Imperial College of Science and Technology

Imperial College has roots in three nineteenth-century institutions, the Royal College of Chemistry, the Royal School of Mines, and the City and Guilds Central Technical College, which opened respectively in 1845, 1851 and 1885.

In 1904, the Board of Education appointed a departmental committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Haldane, to study possible co-operation between institutions.

The conclusion of the report led to the establishment by Royal Charter of the Imperial College of Science and technology in 1907 and joined the University of London.  The main campus of the college was constructed in 1907 following the newly established Board of Education.

Imperial College

The college received its mandate in Article II of the Charter namely ‘to give the highest specialized instruction and to provide the fullest equipment for the most advanced training and research in a various branches of science especially in it application to industry’.

In 1988 St Mary’s Hospital Medical School was merged with the college. Imperial became fully independent of the University of London in July 2007

Imperial College is recognized today as being one of the top colleges in the word as a science based institution attracting over 16,000 students of international quality, specializing in science, medicine, engineering, and business studies.
Imperial College of Science and Technology

History of British Library

The British Library is one of the world’s largest libraries. It contains over 170 millions separate items. In addition, nearly 10,000 items are added each day resulting in a library grows by about 3 millions items a year.

Opened by the Queen in 1999, this complex by Colin St John Wilson provided the British Library with facilities worthy of one of the world’s great repositories of learning.

The institution that the when building was intended to house was created by Parliament’s 1972 British Library Act.  The library was organized in July 1, 1973 and was formed from the former British Museum, National Central Library, National Lending Library for Science and Technology and the British National Bibliography.

The British Museum library founded in 1753 based on earlier collections and later increased by the addition of royal libraries, had the right to a free copy of all books published in the United Kingdom.

In 1998 British Library moved to a new headquarters.
History of British Library

University of Cambridge: The origin

In 1209, two Oxford scholars were convicted of the murder or manslaughter of a woman and were hanged by the town authorities, apparently with the assent of King John. It happened when the mayor and townsmen, unable to apprehend the scholar in question, seized two of house housemates and with the consent of King John, hanged them outside the walls of Oxford.

In protest at the hanging the University of Oxford went into voluntary suspension and the great majority of scholars migrated to Paris, to reading and to Cambridge.

Cambridge was a thriving community in 1201 and 1207. It was the market for immediate are, as well as being an emporium for commerce throughout the Fenlands.

The band of scholars trudging into Cambridge, some were from important Cambridge families included among their number, quite possible as their leader, John Grim. John Grim, doctor of theology, was master of the schools of Oxford in 1201.

The University of Cambridge began ex-nihilo with a handful of masters from Oxford who arrived down the Huntingdon Road, cross the bridge and started in rented lodgings in the neighborhood of Great St. Mary’s Church.

By 1225 at the latest they had achieved sufficient status as a corporation to have a chancellor with powers delegated by the bishop of Ely.

In 1290 a letter form Pope Nicholas IV addressed to the canons of the Order of Sempringham, some of whom were studying in Cambridge, described the school as a studium generale.

The rights and judicial identity of Cambridge were further strengthened by a bull of Pope Gregory IX in 1233, given at the request of the university.

Addressed to the ‘Chancellor and University of Cambridge’, it acknowledge their university status and gave them the ius non trahi extra, which prohibited any court outside of the diocese from summoning a member of the university, provided he appeared before the chancellor or his bishop.

The first college, Porterhouse, modeled on Walter de Merton’s Oxford foundation, was established in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, bishop of Ely, under royal license.
University of Cambridge: The origin

Notes:
ex-nihilo = out of nothing
Studium generale = the old customary name for a Medieval university
ius non trahi extra = a right to discipline its own members