Hertford College, Oxford

Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The college's Old and New Buildings Quadrangles are connected by the Bridge of Sighs, an Oxford landmark.

The first foundation on the Hertford site began in the 1280s as Hart Hall and became a college in 1740 but was dissolved in 1816. In 1820, the site was taken over by Magdalen Hall, which had emerged around 1490 on a site adjacent to Magdalen College. In 1874, Magdalen Hall was incorporated as a college, reviving the name Hertford College. In 1974, Hertford was part of the first group of all-male Oxford colleges to admit women. There are around 600 students at the college at any one time, comprising undergraduates, graduates and visiting students from overseas.

Alumni of the college's predecessor institutions include William Tyndale, John Donne, Thomas Hobbes, Jonathan Swift and Henry Pelham. More recently, former students have included author Evelyn Waugh, the first female Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the civil servants Jeremy Heywood and Olly Robbins, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, and the newsreaders and reporters Fiona Bruce, Carrie Gracie, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and Natasha Kaplinsky. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White attended the college on a Rhodes scholarship but left to serve in World War II.

History

Hart Hall and the first Hertford College

Hart Hall

thumb|left|The drinking hart with motto as above the modern main gate of Hertford College

The first Hertford College began life as Hart Hall (Aula Cervina) in the 1280s, a small tenement built roughly where the college's Old Hall is today, a few paces along New College Lane on the southern side. In medieval Oxford, academic halls were primarily lodging houses for students and resident tutors.

The original tenement, mentioned in the deed of 1283, which was bought by Elias de Hertford from Walter de Grendon, mercer, lay between a tenement of the university (Blackhall) on the west, and a tenement of the Prioress of Studley on the east. In the deed by which Elias de Hertford sells it to John de Dokelynton in 1301, this last tenement is called Micheldhall. The deed was made over to his son, also Elias, in 1301. The name of the hall was likely a humorous reduction of the name of its founder's home town, and allowed for the use of the symbol of a hart to be used for identification.

At that time, New College Lane was known as Hammer Hall Lane (named after a hall to the east, as New College had not then been founded), and its northern side was the old town wall. The corner of Hammer Hall Lane and Catte Street (which had a postern in the wall called Smithgate) was taken by Black Hall, which was the place of John Wycliffe's imprisonment by the Vice-Chancellor around 1378. On the other side of Hart Hall along the lane was Shield Hall. On Catte Street itself was the entrance to Arthur Hall, which lay down a narrow passage behind Hart Hall, and Cat Hall (Aula Murilegorum), which stood further south, roughly where the Principal's Lodgings now stand.

The younger Elias sold on Hart Hall (named in this deed as 'le Herthalle') after a month to a wealthy local fishmonger John of Ducklington, who, seven years later, bought Arthur Hall and annexed it to Hart Hall. In 1312, John sold the two halls to Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, who desired to found a college. After just over a year, Stapledon moved his scholars to a larger site that he had purchased on Turl Street, which became Stapledon Hall, later Exeter College. However, Exeter College retained certain rights over Hart Hall, with which it plagued the hall's development for centuries.

Hertford College specialises in both Irish studies and Irish history. Hertford has long been associated with Ireland and can trace its connections back to the 16th century, when Irish Roman Catholics and Irish Protestants studied alongside each other at Hart Hall, one of the few places at Oxford that admitted Roman Catholics at the time.

In 1692, the political satirist Jonathan Swift was incorporated from Trinity College, Dublin, on the books of Hart Hall to receive his MA. and, on 18 May 1723, he presented his petition for a charter. The proposal met immediate opposition, especially from Exeter College, exercising its old rights, and All Souls, desiring to expand northward onto the hall's land. In addition, the appointments of principals for the various halls had established itself in a game of promotion, and a few would-be principals opposed the plan. John Conybeare, then a Fellow of Exeter, and later Bishop of Bristol, was Newton's most ardent opponent, penning the book Calumny Refuted against Newton's reforms. After years of struggle, Richard Newton's statutes were accepted on 3 November 1739, and the charter incorporating 'the Principal and Fellows of Hertford College' (Principalis et Socii Collegii Hertfordiensis) was received on 8 September 1740. The site is now Magdalen's St Swithun's quadrangle. It took the name of an earlier Magdalen Hall in the High Street, which was founded by William Waynflete in 1448 and then closed on the opening of Magdalen College in 1458. The first master of the grammar school was appointed in 1480, and its original school building was erected in 1486. However, as the hall took independent students as well as those belonging to the college, it quickly became an independent institution under its own principal.

