Henry Morley, Professor of English, commented that ‘I need not say how strongly I feel that it is the business of (UCL) to be boldly first in recognising fully any new and real want of time’.

Women could take their places alongside men at UCL and examinations were opened to them as well. An 1882 Punch edition celebrated this with a verse:

Traditions of the bygone days
Are cast aside, old rules are undone;
In Convocation Woman sways
The University of London.