48 Bedford Square (now the antiquarian book dealer Maggs Bros.) displays a green plaque stating ‘Bedford College for Women, University of London, was founded here in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid’. When Reid (1789-1866) first set up her non-sectarian Ladies College it was the first higher education college for women in the UK. You can read more about it here (which also has information about the Working Women’s College on Queen Square and the College for Working Women in Fitzroy Street).