University College London (UCL) Electronic and Electrical Engineering's Youtube Channel. Sir John Ambrose Fleming was the first head of England's first University Department of Electrical Technology (a few years later to be called Electrical Engineering), formed at UCL in 1885. In 1904, while Pender Professor of Electrical Engineering at University College London, Sir John Ambrose Fleming invented the Thermionic (or Fleming) Valve. This was the first Electron Tube device and signified the birth of electronic devices.