St Mary's University, Twickenham

St Mary's University, Twickenham was founded in 1850 as a college for training Catholic schoolmasters, on the initiative of Cardinal Wiseman and the Catholic Poor School Committee, with a first intake of just six students in Hammersmith. It is the oldest Catholic university in the United Kingdom. The college moved to Strawberry Hill in Twickenham in the 1920s, became a university college in 2006 and gained full university status on 23 January 2014. Around 5,500 to 6,000 students study at St Mary's, from more than 90 countries, across four academic schools. Pope Benedict XVI visited the university in 2010, an event remembered as the Great Assembly, and its alumni include Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah. A new London School of Medicine opens in September 2027, initially for international students only, with guaranteed on-site accommodation for all first-year medical students. The university's green campus at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham sits in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, in what the university describes as London's safest borough, giving students a peaceful, village-like setting within reach of central London.