page_title: History of Imperial College London
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Imperial College London / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Imperial Institute Tower c1960
context_page_description: The history of Imperial College London can be traced back to the founding of the Royal College of Chemistry in 1845 in London, with some ancestral medical schools dating back to 1823. The college was formed in 1907 out of the Royal Colleges in South Kensington, and throughout the 20th century became central to the national strategy for technical education and research. It existed for most of its life as part of the University of London, only becoming independent in 2007.
context_section_description: At the start of the 20th century there was a concern that Britain was falling behind its key rivals – particularly Germany – in scientific and technical education, and the idea grew for a "British Charlottenburg", similar to the German Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg. In 1902, the Technical Education Board of London County Council called for the establishment of a similar institute for advanced technological training in London, and Richard Haldane had involved 
  Lord Rosebery, Arthur Balfour and the Duke of Devonshire in a scheme to raise £600,000 as a trust fund for the proposed institution.
  A departmental committee was set up at the Board of Education in 1904, originally chaired by Francis Mowatt and (from 1905) by Haldane, officially to look into the future of the Royal College of Science. An interim report in 1905 asked if the government would support the unification of the two national schools of science in South Kensington – the Royal College of Science and the Royal School of Mines – into a single institution. This was followed in 1906 by the final report that called for the establishment of this unified institution, also to take in – if agreement could be reached with the City and Guilds of London Institute – their Central Technical College. The committee was divided on whether the new institution should be incorporated into the University of London or be associated as an independent college of the university, but recommended that the establishment of the new institution should not wait for this question to be settled.
  On 8 July 1907, King Edward VII granted a Royal Charter establishing the Imperial College of Science and Technology. This incorporated the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science. It also made provisions for the Central Technical College to join once conditions regarding its governance were met, as well as for Imperial to become a college of the University of London. The latter of these was accomplished within a year, with Imperial joining the University of London on 22 July 1908. The Central Technical College joined Imperial in 1910 under the name City and Guilds College. The main campus of Imperial College was constructed beside the buildings of the Imperial Institute.
  King Edward VII granted the coat of arms of the college on the 6th of June, 1908 by royal warrant. The foundation stone for the Royal School of Mines building was laid by King Edward VII in July 1909. There was controversy over the inscription on the foundation stone, which was originally to commemorate "the completion of the Royal College of Science … henceforth to be known as the Imperial College of Science and Technology". This led to objections from the Royal School of Mines and the inscription being changed to commemorate instead "the new buildings of the Royal School of Mines … and of the City and Guilds College of Engineering, which, with the Royal College of Science, form integral parts of the Imperial College of Science and Technology".
  While students at Imperial could study for University of London degrees, the three constituent colleges also awarded associateships at bachelor's level (Associateship of the Royal College of Science, ARCS, Associateship of the Royal School of Mines, ARSM, and Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute, ACGI). To these was added the Diploma of Imperial College (DIC), a postgraduate-level qualification first awarded in 1912.
  It was not long before agitation for full university status began. In January 1919, students and alumni met at the Imperial College Union and voted to sign a petition to make Imperial a university with its own degree awarding powers, independent of the University of London. This won the backing of the rector and the professors, in addition to the majority of past and present students, and Nature called in 1920 for "a free and frank examination of the proposition in all its bearings, undisturbed and unprejudiced by lesser interests than that of increasing the efficiency of university education and especially of scientific education". One of
caption: Queen's Tower as part of the Imperial Institute
exif: {}