The hall was known for its adherence to the teachings of John Wycliffe; William Tyndale, translator of the English Bible and martyr, studied there. Another famous student of the hall was the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who came up in either 1601 or 1602. At the English Civil War, Magdalen Hall was known as a Puritan hall under the principalship of Henry Wilkinson.

In the two world wars, a total of 171 members of Hertford College died. Those of World War I are commemorated by a memorial on the south wall of the chancel in the Chapel, while those of World War II are remembered in a memorial in the portico, to the right of the Chapel door. Notable among them is Major Percy Nugent FitzPatrick, son of James Percy FitzPatrick, who was killed near Cambrai on 14 December 1917. It was with the death of his son that James Percy FitzPatrick made the suggestion, after the war's end, to keep a two-minute silence each year on Armistice Day.

thumb|300px|Aerial photograph of Oxford with Hertford College marked: showing the 3 quads (Old Buildings, New Buildings and Holywell), the Chapel, Hall, Bridge and Octagon

In 1922, the novelist Evelyn Waugh came up to Hertford, famously feuding with his history tutor C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (who was to become the fourth principal of the refounded college, 1930–1939), and later naming a number of odious characters after him. Waugh wrote of his time at Hertford, "I do no work here and never go to Chapel". He novelised his time at Oxford in Brideshead Revisited, having his protagonist Charles Ryder at Hertford.

Starting from 1965, Hertford made a special effort to encourage applicants from state schools through the Hertford Scheme, established by Physics Fellow Neil Tanner, under which candidates were interviewed early, outside the standard application process, and could be offered a place at the college without having to sit the university entrance exam. That had the effect of dramatically raising academic standards within the college, and other colleges introduced similar initiatives. Today, around 70% of undergraduate students at the college come from UK state schools. The percentage of individuals from state schools (out of all UK applicants/students) is higher than at most Oxford colleges. The commitment to diversity is in keeping with Hertford's earlier history of openness: in 1907 Hertford admitted the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Alain Leroy Locke, after he had been refused by several other colleges.

Geoffrey Warnock served as the 9th Principal of the refounded college from 1971 until 1988. He presided over the latest period of growth, and established the college's leftist credentials. In 1974, Hertford became one of the first five co-educational colleges in the university (the others being Brasenose, Jesus College, St Catherine's, and Wadham). The college now has an almost equal gender balance, with slight variations from year to year. In memory of Warnock, the college named a student-accommodation building near Folly Bridge after him. He also has a memorial in the Chapel, and a portrait behind High Table in the Hall.

Buildings

Hertford College's main site is situated on Catte Street, New College Lane and Holywell Street. The site consists of three quadrangles: Old Quadrangle, New Quadrangle, and Holywell Quadrangle. The college also has three large groups of buildings for student accommodation near Folly Bridge: Warnock House, the Graduate Centre and Abingdon House. In addition to these, the college owns a number of houses around Oxford.

Old Quadrangle

The Old Quadrangle (known as Old Quad or OB Quad, for Old Buildings) is, as the name suggests, the oldest and the original quadrangle. Its entrance is the through the Gatehouse on Catte Street, directly opposite the main gates of the Bodleian Library. The Gatehouse is a late 19th-century building by Thomas Graham Jackson, bearing the image of a drinking hart above the archway. However, the wooden doors with their colourful floral decoration are the gates of Hart Hall from the 17th century. The quad is entered through a gate onto Catte Street, just opposite the Clarendon Building. New Quad is mostly used for undergraduate accommodation.

The most significant building in the quad is the Octagon, just north of the gate on Catte Street, which houses the Middle Common Room. It is the 16th-century Chapel of St Mary the Virgin at Smithgate, which formed a bastion in the town walls. An original carving of the scene of the Annunciation can be seen from Catte Street, just beside the gate.

Holywell Quadrangle

thumb|Hertford College - Holywell Quadrangle

Holywell Quadrangle backs directly onto New Quad, and the two are connected by an arched corridor that also contains the steps down to Hertford's subterranean bar. Holywell Quad was built in 1975, and is almost exclusively for first-year undergraduate housing. Its main features are a gate onto Holywell Street, the Junior Common Room in the south-east corner, and the Baring Room (named after Thomas Charles Baring, the college's major benefactor) which is a multi-purpose hall at the top of the southern staircase.

thumb|Hertford College - Holywell Quadrangle

Student life

Undergraduate students are accommodated for the full three or four years of their study, either on the main site or on college-owned property primarily in North Oxford and the Folly Bridge area. A new Hertford Graduate Centre fronting the Isis was built near Folly Bridge and was opened in 2000.

