's third-oldest university.
UCL, however, was founded three years earlier, and claims the title itself.
