History
A meeting of 17 of the City of London's livery companies in 1876 led to the foundation of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education (CGLI), which aimed to improve the training of craftsmen. The 2 main objectives were to create a Central Institution in London and to conduct a system of qualifying examinations in technical subjects.City & Guilds College
Faced with their continuing inability to find a substantial site, the Companies were eventually persuaded by the Secretary of the Science and Art Department, General Sir John Donnelly (who was also a Royal Engineer) to found their institution on the eighty-seven acre (350,000 m²) site at South Kensington bought by the 1851 Exhibition Commissioners (for GBP 342,500) for 'purposes of art and science' in perpetuity.
The Central Technical College building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, better known as the architect of the Natural History Museum. Located adjacent to the Central Institute on the site were the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science.
In 1907, the latter two colleges were incorporated by Royal Charter into the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the CGLI Central Technical College was renamed the City and Guilds College, but not incorporated into Imperial College until 1910.
Although the City & Guilds College was for much of its life governed through Imperial College, the City and Guilds Institute, together with a number of livery companies in their own right, have maintained seats on the governing body (the Court) of Imperial College. The Institute also continues to award the Diploma of Associateship of the City & Guilds of London Institute (ACGI), first awarded to students of the Central Institution who joined the earliest 3-year full-time courses which started in February 1885.
In 2002, under Imperial College's new faculty structure, City & Guilds College, along with the other constituent colleges, ceased to exist as a separate entity. Its name survives however in the City & Guilds College Union (C&GCU)—the student union for the Imperial College Faculty of Engineering and the Tanaka Business School—and in the City & Guilds College Association (C&GCA).
Alumni of the CGLI Central Technical College, the City & Guilds College and the new Imperial College Faculty of Engineering, unite under the City & Guilds College Association. Established in 1897 as the Old Centralians, the Association adopted its current name in 1992
Unable at once to find a large enough site within the City of London for their Central Institution, the CGLI first established Finsbury Technical College in Cowper Street, off City Road, under the Institute's director Philip Magnus, later University MP. Finsbury College was intended as the first of a number of 'feeder' colleges for the Central Institution, but was almost the only one founded; although The City & Guilds of London Art School was established in 1879 in Kennington as an extension of the Lambeth School of Art to provide training in carving, modelling and architectural decoration. Finsbury College continued its separate existence until 1926.
