Christ Church, Oxford
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| Christ Church, Oxford | ||||||||||||
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| College name | Christ Church | |||||||||||
| Ædes Christi | ||||||||||||
| Named after | Jesus of Nazareth | |||||||||||
| Established | 1546 | |||||||||||
| Sister College | Trinity College | |||||||||||
| Dean | The Very Revd Christopher Andrew Lewis | |||||||||||
| JCR President | Garth Smith | |||||||||||
| Undergraduates | 426 | |||||||||||
| GCR President | Ozzie Johnston | |||||||||||
| Graduates | 154 | |||||||||||
| Home page | ||||||||||||
| Boat Club | ||||||||||||
Christ Church (Latin: Ædes Christi, the temple or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, with an estimated financial endowment of £175m (2003), as well as the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford. The cathedral has a famous men and boys' choir, and is one of the main choral foundations in Oxford.
Christ Church has traditionally been seen as the most aristocratic college in Oxford. It has produced thirteen British prime ministers (the two most recent being Anthony Eden from 1955 to 1957 and Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963–1964), which is more than any other Oxford or Cambridge college (and two short of the total number for the University of Cambridge, fifteen). However today the proportion of undergraduates from maintained and independent schools is roughly equal, which is typical of most Oxford colleges.
The college is the setting for parts of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, as well as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. More recently it has been used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Distinctive features of the college's architecture have been used as models by a number of other academic institutions, including the National University of Ireland, Galway, which reproduces Tom Quad. The University of Chicago and Cornell University both have reproductions of Christ Church's dining hall (in the forms of Hutchinson Hall and Risley's dining hall respectively). Christ Church Cathedral, New Zealand, after which the City of Christchurch is named, is itself named after Christ Church, Oxford.
Christ Church is also partly responsible for creation of University College Reading, which later gained its own Royal Charter and became the University of Reading.
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[edit] Organisation
Christ Church, formally titled The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry the Eighth, is the only college in the world which is also a cathedral, the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Oxford. The Visitor of Christ Church is the reigning British Sovereign, and the Bishop of Oxford is unique among English bishops in not being the visitor of his own cathedral.
The head of the college is the Dean of Christ Church, who is a clergyman appointed by the Crown as dean of the cathedral church. There is a Senior and a Junior Censor (formally titled the Censor Moralis Philosphiæ and the Censor Naturalis Philosophiæ) who are responsible for undergraduate discipline. A Censor Theologiæ is also appointed to act as the Dean's deputy.
[edit] Governing Body
The Governing Body of Christ Church consists of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, together with the Students of Christ Church, who are not students, but rather the equivalent of the Fellows of the other colleges. Until the nineteenth century, the Students differed from Fellows by the fact that they had no governing powers in their own college.
[edit] Student life
As well as rooms for accommodation, the buildings of Christ Church include the cathedral, one of the smallest in England, which also acts as the college chapel, a great hall, two libraries, two bars, and common rooms for dons, graduates and undergraduates. There are also gardens and a neighbouring sportsground and boat-house.
Accommodation is usually provided for all undergraduates, and for some graduates, although some accommodation is off-site. Accommodation is generally spacious with most rooms equipped with sinks and fridges. Many undergraduate rooms comprise 'sets' of bedrooms and living areas. Members are generally expected to dine in hall, where there are two sittings every evening, one informal and one formal (where jackets, ties and gowns are worn and Latin grace is read). The buttery next to the Hall serves drinks around dinner time. There is also a college bar (known as the Undercroft), as well as a Junior Common Room (JCR) and a Graduate Common Room (GCR).
There is a college lending library which supplements the university libraries (many of which are non-lending). Law students have the additional facility of the college law library, which has received large financial supplements from Christ Church law graduates. Most undergraduate tutorials are carried out in the college, though for some specialist papers undergraduates may be sent to tutors in other colleges.
Croquet is played in the Master's Garden in the summer. The sportsground is mainly used for cricket, tennis, rugby and soccer. Rowing and punting is carried out by the boat-house across Christ Church Meadow. The college owns its own punts which may be borrowed by students or dons.
