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Imperial College London
Three royal colleges are merging right now beneath your feet... well, they were in 1907 when King Edward VII signed the charter creating Imperial College London from the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines, and the City & Guilds College. Standing on Exhibition Road, you're in the heart of what Prince Albert dubbed "Albertopolis" - this entire district was built using profits from his Great Exhibition of 1851. Look up at that gleaming Foster & Partners business school building to your right - that dramatic metal cylinder houses six lecture theaters stacked like wedding cakes, costing Dr. Gary Tanaka £26 million when it opened in 2004. Behind it, the Queen's Tower pierces the skyline, the last surviving piece of the original Imperial Institute that Queen Victoria herself opened in 1893 after laying its foundation stone five years earlier. Here's what most visitors miss: during World War I, this "small" college of just 900 students sent a staggering 300 of them to fight, along with 30 staff members. The remaining students formed their own Home Guard platoon and kept studying even when German bombs landed on campus. Today, as you walk through those glass doors into the main entrance, you're entering Britain's only university that's consistently ranked in the global top ten for science and engineering - built on land that was literally paid for by the world's first international exhibition.
Did You Know?
- Founded in 1907, Imperial College London was created by the merger of three historic institutions—the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines, and the City & Guilds College—driven by a national effort to boost Britain’s scientific and technical prowess at a time of growing international rivalry and even as the Spanish flu pandemic and the threat of war loomed over Europe.
- The Queen’s Tower, a striking 287-foot (87-meter) campanile, is the only remaining part of the original Imperial Institute building, preserved after public outcry against its demolition in the 1960s; today, it stands as a free-standing landmark on campus, echoing the vision of Prince Albert, who first envisioned South Kensington as a center for science and culture.
- During World War I, Imperial College’s laboratories were temporarily taken over by the military, and students and staff directly contributed to the war effort, including setting up a drug production line in the Chemistry department to supply medicines for troops—a remarkable example of academic innovation in a time of national crisis.