
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. It is one of the oldest university-level institutions in England. King's grew in the late 20th century through a series of mergers and reincorporations, including the reincorporation of its medical and dental school in 1983, mergers with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology in 1985 and the Institute of Psychiatry in 1997, and the merger of the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in 1998. Plans for a merger with Cranfield University were announced in May 2026. King's operates across five main campuses: the historic Strand Campus in central London, three other Thames-side campuses (Guy's, St Thomas' and Waterloo) nearby, and a campus in Denmark Hill in south London. It also has a presence in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, for professional military education, and in Newquay, Cornwall, which is where King's information service centre is based. The academic activities are organised into nine faculties, which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres, and research divisions. In 2024/25, King's reported total income of £1.377 billion, of which £260.5 million was from research grants and contracts. It has the fourth larges