Collection KWA/RAD - ADDRESS BOOKS: King's College for Women student records

Key Information

Reference code

KWA/RAD

Title

ADDRESS BOOKS: King's College for Women student records

Date(s)

  • 1894-1955 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent

24 volumes

Scope and content

King's College for Women student address books, 1894-1917 (Ref: KWA/RAD), student address book, 1908-1955 (Ref: Q/RAD1). Information typically includes student addresses and courses being taken.

System of arrangement

Organised chronologically

General Information

Name of creator

(1953-1985)

Biographical history

Queen Elizabeth College, which came into being with the granting of a Royal Charter in 1953, succeeded the Home Science and Economics classes of King's College Women's Department and King's College for Women, which started in 1908; the Household and Social Science Department of King's College for Women, which opened in 1915; and King's College of Household and Social Science, which operated from 1928. The amalgamation of the College with King's College London and Chelsea College was completed in 1985.

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.

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.

Conditions governing access

Files containing personal data are closed for 80 years and sensitive personal data for 100 years from the date of the most recent document in the file.

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

Detailed lists are available for consultation in the King's College London Archives Reading Room.

Related materials

King's College for Women Registers of Attendance (Ref: KWA/RAT).

Related descriptions

Alternative identifier(s)

Place access points

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

Sources: King's College London catalogues; Neville Marsh, The history of Queen Elizabeth College (London, 1986). Compiled by Beverley Ager as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

Accession area