All Souls College (15th century) Oxford The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford, was founded by Henry VI and Henry Chichele (fellow of New College and Archbishop of Canterbury), on 20 May 1438. The Statutes provided for the Warden and forty fellows - all to take Holy Orders; twenty-four to study arts, philosophy and theology; and sixteen to study civil or canon law. Today the College is primarily an academic research institution at the University of Oxford, having strong ties to the public domain. Traditionally, there are no undergraduate members. http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/
	Balliol College (13th century) Oxford John Balliol, one of King Henry III of England's most loyal Lords during the Barons' War of 1258-1265, was married to a Scottish Princess, Dervorguilla of Galloway (their son, another John Balliol, was King of Scots 1292-1296). He was a wealthy man with extensive estates in England and France; his family had its roots in and took its name from Bailleul-en-Vimeu in Picardy. About 1260, with guidance from the Bishop of Durham, he decided to carry out a substantial act of charity. This he did by renting a house in the suburbs of Oxford, and maintaining in it some poor students. The foundation date of the College which grew from this is traditionally reckoned as 1263. There is actually no evidence for such precision, but we do know that the little society John Balliol initiated was in existence by June 1266, when its dependence on him is mentioned in a royal writ. Whatever the exact date, if the age of a College is to be computed from the date when its members first lived communually where they do today, then Balliol is the oldest College in the University. When John Balliol died in 1269, his widow Dervorguilla put his arrangements on a permanent basis, and she is honoured as co-Founder with him. She provided a capital endowment, formulated Statutes (1282), and gave the College its first seal, which it still has. http://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/
	Bodleian Library (16th century) Oxford The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is also a copyright deposit library and its collections are used by scholars from around the world. The buildings within the central site include Duke Humfrey's Library above the Divinity School, the Old Schools Quadrangle with its Great Gate and Tower, the Radcliffe Camera, Britain's first circular library, and the Clarendon Building. In addition, the Bodleian consists of nine other libraries, in separate locations in Oxford: the Bodleian Japanese Library, the Bodleian Law Library, the Hooke Library, the Indian Institute Library, the Oriental Institute Library, the Philosophy Library, the Radcliffe Science Library, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House and the Vere Harmsworth Library. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/
	Brasenose College (16th century) Oxford Before the foundation of Brasenose College part of the site was occupied by Brasenose Hall, one of the mediaeval Oxford institutions which began as lodging houses and gradually became more formal places of learning. The transformation of Brasenose Hall into Brasenose College was so smooth that it is difficult to give an exact date to the change. A quarry in Headington was leased to provide stone for the new buildings on 19 June 1509 and this is the year which Brasenose keeps as its foundation. The royal Charter which established the body of Principal and Fellows is dated 15 January 1511/12. It established a College to be called 'The King's Hall and College of Brasenose' (in this sense Brasenose Hall still exists) for the study of sophistry, logic, philosophy and, above all, theology. http://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/
	Christ Church College Oxford Christ Church has a complicated history. It was originally founded by Cardinal Wolsey as Cardinal's College in 1524. It was built on the site of St. Frideswide's Monastery, an establishment that dated back to the earliest days of Oxford in the 9th Century AD. However, Wolsey fell from power in 1529 and the College became property of the King, Henry VIII, and it stood half-finished and forgotten. Henry re-founded the institution as a University College and the Cathedral of the new diocese of Oxford in 1546 as part of his Church reforms and renamed the College Aedes Christi, which is translated from the Latin as Christ Church. As it is both a Church and a College, the head (the Dean) is always a clergyman. http://www.visitchristchurch.net/
	Corpus Christi College (16th century) Oxford When he founded Corpus in 1517, Richard Fox, then Bishop of Winchester, put into the Statutes that it should be like a beehive: full of industrious activity and producing much sweetness. We like to think that the image of the hive still fits us. It is appropriate partly because, although situated in the heart of Oxford, Corpus is tucked away from the hustle and noise of the city's main streets, looking out over Christ Church meadow towards the Thames. It is appropriate also because, just as all bees are housed in the hive, so Corpus, almost alone of Oxford colleges, can offer all its undergraduates and graduates College accommodation for the normal duration of their courses. But it is most appropriate because Corpus is a very active place, productive of scholarship, political and academic debate, music, and drama. We boast that no more intellectually stimulating environment can be found in any of the colleges in Oxford. http://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk/
	Exeter College (14th century) Oxford Exeter College has occupied a large part of its present site since its foundation in 1314. Its founder, Walter de Stapeldon, was a Devon man who rose from a humble background to become Bishop of Exeter and Treasurer of England under Edward II. One of his main intentions in endowing his new college was to provide an educated clergy for the parishes of his diocese, and, during the first centuries of its existence, Exeter drew its members from the southwestern counties, and especially from Devon and Cornwall. http://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/