The college beagle pack, which was formerly one of several undergraduate packs in Oxford, is no longer formally connected with the college or the university, but continues to be staffed and followed by undergraduates from across Oxford.
In June 2005, for the first time in 15 years, Christ Church held a white-tie Commemoration ball.
[edit] History
In 1525, at the height of his power, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, suppressed the Abbey of St Frideswide in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands, using funds from the dissolution of Wallingford Priory. He planned the establishment on a magnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, before the college was completed.
In 1531 the college was itself suppressed, and refounded in 1532 as King Henry VIII's College by Henry VIII, to whom Wolsey's property had escheated. Then in 1546 the King, who had broken from the Church of Rome and acquired great wealth through the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church as part of the re-organisation of the Church of England and made it the cathedral of the recently created diocese of Oxford. It is sometimes incorrectly called "Christ Church College".
Christ Church's sister college in the University of Cambridge is Trinity College, Cambridge, founded the same year by Henry VIII. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth I the college has also been associated with Westminster School, which continues to supply a large proportion of the scholars of the college.
Major additions have been made to the buildings through the centuries, and Wolsey's Great Quadrangle was crowned with the famous gate-tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren. To this day the bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 9 p.m. Oxford time (9:05 p.m. GMT/BST) every night for the 101 original scholars of the college. In former times this signalled the close of all college gates throughout Oxford. Although the clock itself now shows GMT/BST, Christ Church still follows Oxford time in the timings of services in the cathedral.
King Charles I made the Deanery his palace and held his Parliament in the Great Hall during the English Civil War.
[edit] Buildings
Christ Church has a number of architecturally significant buildings. These include:
- Christ Church Library
- Peckwater Quadrangle
- The Great Quadrangle or Tom Quad including Tom Tower
- Blue Boar Quadrangle
- Canterbury Quadrangle
- Christ Church Hall
- The Meadow Building
- Christ Church Cathedral
[edit] Coat of arms
The college arms, adopted (as with those of most Oxford colleges) apparently without authority, are those of Cardinal Wolsey, and are blazoned: Sable, on a cross engrailed argent, between four leopards' faces azure a lion passant gules; on a chief or between two Cornish choughs proper a rose gules barbed vert and seeded or. The arms are depicted beneath a red cardinal's hat with fifteen tassels on either side, and sometimes in front of two crossed croziers.
There are also arms in use by the cathedral, which were confirmed in a visitation of 1574. They are emblazoned: Between quarterly, 1st & 4th, France modern (azure three fleurs-de-lys or), 2nd & 3rd, England (gules in pale three lions passant guardant or), on a cross argent an open Bible proper edged and bound with seven clasps or, inscribed with the words "In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum" and imperially crowned or.
[edit] Grace
Before formal Hall each evening, the following Latin grace is recited by a scholar of the House:
- Nōs miserī hominēs et egēnī, prō cibīs quōs nōbis ad corporis subsidium benignē es largītus, tibi, Deus omnipotēns, Pater cælestis, grātiās reverenter agimus; simul obsecrantēs, ut iīs sobriē, modestē atque grātē ūtāmur.
- Per Iēsum Christum Dominum nostrum.
The remaining words of the full grace replace Per Iēsum Christum, etc. on special occasions:
- Īnsuper petimus, ut cibum angelōrum, vērum panem cælestem, verbum Deī æternem, Dominum nostrum Iēsum Christum, nōbis impertiāris; utque illō mēns nostra pascātur et per carnem et sanguinem eius fovēāmur, alāmur, et corrōborēmur.
There is also a similarly long formal grace intended for use after meals, but this is rarely heard. Instead, when High Table rises, by which time the Hall is largely empty, the senior don simply says Benedictō benedīcātur.
