Sir William Crookes was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube which was made in 1875. This was a foundational discovery that eventually changed the whole of chemistry and physics.

Imperial College London (Imperial) is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural area that included the Royal Albert Hall, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and several royal colleges. Established by royal charter in 1907, Imperial College London unified into one institution the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines and the City and Guilds of London Institute. In 1988, the Imperial College School of Medicine was formed by merging with St Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Imperial College Business School.