the Acts of the Apostles on Greek, as well as on scripture history. The University referred this decision to the home secretary, Lord John Russell, to determine whether this would be legal. Russell was also petitioned by a United Committee representing three dissenting denominations and by the Council of UCL. The dissidents pointed out that introducing an examination on the Bible was "an indirect violation of the liberal principle on which the University of London was founded", the Council agreed, adding that the proprietors of UCL had been "induced to surrender any claim which they might be supposed to have acquired to a charter of incorporation as a University … on the clear understanding that the University this proposed to be substituted was to be grounded on the same principles as the institution which had given rise to it". These led to a request from Russell to Lord Burlington (Chancellor of the University of London) on 18 December "to bring again under the consideration of the Senate the proposed rule". This was opposed, however, by a letter to the Senate of the University (via Burlington) from the Principal (Hugh James Rose) and the professors of Mathematics, Classical Literature, and English Literature and Modern History at King's College London. They claimed that as encouragement of a "regular and liberal course of education" was one of the objectives of the University, as laid out in its charter, it could not positively exclude the study of the Bible, which they regarded as an essential part of education. In the end, victory went, as with the dispute over the names of London degrees, to the UCL party. The University of London Senate voted "almost unanimously" in February 1838 to make examinations on the Bible optional. The incident did, however, serve to emphasise the lack of connection between the colleges and the University, with the Morning Chronicle noting that: "The possibility of so nugatory a proceeding would have been obiviated had the University College been allowed some participation in the Acts of the University." On 7 May 1842, the proprietors annulled the regulations of the original Deed of Settlement and put in place new bylaws, including a provision for shares to be forfeited or ceded back to the College who would distribute them to honours graduates from the University of London who had studied at the College, thus admitting some alumni to the membership and