February 2026

February 2026 marks 200 years since the foundation of London’s first university. Local resident Georgina Brewis, who is professor of social history at UCL, has co-authored a new book that tells the story

By the 1820s, London had become the largest city in the world with over a million inhabitants. Unlike most other European capital cities, however, it had no university.

Access to England’s two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, was restricted to members of the Church of England, and the high cost of study meant they were accessible only by the very wealthy. Anyone of any other faith – at the time, England’s main religious minorities included Jews, Roman Catholics and Non-Conformists such as Quakers, Baptists and Methodists – was barred from higher education. The foundation of London’s first university in Bloomsbury in February 1826 is therefore an important moment for the capital. However, most general histories of London tend to neglect education, and research has overlooked the distinctive culture forged by a new type of higher education student. This new book tells the story of students in the capital over 200 years.

The self-styled London University offered non-residential, affordable education to the sons of middle-class professionals. There were no religious tests and the curriculum was much broader than at the ancient universities, including medicine, science, modern foreign languages and humanities. This was a radical step in the 1820s and the institution faced backlash from the establishment and a hostile press. The Tory newspaper John Bull repeatedly mocked what it called the “Cockney college”. At first denied a royal charter, the university could not offer degrees until 1836, when the government created the University of London as an examining body and the original institution changed its name to University College London.

What did the arrival of the London University mean for Wanstead and Woodford? For students from non-Anglican homes, particularly the area’s significant Quaker community, it certainly offered new opportunities. The modest fees and the flexibility of the curriculum meant boys and men (and they were only men until experiments with admitting women in the late 1860s) who were already working in a profession were able to study part-time. Around half of the first students came from homes in London or surrounding counties, including Essex, though Wanstead and Woodford were too far for daily commuting at this date. Walking was still the main mode of transport for most students when the university opened, so those living further afield took lodgings in Bloomsbury.

London’s public transport system developed rapidly during the mid-19th century, with horse-drawn omnibus routes and the Eastern Counties Railway improving connections to the east of the capital. By the 1880s, landladies in Wanstead were advertising convenient lodgings for students at the university.

Although facilities at the London University were basic in the early years, students took advantage of the capital’s museums and exhibitions. There were relatively few theatres and no music halls of the sort that were to flourish later, though taverns provided musical entertainment, and students living in lodgings enjoyed hosting their friends to simple meals. Boating on the river, cricket, the racquet sport of ‘fives’, ice skating and bathing were all popular among students. From the first session, students formed a range of debating and discussion societies, allowing them to engage in the reformist politics of the 1830s and 1840s. Yet London life could be lonely and overwhelming, as is clear from student recollections across two centuries, and for many from semi-rural homes, the bricks and mortar of Bloomsbury proved a shock.

Although it took decades to become fully established, the London University was to flourish. Students were unconstrained by religious tests and under only limited supervision, with unparalleled opportunities to invent their own traditions. Writing of the 1840s, one author suggested London was “at that time a much more awakening place of education for young men than almost any Oxford college.”

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Student London: A New History of Higher Education in the Capital by Georgina Brewis and Sam Blaxland is published with open access by UCL Press. For more information, visit wnstd.com/student