The Trust for Urban Ecology was founded in 1976 when ecologist Max Nicholson and a group of like-minded conservationists set up Britain's first urban ecology park.
[1] Max Nicholson, the trust's founder, was also instrumental in setting up the World Wildlife Fund and became the 2nd Director General of the Nature Conservancy Council.
[2] The trust's first site, the William Curtis Ecological Park, was created on the site of a derelict lorry park near London's Tower Bridge.
The William Curtis Ecological Park was always intended to be temporary and in 1985 the land was returned to its owners.
[3] By this time the trust had already created two new nature parks and it would later acquire another two.