	Harris Manchester College (18th century) Oxford Harris Manchester College was founded in Manchester as Manchester Academy in 1786 by English Presbyterians. It was one of the last of a long line of "dissenting academies" established after the Restoration to provide higher education for Nonconformists, who were denied degrees from the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge by religious tests. The principle of religious liberty was fundamental to the new foundation, which was to be open to 'young men of every religious denomination, from whom no test, or confession of faith' would be required. Both lay and divinity students would be enrolled. http://www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/
	Hertford College (19th century) Oxford Hertford has enjoyed a colourful history since its foundation in 1282 by Elias de Hertford, having been dissolved and recreated on a number of occasions. The modern-day College, created by Act of Parliament in 1874 after a very substantial benefaction by Thomas Baring MP, exists on much firmer financial foundations. The College is centrally located on Catte Street, directly opposite the Bodleian Library and within a few minutes' walk of all the other principal libraries and laboratories of the University. The main College site is composed of three intimate quadrangles -- Old, New and Holywell Quads -- whose buildings date from the 15th to the late-20th centuries. The majority of the architecture, however, dates from the late-19th/early-20th centuries and is due to Sir Thomas Jackson whose designs include the Hertford Bridge which links Old and New Quads. http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/
	Jesus College (16th century) Oxford Jesus College, the only Oxford college to date from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, received its first royal charter on 27 June 1571, as 'Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation'. Although founded through the efforts of a mixed group of Oxford- and Cambridge-educated lawyers and clergy, Jesus College was intended for the education of future clergymen. The 1571 charter stated that it would be a 'college of learning in the sciences of philosophy, the moral arts, and knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, with the eventual aim of professing sacred Theology'. Fledgling lawyers were already well catered for, especially at All Souls College and New Inn Hall, Oxford and the Inns of Court in London, whereas there was a clear need for the training of dedicated, learned clergy to promote the Elizabethan church settlement in the parishes of England, Ireland and Wales. http://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/
	Keble College (19th century) Oxford The gateway and the tower above it, together with the east and west sides of Liddon Quad, were built between 1868 and 1870. Edmund Pusey, one of the founders, paid for the gateway and tower out of his own pocket, believing that the College should have at least one impressive feature from the beginning. The tower originally contained lecture rooms and a small library: it now houses two Tutorial Fellows and a seminar room. http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/
	Kellogg College (19th century) Oxford In 1878, the Reverend Arthur Johnson, later Chaplain of All Souls, delivered the first Oxford Extension Lectures, on 'The History of England in the Seventeenth Century', at King Edward's School in Birmingham. Over a century later, the extension movement in Oxford, now Kellogg College and the Department for Continuing Education, still flourishes, currently offering over 580 courses to nearly 16,000 part-time students each year. It is one of the University's liveliest and most exciting departments in terms of the range and ambitions of its educational programme. It is also at the forefront of national and international developments in adult and continuing education in Britain. http://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/
	Lady Margaret Hall (19th century) Oxford Founded in 1878 to pioneer education for women in Victorian England, LMH has for many years now been a college for women and men in which high academic achievement, pride in our traditions, tolerance, equality, friendliness and lack of stuffiness are hallmark characteristics. Over the past 125 years our students have achieved outstanding success in academic life, in law, government, education, politics, literature, science, medicine and, more recently, in business. http://clients.networks.co.uk/ladymargarethall/index.html
	Linacre College (20th century) Oxford Founded in 1962, the College's name commemorates an outstanding Renaissance figure. Thomas Linacre (c.1460-1524) was a distinguished Oxford humanist, medical scientist and classicist whose accomplishments established him as one of the great scholars of his time. Open by appointment. http://www.linacre.ox.ac.uk/home/home.htm
	Lincoln College (15th century) Oxford If you know that Lincoln is one of the world's oldest academic institutions you will perhaps expect it to have a rich architectural heritage. Its Front Quadrangle is one of the least altered of all such structures and remains for many of the college's sons and daughters the most evocative of images, with its fifteenth-century fa�ade, its unvaryingly verdant lawn and its rich shroud of Virginia creeper turning from green to scarlet every autumn. Its medieval hall, its seventeenth-century chapel, and its baroque library are all buildings of exceptional importance and visual appeal. http://www.lincoln.ox.ac.uk/
