Gresham College

For those unfortunate pupils who cannot get into Cambridge or Oxford, or any other university for that matter, Gresham College will always accept them. The only problem is that this "college" does not actually admit students or award degrees. What it does offer are free public lectures of an egalitarian nature.

Gresham College was founded in 1597 by the will of Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange. Gresham had traveled across continental Europe for commerce, where he was exposed to new scientific ideas. Wanting to make such knowledge more widely available in England, he founded a free college in London, intended to be more open than Oxford and Cambridge. Originally there were seven professors. The college has expanded to ten today.

For an institution that has never graduated students, Gresham College has actually had an outstanding influence on British intellectualism. The Royal Society, the country's national academy of sciences, was founded by the college's professors and students and was originally housed on its campus. Among Gresham's notable professors are Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, and Sir Roger Penrose.