Jesus College, Oxford
Encyclopedia : J : JE : JES : Jesus College, Oxford
Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is the eighth wealthiest college, with closing reserves and endowments of £79,700,391 (2003). The main entrance is on the west side of Turl Street.
History
Jesus College was founded in 1571, occupying in part the site of the earlier White Hall, which had existed for several hundred years from the 13th century up until 1570, just before Jesus began. Jesus was founded by eight commissioners, of whom one Hugh Price is often credited as the main force, and received its Royal Charter from Elizabeth I.
The college was originally intended primarily for the education of clergymen. The particular intention was to satisfy a need for dedicated, learned clergy to promote the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in the parishes of England, Ireland and Wales. The college has since broadened the range of subjects offered, beginning with the inclusion of medicine and law, and now offers almost the full range of subjects taught at the university. The letters patentThe letters patent of Jesus College, as quoted by J. N. L. Baker in Jesus College Oxford 1571-1971, Oxonian Press, Oxford, 1971. issued by Elizabeth I made it clear that the education of a priest in the 16th century included more more than just theology, however:
On the strength of a promised legacy, worth £60 a year on his death, Hugh Price requested and received the authority to appoint the new college's Principal, Fellows and Scholars. He financed early building work in the college's Front Quadrangle, but on his death in 1574 it transpired that his benefaction yielded only a lump sum of around £600.
Significant benefactions in the 17th century placed the college on a more secure financial footing. One Herbert Westfaling, Bishop of Hereford, left enough property to support two fellowships and scholarships (with the significant proviso that "my kindred shallbe always preferred before anie others").Martin E. Speight, ‘Westfaling , Herbert (1531/2–1602)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29111, accessed 29 June 2006) Eubule Thelwall, principal from 1621-1630, spent much of his own money on the construction of a chapel, hall and library for the college. This library, constructed above an overly-weak colonnade, was pulled down under the principalship of Francis Mansell (1630-49), who also built two staircases of residential accommodation to attract the sons of Welsh gentry families to the College.
It was Leoline Jenkins, whose 1661-73 principalship followed Mansell's brief reinstatement, who secured the long-term viability of the college. On his death in 1685 he bequeathed a large complex of estates, acquired largely by lawyer friends from the over-mortgaged landowners of the Restoration period. These estates allowed the college's sixteen Fellowships and Scholarships to be filled for the first time (officially, sixteen of each had been supported since 1622, but the college's income was too small to keep all occupied simultaneously).http://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/history/benefactors.php Benefactors of Jesus College. Date of access 29 June 2006.
In 1974, Jesus was among the first group of five men's colleges to admit women as members, the others being Brasenose, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine's. Five women's societies (Lady Margaret Hall, Somerville, St Hugh's, St Hilda's and St Anne's) had been granted full collegiate status fifteen years earlier in 1959.
There has long been a rivalry between Jesus and nearby Exeter College.
Location and Buildings
Jesus is located on Turl Street in the centre of Oxford, on a comparatively small site by the standards of many Oxford colleges, and is one of the three Turl Street colleges along with Lincoln College and Exeter College. Much of what are considered the original buildings date from the 17th century, although parts date back to the college's foundation. Most of these earlier buildings have undergone some degree of restoration, although this is not generally obvious, and parts of the rear of the college are much more modern.
The main college buildings include the chapel (in the First Quadrangle) which was built in the early seventeeth century in Jacobean-Gothic style under Thelwall, and extended at the east end in 1636. It has a fine barrel-vaulted roof, a late seventeenth-century ante-chapel screen and an early seventeenth-century pulpit. The chancel arch was widened in 1864 by George Edmund Street. The stone flooring and much of the woodwork also date from Street's alterations. The chancel features a Victorian stained-glass window and stone altarpiece, as well as a large copy of Guido Reni's St Michael subduing the Devil. This last item was given to the college by Thomas James Bulkeley, 7th Viscount Bulkeley (a student in 1769), who acquired it in Rome during his Grand Tour.
