The Sciences Available to Purchase

Chelsea Polytechnic, one of the crop of 1890's foundations, was always distinguished from its fellow London Polytechnics by its relative inability to attract ‘the poorer classes’, for whom the Polys were designed. As Chelsea College of Science and Technology, and a CAT, it was distinguished by its lack of technology. It had always done a high percentage of London University degree work, and when it failed to become the University of Hertfordshire after the Robbins promotion, and became instead a School of the University of London, historical justice appeared to be done. The College, on a cramped site amid some of the most expensive land in London, has a strong base in the biological sciences, and was mentioned for this reason by the Todd Report on medical education as a possible candidate for participation in developments in this field. From the existing physical sciences it has moved also into engineering science. A discussion of the College as a whole would involve a consideration of the constraints not only of its geographical position but also those of a new School in a university faced with an immense need to rationalize its resources. Instead we have chosen to illustrate its development by looking at the College's most important recent offspring — its Centre for Science Education.