Hertford is home to a college cat named Simpkin, who lives in the College Lodge and is the fourth of his lineage, collectively Simpkins, the collective noun for Hertford College cats; the original was called Simpkin and was introduced by the former college principal Geoffrey Warnock, named after the cat in the Beatrix Potter novel The Tailor of Gloucester. He is provided with a bursary by alumni to cover his food and veterinary treatment.

Academic selection

Hertford has one of the lowest admission rates in Oxbridge.

Academic achievement

Hertford's exam results are slightly above average. In the Norrington Table of results over the period 2006–2012 it has come 17th, 9th, 18th, 6th, 12th, 5th and 23rd.

Sport

thumb|Hertford College Boathouse at Longbridges on [[the Isis]]

Hertford College Boat Club is among the leading Oxford college boat clubs: both its women's and men's first boats are in the first division of Torpids and Eights Week, with both M1 and W1 winning "blades" in the 2015 edition of Torpids. The boats and club room are in the Longbridges boathouse on the Isis. With the transition of Magdalen Hall to Hertford College in 1874, the old blue-black of the hall stopped racing in 1873, and the new red-white of the college took to the river in 1875. Within only seven years of its refoundation, the college came Head of the River in the annual college boat races, in 1881. On achieving that victory, the crew carried their boat all the way back to the college and burnt it just inside the gates. The college archives possess a letter detailing the club's celebrations from the sub-librarian of the Bodleian Library, who spent the night on the scaffolding surrounding the work on the Old Schools Tower, directly opposite the Hertford gate, in case the fire spread to the library. In 2005, the boathouse was gutted by an arson attack carried out by the Animal Liberation Front, in protest against animal testing at the university. The new boathouse was rebuilt on the same site.

The college was endowed with a new gym in 2011 and has playing fields in New Marston, which include a pavilion with facilities for most major team sports. In August 2013 Hertford College Rugby Club became the first team from the UK to tour Mongolia in official partnership with the Mongolian Rugby Football Union. They played matches against The Mongolia Defense University and the Ulaan Baatar Warriors. Both matches were played in the national stadium and broadcast live on Mongolian national television. In 2017, the team returned to Mongolia, this time playing two matches against the Ulaanbaatar Warriors.

Music

Hertford College has the largest and most active music society of any Oxford college, drawing in musicians from around the university, with ensembles including the Hertford College Orchestra, the Hertford College Chapel Choir, the Hertford College Wind Band, the Hertford College Jazz Band and the Hertford College Bruckner Orchestra.

There are two competitive organ scholarships. The Chapel's fine acoustic lends itself to concerts and recitals, and it is frequently used for recording.

People associated with the college

Principals

alt=|thumb|[[Thomas Fletcher (diplomat)|Tom Fletcher, most recent Principal of the college]]

The most recent permanent Principal of the college, from 2020 until November 2024, was former UK Ambassador to Lebanon and foreign policy advisor Tom Fletcher. Professor Patrick Roche is the current interim Principal.

Selected current Professorial and Tutorial Fellows

The college has over 30 Tutorial Fellows in the subjects it offers at undergraduate level.

Hagan Bayley, Professor of Chemical Biology
Charlotte Brewer, Professor of English Language and Literature, Tutor in English
Dame Kay Davies, FRS, Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy
Martin C. J. Maiden, Professor of Molecular Epidemiology, Tutor in Biology
Ian McBride, Foster Professor of Irish History
Peter Millican, Gilbert Ryle Fellow, Professor and Tutor in Philosophy
Christopher J. Schofield, Professor of Organic Chemistry
Emma J. Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Tutor in English
David Ian Stuart, Professor of Structural Biology
David Thomas, Professor of Geography
Claire Vallance, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Tutor in Chemistry
Michael Wooldridge, Professor of Computer Science
Alison Woollard, Associate Professor in Genetics, Tutor in Biochemistry

Emeritus Fellows

The college has a number of Emeritus Fellows, including:

Toby Barnard, historian
Martin Biddle, archaeologist
Robin Devenish, former professor and Tutor in Physics
Fionn Dunne, former Dean and Fellow in Engineering
Bill MacMillan, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Senior Tutor
Tom Paulin, former G M Young Lecturer and Tutor in English
Christopher Tyerman, former Professor of History of the Crusades and Tutor in History
Alison Young, former Professor of Public Law

Former Emeritus and Emerita Fellows include Rebecca Sitsapesan, Anthony Cockshut, Philip Randle, Felix Markham, C. A. J. Armstrong, and Julia Briggs. Briggs was the college's first woman fellow, in 1978.

