Thames Polytechnic started life in 1891 as the Woolwich Polytechnic Young Men's Christian Institute, based in Calderwood Street, Woolwich, London. In 1970, the Woolwich Polytechnic merged with a number of other higher education institutions to form Thames Polytechnic, gaining university and being renamed the University of Greenwich in 1992. In 2001 the university moved from Woolwich to its current campus at Greenwich.