Oriental Institute, Woking

About Oriental Institute, Woking

According to Wikipedia, The Oriental Institute was a British educational institution in Woking, Surrey, established by Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner. It was also occasionally called the Oriental University Institute. History The site of the Royal Dramatic College was purchased by Leitner in the spring of 1884. He immediately went about turning it into his idea of an Oriental Institute, decorating the interior with objects he had collected on his travels. Part of the building was turned into an Oriental Museum, said to have housed the most interesting collection of artefacts from the east in Britain, and it also contained an art collection. The Institute remained relatively obscure locally, with Leitner once remarking that "There is no place in the world where the Institute and its publications are less known than in Surrey." In 1889, the Shah Jahan Mosque was founded, with funding from Sultan Shah Jahan, Begum of Bhopal, as a place for Muslim students of the Institute to worship when they were in Woking.