From the Late Qing to Today: 125 Years of Chinese Students at UCL

From the Late Qing to Today: 125 Years of Chinese Students at UCL

Today, Chinese students are a familiar presence across UCL. From engineering, architecture and computer science to education, finance, medicine and the arts, they have become an important part of the university’s international community. It is easy, therefore, to think of the relationship between Chinese students and UCL as a relatively recent development, shaped by the rapid growth of international education over the past two or three decades.

In reality, the story began much earlier. As early as 1899, during the final years of the Qing dynasty, the earliest Chinese students currently known to have studied at UCL were already attending classes on Gower Street. Over the following century, war, politics and international relations repeatedly changed the ways in which Chinese students travelled to Britain and the scale on which they did so. Yet the connection between China and UCL has never belonged solely to the present day.

From Qing government-sponsored engineering students and UCL alumni who later became diplomats and legal scholars, to the Chinese student communities that emerged in early twentieth-century Bloomsbury and the extensive international networks of today, this is a story of educational exchange spanning more than 125 years.

The First Arrivals

At the end of the nineteenth century, China was undergoing a period of profound change. As the late Qing government pursued modernisation, the study of Western science, industry and institutions increasingly became part of the country’s reform agenda. Chinese students were sent to Europe and the United States to study modern disciplines including engineering, medicine and law; London became one of their destinations.

Since its foundation in the nineteenth century, UCL had placed particular emphasis on science and practical education, while its admissions were not subject to the religious restrictions then associated with Oxford and Cambridge. This tradition of openness helped the university attract international students from an early stage.

According to recent research into UCL’s archives, the earliest two Chinese students currently identified are T. S. Po-Jui and Kuo Tung. In 1899, both arrived in Britain with Qing government sponsorship to study civil engineering at UCL. Their studies included subjects such as physics, surveying, construction and municipal engineering—the very kinds of technical knowledge that were increasingly important to China’s modernisation. Neither ultimately received a formal degree, but their surviving records in the UCL archives provide us with a remarkably tangible starting point: 125 years ago, Chinese students were already walking along Gower Street to attend classes.

As the twentieth century began, increasing numbers of Chinese students arrived in London.

They came from Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong and other parts of China, while the range of subjects they studied became increasingly diverse. Engineering and mining, closely associated with China’s early modernisation programmes, were joined by medicine, law, history and languages.

The routes through which students came to Britain also changed. While many of the earliest students were government-sponsored, private family funding and missionary scholarships gradually became more common. Chinese students abroad were no longer simply a small group of state-sponsored scholars undertaking specific national missions; they were becoming a much broader and more diverse international student community.

At the same time, they faced questions that may sound surprisingly familiar to international students today. Where should you live when you first arrive in an unfamiliar country? How do you adjust to British university teaching? Where can you meet other Chinese students? And how do you begin to build a life in a new linguistic and cultural environment? The story of educational exchange was therefore beginning to extend well beyond the classroom.

Building a Community

Among UCL’s early Chinese alumni, one of the most notable was F. T. Cheng (Cheng Tien-Hsi, 1884–1970). Cheng arrived at UCL in 1909 to study law and completed his studies in 1916, becoming one of the earliest Chinese scholars to receive a Doctor of Laws degree from the University of London. His experience at UCL, however, involved much more than lectures and examinations. During his years in London, Cheng regularly helped newly arrived Chinese students adjust to studying and living in Britain. From navigating university life to understanding British society, he became an informal mentor within the student community and a bridge between Chinese students and their new academic environment.

This cross-cultural role continued throughout his later career. Cheng became a distinguished legal scholar and diplomat and later served as the Republic of China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, contributing to legal, diplomatic and cultural exchange between the two countries. His name remains connected with UCL today through the Cheng Tien-Hsi Prize, established in recognition of his association with the university and the study of international law. Looking back at his experience a century later is also a reminder that what international students contribute to a university has never been limited to enrolment figures. Students come to London to learn, but they also bring their own languages, cultures and experiences into the university—and those exchanges can ultimately reach far beyond the campus.

As the number of Chinese students increased, they began to establish their own social and mutual-support networks. In the early twentieth century, several Chinese student organisations emerged, including the Chinese Students’ Christian Union, founded in 1908, and the Central Union of Chinese Students, established in 1916.

These organisations performed a much broader role than an ordinary student society. They organised lectures, debates, sporting events and festival celebrations, while also publishing material in both Chinese and English. On one level, they helped newly arrived students meet one another, exchange information and adjust to life abroad. On another, Chinese students used these organisations to introduce aspects of Chinese culture to British society and challenge some of the stereotypes about China prevalent in Europe at the time.

A recognisable Chinese student community was beginning to take shape in London.

And one of its geographical centres was an area that remains deeply familiar to UCL students today: Bloomsbury.

When Bloomsbury Became a Home for Chinese Students

With UCL and many of the University of London’s institutions concentrated in Bloomsbury, it was natural for Chinese students to seek accommodation close to their universities.

By the 1930s, London had become one of the principal centres of Chinese student life in Britain. Restaurants, clubs, accommodation and social spaces serving Chinese students began to appear around Bloomsbury.

One particularly fascinating location in this history stood at 91 Gower Street. In 1933, the Chinese student community established China House there. Part student residence and part social club, it provided a library, common rooms and spaces for events and gatherings.

For a young person arriving in Britain from China for the first time, China House offered much more than a bed or somewhere to study. It was a place to speak one’s own language, meet fellow students, find practical support and celebrate festivals together.

Walking along Gower Street today, it can be difficult to imagine that almost a century ago the same street was already home to such an active Chinese student community. The buildings themselves may not always reveal these stories to passers-by, but generations of student life have left their own layers of history across Bloomsbury.

From Early Overseas Students to Today’s International Campus

In the twenty-first century, and particularly since the 2010s, the number of students arriving from mainland China has grown rapidly. According to research into UCL’s history published by the university in 2024, more than 15,000 students from mainland China were studying at UCL that year, while more than 21,000 mainland Chinese students had joined UCL’s alumni network since 2014.

Today, Chinese students are active across engineering, architecture, medicine, computer science, education, finance, the arts and many other disciplines. Compared with the handful of students who made the long journey to Britain 125 years ago, both the scale and experience of international education have changed almost beyond recognition.

And yet, some aspects of the experience seem to transcend generations. A student arriving in London today still needs to find somewhere to live, adjust to a new academic environment, make friends, explore the city and gradually establish a life of their own. Chinese societies, WeChat groups, Asian supermarkets and modern student residences may have replaced some of the clubs and associations of a century ago, but in some ways they answer remarkably similar questions: how does an unfamiliar city gradually begin to feel like your own?

A History That Is Still Being Written

Today, when a Chinese student leaves their home in Bloomsbury, walks along Gower Street and enters UCL, it may feel like the most ordinary of mornings. But turn the clock back 125 years, and another generation of young Chinese students was already doing something remarkably similar in the same neighbourhood. T. S. Po-Jui and Kuo Tung arrived in 1899 to study engineering. Students of the early twentieth century established societies and support networks across London. F. T. Cheng went from UCL’s law classrooms to a career in diplomacy and international exchange. By the 1930s, Chinese students were reading, talking and living together at China House on 91 Gower Street.

The university and the London they knew were, of course, very different from those of today.

Yet from the government-sponsored students of the late Qing dynasty to the international community of the present day, the relationship between Chinese students and UCL is not a recent phenomenon. It is a history of educational exchange stretching across three centuries and more than 125 years. Every generation of students arriving in London discovers the city anew. In doing so, the lives they build here gradually become part of UCL’s history too.