Green; the Cambridge House, Camberwell Road; Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel; Mansfield House, Canning Town; the Robert Browning Settlement, Southwark; and the Passmore Edwards Settlement, St Pancras. There are also several women’s settlements of a similar character. The People’s Palace, Mile End Road, opened in 1887, is both a recreative and an educational institution (called East London College) erected and subsequently extended mainly through the liberality of the Drapers’ Company and of private donors.
In early times the priories and other religious houses had generally grammar schools attached to them. Those at St Peter’s, Westminster, and St Paul’s, attained a fame which has survived, while other similar foundations lapsed, such as St Anthony’s Public schools. (Threadneedle Street, City), at which Sir Thomas More, Archbishop Whitgift and many other men of eminence received education. Certain of the schools were re-endowed after the dissolution of the monasteries. St Peter’s College or Westminster School (see Westminster) is unique among English public schools of the highest rank in maintaining its original situation in London. Other early metropolitan foundations have been moved in accordance with modern tendencies either into the country or to sites aloof from the heart of London. Thus Charterhouse school, part of the foundation of Sir Thomas Sutton (1611), was moved from Finsbury to Godalming, Surrey; St Paul’s School occupies modern buildings at Hammersmith, and Christ’s Hospital is at Horsham, Sussex. Of other schools, Merchant Taylors’ was founded by the Company of that name in 1561, and has occupied, since 1875, the premises vacated by Charterhouse School. The Mercers’ School, Dowgate, was originally attached to the hospital of St Thomas of Acon, which was sold to the Mercers’ Company in 1522, on condition that the company should maintain the school. The City of London School, founded in Milk Street, Cheapside, by the City Corporation in 1835, occupies modern buildings on the Victoria Embankment. Dulwich College originated in the foundation of the College of God’s Gift by Edward Alleyn in 1626, and is now constituted as one of the principal English public schools. St Olave’s and St Saviour’s grammar school, Southwark, received its charter in 1571. Both classical and modern education is provided; a large number of scholarships are maintained out of the foundation, and exhibitions from the school to the universities and other higher educational institutions.
London University.—The University of London was incorporated by royal charter in 1836, as an examining body for conferring degrees. Its scope and powers were extended by subsequent charters, and in 1900, under the University of London Act 1898, it was reorganized as both a teaching and an examining body. The function of the academic department is to control the teaching branch, internal examinations, &c., and that of the external department to control external examinations, while the university extension system occupies a third department. The university is governed by a senate consisting of a chancellor, chairman of convocation and 54 members, whose appointment is shared by the Crown, convocation, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons, the Inns of Court, the Law Society, the London County Council, City Corporation, City and Guilds Institute, University and King’s Colleges and the faculties. The faculties are theology, arts, law, music, medicine, science, engineering and economics. The schools of the University include University College, Gower Street, and King’s College, Somerset House (with both of which preparatory schools are connected), East London College and numerous institutions devoted to special faculties both within and without London. The university in part occupies buildings which formerly belonged to the Imperial Institute.
Other Educational Institutions.—The Board of Education directly administers the following educational institutions—the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, with its branch at Bethnal Green, from both of which objects are lent to various institutions for educational purposes; the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, with which is incorporated the Royal School of Mines; the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom and the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street; the Solar Physics Observatory, South Kensington; and the Royal College of Art, South Kensington. At Gresham College, Basinghall Street, City, founded in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham, and moved to its present site in 1843, lectures are given in the principal branches of science, law, divinity, medicine, &c.
Some further important establishments and institutions may be tabulated here:—
Architecture.—The Royal Institute of British Architects, Conduit Street, conducts examinations and awards diplomas.
Education.—The College of Preceptors, Bloomsbury, conducts examinations of persons engaged in education and awards diplomas.
Engineering.—A School of Practical Engineering is maintained at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham.
Law.—The Inns of Court are four—Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn. A joint board of examiners examines students previous to admission. The Council of Legal Education superintends the education and subsequent examination of students. (See Inns of Court.) The Law Society is the superintending body for examination and admission in the case of solicitors.
Medical.—The Royal College of Physicians is in Pall Mall East, and the Royal College of Surgeons is in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The Society of Apothecaries is in Water Lane, City. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is in Red Lion Square, and the Royal Veterinary College at Camden Town. (The principal hospitals having schools are noted in the list of hospitals, Section VII.)
