Collection KW - KING'S COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

Key Information

Reference code

KW

Title

KING'S COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

Date(s)

  • 1878-1939 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent

29 boxes, 5 volumes, 2 files

Scope and content

Records, 1878-1939, of King's College London Ladies' and Women's Departments and King's College for Women from inception, and including material postdating absorption by King's College London in 1915. Comprising minutes, 1878-1928, including the Executive Committee of the Ladies' Department, 1878-1902, Committee of Management of the Women's Department, 1902-1910, Committee of Management of King's College for Women, 1910-1913, King's College for Women Delegacy, 1913-1915, Board of Principal Teachers of King's College for Women, 1910-1928, King's College for Women Board of Studies for Home Science and Economics, 1908-1914, and various finance committees from 1891 and other subordinate committees; agendas and draft minutes, 1885-1915; accounts, 1878-1916, comprising annual balances, 1878-1885, termly balances, 1889-1890, printed balance sheets, 1878-1905 (incomplete) with annual reports to the Committee of Management to 1887, comparative statements of income and expenditure, 1904-1916, printed accounts, 1910-1914, estimates, 1913-1915, and memoranda on estimates, 1914-1916; ledgers, 1890-1910, and journal, 1890-1896; cash books, 1890-1919; fees books, 1906-1919, and miscellaneous vouchers, receipts and bills, 1907-1914; warden's outletter books, 1910-1915; general and policy files, 1899-1919, on subjects including scholarships and prizes, courses, staff appointments, incorporation into the University of London, development of the college including establishment of the home science course, proposed amalgamation with King's College, and files relating to administration after amalgamation with King's College London in 1915, including proposed acquisition of a hostel for women; building and maintenance files, 1882-1917, including premises in Kensington Square; student address books, 1894-1917 and undated, most including details of courses being taken; record books, 1897-1918, with students' details; registers of attendance for various courses, 1909-1914; registers, 1878-1919, including exam class lists and lists of students; miscellaneous records, 1901-1914, comprising some student records and a manual of instructions for the Bursar; syllabi and prospectuses, 1878-1916; scrapbooks, 1888-1910, including lecture notices and press cuttings; rough notes summarising a course of lectures on hygiene and sanitation, 1913; printed ephemera, 1888-1923, with material postdating fusion with King's College in 1915, including historical sketch of King's College Ladies' Department, c1902, undated history of nos 11-12 Kensington Square, lectures, reports, prospectuses, and an appeal for the Home Science Department, 1914; material relating to King's College Hostel for Women, 58 Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater, 1921-1939, including minutes of the management committee, ledgers, cash books, wages books and inventory; 16mm film of King's College for Women staff and students, 1927-1928, with explanatory notes; entrance schedules for arts and sciences, 1914-1921, giving students' details; papers and correspondence, 1880-1924, on general administration, buildings and accommodation at Kensington Square and Bayswater, grants to the College, staff appointments, and transfer of King's College for Women to King's College and the future of the Home Science Department.

System of arrangement

The records are arranged in the following series: minute books (Ref: KW/M); agendas and draft minutes (KW/AM); accounts (KWA/ACC); ledgers (KWA/L); cash books (KWA/CB); fees books (KWA/FB); warden's outletter books (KWA/OLB); general and policy files (KWA/GPF); building and maintenance files (KWA/BF); student address books (KWA/RAD); record books (KWA/REC); registers of attendance (KWA/RAT); registers (KWA/R); miscellaneous records (KWA/MISC); syllabi and prospectuses (KW/SYL); scrapbooks (KWA/SCR); lecture notes (KWA/LECT); printed ephemera (KWA/EPH); King's College Hostel for Women (K/HOS); 16mm film (KWA/TP); entrance schedules (KWA/E); papers and correspondence (KAS/AC11). References, however, are expected to change on recataloguing.

