 The Vice-Chancellor of the university is Rob Warner who joined in March 2017.The university's history dates back to the foundation by the National Society (now National Society for Promoting Religious Education) of the constituent London colleges of St John's College in Battersea, London (1840) and St Mark's College in Chelsea, London (1841).St Mark's College was founded upon the beliefs of The Reverend Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, its first principal