Queen Mary, University of London

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Coordinates: 51°31′23″N, 0°02′25″W

Queen Mary, University of London
Motto: Coniunctis Viribus
With United Powers
Established: 1123 (Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital)
1785 (London Hospital Medical College)
1843 (Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital)
1882 (Westfield College)
1885 (Queen Mary College)
1989 (merger of Queen Mary & Westfield)
1995 (medical schools merge with QMW)
Type: Public
Endowment: £33 million [1]
Principal: Professor Adrian Smith
Students: 11,625 [2]
Undergraduates: 8,570 [2]
Postgraduates: 3,055 [2]
Location: London, United Kingdom
Campus: Urban
Colours:
                     
Affiliations: University of London
Association of Commonwealth Universities
1994 Group
Website: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/
QMUL Crest

Queen Mary, University of London (until 2000 Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London and still called that in its charter)[1] is the third largest College of the University of London. It is organised into four faculties: Arts; Engineering and Mathematical Sciences; Law and Social Sciences; and Natural Sciences, in addition to Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

The College is a research university, with over 80% of research staff working in departments where research is of international or national excellence (RAE 2001). It has a strong international reputation, with 24 per cent of students coming from over 100 countries.[3][4][5] Queen Mary incorporates several leading international research units such as the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Biomedical Materials, as well as many centres for medical and dental teaching and research. In particular the University is very highly rated for Law, Medicine and Dentistry. Queen Mary is known for student employability: The Sunday Times ranked it second highest in the UK for graduate starting salaries after the London School of Economics.

Contents

[edit] History

Queen Mary's origins are in the mergers over the years of four older colleges: Queen Mary College, Westfield College, St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College and the London Hospital Medical College. In 1989 Queen Mary merged with Westfield College to form Queen Mary & Westfield College. Although teaching had begun at the London Hospital Medical College in 1785, it did not become part of Queen Mary until 1995. In that year the two medical schools merged together and into Queen Mary & Westfield College to form the School of Medicine and Dentistry, although to a large extent a separate Barts and The London identity has been maintained. In 2000, the college adopted the present title of Queen Mary, University of London for day to day purposes, although the official name in the charter has not been changed.

[edit] Queen Mary College

[edit] Formative years

The origins of Queen Mary College began in the mid Victorian era when growing awareness of conditions in London's East End led to drives to provide facilities for local inhabitants, popularised in the 1882 novel All Sorts of Conditions of Men - An Impossible Story by Walter Besant, which told of how a rich and clever couple from Mayfair went to the East End to build a "Palace of Delight, with concert halls, reading rooms, picture galleries, art and designing schools."[6] Although not directly responsible for the conception of the People's Palace, the novel did much to popularise it.

The trustees of the Beaumont Trust, administering funds left by Barber Beaumont, purchased the site of the former Bancroft's School from the Drapers' Company. On May 20, 1885 the Drapers' Court of Assistants resolved to grant £20,000 "for the provision of the technical schools of the People's Palace."[7] The foundation stone was laid on June 28, 1886 and on May 14, 1887 Queen Victoria opened the palace's Queen's Hall as well as laying the foundation stone for the technical schools in the palace's east wing.

The technical schools were opened on October 5, 1888, with the entire palace completed by 1892. When opening them, the Master of the Drapers' Company declared their aims to be "to improve the scientific and technical knowledge of apprentices and workmen engaged in industrial life". However others saw the technical schools as one day becoming a technical university for the East End.[8] The conflicting demands of pleasure and education were identified by the Assistant Charity Commissioner as early as 1891 and for the next forty years this was to dog the People's Palace. In 1892 the Drapers' Company provided £7000 a year for ten years to guarantee the educational side income.

[edit] Into the University of London

Part of the Charterhouse Square site
Part of the Charterhouse Square site

The classes reached a peak of 8000 tickets in 1892–1893 but fell to less than half for the following year, due to competition from the London School Board, despite the Palace's classes being more advanced. With the level of teaching grew, in 1895 John Hatton, Director of Evening Classes (1892–1896; later Director of Studies 1896–1908 and Principal 1908–1933) proposed introducing a course of study leading to the University of London (then a degree awarding body) Bachelor of Science degree. By the turn of the century the first degrees were awarded and Hatton, along with several other Professors, were recognised as Teachers of the University of London. In 1906 an application for Parliamentary funds "for the aid of Educational Institutions engaged in work of a University nature", led to the College being told it was "of the highest importance that there should be a School of the University in the faculties of Arts, Science and Engineering within easy reach of the very large population of the East End of London." The educational part of the People's Palace was admitted on an initial three year trial basis as a School of the University of London on May 15, 1907 as East London College. In 1910 the College's status in the University was extended for a further five years, with unlimited membership achieved in May 1915. During this period the organisation of the governors of the People's Palace was rearranged, creating the separate People's Palace Committee and East London College Committee, both under the Palace Governors, as a sign of the growing separation of the two concepts within a single complex.[9]

