The University of Surrey was established on 9 September 1966 with the grant of its Royal Charter, but its roots go back to a late nineteenth-century concern to provide greater access to further and higher education for the poorer inhabitants of London. The forerunner of the University, the Battersea Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1891 and began concentrating on science and technology from around 1920, teaching day and evening students for degrees of the University of London.Its academic reputation steadily grew to the point where, in 1956, it was one of the first institutions to be designated a 'college of advanced technology'. It was renamed Battersea College of Technology in 1957.