UCL Special Collections, Archives and Records

Summary by Amara Thornton, with additional information from Colin Penman, UCL Special Collections, Archives and Records

University College London was established in 1828 in order to provide higher education to (mainly) middle-class students. Unlike Oxford and Cambridge, the other two universities in England at that time, UCL enabled students from any religious background to gain higher education.  When the University of London was set up in the 1830s, UCL students were then able to sit for degree examinations at the University of London examination board.  In the 1870s women were admitted as UCL students on the same terms as men.

UCL had an Archaeology department from the 1880s, and in 1892 Flinders Petrie was appointed the first Professor of Egyptian Archaeology, a post funded by Amelia Blandford Edwards.  Edwards' bequest was given to UCL because the College admitted women. 

UCL Special Collections, Archives and Records holds the records of UCL, including material relating to UCL Egyptology and Archaeology departments organisation, staff and students, as well as the Slade School archives.

Scope of collection:
Student records, college prospectus, registers, fees books, correspondence, administrative records, plans, photographs.

Website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/digital-collections/collections/records
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @UCLRecords

Further Reading

Hale Bellot, H. 1929. University College London 1826-1926. London: University of London Press.

Harte, N. & North J. 2004. The World of UCL, 1828-2004. London: UCL Press.

Harte, N. 1986. The University of London 1836-1986: an illustrated history. London: Athelone Press.

Janssen, R. 1992. The first hundred years: Egyptology at University College London. London: Petrie Museum.

Sheppard, K. 2015. Margaret Alice Murray and Archaeological Training in the Classroom: Preparing “Petrie’s Pups”. In W. Carruthers (Ed.). Histories of Egyptology: interdisciplinary measures. New York: Routledge.