During the First World War the College admitted students from the London Hospital Medical College who were preparing for the preliminary medical examination, the first step in a long process that would eventually bring the two institutions together. After the war, the College grew, albeit constrained by the rest of the People's Palace to the west and a burial ground immediately to the east. In 1920 it obtained both the Palace's Rotunda (now the Octagon) and rooms under the winter gardens at the west of the palace, which became chemical laboratories. The College's status was also unique, being the only School of the University of London that was subject to both the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Education. In April 1929 the College Council decided it would take the steps towards applying to the Privy Council for a Royal Charter, but on the advice of the Drapers' Company first devised a scheme for development and expansion, which recommended amongst other things to reamalgamate the People's Palace and the College, with guaranteed provision of the Queen's Hall for recreational purposes, offering at least freedom of governance if not in space.[10]

In the early hours of February 25, 1931 a fire destroyed the Queen's Hall, though both the College and the winter gardens escaped. In the coming days discussions on reconstruction led to the proposal that the entire site be transferred to the College which would then apply for a Charter alone. The Drapers' Company obtained St Helen's Terrace, a row of six houses neighbouring the site, and in July 1931 it was agreed to give these over to the People's Palace for a new site adjacent to the old, which would now become entirely the domain of the College. Separation was now achieved. The Charter was now pursued, but the Academic Board asked for a name change, feeling that "East London" carried unfortunate associations that would hinder the College and its graduates. With the initial proposed name, "Queen's College", having already been taken by another institution and "Victoria College" felt to be unoriginal, "Queen Mary College" was settled on. The Charter of Incorporation was presented on December 12, 1934 by Queen Mary herself.[11]

[edit] Under the Charter

The Queens' Building
The Queens' Building

During the Second World War the College was evacuated to Cambridge, where it shared with King's College. Meanwhile the Mile End site was requisitioned for war work and was for a time used as the Municipal Offices of Stepney Borough Council. After the war the College returned to London, facing many of the same problems but with prospects for westward expansion.[12]

The East End had suffered considerable bomb damage (although the College itself had incurred little) and consequently several areas of land near to the College site now became vacant. The former church of St Benets' to the immediate east of the College was now defunct and was demolished in 1950, with the space used to build a new block for physics, but most of the acquisitions in the immediate post war years were to the west of the college. Even the new People's Palace was no longer able to meet its needs and it was acquired by the College along with several pieces of land that together formed a significant continuous stretch along the Mile End Road. New buildings for engineering, biology and chemistry were built on the new sites, whilst the arts took over the space vacated in the original building, now renamed the Queens' Building (to reflect the support and patronage of both Queen Mary and now Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother).

Limited accommodation resulted in the acquisition of further land in South Woodford (now directly connected to Mile End tube station by means of the Central Line's eastward extension), upon which tower blocks were established. Consequently, student numbers continued to expand. The College also obtained the Co-operative Wholesale Society's clothing factory on the Mile End Road which was converted into a building for the Faculty of Laws (and some other teaching), despite being physically separated from what was now a campus to the west. [13]

From the mid 1960s until the mid 1980s the College was in a period of uncertainty and flux. Much planning was dominated by the "BLQ scheme" which proposed to link Queen Mary College with the London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College with a joint facility in Mile End, but the land was not yet available. Over the period land that come onto the market was purchased with the intention to consolidate as soon as possible. The Queen Mary College Act, 1973 was passed "to authorise the disposal of the Nuevo burial ground in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and to authorise the use for other purposes thereof..." and gave the authority to disinter and reinter most of the graves to Dytchleys. A further link with both The London and St. Bartholomew's was made in 1974 when an anonymous donor provided for the establishment of a further hall of residence in Woodford, to be divided equally between Queen Mary College students and the two medical colleges.[14] The Law facualty is located in Lincoln Inns Field, which is also close to LSE.

At the start of the 1980s changing demographics and finances caused much concern through the university sector and led to a reorganisation of the University of London. At Queen Mary some subjects, such as Russian and Classics were discontinued, whilst the College became one of five in the University with a concentration of laboratory sciences, including the transfer of science departments from Westfield College, Chelsea College, Queen Elizabeth College and Bedford College.[15]

From the mid 1980s onwards the College began expanding across the newly acquired land to the east, taking the campus to the Regent's Canal. A part of the burial ground remains to this day, as does a car maintenance shop on the Mile End Road, but the rest of the area has been absorbed by the College's expansion. The long planned Pre Clinical Medicine building for the BLQ Scheme finally materialised in the late 1980s, further strengthening the ties between the three colleges.[16]

[edit] Westfield College

Main article: Westfield College

[edit] Queen Mary & Westfield College

The arms of Queen Mary & Westfield College (prior to the merger with the medical schools), combining details from the arms of the two individual colleges. The triple crowns come from the arms of Queen Mary College, originating in the Drapers' arms.
The arms of Queen Mary & Westfield College (prior to the merger with the medical schools), combining details from the arms of the two individual colleges. The triple crowns come from the arms of Queen Mary College, originating in the Drapers' arms.

