University College London UCL as alumni, faculty or researchers. UCL was founded on 11 February 1826 under the name London University, as an alternative to the Anglican universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London University's first Warden was Leonard Horner, who was the first scientist to head a British university. Despite the commonly held belief that the philosopher Jeremy Bentham was the founder of UCL, his direct involvement was limited to the purchase of share No. 633, at a cost of £100 paid in nine instalments between December 1826 and January 1830. In 1828 he did nominate a friend to sit on the council,
University College London Imperial College London were announced in 2002. The proposal provoked strong opposition from UCL teaching staff and students and the AUT union, which criticised "the indecent haste and lack of consultation", leading to its abandonment by the UCL Provost Sir Derek Roberts. The blogs that helped to stop the merger are preserved, though some of the links are now broken: see David Colquhoun's blog and the Save UCL blog, which was run by David Conway, a postgraduate student in the department of Hebrew and Jewish studies. The London Centre for Nanotechnology was established in 2003 as a joint venture between