St John's College, Oxford

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]

History

Thomas White, a Catholic, originally intended St John's 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 acquired buildings on the east side of St Giles', north of Balliol and Trinity Colleges, which had belonged to the former College of St Bernard, a monastery and house of study of the Cistercian order; this had been closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Initially the college was rather small and not well endowed financially. During the reign of Elizabeth I the fellows lectured in rhetoric, Greek, and dialectic, but not directly in theology. However, St John's initially had a strong focus on the creation of a proficient and educated priesthood.^[2]

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. Closed scholarships for members of Merchant Taylors' School persisted until the late 20th century. The endowments which St John's was given at its foundation, and during the twenty 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 patronage of the parish of St Giles was included in the endowment to the college by Thomas White. Vicars of St Giles were formerly either Fellows of the College, or ex-Fellows who were granted the living on marriage (when Oxford fellows were required to be unmarried). The College retains the right to present candidates for the benefice to the bishop.^[3]

The College Today

The College is among the larger Oxford colleges and comprises approximately 400 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates and academic staff.^{[citation needed]}

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.

College buildings

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

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 Old Library on the south side, and 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" (1958-60), made up of non-regular hexagonal rooms. The Senior Common Room ceiling, completed in 1742, features the craftsmanship of Thomas Roberts, who also worked on the Radcliffe Camera and the Codrington Library.^[4]
• 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: a modern (1993) neo-Italianate quadrangle including an auditorium and other conference facilities.
• Rural Economy Quad: late 20th century, on the site of the former Department of Rural Economy (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).

St John's College gardens viewed from the East

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 until recently accommodates the Centre for International Development. Work is now 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 MacCormac Jamieson Prichard. The new building was given an award by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2006.