In 1825 a group of liberal politicians, lawyers, dissenting ministers, Roman Catholics, and Jews came together to found a university in London aimed at those excluded from the two old-established English universities, where teachers and students were required to be subscribing Anglicans. To mark the anniversary of UCL’s foundation on 11 Feb 1826 this lecture will look at the opposition to the new university among Tory politicians and journalists, especially in the ultra-Tory paper John Bull, which nicknamed the new institution 'Stinkomalee' in honour of the swampy rubbish dump on which the building was constructed between 1826 and 1828.