Ranking the Colleges at University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by King Henry III in 1231, the University has preserved its reputation as one of the best institutions of education in the world. Cambridge is formed from 31 constituent colleges each of which has its own unique history, architecture, customs and traditions. The colleges compete with each other not just in terms of academics but also in athletics. Virtually all students and alumni tend to wear their college colors with pride and thus most colleges enjoy a healthy rivalry with all the other colleges. While the Tompkins table provides a good measure of undergraduate student performance and endowment figures give some indication of the quality of the facilities available, opinion about which college provides the best overall experience vary quite significantly. Here is a list of all 31 colleges of Cambridge with brief descriptions about their history and alumni. Rank these colleges to let us know which ones you think are the best! Source(s): Wikipedia
Gonville and Caius College
Gonville and Caius College
Gonville & Caius College (often referred to simply as Caius) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is the fourth-oldest college at the University of Cambridge and one of the wealthiest. The college has been attended by many students who have gone on to significant accomplishment, including fourteen Nobel Prize winners, the second-most of any Oxbridge college (after Trinity College, Cambridge). The college has long historical associations with medical teaching, especially due to its alumni physicians: John Caius (who gave the college the caduceus in its insignia) and William Harvey. Other famous alumni in the sciences include Francis Crick (joint discoverer, along with James Watson, of the structure of DNA), James Chadwick (discoverer of the neutron) and Howard Florey (developer of penicillin). Stephen Hawking, previously Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics Emeritus, is a current fellow of the college. The college also maintains academic programmes in many other disciplines, including economics, English literature and history. Gonville & Caius is said to own or have rights to much of the land in Cambridge. Several streets in the city, such as Harvey Road, Glisson Road and Gresham Road, are named after alumni of the College. The college's alumni includes 14 Nobel Laureates - Charles Scott Sherrington, James Chadwick, Howard Florey, Max Born, Francis Crick, John Hicks, Antony Hewish, Milton Friedman, Nevill Francis Mott, Richard Stone, Joseph Stiglitz, Roger Tsien, Michael Levitt and Michael Kosterlitz.
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St John's College
#15.4St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge (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). The college was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a 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's alumni include the winners of ten Nobel Prizes, seven prime ministers and twelve archbishops of various countries, at least two princes and three Saints. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth studied at the college, as did William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the two abolitionists who led the movement that brought slavery to an end in the British Empire. HRH Prince William was affiliated with St John's while undertaking a university-run course in 2014. St John's College is also well known for its choir, its members' success in a wide variety of inter-collegiate sporting competitions and its annual May Ball. In 2011, the college celebrated its quincentenary, an event marked by a visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Trinity College
#26.0Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. With around 600 undergraduates, 300 graduates, and over 180 fellows, it is the largest college in either of the Oxbridge universities by number of undergraduates. By combined student numbers, it is second to Homerton College, Cambridge. Members of Trinity have won 32 Nobel Prizes out of the 91 won by members of Cambridge University, the highest number of any college. Five Fields Medals in mathematics were won by members of the college (of the six awarded to members of British universities) and one Abel Prize was won. Trinity alumni include six British prime ministers (all Tory or Whig/Liberal), physicists Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr, mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, the poet Lord Byron, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell (whom it expelled before reaccepting), and Soviet spies Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. Two members of the British royal family have studied at Trinity and been awarded degrees as a result: Prince William of Gloucester and Edinburgh, who gained an MA in 1790, and Prince Charles, who was awarded a lower second class BA in 1970. Other royal family members have studied there without obtaining degrees, including King Edward VII, King George VI, and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Trinity has many college societies, including the Trinity Mathematical Society, which is the oldest mathematical university society in the United Kingdom, and the First and Third Trinity Boat Club, its rowing club, which gives its name to the college's May Ball. Along with Christ's, Jesus, King's and St John's colleges, it has also provided several of the well known members of the Apostles, an intellectual secret society. In 1848, Trinity hosted the meeting at which Cambridge undergraduates representing private schools such as Westminster drew up the first formal rules of football, known as the Cambridge Rules.
