About Us

Heythrop College, University of London, was a constituent college of the University of London between 1971 and 2018, last located in Kensington Square, London. It comprised the university's specialist faculties of philosophy and theology with social sciences, offering undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses and five specialist institutes and centres to promote research.

The college had a close affiliation with the Catholic Church, through the British Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) whose scholarly tradition went back to a 1614 exiled foundation in Leuven, Belgium, and whose extensive library collections it housed. While maintaining its denominational links and ethos the college welcomed all faiths and perspectives, women as well as men.

Through Heythrop's close links with the Jesuits, it also served as the London centre for Fordham University, a Jesuit university in the United States. Other external groups, including A Call To Action (ACTA, British Catholic Association), also used meeting facilities on the site.

Following unsuccessful negotiations with St Mary's University, Twickenham, another British university, and amid some controversy, in June 2015 the college's governing body decided that the college would cease to be an independent constituent of the University of London, in 2018 It formally terminated operations and left the University of London on 31 January 2019.[4] It was the first significant UK higher education institution to completely close permanently (not including mergers and name changes) since the dissolution of the original University of Northampton in 1265.