King's College London Department of History

Courses in English Literature and Modern History were provided in the Senior Department from 1831 and in the Department of General Literature and Science shortly afterwards. English and History were separated in 1855. The installation of Samuel Rawson Gardiner as first Professor in 1876 marked the beginning of a focus in the department on the political and constitutional history of Tudor and Stuart England. The department underwent considerable enlargement in staff and in the breadth of its teaching from around 1912 under Professor Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw, especially with the establishment of the Rhodes Chair of Imperial History in 1919. The department became part of the Faculty of Arts in 1893 and the School of Humanities in 1989.