The college Hall, accessed from the screens passage that links the two main quadrangles, contains a fine full-length portrait of the college's Founder, Elizabeth I, attributed to Nicholas Hilliard or his school. This was presented to the college in 1687 by James Jeffreys, brother of George Jeffreys, the "Hanging Judge". Other portraits to be found here include contemporary likenesses of Charles I and Charles II, as well as numerous other benefactors, former Principals and alumni including T. E. Lawrence and Harold Wilson.
The college library provides an extensive lending collection, primarily for undergraduates, and supplements the (often reference-only) University libraries including the Bodleian. There is also an important Celtic collection. Notable antiquarian holdings include the Red Book of Hergest (one of two manuscript sources for the Mabinogion), a copy of the laws of Hywel Dda, and one of two manuscript copies of The Owl and the Nightingale. Some of these can be viewed online as part of the University's Early Manuscripts Imaging Project [link].
In recent years the college has also built two annexes for student accommodation in the north and east of the city (known as Stevens Close and Herbert Close respectively). Many students continue to live on the main central site, which remains the hub of the social and academic life of the college. The Herbert Close annexe is known as "Barts", after nearby Bartlemas, and the college sports grounds are also located there.
Student life
The college has a reputation within Oxford for being a friendly, close-knit community.OUSU, 2005. The Oxford Handbook. http://www.oxfordhandbook.com/the_university/colleges/jesus/ Some have attributed this to the relatively small physical size of the main college site, where first-year students live in close proximity to one-another and form strong bonds of friendship and a keen sense of college spirit. The college has a reputation for apathy when it comes to Oxford Union and OUSU student politics.
Students from the college participate in a variety of extra-curricular activities, their successes not being limited to any one field in particular. Some contribute to student journalism for The Cherwell or The Oxford Student. In the Arts, the annual Turl Street Arts Festival is of particular note. This week-long student-organised event is held annually in conjunction with Exeter and Lincoln colleges. The festival, which takes place in Fifth Week of Hilary term, includes exhibitions, plays and concerts. Although the college does not award Choral Scholarships, the Chapel Choir is well-attended by enthusiastic college members and others. The choir is non-auditioning for college members, and is run by one or more undergraduate Organ Scholars.
Sports
In common with many Oxford colleges, Jesus is well provided with sporting facilities. These include extensive playing fields at the east Oxford Bartlemas site for (association and Rugby) football, hockey, cricket, tennis etc., and modern squash courts at a separate city-centre site on St Cross Road.
The college boat house on the Isis is home to the Jesus College Boat Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world. Jesus competed in Oxford's first Head Race (against Brasenose College Boat Club) in 1815, though the formal foundation of the club can be traced only to 1835 [link]. For comparison, the Leander Club was founded in 1818.
The Welsh connection
Although it accepts students from all over the UK and indeed the world, Jesus has a particular association with Wales and is often referred to as "the Welsh college". The college is also home to the university's Professor of Celtic, and a specialist Celtic library in addition to the college's normal library. To reflect this connection, the college's undergraduate gossip sheet is entitled The Sheepshagger in allusion to a racist joke about Welsh people's penchant for sheep. Furthermore, the Welshness of the College is self-perpetuating, as Welsh students will often apply to Jesus because it is seen as the Welsh college. To this day there is a larger proportion of Welsh undergraduates than in other colleges.
St. David's Day
In modern times, the Welsh roots of the college come to the fore most prominently on Saint David's Day. The feast is marked by a choral Evensong in the chapel, decorated for the occasion with the inevitable Daffodils. The service, including music, is conducted entirely in Welsh (despite only a small minority of the choir usually being native speakers of the language). It is generally well attended by members of the Welsh community in Oxford.The college's annual St. David's Day Dinner traditionally culminates with the serving of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn's Pudding. The name recalls the Welsh politician and prominent Jacobite who attended the college early in the eighteenth century.