[edit] Christ Church references
"Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell
And many a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls' Night..." — W B Yeats, All Souls' Night, Oxford (1920)
"The wind had dropped. There was even a glimpse of the moon riding behind the clouds. And now, a solemn and plangent token of Oxford's perpetuity, the first stroke of Great Tom sounded." — Max Beerbohm, Chapter 21, Zuleika Dobson (1922)
"I must say my thoughts wandered, but I kept turning the pages and watching the light fade, which in Peckwater, my dear, is quite an experience -- as darkness falls the stone seems positively to decay under one's eyes. I was reminded of some of those leprous facades in the vieux port at Marseille, until suddenly I was disturbed by such a bawling and caterwauling as you never heard, and there, down in the little piazza, I saw a mob of about twenty terrible young men, and do you know what they were chanting We want Blanche. We want Blanche! in a kind of litany." — Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945)
"Those twins / Of learning that he [Wolsey] raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue." — William Shakespeare, Henry VIII
"By way of light entertainment, I should tell the Committee that it is well known that a match between an archer and a golfer can be fairly close. I spent many a happy evening in the centre of Peckwater Quadrangle at Christ Church, with a bow and arrow, trying to put an arrow over the Kilcannon building into the Mercury Pond in Tom Quad. On occasion, the golfer would win and, on occasion, I would win. Unfortunately, that had to stop when I put an arrow through the bowler hat of the head porter. Luckily, he was unhurt and bore me no ill will. From that time on he always sent me a Christmas card which was signed 'To Robin Hood from the Ancient Briton'" — Lord Crawshaw, House of Lords Hansard, Tuesday 8 Jul 1997
[edit] Deans of Christ Church
[edit] Cardinal College
- 1525 John Hygdon
[edit] King Henry VIII's College
- 1525 John Hygdon
- 1533 John Oliver
[edit] Christ Church
- 1546 Richard Cox
- 1553 Richard Marshall
- 1559 George Carew
- 1561 Thomas Sampson
- 1565 Thomas Godwin
- 1567 Thomas Cooper
- 1570 John Piers
- 1576 Tobie Matthew
- 1584 William James
- 1596 Thomas Ravis
- 1605 John King
- 1611 William Goodwin
- 1620 Richard Corbet
- 1629 Brian Duppa
- 1638 Samuel Fell
- 1648 Edward Reynolds
- 1651 John Owen
- 1659 Edward Reynolds
- 1660 George Morley
- 1660 John Fell
- 1686 John Massey
- 1689 Henry Aldrich
- 1711 Francis Atterbury
- 1713 George Smalridge
- 1719 Hugh Boulter
- 1724 William Bradshaw
- 1733 John Conybeare
- 1756 David Gregory
- 1767 William Markham
- 1777 Lewis Bagot
- 1783 Cyril Jackson
- 1809 Charles Henry Hall
- 1824 Samuel Smith
- 1831 Thomas Gaisford
- 1855 Henry George Liddell
- 1892 Francis Paget
- 1901 Thomas Banks Strong
- 1920 Henry Julian White
- 1934 Alwyn Terrell Petre Williams
- 1939 John Lowe
- 1959 Cuthbert Aikman Simpson
- 1969 Henry Chadwick
- 1979 Eric William Heaton
- 1991 John Henry Drury
- 2003 Christopher Andrew Lewis
[edit] Notable members
Listed alphabetically by surname (or peerage if best known by that).
Prime Ministers
- George Canning (1770 - 1827), Prime Minister
- Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (1799 - 1869), Prime Minister
- Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (1903 - 1995), Prime Minister
- Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (1897 - 1977), Prime Minister
- William Ewart Gladstone (1809 - 1898), Prime Minister
- George Grenville (1712-1770)
- William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville (1759 - 1834), Prime Minister
- Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770 - 1828), Prime Minister
- Sir Robert Peel (1788 - 1850), Prime Minister
- William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738 - 1809), Prime Minister
- Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, (1847 - 1929), Prime Minister
- John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, (1792-1878), Prime Minister
- Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830 - 1903), Prime Minister
- William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (1737 - 1805), Prime Minister
Arts and media
- Sir Harold Acton (1904 - 1994) writer and scholar
- Sir Thomas Armstrong (1898 - 1994), musician
- W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973), poet
- Sir Adrian Boult (1889 - 1983), conductor
- Kenneth Barnes (1878 - 1957), Director of R.A.D.A.
