1828 The financial and political networks which created King’s

King’s College has been positioned at the heart of networks of power and influence within the British world ever since its foundation in 1829. Inspired by concerns over the Whiggish secularism of the newly formed UCL, King’s drew on the financial resources of Britain’s establishment from its inception. The college’s 1,028 donors and shareholders included many from the highest echelons of the aristocracy, church, army and Royal Navy, City of London, and politics. Many had direct or indirect connections to colonial trade and conquest across the world, including those who claimed ownership of enslaved people in the Caribbean, some who financed the West Indian slave and sugar economy from the board rooms of London’s banks and insurance companies, and others whose wealth had come through the East India Company’s expanding activities in Asia. By exploring the backgrounds of who these individuals were and situating them in a wider set of social, political, and economic relationships this research will show how King’s was inextricably connected to the core levers of power within the British state.

King’s Future: Where does the money come from, and where did it go?

How should the university reflect on its sources of revenue?

At a point when universities across UK and North America ar re-examining their histories, questions around institutions’ relationships to revenue sources in the present have become equally pressing. This moment reveals the historical context in which King’s came into existence. Few expressed concerns in the 1820s over the origins of funds which went into founding, building, and equipping the college that students still move through today. But how, now, does King’s move forward as a community while acknowledging the complicated and discomforting history of an institution of higher education that has always existed as a central part of shifting networks of power? For most of the twentieth century, most of King’s funding was provided by the state. More recently, it has come from students, with only a tiny fraction from private donors, but with implications about who can pay, and be represented amongst King’s student body.