University College has made important contributions to psychology since the subject emerged as a separate discipline in the nineteenth century. Early interest in the research aspects of psychology was stimulated by the work of individuals from several different departments.

In 1837 Professor John Elliotson pioneered the use of mesmerism (hypnotism) during surgical operations at University College Hospital : Charles Dickens was among those who attended some of his demonstrations. Another medical pioneer, this time in the field of psychiatry, was Henry Maudsley.

Sir Francis Galton's work is fundamental to large areas of contemporary psychology, particularly to the fields of differential psychology and psychometrics. He was the first to investigate and measure individual differences in human abilities and traits. He provided evidence that such traits might be largely inherited in man, and he was the first to employ the statistical technique of correlation to assess the relationship between measured qualities. The Eugenics Record Office, which he established in Gower Street in 1904, was the precursor of the Galton Laboratory.

Contrasted with Germany and the United States , psychology had a very slow and somewhat painful birth in this country. The idea that human behaviour is lawful, and that it is possible to discover these laws by the use of scientific methods, is capable of producing deep passion. In 1877 James Ward proposed that a laboratory should be established in Cambridge to study psychophysics (the relation between the physical properties of stimuli and experienced sensations). This proposal was indignantly rejected by the Cambridge Senate on the grounds that it `would insult religion by putting the human soul in a pair of scales'. This attitude and its derivations have taken a long time to die.

Psychology of a philosophic type in the tradition of British Empiricism has been effectively taught at UCL since the appointment of Croom Robertson to the Grote Chair of Mind and Logic in 1866.

It was Robertson's successor, Sully, who first introduced experimental work, and the establishment of a psychological laboratory in 1897 was an important landmark in the history of British psychology. It was founded only some eighteen years after the first ever psychological laboratory was established by Wundt in Leipzig in 1879. In the July 1897 issue of Mind the following notice appeared: "A laboratory for experimental psychology will be opened in University College London in October next. The committee have secured a considerable part of the apparatus collected by Professor Hugo Munsterberg of Freiburg , who is about to migrate permanently to Harvard College . Among those who have contributed to the movement are Mr F Galton, Professor H Sidgwick, Mr A J Balfour, Mr R B Haldane, Sir John Lubbock, Mr Shadworth Hodgson and Dr Savage. It is hoped that the name of George Croom Robertson may in some way be connected with the laboratory. It is further hoped that Dr W H R Rivers whose work as a teacher in Cambridge and elsewhere is well known will be able to start the work of the laboratory and superintend it during the October term"

Earlier, in 1892 the Second International Congress of Psychology met at University College with Professor Sully as one of the two joint Secretaries. It was therefore appropriate, when the International Congress returned to London in 1969, that University College should again act as host - this time to the Nineteenth International Congress - with the Head of the Department, Professor G C Drew, as its President.

In 1900 William McDougall was appointed to a part-time Readership in Experimental Psychology in Sully's Department. Of this period Dr May Smith writes: `During this time he used to hold informal discussions in his laboratory and gathered there a small group of people interested in psychology'. This group formed the nucleus of the British Psychological Society which was formally inaugurated at University College on 24 October 1901 . In 1920 he moved to Harvard where he succeeded Munsterberg as Professor.

With the appointment in 1907 of Charles Spearman as Reader, and later as the first occupant of the newly established Chair, the Department of Psychology at University College started to flourish. It gained an international reputation in the study of individual differences in ability, and of the development of the mathematical and statistical techniques of measurement and analysis, which remain a current interest.

In Sir Cyril Burt, the College found a successor worthy of the great tradition of Spearman. During the twenty years he occupied the Chair, he succeeded in his expressed aim of making the Department a focus for teaching and research in the measurement and understanding of individual differences. Under his guidance the Department broadened its interests to include child development, delinquency and educational psychology.

The biological emphasis in the Department really started with the appointment of R W Russell as Professor in 1950. The expansion of the teaching staff also enabled him to develop work on human learning, perception and other areas of experimental psychology. Two important results flowed from his work so far as the Department was concerned. The first was the establishment of a close working relationship with other biological departments in the College, and the second was the setting-up of a Medical Research Council Unit concerned largely with work on psychopharmacological problems.

In 1959 Professor George Drew became Head of Department. During his tenure, the Department became a recognised biological science department, wholly in the Faculty of Science and offering a BSc Honours Degree. Professor Drew's own research was in the area of skilled behaviour; his work on the effect of alcohol on skills was the basic research which led to the introduction of the breathalyser into this country.

In 1979 Professor Bob Audley became Head of Department. His interests lay in human experimental psychology, both in basic processes, such as decision making, and in applications, for example, medical diagnosis. In the same year the Ergonomics Unit, responsible for the organisation of the University Intercollegiate MSc in Ergonomics, became associated with the Department under the direction of Professor John Long. The Ergonomics Unit closed in 2002 on Professor Long's retirement and was replaced by the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC), a joint venture with Computer Science, under the direction of Professor Harold Thimbleby.

In October 1982 a new Medical Research Council Cognitive Development Unit, under the direction of Professor John Morton, was set up to strengthen existing work in the Department and provide new teaching and research opportunities for both undergraduate and post graduate students. The CDU closed in October 1998 on Professor Morton's retirement.

In October 1990 Professor Tim Shallice joined the department as Professor of Psychology and Director of Postgraduate Studies. Professor Shallice strengthened the department's existing work in the field of Cognitive and Computational Neuropsychology. In 1996 UCL set up the multi-disciplinary Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience under the direction of Professor Shallice. In 2004, he was succeeded as Director by Professor Jon Driver.

The evolutionary psychologist Professor Henry Plotkin was appointed Head of Department in 1993. In the same year Professors Jan Atkinson and Oliver Braddick joined the Department, bringing with them the Visual Development Unit. Professor Braddick took over the reins of the Headship of the Department in September 1998. He left in 2001 and was replaced by Professor Alan Johnston who in turn was succeeded by Professor David Shanks in 2003. Professor Shanks' research is in cognitive psychology and he is also a founding fellow of the ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution, a UCL research centre involving several departments (e.g., Economics, Mathematics) in addition to Psychology. The Department now has a total of 24 Professors and 4 Readers.

A R Jonckheere, a much loved and very long standing member of the Department of Psychology at University College London, known to all as Jonck, died suddenly in October 2005. A website in memorial to him can be found here.

This page last modified 24 June, 2008