Imperial College London

Charing Cross Hospital grew out of the West London Infirmary, established in 1823 and renamed in 1827, and the Westminster Hospital Medical School was set up in 1834 and re-established in 1849 after a pause in 1847–48. St Mary’s Hospital Medical School was founded in 1854, three years after the hospital opened in 1851; its student numbers soon rose to 40, and its facilities were expanded in the 1880s.⁠[1][2]

The Royal College of Chemistry was founded by subscription in 1845 as a national resource for industrial and technical development, with royal patronage from Prince Albert; its first professor was August Wilhelm Hofmann. In 1853 it merged with the Royal School of Mines in Jermyn Street.⁠[2]

In 1851 Sir Henry de la Beche founded the Government School of Mines and of Science as Applied to the Arts, the forerunner of the Royal School of Mines, laying groundwork for science teaching in Britain.⁠[2]

The Normal School of Science, established in 1881 to train science teachers and to develop other sciences alongside the Royal School of Mines, soon changed its name to the Royal College of Science. In 1884 the City Livery Companies established the Central Institution, later the City and Guilds College, under the City and Guilds of London Institute, in South Kensington on land bought with profits from the Great Exhibition; full-time teaching began in 1885.⁠[2]

The Imperial Institute was created in 1887 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, as a scientific research institution for developing the raw materials of the Empire’s countries. Its South Kensington building was constructed between 1888 and 1893; Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone in 1888 and opened it in 1893. Designed by T. E. Collcutt in the neo-renaissance style, with a central tower, the Queen’s Tower, it contained a library, laboratories, conference rooms and exhibition galleries.⁠[2]

In 1906 a Board of Education Departmental Committee report examined the need for a higher technical education institution and recommended combining the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines and the City & Guilds College into one institution. On July 8, 1907 King Edward VII granted the charter forming Imperial College under Letters Patent at Westminster.⁠[2][3]

The foundation stone for the Goldsmith’s Extension and Royal School of Mines building was laid on July 8, 1909. The City & Guilds Delegacy, created in 1910 with 19 members from the City and Guilds of London Institute, the Goldsmith’s Company and Imperial’s Governing Body, administered the City & Guilds College. The Bessemer laboratory opened in 1912, and the Beit Buildings were completed in 1913–14.⁠[2]

A Technical Optics course was established in 1917, the Imperial College Boat Club was founded on December 12, 1919, and the first student hostel opened in the Beit Quadrangle in April 1926.⁠[2]

In 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin at St Mary’s.⁠[1]

After war broke out, a decision to close the College was reversed and it reopened on October 17, 1939, with third- and fourth-year metallurgy teaching moved to Swansea. “C” Company, the Imperial College Home Guard unit, was formed in September 1941 and stood down in 1944. In October 1945 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the College to mark the centenary of the Royal College of Science.⁠[2]

The College acquired Silwood Park as a biology field station in 1947, and the student newspaper Felix launched on December 9, 1949. On January 29, 1950 the government announced that the College would expand, and the Rector, Sir Roderic Hill, launched the Jubilee Expansion Scheme; between 1953 and 1963 the government required the College to double in size, with student numbers to reach 3,000 during 1957–1962.⁠[2]

In 1984 the Westminster and Charing Cross medical schools merged to form the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School. In 1988 the College merged with St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, forming the Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine.⁠[1][4]

In 1994 the College became one of the 17 founding members of the Russell Group, whose name comes from the Hotel Russell in London where the founding universities met.⁠[5][6]

In 1995 the National Heart & Lung Institute merged with the College.⁠[1][4]

The Imperial College Act 1997, dated July 15, 1997, united the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School with the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and transferred all their rights, properties, assets and liabilities to the College. The Royal Postgraduate Medical School had opened in 1935 as the British Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital and took its later name in 1974.⁠[7][1]

On August 1, 1997 the two schools joined the existing St Mary’s and Royal Brompton departments to form the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, and the Imperial College School of Medicine was formed.⁠[4][1]

