For two decades, since its establishment in 1836, the University of London made slow and often halting progress. Founded, primarily, to provide a route through higher education for those denied entry to Oxford and Cambridge, it was a peculiar institution. In effect, it was a Government department, in the form of a board of examiners with power to matriculate students and to award degrees. But this board was called the Senate; its chief officers were a Chancellor and a Vice-Chancellor; and its other members were Fellows. In fact it had the trappings of a university, but not its most obvious function – it did not teach. Candidates who took the degree examinations in Arts and Laws had to have attended courses, for at least two years, at colleges recognised by the Government: and those who were examined in Medicine had to have studied at a medical school recommended by the University and approved by the Government. The principal recognised institutions were the original University of London, renamed University College London (UCL) in 1836; King’s College London (KCL), its Anglican counterpart; and the medical schools of the great London hospitals. These provided the bulk of the candidates for degrees, and many of the examiners, who were engaged annually. But by 1858 the other non-medical recognised institutions ranged from the universities of the United Kingdom to over thirty provincial colleges and schools, many of them Roman Catholic and Nonconformist seminaries. And there were some fifty recognised, provincial medical schools, though less than thirty of them had produced successful London graduates.

From the outset, the University was dogged by denominational suspicions and antagonisms which reflected the partisan conflicts of parliamentary politics; by bitter struggles with and within the medical corporations; by selfinflicted wounds over the employment of examiners; and by a prolonged, three-way argument between the Senate, the graduates and successive Governments, over how and when the graduates should be given a place in the University’s governance.

None the less, by the end of 1857, 2707 candidates had passed the matriculation examination of the University. Only 1469 degrees had been awarded, however: because of the incidence of higher degrees, the number of graduates was probably no more than about twelve hundred, of whom a quarter were medical men.