University of Roehampton
Roehampton is a federation of colleges in the old style, gathered on parkland beside Richmond Park. Whitelands College, founded in 1841, was among the first institutions of higher education for women in Britain; the Froebel College carried Friedrich Froebel's kindergarten movement to Britain; Digby Stuart and Southlands brought Catholic and Methodist lineages. Together they became a institute in 1975 and a university in 2004.
Teacher education remains the heart of the place — the Froebel archive keeps the movement's papers, and early-years education is taught with an authority that descends directly from the source. The campus's lawns and lakes sit inside sight of Richmond Park's deer; it is the closest thing in London to an American collegiate idyll.
Field notes
- Whitelands' first principal pushed for women's examinations in the 1840s — decades before the universities agreed.
- The Froebel Archive for Early Childhood Studies holds the kindergarten movement's founding papers.
- Richmond Park's wall runs along the campus edge — the deer attend by invitation only.
Notable connections
In brief — from the field guide
Four Victorian colleges — Whitelands (1841, among the first institutions of higher education for women), Froebel, Digby Stuart and Southlands — federated on a parkland campus beside Richmond Park.
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