Royal Holloway College, University of London

Thomas Holloway (1800-1883) was a highly successful pill and ointment manufacturer, who pioneered the use of product advertising. He married Jane Driver in 1840, and together they built up a large and prosperous business. Having no descendants, Holloway decided to use his fortune for philanthropic causes, and was encouraged by his wife to found a college for the higher education of women. He purchased the Mount Lee estate in Egham in 1874, and building commenced on a large scale - Holloway and his architect William Henry Crossland wanted to recreate the gothic style of the Chateau of Chambord. Jane Holloway died in 1875, and the project became a memorial to her, though Holloway left the overseeing of the building work to his brother-in-law, George Martin. Thomas Holloway died before either project was completed, but not before the composition of a Royal Holloway College Foundation Deed (Oct 1883), which assigned the management and government of the College to twelve Governors, including the three Trustees of the College Estate, appointed by Holloway. He also left a large sum of money with which to endow the College. The College was officially opened by Queen Victoria on June 30th 1886.

The College opened in 1887 with twenty-eight students. By 1890 numbers had doubled and between 1920 and 1946 there was an average of just under two hundred students a session.

When Royal Holloway was founded London University was not yet a teaching university, but women as well as men were eligible for its degrees and the foundation deed of the College allowed the students to take degrees either at London or at any other university in the United Kingdom which would admit them to degrees or to degree examinations. In 1897 the Governors of Royal Holloway College called a conference to discuss whether the College should become an independent university, part of a larger university for women or part of the proposed teaching university for London. In the event it became a School of London University and had direct representation on the Senate, but owing to the fact that it lay outside the geographical boundaries established for the University, its inclusion had to be effected by a special act of Parliament. Following the reform of the University of London's constitution in 1926, Royal Holloway College was excluded from the Committee's first list of schools which were given direct representation on the Senate and the proposed Collegiate Council and the Governors felt obliged to protest in order to have the proposals changed. The position of the College in London University was then finally established although it has frequently been criticised as being too remote from the centre of things.

The life of the College was very much disrupted by the Second World War. On the outbreak of the War London University's administrative staff were displaced from Bloomsbury by the Ministry of Information and were installed at Royal Holloway College where they occupied the Picture Gallery and about one and a half corridors on the west side of Founder's Building. They stayed until 1941 when the War Office requisitioned the entire east side of the building for an ATS unit and the University was removed to Richmond. The College staff and students were then confined to the West side and to the North and South Towers for teaching and living accomodation and all the students, as well as many of the staff, were allocated a single study/bedroom in place of the two rooms provided for in the foundation deed. In 1943 the Governors appointed a Post-War Policy Committee to discuss the question of how the College should develop after the War. The Committee interviewed a large number of external witnesses, as well as representatives of the staff and students of the College and of Royal Holloway College Association. Its fundamental recommendations were that access to London should be made easier for the students and that the College should expand and become co-educational. Stemming from these it made further recommendations on staffing and finance. Lack of funds and building restrictions made it impossible for these recommendations to be implemented at once. Men were admitted in 1946 as non-resident post-graduate students and the number of undergraduates was increased by retaining the war-time arrangement of allocating each student one room instead of two. Numbers rose from 191 at the end of the Summer term of 1946 to 270 in the Autumn and then increased more steadily to 390 in 1962. In 1964 it became possible to embark on plans for expansion so as to admit men as undergraduates in 1965 and to increase the number of students to one thousand. This involved providing extra teaching and residential accomodation, first of all in converted houses in the neighbourhood of the College and more recently in new buildings on the main College estate. It also involved an increase in staff, a re-organisation of administrative work and radical changes in the size and functions of the Student's Union.

Royal Holloway College merged with Bedford College in 1985, and the joint institution became known as the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College.