	Magdalen College (15th century) Oxford Magdalen College was founded originally as Magdalen Hall half-way up the High Street in Oxford in 1448. The founder, William of Waynflete, was Bishop of Winchester and had already had a hand in the foundation of schools (he had also been Provost of Eton) in which new educational ideas of the Renaissance era as well as new methods of teaching were tried out. For example, he introduced the teaching of Latin in the English language, and later pioneered the teaching of Greek. Waynflete was greatly influenced by Renaissance ideas about education and as his ambitions grew he managed to acquire a large tract of land beyond the walls of Oxford on which to build an entirely new College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. He obtained permission from Henry VI to take over the buildings and lands of an ancient and decaying Hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where he established Magdalen College and its associated Hall and School. Centuries later, the Hall become incorporated into Hertford College and Magdalen College School flourishes to this day, two hundred yards from its original site. Both the School and the College adopted and retain the arms of Waynflete as their own. http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/
	Mansfield College (19th century) Oxford Mansfield College occupies one of the most attractive sites in Oxford. The 1886 buildings, which house all the College's public rooms, are regarded as amongst the finest work of the important Victorian architect, Basil Champneys. http://www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/
	Merton College (13th century) Oxford Merton College was founded in 1264. It is one of three ancient Oxford colleges founded in the thirteenth century. The College buildings, set in extensive gardens and grounds, are of exceptional historical and aesthetic interest. The Library is probably the oldest surviving working library in the United Kingdom, and the Hall, Chapel, Lodge and Mob Quadrangle also date from the College's early years. http://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/
	New College (14th century) Oxford The name of the College sometimes strikes visitors as odd in an institution more than 620 years old; its origin is that the College's "official" name - the College of St Mary - is the same as that of Oriel College. Hence "the new college of St Mary". The college's origins lay in the Black Death, the plague that ravaged 14th Century England. The plague was particularly hard on the clergy. It also left large parts of cities empty of their previous population. New College was intended to help to replace the missing clergy, and there was space in Oxford for a new college. http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/
	Nuffield College (20th century) Oxford Nuffield College, which was founded in 1937, is located in the centre of Oxford. http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/
	Oriel College (14th century) Oxford Oriel is a friendly and attractive College in the centre of Oxford. Founded in 1326 by King Edward II, it is the fifth oldest of Oxford's Colleges. http://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/
	Pembroke College (17th century) Oxford Founded in 1624, Pembroke College is concentrated in its traditional site in the centre of Oxford but it has a fine new building on the Thames, as well as its own renovated graduate facilities close by the College. The main site is particularly attractive, being primarily built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries with Cotswold stone. http://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/
	Queen's College (14th century) Oxford The 'hall of the Queen's scholars at Oxford' was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield, a chaplain in the household of Queen Philippa, who named it in her honour. He envisaged an establishment of fellows, chaplains, 'poor boys' and various officials and servants, headed by a Provost. Membership was to be open, but with a preference for inhabitants of Cumberland and Westmorland. Initially Queen's was poor, but the endowment slowly grew. Crucially, in 1343, Philippa secured for Queen's the lands a small hospital in Southampton, destined to be the basis of much of the College's prosperity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as Southampton Docks expanded and surrounding farmland was developed. Visits by arrangement only. http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/
	St. Anne's College (20th century) Oxford St. Anne's College, founded in 1952, can trace its origins back to 1878 and the formation of the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford, later known as the Society of Oxford Home Students. Today it is one of the largest of the Colleges and Halls which admit undergraduate and graduate students to read for degrees within the University of Oxford. http://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/frameset.htm
	St. Catherine's College (20th century) Oxford St. Catherine's College was founded in 1962 by Alan Bullock (Lord Bullock), although it has its origins in a non-collegiate Society which was established in 1868 as a means for the less well-off to study at Oxford. The College's motto - Nova et Vetera (the new and the old) - sums up its unique quality among Oxford colleges. http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/
	St. Edmund Hall (13th century) Oxford Although a College in the strict sense only since 1957, the history of St Edmund Hall goes back to the thirteenth century, for it is the sole survivor of the medieval Halls that provided undergraduates with accommodation and tuition before the Colleges began to do so. It can claim to be the oldest academical society for the education of undergraduates (A. B. Emden) in any University. It takes its name from St Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury (1234-40), who traditionally resided and taught in a house at the western end of the present front quadrangle when he was a Regent Master in the Arts, probably in the 1190s. Medieval halls were not incorporated and had no initial endowment or individual statutes: the Hall has, therefore, no date of foundation. But early in the thirteenth century the site of the front quadrangle was owned by John de Bermingham, rector of Iffley, whose relatives in 1262 sold part of it to Thomas of Malmesbury, perpetual vicar of Cowley: the Berminghams and Malmesbury are likely to have kept a student Hall. http://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/