- Robert Burton (1577 - 1640), writer of 'The Anatomy of Melancholy'
- Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898), (real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), writer, clergyman and mathematician
- Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886 – 1959), Antarctic explorer and writer
- Laurence Cummings - conductor, organist, harpsichordist
- Richard Curtis (1956 - ), comedy writer
- David Dimbleby (1938 - ), broadcaster
- Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1938 - 1988), art patron
- Geoffrey Faber (1889 - 1961), publisher
- Michael Flanders (1922 – 1975), actor, writer and broadcaster
- Peter Fleming (1907 – 1971), traveller and writer
- Howard Goodall (1958 - ), composer and broadcaster
- Bryan Guinness 2nd Lord Moyne (1905-1992) poet and brewer.
- Desmond Guinness (1931 - ), conservationist and author.
- Richard Hakluyt (1552 - 1616), writer
- Anthony Howard (1934 - ), journalist and broadcaster
- Sir Ludovic Kennedy (1919 - ), broadcaster and writer
- Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775 - 1818), novelist and dramatist
- S. P. B. Mais (1885 - 1975), author, journalist and broadcaster
- Sir John Masterman (1891 – 1977), academic, sportsman, author and spymaster
- Norman Painting (1924 - ), radio actor
- Hugh Quarshie (1954 - ), actor
- John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), critic, poet and artist
- Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586), poet and soldier
- J. I. M. Stewart (Michael Innes) (1906 - 1994), literary critic and novelist
- Donald Swann (1923 – 1994), composer, musician and entertainer
- John Taverner (1490 - 1545), composer
- Sir William Walton (1902 - 1983), composer
- Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930), composer and critic
- Auberon Waugh (1939 - 2001), author and journalist
Politics and government
- Sir Antony Acland (1930 - ), Head of the Diplomatic Service
- Jonathan Aitken (1942 - ), Conservative politician
- Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey (1768 - 1854), soldier and politician
- Robert Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Ilminster (1927 - ), Head of the Civil Service
- George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (1753 - 1813), statesman
- Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell (1886 - 1957), physicist and cabinet minister
- Alan Clark (1928 - 1999), politician and diarist
- Frederick Curzon, 7th Earl Howe, prominent Conservative Party statesmen, was Defense Minister, Agriculture Minister, among others
- Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester (1757 - 1829), Speaker of the House of Commons
- William Dowdeswell (1721 - 1775), Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Tom Driberg, Baron Bradwell (1905 - 1976), politician and writer
- John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville (1690 - 1763), diplomat and statesman
- Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville (1815 - 1891), politician and Foreign Secretary
- Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (1907 - 2001), Lord Chancellor
- Michael Hicks-Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn (1837 - 1916), Chancellor of the Exchequer
- John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley (1826 - 1902), politician and Foreign Secretary
- Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson (1932 - ), politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Francis Godolphin Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds (1759 - 1799), politician and Foreign Secretary
- Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1806 - 1863), writer, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary
- Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902-61)
- Francis Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905 – 2001), politician and social reformer
- Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons (1817 - 1877), diplomat
- William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705 - 1793), Lord Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Sir Gilbert Murray (1866 – 1957), classical scholar and diplomat
- Edward Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans (1798 - 1877), politician
- Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury (1946 - ), Conservative politician
- Roger Mellor Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield (1904 - 1996), diplomat
Philosophy
- Sir Alfred Ayer (1910 – 1989), philosopher
- John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683 - 1744), philosopher
- Sir Michael Dummett (1925 - ), philosopher
- John Locke (1632 - 1704), philosopher
- John Rawls, (1921 - 2002), philosopher
- Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), philosopher
- John Searle (1932 - ), philosopher
Theology
- Adam Blakeman (1596 - 1665), preacher and American settler
- Percy Dearmer (1867 - 1936), priest and liturgist
- Trevor Huddleston (1913 - 1998), Archbishop of Mauritius and anti-Apartheid campaigner
- Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800 - 1882), churchman and progenitor of the Oxford Movement
- John Macquarrie (1919 - ), Christian Existentialist
- Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), theologian
- Eric Lionel Mascall (1905 - 1993), Anglo-Catholic theologian
- Charles Wesley (1707 - 1788), Methodist preacher and hymnist
- John Wesley (1703 - 1791), leader of the Methodist movement
- Rowan Williams (1950 - ), Archbishop of Canterbury
Viceroys and Governors General
- William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst (1773 - 1857), Governor-General of India
- George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784 - 1849), politician and Governor-General of India
- Lord William Bentinck (1774 - 1839), soldier and Governor-General of India
- Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning (1812 - 1862), politician and Governor-General of India
- James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (1812 - 1860), politician and Governor-General of India
- Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1826 - 1902), Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India
- James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin (1811 - 1863), Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India
- Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881 - 1959), Foreign Secretary and Viceroy of India
- Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto (1751 - 1814), politician and Governor-General of India
- Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook (1826 - 1904), Viceroy of India and First Lord of the Admiralty
- Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley (1760 - 1842), Foreign Secretary and Governor-General of India
Academia
- Robert Blake, Baron Blake (1916 - 2003), historian
- Robert Burchfield (1923 - 2004) scholar, writer, and lexicographer
- William Camden (1551 - 1623), antiquarian and historian
- Richard Carew (1555 - 1620), translator and antiquary
- Sir William Deakin (1913 - 2005), historian and diplomat
- Edmund Gunter (1581 - 1626), mathematician
- Sir Roy Harrod (1900 - 1978), economist
- Sir Michael Howard (1922 - ), historian
- Jan Morris (1926 - ), writer and historian
- Prince Dmitriy Obolensky (1918 - 2001), historian
- A. L. Rowse (1903 - 1997), historian
- Henry Hotchkiss Townsend (1874 - 1953), historian and lawyer
- Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre (1914 - 2003), historian
Science
- Sir Joseph Banks (1743 - 1820), botanist
- William Buckland (1784 - 1856), geologist, palaeontologist and omnivore
- Sir Richard Doll (1912 – 2005), epidemiologist
- Albert Einstein (elected to a five-year Research Studentship in 1931)
- John Freind (1675 - 1728), physician and chemist
- Sir Archibald Garrod (1857 - 1936), physician and pioneer molecular geneticist
- Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703), scientist and inventor
- John Keill (1671 - 1721), physicist and mathematician
- John Kidd (1775 – 1851), physician, chemist and geologist
- Sir John Maddox (1925 - ), science writer
- Sir Martin Ryle (1918 – 1984, radio astronomer
- Sir Francis Simon (1893-1956), physicist
- Sir Denys Wilkinson (1922 - ), nuclear physicist
- Thomas Willis (1621-1675), physician and neurologist
- Sir Martin Wood (1927 - ), engineer
Other
- Henry Bathurst, 8th Earl Bathurst, wealthy, prominent member of the landed British peerage
- Sir Ian Blair (1953 - ), Commissioner of Metropolitan Police
- Shahid Javed Burki (1938 - ), economist and Vice-President of the World Bank
- James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797 - 1868), Soldier and Commander of the Light Brigade at Balaclava
- Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928 - 1979), Prime Minister and President of Pakistan
- Edward VII of the United Kingdom (1841 – 1910) King-Emperor
- Erskine William Gladstone (1925 - ), Chief Scout
- Michael Moritz, venture capitalist
- Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Mornington (1978 - ), consultant
- William Penn (1644 - 1718), founder of Pennsylvania
- Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford (1893 - 1971) Marshal of the Royal Air Force and Chief of the Air Staff, World War II
- Jonny Searle MBE (1969-), Gold Medallist, Coxed Pair, 1992 Summer Olympics
See also Category: Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford and Students (i.e. Fellows) of Christ Church, Oxford
[edit] External links
Main Website
History of the cathedral
Cathedral website
Other sites
- Christ Church Senior Common Room website
- Christ Church Graduate Common Room website
- Christ Church Junior Common Room website
- Christ Church Cathedral Choir website
- Mansfield, the Christ Church Law Society
- Prints of Christ Church
Virtual Tours
[edit] References
- Reginald Adams (1992). The college graces of Oxford and Cambridge. Perpetua Press. ISBN 1-870882-06-7.
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