College Graces
The College Grace is read by a Scholar of the college at Formal Hall (the second, more elaborate sitting of dinner) on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. It is relatively unusual for the grace after dinner to be read, as the custom is for those not dining on High Table to retire after finishing dinner, the Scholar who read the first grace having first requested permission from the Principal or the senior Fellow present.
Grace to be said before Dinner
- Nos miseri et egentes homines pro cibo quem ad alimoniam corporis sanctificatum nobis es largítus, ut eo utamur grati Tibi, Deus Omnipotens, Pater caelestis, gratias reverenter agimus, simul obsecrantes ut cibum angelorum, verum panem caelestem, Verbum Dei aeternum, Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum nobis impertiaris, ut illo mens nostra pascatur et per carnem et sanguinem Eius foveamur, alamur et corróboremur.
- Amen
Grace after Dinner
- Quandoquidem nos, Domine, donis Tuis, Omnipotens et misericors Deus, exsatiasti, effice ut posthac quid per nos fieri aut secus velis diligenter observemus, atque illud animo sincero effectum praestemus, per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum.
- Amen
- VERS. Domine, salvam fac Reginam.
- RESP. Et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus Te.
- Deus, in cuius manu sunt corda regum, qui es humilium consolator et fidelium fortitudo et protector omnium in Te sperantium, da Reginae nostrae Elizabethae populoque Christiano triumphum virtutis Tuae scienter excolere, ut per Te semper reparentur ad gloriam, per Christum, Dominum nostrum.
- Amen
Notable former students
- James Burke — science historian
- William Boyd — novelist and screenwriter
- Thomas Charles — Welsh Nonconformist clergyman
- Edward Davey — British politician
- Geraint Davies — British politician
- John Davies — lexicographer
- Alfred George Edwards — first Archbishop of the disestablished Church in Wales
- Richard J. Evans — historian
- John Richard Green — historian
- Ffion Hague — wife of former Conservative Party leader William Hague
- Harold Arthur Harris — classicist
- Paul Jones — singer, Manfred Mann
- T. E. Lawrence — "Lawrence of Arabia"
- Siân Lloyd — broadcaster
- William Lloyd — bishop
- Edward Llwyd — naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary
- Magnus Magnusson — television presenter, journalist, translator and writer
- Norman Washington Manley — Jamaican statesman
- Dom Moraes — Indian writer, poet and columnist
- Francine Stock journalist and broadcaster
- Walter H. Stockmayer — chemist; pioneer of polymer science
- Henry Vaughan — Welsh poet and doctor
- William Vaughan — Welsh writer and colonial investor
- Harold Wilson — former British Prime Minister
- Watkin Williams-Wynn — Welsh politician and prominent Jacobite
- See also .
Academics/teachers
Present
- Professor Niall Ferguson
- Sir John Krebs (Principal)
- Peter Beer (Home Bursar)
Past
- Patricia Crone
- Daniel Silvan Evans
- John Gray
- John Habakkuk
- Sir Leoline Jenkins
- Sir Peter North
- John Rhys
- David George Ritchie
Notes
External links
| Colleges of the University of Oxford |
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|---|---|
| All Souls | Balliol | Brasenose | Christ Church | Corpus Christi | Exeter | Green | Harris Manchester | Hertford | Jesus | Keble | Kellogg | Lady Margaret Hall | Linacre | Lincoln | Magdalen | Mansfield | Merton | New College | Nuffield | Oriel | Pembroke | Queen's | St Anne's | St Antony's | St Catherine's | St Cross | St Edmund Hall | St Hilda's | St Hugh's | St John's | St Peter's | Somerville | Templeton | Trinity | University | Wadham | Wolfson | Worcester | |
| Permanent Private Halls at the University of Oxford | |
| Blackfriars | Campion Hall | Greyfriars | Regent's Park College | St Benet's Hall | St Stephen's House | Wycliffe Hall | |
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