Royal College of Science Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

The Department of Physics has its origins in the teaching of Mechanical Science at the Government School of Mines and Science (later the Royal School of Mines) which opened in 1851. In 1853 Applied Mechanics and Experimental Physics were taught at the School. After 1872 Physics, Chemistry and Natural History were transferred to South Kensington.
Astronomy was taught from 1882, with the first Professor of Astronomical Physics being appointed in 1887. In 1911 a Department and Committee for Technical Optics was established, which in 1918 separated from the Department of Physics. By 1926, the department had become a postgraduate section of the Department of Physics, and later became the Applied Optics Section.