Birkbeck College - Definition and Overview

Birkbeck

Birkbeck (sometimes still called Birkbeck College) is a College of the University of London. It aims at working people who want to study for degrees in the evenings (adult education). Its main building is on Malet Street in Bloomsbury.

The College takes its name from George Birkbeck, an early pioneer of adult education who founded the London Mechanics Institute in 1823. The Institute changed its name to the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution in 1866 and became Birkbeck College in 1907. In 1920 it became a school of the University. By 2002, it dropped the word College to become simply Birkbeck, University of London, however the term Birkbeck College is still often colloquially used and survives on the facade of the main building itself.

Birkbeck is also sometimes referred to by the abbreviation BBK.

External link

• Birkbeck, University of London, website (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/)