Gresham College

Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in Central London, England, which does not accept students or award degrees. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of the Royal Exchange, who left his estate jointly to the City of London Corporation and the Mercers' Company. The college hosts over 140 free public lectures every year and since 2001 has recorded its lectures and released them online. Its seven original professorships, in astronomy, divinity, geometry, law, music, physic and rhetoric, reflect the medieval curriculum, and early professors included Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. The early success of the college led to the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1660.