Wren Building
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The Wren Building is a highly notable building on the campus of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Construction began August 8, 1695 and was completed in 1700. The Wren Building is the oldest continually used academic building in the U.S. According to tradition, the building was designed by famous British architect Christopher Wren. The building is constructed out of red brick and contains classrooms, offices, and a chapel. On the top of the building is a weather vane with the number 1693, the year the college was founded. Posted on the building is the college's honor code, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who at one point in time, attended college in the Wren Building himself. The Wren Building was the first major building restored by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., after he and the Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin began Colonial Williamsburg's restoration in the late 1920s).
Uses of the Building
The Wren Building was once the college's only building. Students studied, attended religious services, and lived in the building. After the destruction of Virginia's former capital of Jamestown, Virginia's legislature met in the Wren's Great Hall as a temporary meeting place from 1700 to 1704 while the Capitol was under construction. When the Capitol burned in 1747, the legislature moved back into the building until the Capitol was reconstructed in 1754. The Wren also housed a grammar school and an Indian school, which was moved to its own building, Brafferton, in 1723. The Wren was used as a military hospital by the French during the American Revolutionary War and by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Today the building has historical and ceremonial importance in addition to its academic use. Each year during the opening convocation ceremony, incoming William and Mary freshmen enter the building from the courtyard, pass through the central hall, and exit on the opposite side. As seniors, students pass through the building in the opposite direction on their way to the graduation ceremony.
Fires
The Wren Building has been burned three times, in 1705, 1859, and 1862. The design changed somewhat over the course of time and included Italianate towers in the 1859 reconstruction.
Botetourt Statue
Popular Virginia Governor Norborne Berkeley, baron de Botetourt, better known as Lord Botetourt, who died in office in 1770 and had been a member of the College's Board of Visitors, was buried in the Wren Building Chapel. A statue of Lord Botetourt was acquired by William and Mary and moved to the campus from the former Capitol building in 1797. It was a landmark in front of the Wren Building for several centuries. After years of weathering, the statue was moved to a location inside the College's Swem Library in the 20th century. In 1993, as the College celebrated its Tercentenary (300th anniversary), a new statue of Lord Botetourt, created in bronze by W&M alumnus, Gordon Kray, was installed in the College Yard, in the place occupied for so many years by the original. [link]Priorities of the College
A large plaque was presented by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities in 1914 which lists some of the notable firsts for William and Mary:
- First college in the United States in its antecedents which go back to the College proposed at Henricus (1619). Second to Harvard University in actual operation.
- First American College to receive its charter from the Crown under the Seal of the Privy Council, in 1693. Hence it was known as “'their Majesties’ Royal College of William and Mary.”
- First and only American College to receive a Coat-of-Arms from the College of Arms in London, 1694.
- First College in the United States to have a full Faculty, consisting of a President, six Professors, usher; and writing master, 1729.
- First College to confer metallic prizes; the gold medals donated by Lord Botetourt in 1771.
- First College to establish an inter collegiate fraternity, the Phi Beta Kappa, December 5, 1776.
- First College to have the Elective system of study, 1779.
- First College to have the Honor System (inked by Thomas Jefferson), 1779.
- First College to become a University, 1779. [link]
- First College to have a school of Modern Languages, 1779.
- First College to have a school of Municipal and Constitutional Law, 1779.
- First College to have a school of Modern History, 1803.
External links
- [William and Mary - History of the Wren Building]
- [Colonial Williamsburg - Wren Building]
- [Many historical Wren Building images]
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