Westfield College was a small college situated in Kidderpore Avenue, Hampstead, London, and was a constituent college of the University of London from 1882 to 1989[1]. The college originally admitted only women as students and became coeducational in 1964. In 1989, Westfield College merged with Queen Mary College. The merged institution was named Queen Mary and Westfield College, still the charter name, though the present branding name is "Queen Mary, University of London".
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The College was founded in 1882 by Constance Louisa Maynard (1849-1935) and Ann Dudin Brown (1822-1917)[2], who was the founding benefactress and Council member from 1882-1917. Eleanor Constance Lodge was Principal of Westfield from 1921-31 and Kathleen Chesney from 1951-62. Until the mid 1980s residences were still segregated.
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. Most student accommodation, administrative offices and several academic departments continued to be based at the Hampstead campus until 1992, however, and the College retained its separate identity. The new, combined, College was finally located at Queen Mary's site in Mile End, East London from 1992 onwards. 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 called "Castle Adamant in Hampstead", was published in 1983 by Janet Sondheimer.
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; whilst this part of the site is now for sale, it is still in use. 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 used the name "Queen Mary, University of London" for day to day purposes, although the name in its charter has not been amended. The college's student accommodation complex (opened in 2004) is officially named the Westfield Student Village as a reminder of the history of the college.
Moreover, the Westfield Trust Prize, an academic cash prize given to outstanding undergraduate or postgraduates studying at Queen Mary, has been established in memory of the college.
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