The Royal College of Science has its earliest origins in the Royal College of Chemistry founded under the auspices of Prince Albert in 1845, located first in Hanover Square and then from 1846 in somewhat cheaper premises in Oxford Street. Cash-strapped from the start as a private institution, in 1853 it was merged in with the School of Mines, founded in 1851 in Jermyn Street, and placed under the newly created British government Science and Art Department, although it continued to retain its own premises and substantially its own identity.