Calendar: 1981-1982 Page 15

18 Sketch of the Development of King '5 College the colleges had sought with some persistence to form an independent local teaching university centred on their own educational work that the reconstituted University of London of 1900 came into being Before this complete overhaul of the institutions of London's higher education came about King's College had been providing instruction for young people of various ages and attainments for period of seventy years Nineteenth-century Growth of the College Any expectation that the bench of bishops intended to bring into being professional seminary in the Strand was soon shown to be wrong The theological department was not founded for fifteen years From the beginning no religious bar was imposed upon students The senior department came into being as finishing school with courses in general literature science and religion for young men about to enter business or proceed to another university From 1834 the general course was given greater coherence and three years satisfactory attendance was rewarded by the conferment of the Associateship of the College the oldest and most distinctive award conferred by King's still available to any student who pursues prescribed course The medical department prepared students under the rules of the societies serving the physicians and surgeons of the day and once it had secured an opportunity for extending clinical experience with the opening of King's College Hospital in Portugal Street in 1839 it was able to build up substantial school of medicine For many years however the main activity proceeding under the management of the College council was that of the junior department which in fact offered day-time schooling in traditional and modern subjects to hundreds of sons of London middle-class parents One of its functions was to provide regular fee income for penurious college which was experimenting and not always in rewarding way with professional courses at higher level another was to act as feeder for the senior department King's College School as it was called re- mained in the Strand buildings in the midst of an undergraduate population until its removal in 1897 to Wimbledon it remained under the government of the Council until 1909 Engineering became responsibility of the College in 1839 develop- ing first mainly on the side of architecture and civil engineering and then with the growth of interest in electrical engineering broadening