Student London

A new history of higher education in the capital

Georgina Brewis (Author), Sam Blaxland (Author)

Students have formed a significant part of London’s population since the foundation of its first university in 1826 and Student London centres their experiences in the city’s history. To tell the 200-year story of student life in the capital this book draws on a rich source base that ranges from institutional records to college magazines, court reports to secret service files, and many hundreds of student memoirs and oral histories. It offers a detailed examination of life at the original London University (known as University College London since 1836) alongside many other institutions that eventually joined with UCL. Student London captures a diverse range of higher education experiences across medical schools, teacher training colleges and specialist institutes. A sweeping history of an ever-changing city, the book engages in much greater depth with London’s imperial history than earlier studies of higher education. It examines students’ everyday lives, fees and funding, collegiate cultures, social and political engagement, physical and mental health, recreation, sports and leisure. In doing so, it charts changing student attitudes to class, race, gender, sex and sexuality across two centuries.

List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
A note on terminology
Timeline of institutional changes to universities in London

Introduction
1 London’s first university and its students, 1826–1858
2 Mid-Victorian London, 1858–1890
3 Students at the fin de siècle, 1890–1914
4 The Great War and the reconstruction of university life, 1914–1930
5 Modernity interrupted, 1930–1945
6 Austerity London, 1945–1963
7 Student life in ‘Swinging London’, 1963–1979
8 Cutbacks and commercialisation, 1979–2003
9 Into the twenty-first century

Appendix
Bibliography

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806550166

Number of illustrations: 115

Publication date: 01 February 2026

EPUB ISBN: 9781806550173

Georgina Brewis (Author)

Georgina Brewis is Professor of Social History at UCL, where she specialises in the nineteenth and twentieth century histories of education, charity and humanitarianism.