Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Polytechnic of Central London (PCL) was redesignated as the University of Westminster following the Higher and Further Education Act (1992), which created a single funding council, the Higher Education Funding Council, for England and abolished the remaining distinctions between polytechnics and universities. As a university, Westminster gained the power to grant its own degrees. The name was changed from "Polytechnic of Central London" to "University of Westminster" by Special Resolution passed on 30 March 1993 with the consent of the Privy Council given on 16 June 1992. The objects of the Company (PCL had been incorporated in 1970) were altered by a Special Resolution on 17 May 1994. The redrafted Memorandum and Articles of Association defining the University's responsibilities and constitutional framework came into operation on 25 May 1994. (N.B. The 1992 presentation ceremony programme details that the University came into existence on 25 June 1992.)
The merger of Harrow College of Higher Education and PCL in 1990 was followed in 1991 by the commissioning of an Accommodation Strategy. This identified the legacy of the fragmented and widely dispersed estate, spread across more than 20 sites. The University has been consolidating onto its main sites in the West End, at Marylebone Road, and at Harrow. A major redevelopment of the Harrow site was completed in 1995 to house the School of Communication (now the School of Communication and Creative Industries). Little Titchfield Street was then refurbished to house the School of Law (completed in 1998), and its former site in Red Lion Square, acquired through the amalgamation with Holborn College of Law, Languagues and Commerce in 1970, sold.
In 1997/98 the University introduced a new devolved structure based on four campuses - Cavendish, Harrow, Marylebone and Regent - supported by a small core of central service units. In 1998 the University acquired the Policy Studies Institute and also the London School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and in the same year opened Polyclinic for the teaching and provision of complementary therapies.
Further information on the University is available on its website: http://www.westminster.ac.uk