Continued uncertainty about the future of Westfield College led to its merger with Queen Mary in 1989 to form Queen Mary & Westfield College (often abbreviated to QMW). Over subsequent years, activities were concentrated on the Queen Mary site, with the Westfield site eventually sold off.

[edit] Merger with the medical schools

A reorganisation of medical education within the University of London resulted in most of the freestanding medical schools being merged with existing large colleges to form multi-faculty institutions. In 1995 the London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College merged together and into Queen Mary & Westfield College to form Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry.

[edit] Public name change

In 2000 the college changed its given name to Queen Mary, University of London. However the College's charter has not been reissued and its legal name remains Queen Mary & Westfield College.

The purchase, in 2007, of a car maintenance shop on Mile End Road has resulted in its demolition to make way for a new humanities building.

[edit] University Rankings

The college was ranked as the world's 100th best higher education institution by The Times Higher Education Supplement in 2004[17], but moved down to joint 112th place in 2005, alongside Humboldt University of Berlin.[18] In 2006, it had moved back up to be joint 99th,[19] but moved down again in 2007 to the world's 149th best higher education institution, along with City University of Hong Kong.[20] The Times Higher Education Supplement's peer review-based separate table for the top 100 international Universities in Arts and Humanities subjects included Queen Mary in joint 21st place in the world, alongside University College London.[21] The Shanghai Jiao Tong University's 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities placed it 57 - 80 in Europe and 151 - 201 globally, putting it level with LSE, Durham and St. Andrews.[22] The 2007 CHE-ExcellenceRanking, examining the academic performance of graduate programs in natural sciences, placed Queen Mary in the European top group for biology and physics.[23] In addition, The Guardian Newspaper's League Tables placed it 12th in the UK in 2005, 42nd by The Times, 28th in 2006. Queen Mary has also been ranked the sixth best UK university for student employability [24] - with the second highest UK graduate starting salary.[25] In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, it achieved the highest possible rating of 5*, which is very rarely granted, for Law; Linguistics; and Iberian and Latin American Languages. Moreover, it was given the second highest rating of 5, still indicating international excellence, for Clinical Dentistry; Physics; Pure Mathematics; Statistics and Operational Research; Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering; Metallurgy and Materials; Geography; Economics and Econometrics; English Language and Literature; French; German, Dutch and Scandinavian Languages; Russian, Slavonic and East European Languages; and History. Over 80 per cent of its research staff is working in departments where research is of international or national excellence.[26] In 2006, the Guardian University Guide ranked QMUL top in the country for Physics.[27]

[edit] Notable staff

[edit] Notable alumni

In addition, the musician Pete Doherty attended Queen Mary, but left before completing his course.

[edit] Students' accommodation

Many QMUL students are accommodated in the college's own halls of residence or other accommodation; QMUL students are also eligible to apply for places in the University of London intercollegiate halls of residence, such as Connaught Hall. Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year undergraduates or international students. The majority of second and third-year students and postgraduates find their own accommodation in the private sector.[citation needed]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Financial Statements 2004-2005. Queen Mary, University of London. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  2. ^ a b c Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2005/06. Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
  3. ^ Queen Mary, University of London - A-Z Unis & Colleges , Getting Into University - Independent.co.uk
  4. ^ Queen Mary College
  5. ^ Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2005/06. Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.There are 8855 home students (1560 postgraduates, 7295 undergraduates), 715 European Union students (380 postgraduates, 335 undergraduates) and 2055 students from outside the EU (1115 postgraduates, 940 undergraduates).
  6. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 15-17 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  7. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) page 21 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  8. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) page 37 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  9. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 39-48 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  10. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 49-57 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  11. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 57-62 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  12. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 75-85 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  13. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 86-102 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  14. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 103-117 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  15. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 117-130 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  16. ^ G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville From Palace to College - An illustrated account of Queen Mary College (University of London) (1985) pages 131-146 ISBN 0-902238-06-X
  17. ^ THES - QS World University Ranking 2004
  18. ^ THES - QS World University Ranking 2005
  19. ^ THES - QS World University Ranking 2006
  20. ^ THES - QS World University Ranking 2007
  21. ^ THES - QS World University Ranking 2005
  22. ^ http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_102-202.htm Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007
  23. ^ http://www.che.de/downloads/CHE_ExcellenceRanking_AP99.pdf
  24. ^ Queen Mary in top 10 UK universities for student employability. Queen Mary, University of London press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  25. ^ Table: Best graduate starting salaries. The Sunday Times University Guide 2005 press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  26. ^ HERO - Higher Education & Research Opportunities in the UK: RAE 2001 : Results
  27. ^ Guardian University Guide for Physics. Retrieved on 2008-04-03.

[edit] External links

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Recognised bodies of the University of London
v • d • e
The 1994 Group of research-led British universities