and remained barred from Engineering and Medicine. Women were first allowed to enter the medical school in 1917, and admissions remained restricted until much later. Men and women had separate staff common rooms until 1969, when Brian Woledge (then Fielden professor of French) and David Colquhoun (then a young lecturer) got a motion passed to end segregation. UCL was a pioneer in teaching many topics at university level, establishing the first British professorships in, amongst other subjects, chemistry (1828), English (1828, Rev. Thomas Dale), German (1828, Ludwig von Mühlenfels), Italian (1828, Sir Antonio Panizzi), geography (1833), French (1834, P. F. Merlet), zoology (1874, Sir Ray Lankester), Egyptology (1892), and electrical engineering (1885, Sir Ambrose Fleming). UCL also claims to have offered the first systematic teaching in Engineering, Law and Medicine at an English university, although its Engineering course, established in 1841, followed the establishment of engineering courses at Durham (1838) and King's College London (1839). The Slade School of Fine Art was founded at the College in 1871 following a bequest from Felix Slade. UCL claims to be the first University institution in England to establish a students' union, in 1893. However, this postdates the formation of the Liverpool Guild of Students in 1892. Men and women had separate unions until 1945. 20th century In 1900 the University of London was reconstituted as a federal university with new statutes drawn up under the University of London Act 1898. UCL, along with a number of other colleges in London, became schools of the University of London. While most of the constituent institutions retained their autonomy, UCL was merged into the University in 1907 under the University College London (Transfer) Act 1905 and lost its legal independence. (KCL also surrendered its independence a few years later, in 1910.) This necessitated the separation of University College Hospital and University College School as separate institutions (which they remain). A new charter in 1977 re-incorporated UCL and restored its independence, although it remained a college of the University of London and was not able to award degrees in its own right until 2005. Further pioneering professorships established in the 20th century included phonetics (1921, Daniel Jones), Ramsay professor of chemical engineering (1923, E. C. Williams), psychology (1928, Charles Spearman), and papyrology (1950, Sir Eric Gardner Turner). In 1906, Sir Gregory Foster, who had been Secretary of the College, was appointed to the new post of