of the University of London in 1900. In 1945, the college admitted male postgraduate students, and in 1965, around 100 of the first male undergraduates. In 1985, Royal Holloway merged with Bedford College (another former all-women's college in London). The merged college was named Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (RHBNC), this remaining the official registered name of the college by Act of Parliament. In 2022, it became a university in its own right within the University of London. The campus is dominated by the Founder's Building, a Grade I listed red-brick building modelled on the Château de Chambord of the Loire Valley, France. The annual income of the institution for 2023–24 was £219.8 million of which £16.8 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £156.7 million.
== History ==
=== Royal Holloway College ===
Royal Holloway College, originally a women-only college, was founded by the Victorian entrepreneur Thomas Holloway in 1879 on the Mount Lee Estate in Egham. The founding of the college was brought about after Holloway, seeking to fulfil a philanthropic gesture, began a public debate through The Builder regarding "How best to spend a quarter of a million or more", at which point his wife, Jane Holloway, proposed to build a college especially for women. Holloway later increased his original sum of money to half a million, and today, the campus is still best known for its original 600-bed building, known as the Founder's Building, designed by William Henry Crossland and inspired by the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France.
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner called the original college building "the most ebullient Victorian building in the Home Counties", and noted that together with its sister building the Holloway Sanatorium, it represents "the summit of High Victorian design". The Founder's Building, which is now Grade I listed, was officially opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria, who granted the use of "Royal" in the college's name. Founder's has been described by The Times …
