Westfield College

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Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, England that was a constituent college of the University of London from 1882 until 1989. For most of its existence, it only admitted women as students.

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[edit] History

The College was founded in 1882 by Constance Louisa Maynard (1849-1935) and Ann Dudin Brown (1823-1917), who was the founding benefactress and Council member from 1882-1917. Eleanor Constance Lodge was Principal of Westfield from 1921-1931. Kathleen Chesney was Principal from 1951-1962. Until 1968 it was women-only, and as late as the early 1980s residences were segregated and the opposite sex were banned from each other's halls under the so-called "11:30 rule".

In the mid-to-late 1980s, the University of London underwent considerable reorganisation, and many smaller colleges were merged. Consequently, Westfield was merged with Queen Mary College in 1989, forming Queen Mary and Westfield College. The new college was situated at Queen Mary's site in Mile End, East London. However, some departments moved to King's College London and many academic staff moved to other colleges, such as Royal Holloway College.

The history of the College, entitled Castle Adamant in Hampstead, was published in 1983 by Janet Sondheimer.

[edit] Present day

King's College London took over the former Westfield site, which has been divided up over the years. The majority of the south side of the site (The Queen's Building and other teaching blocks) was demolished in the early 1990s to make way for The Westfield Apartments, a block of luxury private flats. The remainder of the south side (the Caroline Skeel Library, Ellison, Temple, Chesney and Stocks buildings) was used by King's College as student accommodation and as an archive; however, this part of the site is now for sale. The north side of the site (Queen Mother Hall, Bay House, Old House, Maynard, Lady Chapman, Orchard I and II, Dudin-Brown and Skeel buildings) remains in use as student accommodation, with Orchard I and II renamed for Lord Cameron and Rosalind Franklin, respectively. Until 2005, the Old House was home to the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

Since the early 2000s Queen Mary and Westfield College has gone by the name Queen Mary, University of London, although in its charter it is still formally named Queen Mary and Westfield. The college's new student accommodation complex (opened in 2004) is officially named the Westfield Student Village as a reminder of the history of the college.

[edit] Trivia

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Westfield was the prototype for the University for Women parodied in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Princess Ida.

The author Andrea Newman, who wrote Bouquet of Barbed Wire was an alumnus of the College, and another of her novels is set there.

Westfield was also the site of one of the Sex Pistols' earliest performances on November 21, 1975.

[edit] Alumni

[edit] External links