The University of London (informally referred to as London University) is a collegiate research university located in London, England, consisting of 18 constituent colleges, 10 research institutes and a number of central bodies.

The university is the second largest university by number of full-time students in the United Kingdom, with 142,990 campus-based students and over 50,000 distance learning students in the University of London International Programmes. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1836, as a degree-awarding examination board for students holding certificates from University College London (previously called London University) and King's College London and "other such other Institutions, corporate or unincorporated, as shall be established for the purpose of Education, whether within the Metropolis or elsewhere within our United Kingdom". The university moved to a federal structure in 1900.

For most practical purposes, ranging from admissions to funding, the constituent colleges operate on a semi-independent basis, with some recently obtaining the power to award their own degrees whilst remaining in the federal university. The nine largest colleges of the university are King's College London; University College London; Birkbeck; Goldsmiths; the London Business School; Queen Mary; Royal Holloway; SOAS; and the London School of Economics and Political Science. The specialist colleges of the university include Heythrop College, specialising in philosophy and theology, and St George's, specialising in medicine. Imperial College London was formerly a member before it left the University of London in 2007. On 16 July 2015 it was announced that City University London would join the federal University of London, becoming one of its constituent colleges from August 2016.

London University was a university constituency electing one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, from 1868 to 1950.

Boundaries, electorate and history

This university constituency was created by the Reform Act 1867. The first election took place during the United Kingdom general election, 1868. The constituency returned one Member of Parliament, using the first past the post electoral system.

The constituency was not a physical area. Its electorate consisted of the graduates of the University of London. Before 1918 only male graduates qualified. From 1918 all graduates qualified, including women over thirty (reduced to twenty one when universal adult suffrage on equal terms was introduced before the United Kingdom general election, 1929).

The constituency was almost abolished in 1918. The original proposal of the Speaker's Conference, which considered electoral reform before the Representation of the People Act 1918 was enacted, was to combine all the English and Welsh universities except for Oxford and Cambridge into a three-member constituency. However, during consideration of the legislation it was agreed that London University should continue to return one member. The University of Wales was also given its own seat. The other universities, which were still to be combined, had their proposed representation reduced to two members. (Source: Pugh).

SOAS, University of London (the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS has produced several heads of states, government ministers, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and many other notable leaders around the world.

Located in the heart of Bloomsbury in central London, SOAS is recognised as the leading institution for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and is ranked amongst the top universities in Britain. It specialises in the humanities, languages and social sciences of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and offers around 350 undergraduate bachelor's degree combinations, and over 100 one-year master's degrees.

History

Origins

The School of Oriental Studies was founded in 1916 at 2 Finsbury Circus, London, the then premises of the London Institution. The school received its royal charter on 5 June 1916 and admitted its first students on 18 January 1917. The school was formally inaugurated a month later on 23 February 1917 by King George V. Among those in attendance were Earl Curzon of Kedleston, formerly Viceroy of India, and other cabinet officials.

Birkbeck, University of London (formerly Birkbeck College, informally Birkbeck), is a public research university located in Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom, which specialises in evening higher education, and a constituent college of the federal University of London.

It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is in the evening. It also admits full-time (as well as part-time) students for PhDs. Its staff members have excellent research reputations in subjects such as English, Economics, Statistics, History, History of Art, Philosophy, Psychology, Spanish and Science. It also offers many continuing education courses leading to certificates and diplomas, foundation degrees as well as other short courses.

Birkbeck counts four Nobel prize winners and a British Prime Minister among its former students and faculty. Birkbeck, being part of the University of London, shares the University’s academic standards and awards University of London degrees. In common with the other University of London colleges, Birkbeck has also secured its own independent degree awarding powers, which were confirmed by the Privy Council in July 2012. The quality of degrees awarded by Birkbeck was confirmed by the UK Quality Assurance Agency following institutional audits in 2005 and 2010.

Jillian Rose Banks (born June 16, 1988), known simply as Banks (often stylized as BANKS), is an American singer and songwriter from Orange County, California. She releases music under Harvest Records, Good Years Recordings and IAMSOUND Records imprints of the major label Universal Music Group.

She has toured internationally with The Weeknd and was also nominated for the Sound of 2014 award by the BBC and an MTV Brand New Nominee in 2014. On May 3, 2014, Banks was dubbed as an "Artist to Watch" by FoxWeekly.

Early life

Jillian Rose Banks was born in Orange County, California. Banks started writing songs at the age of fifteen. She taught herself piano when she received a keyboard from a friend to help her through her parents' divorce. She says she "felt very alone and helpless. I didn't know how to express what I was feeling or who to talk to."

Career

2013–present: Breakthrough and Goddess

Banks used the audio distribution website SoundCloud to put out her music before securing a record deal. Her friend Lily Collins used her contacts to pass along her music to people in the industry; specifically Katy Perry's DJ Yung Skeeter, and she began working with the label Good Years Recordings. Her first official single, called "Before I Ever Met You" was released in February 2013. The song which had been on a private SoundCloud page ended up being played by BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe. Banks released her first EP Fall Over by IAMSOUND Records and Good Years Recordings.Billboard called her a "magnetic writer with songs to obsess over." Banks released her second EP called London by Harvest Records and Good Years Recordings in 2013 to positive reviews from music critics, receiving a 78 from Metacritic. Her song "Waiting Game" from the EP was featured in the 2013 Victoria's Secret holiday commercial.

Charles Dickens' works are especially associated with London which is the setting for many of his novels. These works do not just use London as a backdrop but are about the city and its character.

Dickens described London as a Magic lantern, a popular entertainment of the Victorian era, which projected images from slides. Of all Dickens' characters 'none played as important a role in his work as that of London itself', it fired his imagination and made him write. In a letter to John Forster, in 1846, Dickens wrote 'a day in London sets me up and starts me', but outside of the city, 'the toil and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic lantern is IMMENSE!!'

However, of the identifiable London locations that Dickens used in his work, scholar Clare Pettitt notes that many no longer exist, and, while 'you can track Dickens' London, and see where things were, but they aren't necessarily still there'.

In addition to his later novels and short stories, Dickens' descriptions of London, published in various newspapers in the 1830s, were released as a collected edition Sketches by Boz in 1836.

London is a poem by Samuel Johnson, produced shortly after he moved to London. Written in 1738, it was his first major published work. The poem in 263 lines imitates Juvenal's Third Satire, expressed by the character of Thales as he decides to leave London for Wales. Johnson imitated Juvenal because of his fondness for the Roman poet and he was following a popular 18th-century trend of Augustan poets headed by Alexander Pope that favoured imitations of classical poets, especially for young poets in their first ventures into published verse.

London was published anonymously and in multiple editions during 1738. It quickly received critical praise, notably from Pope. This would be the second time that Pope praised one of Johnson's poems; the first being for Messiah, Johnson's Latin translation of Pope's poem. Part of that praise comes from the political basis of the poem. From a modern view, the poem is outshined by Johnson's later poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes as well as works like his A Dictionary of the English Language, his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and his periodical essays for The Rambler, The Idler, and The Adventurer.