History of University College London tribute. Bentham's body is on public display at UCL in a wooden cabinet, at the end of the South Cloisters of the UCL Main Building; he had directed in his will that he wanted his body to be preserved as a lasting memorial to the university. This 'Auto-Icon' has become famous. Unfortunately, when it came to his head, the preservation process went disastrously wrong and left it badly disfigured. A wax head was made to replace it; the actual head is now kept in the college vaults. In 1827, a year after the founding of UCL, construction of the Main
History of University College London Wellcome Foundation, on 1 January 2005. In 2007, Grant separated teaching from research in the Faculty of Life Sciences. In the process UCL's eminent departments of Pharmacology and Physiology vanished (see Department of Pharmacology at University College London, 1905 – 2007. UCL applied to the Privy Council for the power to award degrees in its own right. This was granted in September 2005, and the first degrees were awarded in 2008. History of University College London University College London (UCL) was founded on 11 February 1826, under the name "London University", as a secular alternative to the strictly religious universities