City Lit’s story began with London’s literary institute movement, which came into being after the First World War. A report to the London County Council recommended making better provision ‘for the needs of a large number of students who seek education other than vocational’, with ‘a coherent programme of studies related to leisure, and an adult setting’. It is difficult now to understand just what a radical departure this was. We welcomed our first students 1919, with T.G. Williams soon taking the place of Captain J.H. Menzies as ‘Master’. We originally leased four classrooms from a teacher training college in Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane to hold our classes. In his memoirs Williams said, “It was an act of pure faith. Principals were appointed before a single student was enrolled; their duty was first to create and afterwards to organise demand and it may well be that the boldest decision of all was to choose a site for one of the literary institutes in the heart of business London, the square mile altogether dedicated, as it might have been supposed, to the pursuit of material, rather than ideal, ends.”