Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Encyclopedia : G : GO : GON : Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
| Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge | |
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| Full name | Gonville and Caius College |
| Motto | |
| Named after | Edmund Gonville & John Caius |
| Previous names | Gonville Hall (1348), Gonville & Caius (1557) |
| Established | 1348, refounded 1557 |
| List of Oxbridge sister colleges>Sister College(s) | Brasenose College |
| Master | Sir Christopher Hum |
| Location | [Trinity St] |
| Undergraduates | 468 |
| Postgraduates | 291 |
| [Homepage] | [Boatclub] |
The college’s present Master, the 41st, is Sir Christopher Hum.
Outline
The College has been attended by many students who have gone on to significant accomplishment. As an academic institution it has included nine Nobel Prize winners on the official Cambridge Nobel list [link]. Caius claims to be one of the colleges with consistently high undergraduate academic achievement [link]. Caius also has one of the more architecturally impressive student libraries [link].The college has long historical associations with medical teaching especially due to its alumni physicians John Caius (who gave the college the caduceus in its insignia) and William Harvey.
The college first admitted women as fellows and students in 1979. The college now has nearly 100 fellows, over 700 students and about 200 staff.
History
The College was first founded, as Gonville Hall, by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington in Norfolk in 1348, making it the fourth-oldest surviving college. When Gonville died three years later, he left a struggling institution with almost no money. The executor of his will, William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, stepped in, transferring the college to the land close to the college he had just founded, Trinity Hall, and renamed it The Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, endowing it with its first buildings.
By the sixteenth century, the college had fallen into disrepair, and in 1557 it was refounded by Royal Charter as Gonville and Caius College by the physician John Caius. John Caius was master of the college from 1559 until shortly before his death in 1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly extended the buildings.
During his time as Master, Caius accepted no payment but insisted on several unusual rules. He insisted that the college admit no “deaf, dumb, deformed, lame, chronic invalids, or Welshmen”, and built a three-sided court “lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul”. Caius did however found the college as a strong centre for the study of medicine, a tradition that it aims to keep to this day. By 1630, the college had expanded greatly, having around 25 fellows and 150 students, but numbers fell over the next century, only returning to the 1630 level in the early nineteenth century. Since then the college has grown considerably and now has one of the largest undergraduate populations in the university.
It is one of the more wealthy colleges with an estimated financial endowment of £105m (2005).
Caius also very selectively admits academically-accomplished American and other foreign students for its various programmes, the most prominent of which has been organized in the United States by the University of New Hampshire, although these programmes are not to the Tripos standard.
Buildings
The first buildings to be erected on the college’s current site date from 1353 when Bishop Bateman built Gonville Court. The college chapel was added in 1393 with the Old Hall (used until recently as a library) and Master’s Lodge following in the next half century. Most of the stone used to build the college came from Ramsey Abbey near Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.
On the refoundation by Dr Caius, the college was expanded and updated. In 1565 the building of Caius Court began, and he planted an avenue of trees in what is now known as Tree Court. Caius was also responsible for the building of the college’s three gates, symbolising the path of academic life. On matriculation, one arrives at the Gate of Humility (near the Porters’ Lodge). In the centre of the college one passes through the Gate of Virtue regularly. And finally, graduating students pass through the Gate of Honour on their way to the neighbouring Senate House to receive their degrees.
Gonville Court was refaced in a classical design in the 1750s, and the current library and hall were designed by Anthony Salvin in 1854. On the wall of the hall hangs a college flag that was flown at the South Pole by Dr. Wilson during the famous 1912 expedition.
The modern Harvey Court (named after William Harvey) was built in 1961 on West Road, designed by Sir Leslie Martin.
The Old Courts
.jpg "Interior North-East Corner of Waterhouse Building")
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.jpg "Exterior South-East Corner of Tree Court")
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Tree Court is the largest of the Old Courts. It is so named because John Caius planted an avenue of trees there. Although none of the original trees survived, there are several trees which is unusual for a Cambridge front court. The interior North-East corner of the Waterhouse Building can be seen on the left and the Exterior South-East corner, as seen from King’s Parade, on the right.
.jpg "Interior East Side of Gonville Court")
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Gonville Court, though remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is the oldest part of the college. The interior East Side of Gonville Court, opposite Hall, can be seen on the left.
The Gate of Honour (to the left), at the South side of Caius Court, though the most direct way from the Old Courts to the College Library (Cockrell Building, behind the wall on the right), is only used for special occasions like graduation. The Senate House (on the left) as well as King’s College Chapel (directly behind the Gate of Honours) can also be seen.
Notable former students and alumni
See also
- Harold Abrahams - Olympic athlete portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire.
- Alain de Botton - popular philosophy writer.
- Alec Broers - vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, 1996-2003.
- Alastair Campbell - aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
- Jimmy Carr - comedian and television presenter.
- Robert Carr - former British Member of Parliament and Home Secretary.
- Ken Clarke - British Member of Parliament and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- John Horton Conway - mathematician.
- Henry Fancourt - naval aviator.
- Orlando Figes - historian.
- Ronald Fisher - biologist.
- Peter Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie - politician.
- John Hookham Frere - diplomat and author.
- Sir David Frost - broadcaster.
- Sir Harold Gillies - “the father of plastic surgery”.
- Andrew Gowers - journalist.
- George Green - mathematician.
- William Harvey - medical pioneer.
- John F. Lehman - American Secretary of the Navy and member of the September 11th Commission.
- Thomas Lynch, Jr. - signatory, United States Declaration of Independence.
- Iain Macleod - former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- Inagaki Manjiro - Japan’s first Minister Resident in Siam in 1897.
- Stephen Mangan - actor.
- Michael Joseph Oakeshott - philosopher.
- Titus Oates - Popish plotter, “17th century’s worst Briton”.
- Andrew Roberts - historian.
- Simon Sebag Montefiore - historian.
- D.R. Shackleton Bailey - classicist.
- Thomas Shadwell - playwright, Poet Laureate.
- Quentin Skinner - Regius Professor of History, Cambridge.
- Sir Richard Stone - Nobel Prize-winning economist.
- Jeremy Taylor - author and clergyman.
- Adair Turner - British businessman.
- John Venn - inventor of the Venn diagram.
- Edward Adrian Wilson - explorer who died with Robert Falcon Scott in the Antarctic.
Notable fellows and Masters
''See also
- Sir James Chadwick - Nobel Prize-winning physicist, discoverer of the neutron (student, fellow, and Master).
- Francis Crick - Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of DNA (student and fellow).
- Richard J. Evans - historian (fellow).
- Sir Alan Fersht - chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society (fellow).
- Sir Howard Florey - Nobel Prize-winning inventor of penicillin (fellow).
- Francis Glisson - physician (fellow).
- Stephen Hawking - theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor (fellow).
- Anthony Hewish - Nobel Prize-winning astronomer (student and fellow).
- Sir John Hicks - Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
- Sir Nevill Mott - Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist (fellow and Master).
- Joseph Needham - sinologist (student, fellow, and Master).
- J. H. Prynne - British poet (student and fellow).
- Sir Charles Sherrington - Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist (student and fellow).
- Joseph Stiglitz - Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
See also
External links
- [Gonville and Caius College Website] (the official college website)
- [Gonville and Caius Students Union Website] (the undergraduate student social organisation for the college)
- [Gonville and Caius MCR Website] (the graduate student social organisation for the college)
References
Brooke, C. A history of Gonville and Caius College. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1985 (corrected reprint, 1996). ISBN 0-85115-423-9.
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