Merton College, Oxford

Walter de Merton, (c. 1205 – 27 October 1277), founder of Merton

Henry Savile, Warden from 1585 to 1621, had great influence on the development of the college

Merton College was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Rochester. It has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford, a claim which is disputed between Merton College, Balliol College and University College. One argument for Merton's claim is that it was the first college to be provided with statutes, a constitution governing the college set out at its founding. Merton's statutes date back to 1264, whereas neither Balliol nor University College had statutes until the 1280s. Additionally, Merton was also the first college to be conceived as a community working to achieve academic ends, rather than just a place for the housing of scholars.

Merton has an unbroken line of wardens dating back to 1264. Of these, many had great influence over the development of the college. Henry Savile was one notable leader who led the college to flourish in the early 17th century by extending its buildings and recruiting new fellows.[12]

St Alban Hall, pictured in 1837, engraving by John Le Keux from a drawing by F. Mackenzie.

St Alban Hall was an independent academic hall owned by the convent of Littlemore until it was purchased by Merton College in 1548 following the dissolution of the convent. It continued as a separate institution until it was finally annexed by the college in 1881, on the resignation of its last Principal, William Charles Salter.[13]

During the English Civil War, Merton was the only Oxford college to side with Parliament. This was due to an earlier dispute between the Warden, Nathaniel Brent, and the Visitor of Merton and Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Brent had been Vicar-General to Laud, who had held a visitation of Merton College in 1638, and insisted on many radical reforms: his letters to Brent were couched in haughty and decisive language.[14]

Brent, a parliamentarian, moved to London at the start of the Civil War: the college's buildings were commandeered by the Royalists and used to house much of Charles I's court when Oxford was the Royalists' capital. This included the King's French wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, who was housed in or near what is now the Queen's Room, the room above the arch between Front and Fellows' Quads. A portrait of Charles I hangs near the Queen's Room as a reminder of the role it played in his court.

Brent gave evidence against Laud in his trial in 1644. After Laud was executed on 10 January 1645, John Greaves, one of the subwardens of Merton and Savilian Professor of Astronomy, drew up a petition for Brent's removal from office; Brent was deposed by Charles I on 27 January 1646 and replaced by William Harvey.[14]

Thomas Fairfax captured Oxford for the Parliamentarians after its third siege in 1646 and Brent returned from London. However, in 1647, a parliamentary commission (visitation) was set up by Parliament "for the correction of offences, abuses, and disorders" in the University of Oxford. Nathaniel Brent was the president of the visitors.[14] Greaves was accused of sequestrating the college's plate and funds for king Charles.[15] Despite a deposition from his brother Thomas, Greaves had lost both his Merton fellowship and his Savilian chair by 9 November 1648.

The below is a complete list of Wardens dating back to 1264.

Merton College Chapel interior

By the late 1280s the old church of St John the Baptist had fallen into "a ruinous condition",[17] and the college accounts show that work on a new church began in about 1290. The present choir, with its enormous east window, was complete by 1294. The window is an important example (because it is so well dated) of how the strict geometrical conventions of the Early English Period of architecture were beginning to be relaxed at the end of the 13th century.[18] The south transept was built in the 14th century, the north transept in the early years of the 15th. The great tower was complete by 1450. The chapel replaced the parish church of St. John and continued to serve as the parish church as well as the chapel until 1891. It is for this reason that it is generally referred to as Merton Church in older documents, and that there is a north door into the street as well as doors into the college. This dual role also probably explains the enormous scale of the chapel, which in its original design was to have a nave and two aisles extending to the west.[19]

A new choral foundation was established in 2007, providing for a choir of sixteen undergraduate and graduate choral scholars singing from October 2008. The choir was formerly directed by Peter Phillips, director of the Tallis Scholars, and is now directed by Benjamin Nicholas, a former director of music at Tewkesbury Abbey.[20] In 2013, the installation of a new organ, designed and built by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders, was completed.[21] The chapel is famous for its splendid, ethereal acoustics.

