Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College (pronounced [ˈmɔːdlɪn]) was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The refoundation was largely the work of Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII. Audley also gave the College its motto — 'garde ta foy' — keep your faith. Audley's successors in the Mastership and as benefactors of the College were however prone to dire ends; several benefactors were arraigned at various stages on charges of high treason and executed.

The College's most famous son is Samuel Pepys, whose papers and books were donated to the College upon his death, and are now housed in the Pepys Library, the most beautiful building within the College. Magdalene is both famous and notorious for its 'traditional' style, boasting both a well-regarded candlelit formal hall (held every evening) and the distinction of having been the last previously all-male College in Oxford or Cambridge to admit women in 1988 (Oriel College was the last in Oxford, admitting women in 1985).

Aesthetically Magdalene's old College buildings are beautiful if representative of the College's ramshackle growth from a monks' foundation into a centre of education. It is also distinctive in that most of the old buildings are in brick rather than stone (save for the frontage of the Pepys Library). Magdalene Street divides the most ancient courts from more recent developments. One of the accommodation blocks in the newer part of the college was built by Edwin Lutyens in the early 1930s.

Magdalene remains, despite this twentieth-century expansion, one of the smaller colleges within the University, at last count numbering over 300 undergraduates and an expanding postgraduate community. Opened in 2005 was Cripps Court, on Chesterton Road, featuring new undergraduate rooms and conference facilities. The current Master is Duncan Robinson.

Magdalene College backs on to the River Cam

1 Notable alumni
2 Honorary Fellows have included
3 Quotes
4 External links

[edit] Notable alumni

The first court of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Adam Holloway (Member of Parliament for Gravesham)
Samuel Pepys (diarist)
Sir Samuel Morland (diplomat, spy, inventor, mathematician)
Sir Michael Redgrave (actor)
Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II(Current king or Kabaka of Buganda)
George Mallory (mountaineer)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (air vice marshal, Battle of Britain)
Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder (Marshal of the Royal Air Force, World War II)
John Tedder, 2nd Baron Tedder (Professor of Chemistry, expert in free radical chemistry)
John Simpson (journalist)
Giles Baring (cricketer)
Julian Fellowes (actor and Academy Award winning screenwriter)
Bamber Gascoigne (TV presenter, University Challenge)
Julian Rathbone (English novelist)
Alan Rusbridger (editor, The Guardian)
David Clary (President, Magdalen College, Oxford)
Gavin Hastings OBE (rugby international)
Rob Wainwright (rugby international)
Katie Derham (TV newsreader)
Charles Stewart Parnell (Irish nationalist) (did not graduate)
Sir Antony Jay (author, Yes Minister)
Sir David Calcutt (former Master and barrister)
Dr Roger Morris (electrical engineer)
C. S. Lewis (author and theologian)
Henry Dunster (first President of Harvard University)
A C Benson (librettist of Land of Hope and Glory)
Patrick Blackett (Nobel Prize winning physicist)
Charles Kingsley (author of The Water Babies and Regius Professor of Modern History)
Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury and graduate of Jesus College; Fellow of Magdalene)
Michael Ramsey Archbishop of Canterbury
Norman Hartnell (dress designer to the Queen)
David Burghley, Olympic champion, 400m hurdles.
Sir Frederic Salusbury (Editor of the Daily Herald)
Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin (President of the International Olympic Committee)
William Donaldson (creator of Henry Root)
Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan Social Scientist

[edit] Honorary Fellows have included

See also Category:Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge

[edit] Quotes

"Magdalene to go co-ed: State school pupils to be admitted" — headline in student newspaper Stop Press (now known as Varsity) in the mid-1980s at the time of dispute over admission of women.