History of the ASCR

Arthur Platt, Professor of Greek at the College 1894-1925 and colleague of A.E. Housman (Professor of Latin at the College, 1892-1911), is generally acknowledged to have founded the UCL Common Room.

After the Second World War, the Men's Common Room, the Women's Common Room and the Joint Staff Common Room (founded in 1947) operated independently in the Housman Room, the Margaret Murray Room and the Haldane Room respectively.

Originally the Housman Room was "men only". That was changed in 1969 by the combined efforts of Brian Woledge (1904-2002), who was the Fielden professor of French, and David Colquhoun (then a recently appointed lecturer in Pharmacology). In 2014, David Colquhoun recorded the history of that era on his personal blog.

In 1969 the three common rooms merged to form the Senior Staff Common Room, and in 1979 with the adoption of a new constitution the name was modified to the Academic Staff Common Room (ASCR).

In 1989 the then Provost, Derek Roberts, re-allocated the Margaret Murray Room for use by College administration; in 2003 the Haldane Room was opened up for use by all UCL staff and in 2007 refurbished and made bookable for meetings and seminars.

In 2019 the name of the common room was changed to ASCR.

The ASCR now provides facilities in the Housman Room for its membership of some 2500 current, retired and visiting staff.