A spire from the chapel has resided in Pavilion Garden VI of the University of Virginia since 1928, when "it was given to the University to honor Jefferson's educational ideals."[22]

Front quad, view opposite the chapel

The hall is the oldest surviving college building, but apart from the door which has medieval ironwork almost no trace of the ancient structure has survived the successive reconstruction efforts, first by James Wyatt in the 1790s and then again by Gilbert Scott in 1874. The hall is still used daily for meals and houses a number of important portraits. It is not usually open to visitors.

Front quad itself is probably the earliest collegiate quadrangle, but its informal, almost haphazard, pattern cannot be said to have influenced designers elsewhere. A reminder of its original domestic nature can be seen in the north east corner where one of the flagstones is marked "Well". The quad is formed of what would have been the back gardens of the three original houses that Walter acquired in the 1260s.

Mob Quad in 2003, from Merton College Chapel tower

Visitors to Merton are often told Mob Quad, built in the 14th century, is the oldest quadrangle of any Oxford or Cambridge college and set the pattern for future collegiate architecture, but Front Quad was enclosed earlier (albeit with a less unified design) and other colleges, for example Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, can point to their own older examples.

The old library occupies the upper floor of the south and west ranges of Mob Quad, and the original archive room is still in the north-east corner; it houses one of the most complete sets of college records in Europe.

The Sundial Lawn

The grandest quadrangle in Merton is the Fellows' Quadrangle, immediately south of the hall. The quad was the culmination of the work undertaken by Sir Henry Savile at the beginning of the 17th century. The foundation stone was laid shortly after breakfast on 13 September 1608 (as recorded in the college Register), and work was complete by September 1610 (although the battlements were added later).[23] The southern gateway is surmounted by a tower of the four Orders, probably inspired by Italian examples that Warden Savile would have seen on his European travels. The main contractors were from Yorkshire (as was Savile); John Ackroyd and John Bentley of Halifax supervised the stonework, and Thomas Holt the timber. This group were also later employed to work on the Bodleian Library and Wadham College.[24]

St Alban's quad

Most of the other buildings are Victorian or later and include: St. Alban's Quad (or "Stubbins"), designed by Basil Champneys,[25] built on the site of the medieval St Alban Hall (elements of the older façade are incorporated into the part that faces onto Merton Street); the Grove building, built in 1864 by William Butterfield but "chastened" in the 1930s;[26] the buildings beyond the Fellows' Garden called "Rose Lane"; several buildings north of Merton Street, including a real tennis court, and the Old Warden's Lodgings (designed by Champneys in 1903);[25] and a new quadrangle in Holywell Street, some distance away from the college.

A new lecture theatre named after T.S. Eliot, a former member of the college, was opened in 2010. It has a bust of the writer by Jacob Epstein, presented by Frank Brenchley, a former member and Fellow of the college. Brenchley presented his collection of Eliot first editions and ephemera to the college, which is believed to be the second largest collection of such material worldwide. The foyer is illuminated by a lighting display representing three constellations that were visible on the night of 14 September 1264, the day the college was founded.[27]

The garden fills the southeastern corner of the old walled city of Oxford. The walls may be seen from Christ Church Meadows and Merton Field (now used by Magdalen College School, Oxford as a playing field for cricket, rugby, and football). The gardens are notable for a mulberry tree planted in the early 17th century, an armillary sundial, an extensive lawn, a Herma statue, and the old Fellows' Summer House (now used as a music room and rehearsal space).

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  Merton viewed from the north from St Mary's Church
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  Merton College Chapel from just north of the Christ Church Meadow
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  Merton viewed from across the Christ Church Meadow to the south
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  View of the chapel tower
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  Fellows' quad
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  The front quad and the main entrance to the College
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  Mob quad
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  The south wing of the Upper Library
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  Old book bindings at the Merton College Library
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  Bookshelves in the Library
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  Globe dating from the 16th century
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  Library
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  Merton in 1865
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  Merton College Library

Since the introduction of an official Norrington Table published by the university in 2004, Merton occupied one of the top three positions every year (often coming in 1st), until 2012 when it dropped to 14th.[31] In 2014, it regained the first position, preserving its status as one of the most academically successful colleges of the last twenty years.[11]

At the 'Time Ceremony', students dressed in formal academic dress walk backwards around the Fellows' Quad drinking port. Traditionally participants also held candles, but this practice has been abandoned in recent years. Many students have now adopted the habit of linking arms and twirling around at each corner of the quad. The alleged purpose of this tradition is to maintain the integrity of the space–time continuum during the transition from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time, which occurs in the early hours of the last Sunday in October. However, the ceremony (invented by two undergraduates in 1971) mostly serves as a spoof of other Oxford ceremonies, and historically as a celebration of the end of the experimental period of British Standard Time from 1968 to 1971 when the UK stayed one hour ahead of GMT all year round. There are two toasts associated with the ceremony, the first is "to good old times!", or "to a good old time!", whilst the second is "long live the counter-revolution!"

Merton is the only college in Oxford to hold a triennial winter ball, instead of the more common Commemoration ball. The most recent of these was held on 30 November 2019.[32]

A Graduate of Merton College ca. 1754/55 attributed to George Knapton

Merton has a number of drinking and dining societies, along the lines of other colleges. These include the all-male Myrmidons, the female-equivalent Myrmaids and L'Ancien Régime.

Merton is host to a number of subject-specific societies, the most notable being the Halsbury Society (Law)[33] and the Chalcenterics (Classics).[34] Other academic societies include the Neave Society, which aims to discuss and debate political issues, and the Bodley Club, founded in 1894 as a forum for undergraduate papers on literature but now a speaker society.[35]

The Bodley Club is a speaker society at Merton College, Oxford. Founded in 1894 as a forum in which undergraduates delivered academic papers on literature, the Club has changed form over the years, and was reformed in the 1980s as a speaker society. All members of the College, and usually members of the university as a whole, are invited to their events.

The Club began on 19 May 1894 (though it was not christened 'The Bodley Club' until June). The initial constitution contained a rule (Rule 7) which stated that 'a written paper is preferred, but any member may speak on any literary subject instead or may propose that any literary work be read at the meeting.' It was not long before this provision was required, as the minute-book reveals in its entry for 19 October 1894: 'Owing to unpardonable slackness on the part of members, the four months of vacation proved insufficient to collect coherent ideas on any particular subject...However an agreeable and instructive evening was passed in reading Tennyson's 'Maud'.' From early years the Club has maintained a troubled existence, and the Secretary noted on 1 November 1900 a motion of censure 'against a person or persons unknown who were responsible for the undoubted blackness which is creeping over the Bodley Club.' Nevertheless, the Club has continued in one form or another to the present day.

Among the notable papers delivered to the Bodley Club are those by Frederic Harrison,[36] Harold Henry Joachim,[37] Henry Hamilton Fyfe[38] (brother of the Secretary, William), Northrop Frye,[39] Sir Alister Clavering Hardy,[40] and Ronald Knox. Several of the Club's first members went on to become significant figures, including Herbert George Flaxman Spurrell and William Hamilton Fyfe.

The college boathouse on Boathouse Island, on the northern bank of the Isis

Merton has a long-standing sporting relationship with Mansfield College, with the colleges fielding amalgamated sports teams for many major sports.

In rowing, Merton College Boat Club has been Head of the River in Summer Eights once; its men's 1st VIII held the headship in 1951. Merton's women have done better in recent years, gaining the headship in Torpids in 2003 and rowing over to defend the title in 2004.

Among the earliest people that have been claimed as Merton fellows are William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, outstanding academic figures from the early 14th century (however, these claims are disputed).[42] Other early fellows include the Oxford Calculators, a group of 14th-century thinkers associated with Merton who took a logico-mathematical approach to philosophical problems. Theologian and philosopher John Wycliffe was another early fellow of the college.

Founder of the Bodleian Library, Thomas Bodley, was admitted as fellow in 1564.[43] Another significant figure, Henry Savile, was appointed Warden some years later in 1585 (held the position until 1621) and had great influence of the development of the college. William Harvey, who was the first to describe in detail the systemic circulation, was warden from 1645 to 1646. Lord Randolph Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons (and father of Winston Churchill), matriculated in October 1867, while Max Beerbohm, an English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist studied at Merton in the 1890s and was Secretary of the Myrmidon Club.

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  William of Ockham, major figure of medieval thought, commonly known for Occam's razor
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  John Wycliffe, early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century
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  Thomas Bodley, diplomat, scholar, founder of the Bodleian Library
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  John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury and Anglican divine
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  William Harvey, the first to describe in detail the systemic circulation
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  José Gutiérrez Guerra, President of Bolivia between 1917 and 1920
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  Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman, father of Winston Churchill
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  Max Beerbohm, essayist and caricaturist (self-caricature from 1897)
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  F.E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, Conservative statesman and friend of Winston Churchill
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  Francis Herbert Bradley, British idealist philosopher

Merton has also produced notable alumni in more recent times. In science, Merton is associated with three Nobel prize winners: chemist Frederick Soddy (1921), zoologist Nikolaas Tinbergen (1973) and physicist Sir Anthony Leggett (2003).[44] Other Mertonians in science include Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles[43] who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, computer scientist Tony Hoare, chemist Sir George Radda, economist Catherine Tucker, geneticist Alec Jeffreys and cryptographer Artur Ekert.

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  Frederick Soddy, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921
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  Nikolaas Tinbergen, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973
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  Anthony James Leggett, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003
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  Wilder Penfield, neurosurgeon, once dubbed "the greatest living Canadian".[45]
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  Andrew Wiles, mathematician notable for proving Fermat's Last Theorem. Winner of the 2016 Abel Prize
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  Dana Scott, computer scientist known for his work on automata theory and winner of the 1976 Turing Award
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  Tony Hoare, computer scientist known for Quicksort, Hoare logic and CSP. Winner of the 1980 Turing Award
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  Alec Jeffreys, geneticist known for his work on DNA fingerprinting and DNA profiling
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  Artur Ekert, Cryptographer and one of the inventors of quantum cryptography

Notable Mertonians within the field of literature include poet T. S. Eliot, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, and author J. R. R. Tolkien who was Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton from 1945 to 1959.[9][46]

Former students with careers as politicians include British politicians Reginald Maudling, Airey Neave, Jesse Norman, Ed Vaizey, Denis MacShane, Elizabeth Truss and Sir Peter Tapsell, while international alumni include Bob Krueger, former U.S. Senator from Texas, and Arthur Mutambara, former Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.

In business, former Director-General of the BBC and current CEO of the New York Times Company Mark Thompson,[47] CEO of Stonewall Ben Summerskill and former CEO of Sony Sir Howard Stringer are alumni. In law, Henry Litton served as one of the first Permanent Judges of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong (Hong Kong's court of last resort), while Brian Leveson is currently both President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice.

Other alumni include the composer Lennox Berkeley, actor and singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, mountaineer Andrew Irvine, RAF pilot Leonard Cheshire, former athlete Roger Bannister, journalist Tanya Gold and Naruhito, Emperor of Japan.

The current Warden of the college is Irene Tracey, who was elected in succession to Sir Martin J. Taylor, former Professor of pure mathematics at the University of Manchester on his retirement in 2018.[2]

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  T. S. Eliot, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948
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  J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion
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  Andrew Irvine, English mountaineer who took part in the 1924 British Everest Expedition
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  Leonard Cheshire, highly decorated British RAF pilot during the Second World War
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  Roger Bannister, former athlete, doctor and academic, who ran the first sub-four-minute mile
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  Naruhito, Emperor of Japan
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  Bob Krueger, former U.S. Senator from Texas
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  Arthur Mutambara, Zimbabwean politician and former Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
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  Mark Thompson, CEO of the New York Times Company and former Director-General of the BBC
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  Howard Stringer, former CEO of Sony Corporation

Just like the other ancient colleges of Oxford, Merton was originally an all-male college. It admitted its first female students in 1980 and became the second former male college to elect a female head of house when Jessica Rawson was appointed as Warden in 1994.[48] Irene Tracey was appointed as Merton's second female warden in 2019.

Alumnae of Merton include British Conservative Party politician Elizabeth Truss, writer Leana Wen and Princess Akiko of Mikasa.

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  Liz Truss, British politician serving as Secretary of State for International Trade
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  Ulrike Tillmann, mathematician specializing in algebraic topology
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  Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology
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  Alison Blake, British diplomat and ambassador to Afghanistan
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  Princess Akiko of Mikasa, member of the Imperial House of Japan
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  Leana Wen, Rhodes Scholar, physician, and writer