The Royal Indian Engineering College was a British college of Civil Engineering founded by Sir George Tomkyns Chesney in 1870. It was intended to train engineers for the Indian Public Works department. The work of the college was transferred to India in 1906.
The college was variously and colloquially referred to as "Cooper's Hill" and "I.C.E. College"[1], (I.C.E. being an acronym for Indian Civil Engineering). The college was also referred to as RIEC.
The college interiors were designed by English architect Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt. After the college moved out in 1906, the buildings were empty until bought in 1911 by Baroness Cheylesmore for use as a private home.[2] Later, the site at Cooper's Hill, Surrey, became the Runnymede Campus of Brunel University.
The college is mentioned by Rudyard Kipling who wrote that one of the main characters in Stalky & Co. — M'Turk — is supposed to be "going up for Cooper's Hill" following schooling at the fictionalised United Services College.
The college rugby union team, referred to by its opponents as "Cooper's Hill", was at one time one of the most prominent rugby clubs in England. It produced a number of famous nineteenth century international players including Finney, Price, Hutchinson, Macleod, Fowler. By the 1890s the team was deemed of medium strength, and a long way behind the form of its heyday. This was put down to boys leaving school earlier than they had previously, thus the team became composed of men who were physically smaller in stature and physique to their predecessors.[1] It boasted the following internationals who played for their countries whilst attending the college: