The George Daniels' Educational Trust has made an extraordinary donation of £1.2 million to support engineering students from disadvantaged backgrounds at City St George’s, University of London.
This remarkable gift aims to champion social mobility by funding bursaries that will transform lives and provide new opportunities for those facing financial challenges.
Empowering social mobility through education
Since 2012, The George Daniels' Educational Trust has donated an astounding £2.6 million to support scholarships and bursaries for engineering students at all levels – undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD – within the University’s School of Science & Technology. The Trust also funded two academic posts at the School.
The Trust was established by the illustrious Dr George Daniels to help students with talent and initiative but lacking resources to achieve their dreams in engineering, horology (the study of clocks and watches), medicine, and construction.
The Trust's unwavering commitment to supporting students in financial hardship aligns perfectly with City St George’s mission. The university is not only ‘the University of business, practice, and professions’, but also proudly ranked 1st for social mobility in London by The English Social Mobility Index.
A new era of opportunity
Now, the Trust has signed a new four-year £1.2 million agreement to promote education and enable students to reach their potential. This funding will support multi-year and one-off bursaries, and contribute to a hardship fund each year until 2027/28.
Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, President, City St George’s, University of London, expressed his heartfelt gratitude:
“I am incredibly grateful to the Trustees of The George Daniels' Educational Tr ust for their continued support of City St George’s. This incredible donation to our university stems from the generosity of Dr George Daniels himself, horologist, some would say artist, and philanthropist.
“It is thanks to people like George, and the trustees of his Trust, that City St George’s can continue to offer an education in business, practice and the professions based on a student’s ability to do the work, not their ability to afford the course. I am delighted by this gift which will remove the financial barriers for our engineering students.”
Bursaries will take the form of multi-year or one-off awards and will be granted to students studying for a BEng (three year) or MEng (four-year) course in various engineering disciplines.
Applicants must have home fee status and demonstrate financial need based on a low-income household (as assessed by Student Finance England), and priority will be given to students who are the first in their family to attend university.
Applications for The George Daniels' Undergraduate Bursary can be made via The Future Fund Undergraduate Bursaries page on the City St George’s website.
In response to the donation, Professor Rajkumar Roy, Executive Dean of the School of Science & Technology, City St George’s, University of London, said:
“As both the Executive Dean of the School of Science & Technology, and as an engineer, it gives me great pleasure to be launching this next tranche of scholars supported by The George Daniels' Educational Trust.
“The Trustees share our goals of promoting social mobility for our students and this donation of £1.2 million will help us ensure that our future engineers have the opportunity to study at City St George’s with less worry about how to make their finances work.
“We recently celebrated 10 years of support from the Trust and 10 years of George Daniels Scholars. I am very much excited to see what this next group of scholars will go on to achieve, thanks to the Trust’s support. Thank you.”
Dr George Daniels (1926-2011), a celebrated horologist and master of his craft, credited his success to evening horology classes at City St George’s, then known as the Northampton Institute
In 2013, the iconic clock of City St George’s College Building was renamed the George Daniels Clock in recognition of the support from Dr George Daniels to the university.
City St George’s further hosts an annual lecture in memory of Dr Daniels. Highlights from the latest two lectures:
• George Daniels Lecture, 2024: watches and cars, the perils of progress
• George Daniels Lecture, 2023: Abraham Louis Breguet, the original tick-tock influencer