In 2000 the College merged with Wye College and the Kennedy Institute, and in 2001 it introduced its Faculty structure and launched the Entrepreneurship Centre. It received degree-awarding powers from the Privy Council in May 2003, which were still unused as of October 2006. The College Main Entrance and the Tanaka Business School opened in 2004.⁠[8][9]

On October 5, 2006 the College announced that the University of London Council had accepted its request to withdraw, on terms agreed by both institutions’ Councils over the summer. Imperial expected to be wholly independent in July 2007, with its first postgraduates on Imperial degrees starting in October 2007 and its first undergraduates in October 2008; the Rector, Sir Richard Sykes, called it “a major step on our road to full independence.” After the withdrawal the University of London would have 19 member Colleges with more than 115,000 students.⁠[9]

The Supplemental Charter granted on April 4, 2007 came into force on July 8, 2007, establishing “a University with the name and style of ‘The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine’,” whose objects are to provide the highest specialized instruction, training, research and scholarship in science, technology and medicine.⁠[3]

The College announced a centenary celebration on July 9, 2007, attended by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, who were to open the new Institute of Biomedical Engineering; the honorary graduation ceremony that followed marked Imperial’s independence from the University of London, with the Duke among the first to receive Imperial College degrees. The College then had 11,500 students and 6,000 staff, with 66 Fellows of the Royal Society among its academic staff and 14 Nobel laureates among its past members.⁠[10]

Hugh Brady became President in August 2022. A graduate of University College Dublin (UCD), he was President of UCD from 2004 to 2013 and Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a research university in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It began as University College, Bristol, which opened in 1876, became a university under a royal charter in 1909 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry from 2015 to 2022. He trained in general medicine and nephrology and was awarded PhD and MD degrees for research in renal physiology and molecular medicine respectively.⁠[11]

On April 10, 2025 the College announced Imperial Global India, a liaison office in Bengaluru, India, planned to open in May 2025 with a launch event on May 21, 2025. Led by Academic Co-Directors Sanjeev Gupta and Elena Dieckmann, it aims to strengthen science, education and innovation partnerships between India and the UK, and joins the Imperial Global network of hubs in Singapore, San Francisco in the United States and Accra in Ghana.⁠[12]

On June 24, 2025 the College announced four Schools of Convergence Science: the School of Health and Technology, the School of Sustainability, the School of Human and Artificial Intelligence, and the School of Space, Security and Telecoms. Each is organized around missions such as “ultra-fast worldwide disaster relief” and “global clean air and water” rather than a single field, is led by a convener and several other leads, and forms a central pillar of the College’s “Science for Humanity” strategy.⁠[13]

In the 2024–25 financial year ended July 31, 2025, the College’s total income was £1.5 billion (2024: £1.3 billion); it had 23,248 students (2024: 23,311) and 8,783 full-time-equivalent staff (2024: 8,501). It was ranked second in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2026, for the second year running.⁠[14]

Under the College’s Charter, the Council is the governing and executive body, and the President, appointed by the Council, is the chief academic and administrative officer.⁠[3]

The College’s Rectors and Presidents have been Henry T. Bovey (1908–1910), Sir Alfred Keogh (1910–1922), Sir Thomas H. Holland (1922–1929), Sir Henry T. Tizard (1929–1942), Sir Richard Southwell (1942–1948), Sir Roderic M. Hill (1948–1954), Sir Patrick Linstead (1954–1966), Sir Owen Saunders (1966–1967), Lord Penney (1967–1973), Lord Flowers (1973–1985), Sir Eric A. Ash (1985–1993), Lord Oxburgh (1993–2000), Sir Richard Sykes (2001–2008), Sir Roy Anderson (2008–2009), Sir Keith O’Nions (2010–2014) and Alice P. Gast (2014–2022).⁠[15]

The College was assigned a coat of arms by Royal Warrant in 1908. Its motto is “Scientia imperii decus et tutamen,” which the College translates as “Scientific knowledge, the crowning glory and the safeguard of the empire.”⁠[16]

Imperial College London: Official website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

X: Public account: https://x.com/imperialcollege (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/edu/imperial-college-london-12598 (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/imperialcollegevideo (opens in a new window).⁠[17]