General Information

Name of creator

(1908-1928)

Biographical history

Supported by G C W Warr, Professor of Classics at King's College London, and the Principal Alfred Barry, from 1878 lectures for ladies were held in the old town hall in Kensington. Attendance outgrew the lecture rooms, which in 1879 were moved to a house in Observatory Avenue, Kensington. From 1881 moves were made to found a ladies' department of King's College based on this initiative, with the necessary statutory powers obtained by an Act of Parliament which received the royal assent in 1882. The Ladies' Department was inaugurated in 1885 at no 13 Kensington Square. It was to be administered, under the Council of King's College, by an executive committee. The principal of King's College was head of the department, with a lady superintendent (from 1891 known as the vice principal) as his deputy in Kensington Square. The department's function at this period was not to prepare its students for definite professional careers, but to give them a taste of a liberal education. Under Lilian Faithfull as vice-principal (1894-1907) the department developed the character of a university college. In 1898 the application for the admission of women to the King's College associateship was granted by the Council. From 1902 the department was known as the Women's Department, and students took examinations for London University degrees and Oxford or Cambridge diplomas. A movement for university education in home science, although controversial among educationists, resulted in courses beginning in 1908. At that period the policy of the department, with the concurrence of the Delegacy of King's College and the Senate of the University, was to establish on a new site in Kensington a complete university college for women. Under the King's College London Transfer Act (1908), in 1910 the Women's Department was incorporated in the University of London with a distinct existence as King's College for Women. Owing to pressure on space from increasing numbers, nos 11 and 12 Kensington Square were added to the College's premises in 1911-1912. In 1913 a special delegacy for King's College for Women was constituted by the Senate of the University of London. However, in 1913 the Haldane report of the Royal Commission on the University of London unexpectedly recommended that the Home Science Department alone should be developed in Kensington. On a new site at Campden Hill, Kensington (the Blundell Hall estate), originally intended for the whole of King's College for Women, buildings for the Household and Social Science Department (after 1928 King's College for Household and Social Science) were begun in 1914 and went into use in 1915. The conversion of King's College to a co-educational institution by the absorption of King's College for Women was agreed in 1914 and the arts and science departments moved from Kensington Square to the Strand in January 1915. King's College for Women in the Strand remained constitutionally a separate legal entity, since the Transfer Act of 1908 could only be altered by Act of Parliament, but for all practical purposes King's College for Women became an integral part of King's College. The number of women students began to increase rapidly and in 1921 King's College Hostel for Women opened in Bayswater, subsequently expanded from time to time by taking in adjoining houses.

Name of creator

(1885-1905)

Biographical history

Name of creator

(1928-1953)

Biographical history

King's College of Household and Social Science opened in 1928 and evolved out of the Household and Social Science Department of King's College for Women, which opened in 1915. Queen Elizabeth College replaced King's College of Household and Social Science, receiving its Royal Charter in 1954, and prevailed until 1985 when it merged with King's College London and Chelsea College.

Conditions governing access

Administrative records are generally closed for 20 years except for published material and some committee and other minutes.

Where open, access is subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.

Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Archives.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Finding aids

Lists available in reading room at King's College London Archives.

Existence and location of originals

Off-campus collection

Please note: We require 7 days notice to retrieve this collection as part, or all of it, is held off-campus. Read more ›

Related materials

King's College London Archives holds records of the successor bodies of King's College for Women, which became Queen Elizabeth College.

A former student and teacher at King’s College Ladies’ Department, Edith Morley, wrote a memoir of her time there in the 1890s, later published as Before and after: reminiscences of a working life, edited by Barbara Morris (Reading, Two Rivers Press, 2016)

Related descriptions

Alternative identifier(s)

Genre access points

Rules and/or conventions used

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.

Script(s)

Archivist's note

Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project. Sources: F J C Hearnshaw, The Centenary History of King's College London 1828-1928 (George G Harrap & Company Ltd, London, 1929), pp 312-18, 376-8, 438-42, 455-7, and Hilda D Oakeley, 'King's College for Women', in ibid pp 489-509.

Accession area

Related genres