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St John's College, Cambridge

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Colleges of the University of Cambridge

St John's College


View over the rear buildings of St John's from the Chapel.
                             
College name The College of St John the Evangelist of the University of Cambridge
Founder Lady Margaret Beaufort
Named after The Hospital of St John the Evangelist
Established 1511
Admittance Men and women
Master Chris Dobson
Undergraduates 534
Graduates 340
Sister colleges Balliol College, Oxford
Trinity College, Dublin
Location St John's Street (map)
St John's College heraldic shield
Souvent me Souvient
(Old French, "I often remember")
College website
Boat Club website
David Loggan's engraving of the College, circa 1685.

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.

The college has fixed assets of £567,390,000; granting St John's the largest endowment per student of any Oxbridge college.[1] The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints.[2]

The full formal name of the college is "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge".[3] The college was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is an eleemosynary corporation established by Charter dated 9 April 1511. The aims of the College, as specified by its Statutes, are the promotion of education, religion, learning and research. The college is a charity under English law, being an exempt charity under the terms of Schedule 2 of the Charities Act 1993.[4]

St John's College is well-known for its choir, and its famed May Ball was ranked the "seventh best party in the world" by Time magazine.[5] Amongst Cambridge undergraduates the college is also well-known for its formidable rugby club.[6]

History

The college was founded on the site of the 13th century Hospital of St John in Cambridge at the suggestion of Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and chaplain to Lady Margaret. However, Lady Margaret died without having mentioned the foundation of St John's in her will, and it was largely the work of Fisher that ensured that the college was founded. He had to obtain the approval of King Henry VIII of England, the Pope through the intermediary Polydore Vergil, and the Bishop of Ely to suppress the religious hospital and convert it to a college. The college received its charter on April 9, 1511. Further complications arose in obtaining money from the estate of Lady Margaret to pay for the foundation and it was not until October 22, 1512 that a codicil was obtained in the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In November 1512 the Court of Chancery allowed Lady Margaret's executors to pay for the foundation of the college from her estates. When Lady Margaret's executors took over they found most of the old Hospital buildings beyond repair, but repaired and incorporated the Chapel into the new college. A kitchen and hall were added, and an imposing gate tower was constructed for the College Treasury. The doors were to be closed each day at dusk, sealing the monastic community from the outside world.

Over the course of the following five hundred years, the College expanded westwards towards the River Cam, and now has eleven courts, the most of any Oxford or Cambridge College. The first three courts are arranged in enfilade.

Buildings and grounds

The Main Gate of St John's College on St John's Street, decorated with the arms of the foundress.
The Great Gate (1516)
St John's distinctive Great Gate follows the standard contemporary pattern employed previously at Christ's College and Queens' College. The gatehouse is crenelated and adorned with the arms of the foundress Lady Margaret Beaufort. Above these are displayed her ensigns, the Red Rose of Lancaster and Portcullis. The College Arms are flanked by curious creatures known as yales, mythical beasts with elephants' tails, antelopes' bodies, goats' heads, and swivelling horns. Above them is a tabernacle containing a socle figure of St John the Evangelist, an Eagle at his feet and symbolic, poisoned chalice in his hands. The doors date from 1665-6, and the fan vaulting above was constructed by William Swayne, the master mason of King's College Chapel.[7]
First Court (1511-1520)
First Court is entered via the Great Gate, and is highly architecturally varied. First Court was converted from the hospital on the foundation of the college, and constructed between 1511 and 1520. Though it has since been gradually changed, the front (east) range is still much as it appeared when first erected in the 16th-century.[8] The south range was refaced between 1772-6 in the Georgian style by the local architect James Essex, as part of an abortive attempt to modernise the entire court in the same fashion. The most dramatic alteration to the original, Tudor court however remains the Victorian amendment of the north range, which involved the demolition of the original mediaeval chapel and the construction of a new, far larger set of buildings in the 1860s. These included the Chapel, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, which includes in its interior some pieces saved from the original chapel. It is the tallest building in Cambridge. The alteration of the north range necessitated the restructuring of the connective sections of First Court; another bay window was added in order to enlarge the College's hall, and a new building constructed to the north of Great Gate. Parts of First Court were used as a prison in 1643 during the English Civil War.
Dining Hall (1511-1516, extended 1863)
The College's Hall has a fine hammerbeam-roof, painted in black and gold and decorated with the armorial devices of its benefactors. The hall is lined to cill-level with linenfold panelling which dates from 1528-9, and has a five-bay screen, surmounted by the Royal Arms. Above is a hexagonal louvre, dating to 1703. The room was extended from five to eight bays according to designs by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1863. It has two bay windows, containing heraldic glass dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries.[9]
St John's College Chapel was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott
Pershore Abbey served as the inspiration for the College chapel's tower
College Chapel (1866-9, Sir George Gilbert Scott)
The Chapel of St John's College is entered by the north west-corner of First Court, and was constructed between 1866-9 in order to replace the smaller, mediaeval chapel which dated back to the 13th-century. When in 1861 the College's administration decided that a new building was needed, Sir George Gilbert Scott was selected as architect. He had recently finished work on a similar project at Exeter College, Oxford, and went about constructing the Chapel of St John's College along similar lines, drawing inspiration from the Church of Saint Chapelle in Paris. The benefactor Henry Hoare offered a downpayment of £3000 to finance the chapel's construction, in addition to which he promised to pay £1000 a year if a tower were added to Scott's original plans, which had included only a small fleche. Work began, but Mr Hoare's death in a railway accident left the college £3000 short of his expected benefaction. The tower was completed, replete with louvres but left without bells. It is based on Pershore Abbey[10]. The tower is 50 metres high, and is the tallest structure in Cambridge (followed by the Cambridge University Library and King's College Chapel). The Chapel's antechamber contains statues of Margaret Beaufort and John Fisher. Inside the building is a stone-vaulted antechapel, at the end of which hangs a 'Deposition of the Cross' by Anton Rafael Mengs, completed around 1777. The misericordes and panelling date from 1516, and were salvaged from the old chapel. The chapel contains some fifteenth-century glass, but most was cast by Clayton and Bell, Hardman, and Wailes, in around 1869.[9] Freestanding statues and plaques commemorate College benefactors such as James Wood, Master 1815-39, as well as alumni including William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and William Gilbert. The College tower can be climbed, and is accessed via a small door on First Court. The Chapel is surrounded on three sides by large tabernacles which form part of the external butresses. Each contains a statue of a prominent College alumnus, alumna or benefactor. The persons commemorated are, beginning with the buttress next to the transept on the south side:
Second Court at Night
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