Military and Naval.—The Royal Military College and the Ordnance College are at Woolwich; the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
Music.—The principal educational institutions are—the Royal Academy of Music, Tenterden Street, Hanover Square; the Royal College of Music, South Kensington; Guildhall School, City, near the Victoria Embankment; London College, Great Marlborough Street; Trinity College, Manchester Square; Victoria College, Berners Street; and the Royal College of Organists, Bloomsbury.
Scientific Societies.—Numerous learned societies have their headquarters in London, and the following may especially be noticed here. Burlington House, in Piccadilly, built in 1872 on the site of a mansion of the earls of Burlington, houses the Royal Society, the Chemical, Geological, Linnaean and Royal Astronomical Societies, the Society of Antiquaries and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which the annual meetings take place at different British or colonial towns in succession. The Royal Society, the most dignified and influential of all, was incorporated by Charles II. in 1663. It originally occupied rooms in Crane Court, City, and was moved in 1780 to Somerset House, where others of the societies named were also located. The Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, was established in 1754 for the encouragement of arts, manufactures and commerce. The Royal Institution, Albemarle Street, was founded in 1799, maintains a library and laboratories and promotes research in connexion with the experimental sciences. The Royal Geographical Society, occupying a building close to Burlington House in Savile Row, maintains a map-room open to the public, holds lectures by prominent explorers and geographers, and takes a leading part in the promotion of geographical discovery. The Royal Botanic Society has private gardens in the midst of Regent’s Park, where flower shows and general entertainments are held. The Royal Horticultural Society maintains gardens at Wisley, Surrey, and has an exhibition hall in Vincent Square, Westminster. The exhibitions of the Royal Agricultural Society are held at Park Royal, near Willesden. The Zoological Society maintains a magnificent collection of living specimens in the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, a popular resort.
Museums, Art Galleries, Libraries.—In the British Museum London possesses one of the most celebrated collections in the world, originated in 1753 by the purchase of Sir Hans Sloane’s collection and library by the government. The great building in Bloomsbury (1828–1852) with its massive Ionic portico, houses the collections of antiquities, coins, books, manuscripts and drawings, and contains the reading-rooms for the use of readers. The natural history branch was removed to a building at South Kensington (the Natural History Museum) in 1881, where the zoological, botanical and mineralogical exhibits are kept. Close to this museum is the Victoria and Albert Museum (formerly South Kensington Museum, 1857) for which an extension of buildings, from a fine design by Sir Aston Webb, was begun in 1899 and completed in ten years. Here are collections of pictures and drawings, including the Raphael cartoons, objects of art of every description, mechanical and scientific collections, and Japanese, Chinese and Persian collections, and an Indian section. In the vicinity, also, is the fine building of the Imperial Institute, founded in 1887 as an exhibition to illustrate the resources of all parts of the Empire, as well as an institution for the furtherance of imperial intercourse; though not developed on the scale originally intended. Other museums are Sir John Soane’s collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, while the scientific societies have libraries and in some cases collections of a specialized character, such as the museums of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal Architectural Society, and the Society of Art and the Parkes Museum of the Sanitary Institute. Among permanent art collections the first place is taken by the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. This magnificent collection was originated in 1824, and the building dates from 1838, but has been more than once enlarged. The building of the National Portrait Gallery, adjoining it, dates from 1896, but the nucleus of the collection was formed in 1858. The munificence of Sir Henry Tate provided the gallery, commonly named after him, by the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge, which contains the national collection of British art. The Wallace collection of paintings and objects of art, in Hertford House, Manchester Square, was bequeathed to the nation by the widow of Sir Richard Wallace in 1897. Dulwich College possesses a fine series of paintings, of the Dutch and other schools, bequeathed by Sir P. F. Bourgeois in 1811. There are also notable collections of pictures in several of the mansions of the nobility, government buildings, halls of the City Companies and elsewhere. No gallery in London is exclusively or especially devoted to sculpture. Of the periodical art exhibitions that of the Royal Academy is most noteworthy. It is held annually at Burlington House from the first Monday in May to the first Monday in August. It consists mainly of paintings, but includes a few drawings and examples of sculpture. Earlier in each year exhibitions of works by deceased British artists and by old masters are held, and the Gibson and Diploma Galleries are permanent exhibitions. At the Guildhall special exhibitions are
