St Marys University Twickenham London

St Marys University, Twickenham is a public university in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, South West London. Its stated commitment is to the mission of the Catholic Church in higher education. Originally founded in 1850 as a college for training Catholic schoolmasters, St. Marys became a constituent college of the University of London Institute of Education in 1949. This affiliation ended in 1976, and the universitys degree courses were then validated by the University of Surrey. Formerly called St Marys University College, the university was granted full title by the Privy Council on January 23rd, 2014. Since July 2019, the university has hosted the Mater Ecclesiae College, whose Ecclesiastical faculties (enshrined since 2013 in the "Bellarmine Institute") were added after the closure of Heythrop College, University of London. The university is built on land previously attached to Strawberry Hill House, which was originally a small cottage on three acres of land by the River Thames. Horace Walpole, son of politician Robert Walpole, rented the cottage in 1747 and subsequently bought it. He reconstructed the house and added to the land, which now amounts to approximately 35 acres. St Marys was founded in 1850 on the initiative of Cardinal Wiseman. The Catholic Poor School Committee, which was concerned with providing primary education to children of poor Catholic people throughout the United Kingdom, purchased a former girls school at Brook Green House, Hammersmith, and adapted it for use as a college with accommodation for 40 adult male students. A legal trust created on 16 July 1851 in connection with this property and its use as a training college for Catholic schoolmasters was confirmed in perpetuity.