Royal College of Science

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:For the Irish college of the same name, see Royal College of Science (Ireland). For its famous building, see Irish Government Buildings.

The Royal College of Science was a constituent part of Imperial College London, based in South Kensington. Alumni include H. G. Wells and Brian May and are distinguishable by the letters ARCS (Associate of the Royal College of Science) after their name. Organisations linked with the college include the Royal College of Science Union and the Royal College of Science Association.

Its forerunners were the Royal College of Chemistry (founded in 1845) and the Government School of Mines and Sciences Applied to the Arts (founded in 1851). Money from the Great Exhibition of 1851 was used to buy land at South Kensington for "educational purposes", providing space for the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, as well as for both of these scientific colleges, which merged to form the Normal College of Science.

The name was based on the Ecole Normale de Paris, but in 1881 the name Royal College of Science was granted by Royal Consent.

In 1907, the college merged with the Royal School of Mines and the City and Guilds of London Institute to form the Imperial College of Science and Technology, becoming a Constituent College of Imperial, which then joined the University of London.

In the early 1990s, the suffix "and Medicine" was added to Imperial's name, following its merger with a number of medical schools, forming a fourth constituent college. Later in 2002 the college changed its public name to Imperial College London.

In 2000, Imperial merged with Wye College, of which roughly one-fifth was designated as part of the Royal College of Science.

In 2002, Imperial abolished all the constituent colleges, including the Royal College of Science, in favour of a new faculty structure. The RCS was split into the Faculties of Physical and Life Sciences.

In 2005 it was announced that the Faculties of Physical and Life Sciences would be re-merged to form the Faculty of Natural Sciences. This re-forms the original RCS structure, encompassing all the science departments of Imperial College. Overall, it has amounted to no more than a name change from RCS to Faculty of Natural Sciences. [link] The new faculty students' union will be resurrecting the name "Royal College of Science Union".

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