Medicine has been a part of UCL from the early days, with Charles Bell, Professor of Surgery and Physiology 1828-1830, giving the inaugural lecture of the "University of London" on 1 October 1828.

The same Charles Bell had an even longer association with the Middlesex Hospital, being elected surgeon there in 1812 and returning to found the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in 1835.

The origins of the Boldero and Clinical Sciences Libraries and their collections, which were brought together at the Cruciform Library in August 2005, date from this time.