London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science, established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the pure and applied social sciences.
Founded by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and offered its first degree programmes under the auspices of that university in 1901. In 2008, LSE began awarding degrees in its own name. LSE became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022.
LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn in the area historically known as Clare Market. As of 2023/24, LSE had under 13,000 students, with a majority enroled being postgraduate students and just under two thirds coming from outside the United Kingdom. The university has the sixth-largest endowment of any university in the UK and it had an income of £548.2 million in 2024/25, of which £39.2 million was from research grants.
LSE is a member of the Russell Group, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the European University Association, and is typically considered part of the "golden triangle" of research universities in the south east of England. The British Library of Political and Economic Science, commonly referred to as "LSE Library", is the main library of the university, and one of the largest libraries in the world devoted to the economic and social sciences.
Since 1990, the London School of Economics has educated 24 prime ministers or presidents, the second highest number of any university in the United Kingdom, and since the school's establishment in 1895, over 40 world leaders have taught or studied at LSE. The school has also educated 2 presidents of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and Ursula von der Leyen, billionaire investor George Soros, chief architect of India's constitution, B. R. Ambedkar, British naturalist David Attenborough, chancellor of the United Kingdom, Rachel Reeves; former chairman and CEO of Chase Bank, David Rockefeller; chief investment officer of Google, Ruth Porat; governor of New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill; former foreign Minister of China, Yang Jiechi; founder of EasyJet, Stelios Haji-Ioannou and co-founder of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes. LSE alumni and faculty have served as presidents of the International Court of Justice, economic advisors to various British prime ministers and American presidents, in addition to serving as chief economists of the World Bank; the International Monetary Fund; heads of central banks in the United Kingdom, United States, India, Australia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Canada, and Thailand. LSE alumnus W. Arthur Lewis is the only black person to have ever won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. As of 2025, LSE is affiliated with 21 Nobel laureates.
In 1942, former LSE director William Beveridge authored the Beveridge Report, which laid the groundwork for free healthcare in the United Kingdom, a policy implemented by British prime minister Clement Attlee, who prior holding office, lectured at the LSE.
History
Origins
The London School of Economics and Political Science was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw initially funded by a bequest of £20,000 from the estate of Henry Hunt Hutchinson. Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put "towards advancing its objects in any way they deem advisable". The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, W. S. de Mattos and William Clark.LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Louis Flood, and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster.
20th century
The school joined the federal University of London in 1900 and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university. The University of London degrees of BSc and DSc were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences. Expanding rapidly over the following years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market and Houghton Street. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920; the building was opened in 1922.The school's arms, including its motto and beaver mascot, were adopted in February 1922, on the recommendation of a committee of twelve, including eight students, which was established to research the matter. The Latin motto, rerum cognoscere causas, is taken from Virgil's Georgics. Its English translation is "to Know the Causes of Things" and it was suggested by Professor Edwin Cannan. The beaver mascot was selected for its associations with "foresight, constructiveness, and industrious behaviour".
The economic debate between the LSE and the University of Cambridge during the 1930s is a well-known chapter in academic circles. The rivalry between academic opinion at LSE and Cambridge goes back to the school's roots when LSE's Edwin Cannan, Professor of Economics, and Cambridge's Professor of Political Economy, Alfred Marshall, the leading economist of the day, argued about the bedrock matter of economics and whether the subject should be considered as an organic whole.
The dispute also concerned the question of the economist's role, and whether this should be as a detached expert or a practical adviser. Despite the traditional view that the LSE and Cambridge were fierce rivals through the 1920s and 30s, they worked together in the 1920s on the London and Cambridge Economic Service. However, the 1930s brought a return to disputes as economists at the two universities argued over how best to address the economic problems caused by the Great Depression.
The main figures in this debate were John Maynard Keynes from Cambridge and the LSE's Friedrich Hayek. The LSE economist Lionel Robbins was also heavily involved. Starting off as a disagreement over whether demand management or deflation was the better solution to the economic problems of the time, it eventually embraced much wider concepts of economics and macroeconomics. Keynes put forward the theories now known as Keynesian economics, involving the active participation of the state and public sector, while Hayek and Robbins followed the Austrian School, which emphasised free trade and opposed state involvement.
During World War II, the school decamped from London to the University of Cambridge, occupying buildings belonging to Peterhouse.
Following the decision to establish a modern business school within the University of London in the mid-1960s, the idea was discussed of setting up a "Joint School of Administration, Economics, and Technology" between the LSE and Imperial College. However, this avenue was not pursued and instead, the London Business School was created as a college of the university.
In 1966, the appointment of Sir Walter Adams as director sparked opposition from the student union and student protests. Adams had previously been principal of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and the students objected to his failure to oppose Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence and cooperation with the white minority government. This broadened into wider concerns about links between the LSE and its governors and investments in Rhodesia and South Africa and concerns over LSE's response to student protests. These led to the closure of the school for 25 days in 1969 after a student attempt to dismantle the school gates resulted in the arrest of over 30 students. Injunctions were taken out against 13 students, with three students ultimately being suspended, two foreign students being deported, and two staff members seen as supporting the protests being fired.
In the 1970s, four Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economic Sciences were awarded to economists associated with the LSE: John Hicks in 1972, Friedrich Hayek in 1974, James Meade in 1977 and Arthur Lewis in 1979.
21st century
In the early 21st century, the LSE had a wide impact on British politics. The Guardian described the LSE's influence in 2005 when it stated:Once again the political clout of the school, which seems to be closely wired into parliament, Whitehall, and the Bank of England, is being felt by ministers.... The strength of LSE is that it is close to the political process: Mervyn King, was a former LSE professor. The former chairman of the House of Commons education committee, Barry Sheerman, sits on its board of governors, along with Labour peer Lord Judd. Also on the board are Tory MPs Virginia Bottomley and Richard Shepherd, as well as Lord Saatchi and Lady Howe.
Commenting in 2001 on the rising status of the LSE, the British magazine The Economist stated that "two decades ago the LSE was still the poor relation of the University of London's other colleges. Now... it regularly follows Oxford and Cambridge in league tables of research output and teaching quality and is at least as well-known abroad as Oxbridge". According to the magazine, the school "owes its success to the single-minded, American-style exploitation of its brand name and political connections by the recent directors, particularly Mr Giddens and his predecessor, John Ashworth" and raises money from foreign students' high fees, who were drawn to LSE by the prominence of its academic figures, such as Richard Sennett.
In 2006, the school published a report disputing the costs of British government proposals to introduce compulsory ID cards. LSE academics were also represented on numerous national and international bodies in the early 21st century, including the UK Airports Commission, Independent Police Commission, Migration Advisory Committee, UN Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, London Finance Commission, HS2 Limited, the UK government's Infrastructure Commission and advising on architecture and urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics
The LSE gained its own degree-awarding powers in 2006 and the first LSE degrees were awarded in 2008.
Following the passage of the University of London Act 2018, the LSE announced in early 2019 that they would seek university status in their own right while remaining part of the federal university. Approval of university title was received from the Office for Students in May 2022 and updated Articles of Association formally constituting the school as a university were approved by LSE council 5 July 2022.