University College London (UCL) is a major public research university located on Gower Street in Bloomsbury, London, England. The school was founded on 11 February 1826 as "London University" with financial assistance from the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and it was meant to serve as an an alternative to the Anglican universities of Oxford andCambridge. Bentham was nicknamed the "spiritual father" of UCL, as his radical ideas on education and society inspired the institution's founders. In 1836, London University was incorporated by a royal charter under the name "University College, London", and, when the University of London (cofounded by UCL in 1836) began to admit female students in 1878, UCL followed suit, becoming the second English college to do so after the University of Bristol. UCL's notable faculty and alumni have included President Tomas Garrigue Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, the philosopher John Stuart Mill, the "father of the hydrogen bomb" Edward Teller, the first British-Asian MP Dadabhai Naoroji, the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell, the co-discoverer of DNA Francis Crick, the "father of India" Mahatma Gandhi, the founding father of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta, the founding father of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, the founding father of Mauritius Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, the President of Israel Chaim Herzog, the founding father of Nigeria Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of China Wu Tingfang, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Stafford Cripps.
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