Pender Chair

The Pender Chair is the post that is generally held by the head of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering of University College London.

John Pender (pictured in the caricature on the right), the founder of Cable and Wireless, died in 1896.

Of this, they decided to donate £5,000 to the Department of Electrical Technology of University College, to enable an expansion of its facilities.

The Department of Electrical Technology had already been formed some years earlier, in 1885, with John Ambrose Fleming (pictured below) as its head.

He, therefore, became the first incumbent of the Pender Chair of Electrical Engineering.