City and Guilds College
| Established | 1878 |
|---|---|
| Registration no. | 312832 |
| Legal status | Charity |
| Headquarters | London |
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Region
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Worldwide |
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Chief Executive
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Chris Jones |
| Website | cityandguildsgroup |
The City and Guilds of London Institute is a vocational education organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded on 11 November 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies – to develop a national system of technical education, the Institute has been operating under Royal Charter (RC117), granted by Queen Victoria, since 1900. The Prince of Wales later King Edward VII was then appointed the first President of the Institute.
The City and Guilds of London Institute is also a registered charity (no. 312832) and is the awarding body for City & Guilds and ILM qualifications. The Institute's president is HRH The Princess Royal who accepted this role in June 2011 (following her father HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who held the position for nearly 60 years), and the Chairman of Council is Sir John Armitt, who took office in November 2012. The City & Guilds Group is the market facing brand for the organisation today and is composed of a number of businesses including City & Guilds, ILM, Kineo, The Oxford Group and Digitalme.
A meeting of 16 of the City of London's livery companies in 1876 led to the foundation of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education (CGLI), which aimed to improve the training of craftsmen, engineering technicians, engineering technologists, and professional engineers. The two main objectives were to create a Central Institution in London and to conduct a system of qualifying examinations in technical subjects.
Unable at once to find a large enough site within the City of London for their Central Institution, the CGLI occupied a building on land alongside Exhibition Road in South Kensington, although its headquarters were in Gresham College in the City. At the time John Watney was both secretary to the Gresham Committee and the CGLI. Evening classes were offered at a school in Cowper Street, off City Road, enabling instruction in chemistry and physics to be provided to those who wished to continue their education after working during the day. The school proved such a success that new premises had to be found in nearby Leonard Street, which was formally opened on 19 February 1893 as Finsbury Technical College. The Institute's director at the time was Sir Philip Magnus, later University MP. Finsbury College was intended as the first of a number of feeder colleges for the Central Institution, but was almost the only one founded. Finsbury College continued its separate existence until 1926.
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