Cass Business School moved to new premises in the London Borough of Islington, and changed its name as part of a strategy formed by Lord Currie of Marylebone, who had become Dean the year before, to compete as an international business school in a market dominated by US universities. The school had previously been spread out across the City of London's mainly residential Barbican Centre development. Half of the £40 million funding for the new building came from the reserves of City, University of London. The school also received a gift from Sir John Cass's Foundation, founded in 1748 to educate children in
John Cass John Cass Foundation School as well as providing for the establishment of the Sir John Cass Technical Institute, which was founded in 1899 and moved into newly built premises at 31 Jewry Street, London, in 1902; becoming Sir John Cass College in 1950. In 1965, the College's Department of Fine and Applied art merged with the Department of Silversmithing and Allied Crafts from the Central School of Art to form the Sir John Cass School of Art, which moved into its own new premises at Central House, opposite the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The Sir John Cass College merged with the