Royal Holloway College was founded by the Victorian entrepreneur, Thomas Holloway as a college for the higher education of bright young women. Almost 100 years later, Royal Holloway merged with Bedford College, another pioneering institution founded in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid. The colleges became part of the University of London before the turn of the century, when the University first awarded degrees to women, and both began to admit male undergraduates from 1965.

The relocation of Bedford to the Royal Holloway campus in 1985 has built on the strengths of both to create a first-class academic environment for generations to come.