St John's College, Oxford

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St John's College, Oxford
College name	St John's College
	Collegium Divi Joannis Baptistae
Named after	Saint John the Baptist
Established	1555
Sister College	Sidney Sussex College
President	Sir Michael Scholar KCB
JCR President	Rhys Jones
Undergraduates	381
Graduates	184
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St John's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, and his heart is buried in the chapel. It is the wealthiest college at Oxford with an estimated financial endowment of £220m (2003), and its undergraduate finals results regularly place it near the top of the University's Norrington Table.^[1]

[edit] History

Thomas White was a Catholic, and St John's was originally intended to provide a source of educated Catholic clerics to support the Counter-Reformation under Queen Mary. Edmund Campion, the Catholic martyr, was a product of St John's. White was Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company, and established a number of educational foundations including the Merchant Taylors' schools. Although the College was closely linked to those institutions for many centuries, it became a more open society in the later 19th century. The endowments which St John's was given at its foundation, and during the 20 or so years afterward, served it very well. In the second half of the nineteenth century it benefited, as ground landlord, from the suburban development of the city of Oxford and was unusual among Colleges for the size and extent of its property within the city.

Although primarily a producer of Anglican clergymen in the earlier periods of its history, St John's also gained a reputation for both law and medicine. Fellows and alumni have included Archbishop Laud, Jane Austen's father and brothers, the early Fabian intellectual Sidney Ball, who was very influential in the creation of the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), Abdul Rasul, one of the first Bengalis to gain the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford, and more recently, Tony Blair.

The site was formerly the Cistercian monastery of St Bernard. Fairly large, it comprises approximately 400 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates and academic staff. The college stands on St Giles', north of Balliol and Trinity Colleges.

[edit] College buildings

Most of the college buildings are organized around seven quadrangles (quads):

• Front Quad: mainly the 15th-century buildings of the former St Bernard's monastery.
• Canterbury Quad: the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford, substantially commissioned by Archbishop Laud. Much of the college library is here, including the Laudian Library above the eastern colonnade, overlooking the garden.
• North Quad: an irregularly-shaped mixture of 18th, 19th, and 20th century ranges. These include the 18th-century buttery staircase adjoining the hall, the block containing the Senior Common Room, the 19th-century range along St Giles', and the "Beehive" (c1975), made up of non-regular hexagonal rooms.
• Dolphin Quad: built in the early 20th century on the site of the old Dolphin Inn.
• Sir Thomas White Quad: late 20th century (informally known as "Tommy White"). The building is an early work by Ove Arup which won the 1976 Concrete Society Award, but is considered a monstrosity by some members of the college. It is not actually a quadrangle, but an L-shaped building partially enclosing an area of garden.
• Garden Quad: late 20th century.
• Rural Economy Quad: late 20th century, on the site of the former Department of Rural Economy or Agriculture.

Other buildings on the site include the Holmes Building (a south spur off the Canterbury Quad, containing fellows' rooms), and Middleton Hall, a curious house, north of the North Quad and abutting the Lamb and Flag, which has a stone frontage in early 19th-century style, though the back part is in Victorian red brick and contains a Jacobean staircase (perhaps originally from another building).

In addition, the College accommodates a number of students, traditionally second-years but nowadays also a significant number of finalists, in the houses owned by the college on Museum Road and Blackhall Road. These houses back on to Queen Elizabeth House, which accommodates the Centre for International Development; plans are underway to convert Queen Elizabeth House into a quad named after Sir John Kendrew, former President of the College, Nobel Laureate and the college's greatest benefactor of the twentieth century. The College is calling the project "the last great quad in the city centre". Since the college also incorporates Middleton Hall (see above) and owns St Giles House, the former judge's house north of the college, this will mean the college will extend for almost the entire length of the east side of St Giles, as well as owning parts of the opposite side. This includes the recent purchase of The Eagle and Child pub (where the well-known writers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis often met their literary friends) to complement the Lamb and Flag opposite it on the college side of the road.

The SCR was renovated and extended in 2004 and 2005 by McCormack Jamieson Pritchard. The new building was given an award by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2006.

Canterbury Quad, St John's College, Oxford : The entrance to the Great Lawn and Groves, which were not (despite popular legend) landscaped by Capability Brown

[edit] College Societies

In 2006, St John's was the first Oxford college to start its own television station, SJCTV [1]. The station shows two half hour programmes a term, at college welfare nights. SJCTV's stated aim is to enhance community spirit, inform students of the college's welfare provisions and allow students a forum for creative expression.

[edit] Notable Alumni

• Kingsley Amis
• Tony Blair
• Edmund Campion
• George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave
• Victoria Coren
• Evan Davis (journalist)
• Reginald de Koven
• Alan Duncan
• Gwynfor Evans
• James Eyre
• Prince Fumihito of Japan
• Geoffrey Gallop
• Robert Graves
• Robert Henley, 1st Earl of Northington
• A. E. Housman
• Simon Jenkins
• William Juxon
• John Lanchester
• Philip Larkin
• William Laud
• Henry Longueville Mansel
• Rhodri Morgan
• Gilbert Murray
• Lester B. Pearson
• Peter Preston
• Dean Rusk
• James Shirley
• J. K. Stanford
• D. J. Taylor
• Stephen Wolfram
• John Wain

[edit] See also

• Fellows of St John's College, Oxford.
• University of Oxford.

[edit] References

1. ^ Mayer, Matt. Norrington Table 2000-2006. Retrieved on December 9, 2006.

[edit] External links

• St John's College Official Website
• St John's College JCR Official Website
• University of Oxford Website
• Virtual Tour of St. John's College
• SJCTV Episodes