Honorary Fellows

John Baring, 7th Baron Ashburton
Walter Bodmer, former principal
Martin Bridson, mathematician
Nancee Oku Bright, documentary filmmaker, director and producer
Sherard Cowper-Coles
John Dewar, former Tutor in Law
Richard W. Fisher, ambassador
R. F. Foster, historian
Andrew Goudie, Master of St Cross College
Charlotte Hogg, economist
Will Hutton, economist and former Principal
The Very Reverend Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans
Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC, barrister
Soweto Kinch, jazz musician and rapper
John Landers, former principal
Paul Manduca, chairman of Prudential plc (2012-2020)
The Rt. Rev. Thomas McMahon, Catholic Bishop of Brentwood
Paul Muldoon, President of the Poetry Society
David Pannick, Baron Pannick
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland
Jacqui Smith, former Home Secretary
Stephanie West, classical scholar
General Roger Wheeler, former Chief of the General Staff
Athol Williams, poet and applied philosopher
Tobias Wolff, author

Notable former students

Hart Hall and the first Hertford College (1282–1816)

File:Alexander Briant.jpg|Saint Alexander Briant

British School, Reginald Scott NCMA 67 13 3.png|Reginald Scot

File:John Donne BBC News.jpg|John Donne

File:Charles James Fox00.jpg|Charles James Fox

File:Henry Pelham by William Hoare.jpg|Henry Pelham

File:John Selden from NPG cleaned.jpg|John Selden

File:Jonathan Swift by Charles Jervas detail.jpg|Jonathan Swift

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Magdalen Hall (1480–1874)

File:Samuel Daniel.jpg|Samuel Daniel

File:Portrait of Sir Matthew Hale Kt.jpg|Matthew Hale

File:Thomas Hobbes (portrait).jpg|Thomas Hobbes

File:William Dobson Edward Hyde Earl of Clarendon.jpg|Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

File:ROBERT PLOT.webp|Robert Plot

File:William Tyndale.jpg|William Tyndale

File:1637-Henry-Vane-the-Younger-by-Gerard-Soest.jpg|Henry Vane the Younger

File:Sir William Waller by Cornelius Johnson.jpg|William Waller

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The second Hertford College (1874–present)

File:John Clifford Valentine Behan.jpg|John Behan

File:Fiona Bruce (8817648940).jpg|Fiona Bruce

File:Daniel Dennett 2.jpg|Daniel Dennett

File:JohnMeadeFalkner.jpg|J. Meade Falkner

File:Tom Fletcher Book Launch 2.jpg|Tom Fletcher

File:Helen Ghosh.jpg|Helen Ghosh

File:Krishnan Guru-Murthy at Chatham House 2013.jpg|Krishnan Guru-Murthy

File:Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary, January 2015.jpg|Jeremy Heywood

File:BulletinHillMuseum1921HillMuseumJoicey cropped.jpg|James John Joicey

File:Natasha Kaplinsky 2014.jpg|Natasha Kaplinsky

File:Portrait of Alain LeRoy Locke.jpg|Alain LeRoy Locke

File:Governor General Roland Michener at Alma College graduation ceremonies 1972 (crop).jpg|Roland Michener

File:Dom Mintoff (1974).jpg|Dom Mintoff

File:Official portrait of Bridget Phillipson crop 2.jpg|Bridget Phillipson

File:Maisie Richardson-Sellers -3- (40053675760).jpg|Maisie Richardson-Sellers

File:Smith, Jacqui (crop).jpg|Jacqui Smith

File:Evelynwaugh.jpeg|Evelyn Waugh

File:US Supreme Court Justice Byron White - 1976 official portrait.jpg|Byron White

File:Athol Williams.jpg|Athol Williams

File:TobiasWolff.jpg|Tobias Wolff

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References

Sources

also at Internet archive
'Hertford history'. Hertford history

External links

Hertford College website
Hertford College Boat Club
Hertford College MCR
Hertford College International Programmes