	St. Hilda's College (19th century) Oxford St. Hilda's was founded as an Oxford hall for women in 1893 by Dorothea Beale, Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College. In 1897 http://www.sthildas.ox.ac.uk/
	St. Hughes College (19th century) Oxford Compared to many Oxford Colleges, St Hugh's is young. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth, the great niece of the poet. But she had a strong sense of the historical perspective in which her new foundation would take its place. Using money left to her by her father, a bishop of Lincoln, she named it after one of his twelfth century predecessors, Hugh of Avalon, who was canonised in 1220, and in whose diocese Oxford had been. Elizabeth Wordsworth was a champion of the cause of womens education, and her foundation was intended to enable poorer women to gain an Oxford education. http://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/
	St. John's College (16th century) Oxford St John's was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White, a wealthy London merchant. http://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/
	St. Peter's College (20th century) Oxford St. Peter's College occupies the site of two of the University's oldest Inns or medieval hostels, Bishop Trellick's, later New Inn Hall, and Rose Hall, both of which were founded in the thirteenth century. But its history really began in 1929 when St. Peter's Hall was founded by Francis James Chavasse, Bishop of Liverpool. St. Peter's has an interesting and varied set of buildings, many of them much older than the College itself. The College has, in effect, adapted existing buildings to provide the collective facilities needed for College life, and built new ones to provide for student accommodation. Linton House, a handsome Georgian rectory, dating from 1797, is the entrance to the College, and houses the Porters' Lodge and College library. Canal House, the Master's Lodge, dates from the early nineteenth century. The College Dining Hall, known as Hannington Hall after the Victorian missionary, Bishop James Hannington, dates from 1832 and is the only surviving part of New Inn Hall. The College chapel was originally the Church of St. Peter-le-Bailey, built in 1874, and the third church of that name on this site. The buildings of the former Oxford Girls' School, which adjoin the original site of the College, have been acquired more recently and provide living accommodation for students, seminar rooms, a Middle Common Room (for postgraduates) and a Music Room. Most recently, St. Peter's has built two new student blocks a few minutes walk from the College, one by the site of the remains of Oxford's Norman castle, and the old mill stream, the other behind St. Aldates. http://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/
	Somerville College (19th century) Oxford Somerville is a college for women and men. It was founded (as Somerville Hall) in 1879 to provide an opportunity for women, who at that date were excluded from membership of the University, to gain some kind of higher education in Oxford. The founders' insistence that students should be subjected to no religious tests or obligations marked Somerville off from its Anglican counterpart, Lady Margaret Hall, and set the tone of cultural diversity which has characterised the college to this day. http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/
	Trinity College (16th century) Oxford Trinity College was founded by Sir Thomas Pope in 1555. Pope's foundation was for a President, twelve Fellows and twelve scholars, all supported by the income from his generous endowment of lands, and for up to twenty undergraduates. The Fellows, all men, were required to take Holy Orders and remain unmarried. The College Statutes set out rules for a simple monastic life of religious observance and study. The Garden was an informal grove of trees, mainly elms, amongst which the members of the College could walk and meditate. No new buildings were erected in 1555, for Thomas Pope had purchased the site and buildings of an earlier monastic foundation, Durham College, which from 1286 until the Reformation provided a place of study in Oxford for a small number of monks from the Benedictine Cathedral Church at Durham. Its buildings comprised a single quadrangle which provided hall, chapel, library and rooms. The only surviving Durham College building is Trinity's Old Library, which was completed in 1421. The name Trinity is thought to echo the original dedication of Durham College: to the Trinity, the Virgin and St Cuthbert. http://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/
	University Church of St. Mary the Virgin (13th century) Oxford There has probably been a church on this site since Anglo-Saxon times. The earliest part of the present building is the Tower (1280) with its profusely decorated spire (1315-25). St Mary's stands in the physical centre of the old walled City, and the university grew up around it. In medieval times scholars lived in houses with their teachers and the university had no buildings of its own, so it adopted St Mary's as its centre. The church continued as a parish church, but by the early 13th century it had become the seat of university government, academic disputation, and the award of degrees. http://www.university-church.ox.ac.uk/
	Wadham College (17th century) Oxford Wadham was founded according to the terms of the will of Nicholas Wadham who died in 1609. The fulfilment of his rather vague design was due to his widow Dorothy Wadham, a remarkable woman then in her late seventies. Wadham continues as a vibrant academic institution, yet always provides a warm welcome. http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/