Christ's College, Cambridge
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHR : Christ's College, Cambridge
| Christ’s College, Cambridge | |
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| Full name | Christ’s College |
| Motto | Souvent me Souvient I Often Remember |
| Named after | Christ |
| Previous names | God’s-house (1437), Christ’s College (1505) |
| Established | 1505 |
| List of Oxbridge sister colleges>Sister College(s) | Wadham College |
| Master | Prof. Malcolm Bowie |
| Location | [St. Andrew’s Street] |
| Undergraduates | 396 |
| Postgraduates | 95 |
| [Homepage] | [Boatclub] |
College history
The college grew from God’s House founded in 1437 on land now occupied by King’s College Chapel. It received its first royal licence in 1446. It moved to its present site in 1448 when it received its second royal licence. It was renamed Christ’s College and received its present charter in 1505 when it was endowed and expanded by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII.
Buildings
The original 15th/16th century college buildings now form part of First Court, including the chapel, Master’s Lodge and Great Gate tower. The gate itself is curiously disproportionate: the bottom has been cut off to accommodate a rise in street level, which can also be seen in the steps leading down to the foot of L staircase in the gate tower. The college hall, by George Gilbert Scott, the younger, was added in 1875-1879. The lawn of First Court is famously round, and the wisteria sprawling up the front of the master’s lodge is reputed to be the largest in Europe.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
Second Court is fully built up on only three sides, one of which is formed by the 1640s Fellows’ Building. The fourth side backs onto the Master’s garden. The Stevenson Building in Third Court was designed by J.J. Stevenson, in the 1880s. Third Court is also noted for its display of irises, a gift to the college.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
The controversial tiered concrete New Court (often dubbed ‘the Typewriter’) was designed in the Modernist style by Sir Denys Lasdun in 1966-70. Described as ‘superb’ in Lasdun’s obituary in the Guardian,[link] design critic Hugh Pearman comments ‘[Lasdun] had big trouble relating to the street at the overhanging rear’. [link] It appears very distinctively in aerial photographs, forming part of the northern boundary of the college.
An assortment of neighbouring buildings have been absorbed into the college, of which the most notable is Todd Court, previously Cambridge’s County Hall.
Through an arch in the Fellows’ Building is the Fellows’ Garden. It includes two mulberry trees, of which the older was planted in 1608, the same year as Milton’s birth. Both trees have toppled sideways, the younger tree being a victim of the Great Storm of 1987,[[Citing sources citation needed]] and are now earthed up round the trunks, but continue to fruit every year.
College societies
The Junior Combination Room, Christ’s College Students’ Union, is involved in every aspect of student life. Representative of the student body, it organises social and welfare events, and negotiates on the students’ behalf on important issues. The JCR’s webpage can be accessed [here].
Also of note are the football club, the [CCAFC], the rugby club, the [CCRFC], the rowing club, [CCBC] and the [Chapel Choir].
The College hosts a biennial May Ball.
Masters of Christ’s
See also: | width=1% | |bgcolor="#FFFFE0" valign=top width=48%| |}See Christ’s College by John Peile (1900)
Famous alumni
See also:
- Sir Anthony Caro (b. 1924) — sculptor
- Sacha Baron Cohen (b. 1971) aka Ali G — British comedian
- John James Cowperthwaite (1916–2006) — credited with policies allowing Hong Kong’s economic boom in the 1960s
- Charles Darwin (1809–1882) — British naturalist
- Patrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin (1905-1992) — Jurist, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
- Colin Dexter (b. 1930) — British novelist
- Edmund Grindal (c.1519 –1583) - Archbishop of Canterbury
- Derry Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg (b. 1940) — Lord Chancellor
- Richard Luce, Baron Luce (b. 1936) — Lord Chamberlain
- Dr. Michael Lynch, OBE (b. 1965) — Software entrepreneur, founder of Autonomy Systems
- Timothy Marschall Jones — former British ambassador to Armenia
- Allama Mashriqi (1888–1963) — Founder of the Khaksar Tehreek
- David Mellor (b. 1949) — British politician
- John Milton (1608–1674) — English poet
- Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900–1979) — British Admiral of the Fleet and statesman
- William Paley (1743–1805) — English theologian and philosopher
- Sir John Plumb (1911–2001) — British historian
- Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) — Bishop of Chester and Bishop of London, leading reformer and abolitionist
- Forrest Reid (1875–1948) — Cambridge apostle, novelist, literary critic
- Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham (1738–1786) — British Foreign Secretary
- Nicholas Saunderson (1682–1739) — British mathematician
- Simon Schama (b. 1945) — British historian, author, and television presenter
- Jan Smuts (1870–1950) — South African general and statesman
- C. P. Snow, Baron Snow (1905–1980) — British novelist and philosopher
- Jeffrey Tate, CBE (b. 1943) — conductor
- Andrew Turnbull, Baron Turnbull (b. 1945) — Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service
- Kieran West, MBE (b. 1977) — Olympic gold medalist rower
- Richard Whiteley (1943–2005) — British television presenter
- Rowan Williams (b. 1950) — British theologian, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury
- Christopher Zeeman (b. 1925) — British mathematician
External links
- [Official Christ’s College website]
- [Christ’s College Student Union]
- [Christ’s biennial May Ball]
- [Cambridge 2000 — Christ’s College photographs]
- [Google Maps Satellite Imagery]
| Colleges of the University of Cambridge |
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|---|---|
| Christ's | Churchill | Clare | Clare Hall | Corpus Christi | Darwin | Downing | Emmanuel | Fitzwilliam | Girton | Gonville and Caius | Homerton | Hughes Hall | Jesus | King's | Lucy Cavendish | Magdalene | New Hall | Newnham | Pembroke | Peterhouse | Queens' | Robinson | St Catharine's | St Edmund's | St John's | Selwyn | Sidney Sussex | Trinity | Trinity Hall | Wolfson | |
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