Pembroke College
#36.2Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over seven hundred students and fellows. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its founding, as well as extensive gardens. As of 2014 the college has a financial endowment of £67 million. Pembroke has a level of academic performance among the highest of all the Cambridge colleges; in 2013, 2014 and 2016 Pembroke was placed second in the Tompkins Table. The college's alumni include Nobel Prize winners John Sulston, Rodney Porter and William Fowler. Pembroke is home to the first chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren and is one of the six Cambridge colleges to have educated a British prime minister, in Pembroke's case William Pitt the Younger. The college library, with a Victorian neo-gothic clock tower, is endowed with an original copy of the first encyclopaedia to contain printed diagrams.
Christ's College
#46.5Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as God's House. In 1505, the college was granted a new royal charter, was given a substantial endowment by Lady Margaret Beaufort, and changed its name to Christ's College, becoming the twelfth of the Cambridge colleges to be founded in its current form. Within Cambridge, Christ's has a reputation for strong academic performance and tutorial support. It has averaged 1st place on the Tompkins Table from 1980–2006 and third place from 2006 to 2013. Christ's is noted for educating two of Cambridge's most famous alumni, the poet John Milton and the naturalist Charles Darwin, who, during the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the University, were both placed at the foreground as two of the four most iconic individuals in the University's history. The college has also educated Nobel Laureates including Martin Evans, James Meade and Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd. It is the University's 6th largest producer of Nobel Prize winners. Some of the college's other famous alumni include comedians Sacha Baron Cohen, John Oliver and Andy Parsons, Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts, historian Simon Schama, theologian William Paley and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Clare College
#57.1Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded in 1338 as Clare Hall by an endowment from Elizabeth de Clare. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "The Backs" (the back of the colleges that overlook the River Cam). Clare is consistently one of the most popular Cambridge colleges amongst prospective applicants. As of 2016, it had an endowment of over £106m. The alumni of the college includes the likes of Sir David Attenborough, John Attenborough Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis.
Emmanuel College
#67.8Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. In every year from 1998, Emmanuel has been among the top six colleges in the Tompkins Table, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results. Emmanuel has topped the table five times since then (2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010) and placed second six times (2001, 2002, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012). Emmanuel is one of the wealthier colleges at Cambridge with a financial endowment of approximately £105 million and net assets of £150 million (2012). Emmanuel graduates had a large involvement in the settling of North America. Of the first 100 university graduates in New England, one-third were graduates of Emmanuel College. Harvard University, the first college in the United States, was organised on the model of Emmanuel, as it was then run. Harvard is named for John Harvard (B.A., 1632), an Emmanuel graduate. Emmanuel and Harvard maintain relations via student exchanges such as the Herchel Smith scholarships, the Harvard Scholarship, and the annual Gomes lecture and dinner held each February at Emmanuel in honour of the late Peter Gomes, erstwhile minister at Harvard's Memorial Church.
Queens' College
#78.3Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. Queens' is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the university, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou, and has some of the most recognisable buildings in Cambridge. The college spans both sides of the river Cam, colloquially referred to as the "light side" and the "dark side", with the Mathematical Bridge connecting the two. The college's alumni include heads of government and politicians from various countries, royalty, religious leaders, astronauts and Oscar nominees. Examples are Stephen Fry, Abba Eban and T. H. White. Its most famous matriculant is Desiderius Erasmus, who studied at the college during his trips to England between 1506 and 1515. Queens' College was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou and refounded in 1465 by the rival queen Elizabeth Woodville. This dual foundation is reflected in its orthography: Queens', not Queen's, although the full name is "The Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard, commonly called Queens' College, in the University of Cambridge".
King's College
#89.7King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city. King's was founded in 1441 by Henry VI, soon after he had founded its sister college in Eton. However, the King's plans for the college were disrupted by the Wars of the Roses and resultant scarcity of funds, and his eventual deposition. Little progress was made on the project until in 1508 Henry VII began to take an interest in the college, most likely as a political move to legitimise his new position. The building of the college's chapel, begun in 1446, was finally finished in 1544 during the reign of Henry VIII. King's College Chapel is regarded as one of the greatest examples of late Gothic English architecture. It has the world's largest fan-vault, and the chapel's stained-glass windows and wooden chancel screen are considered some of the finest from their era. The building is seen as emblematic of Cambridge. The chapel's choir, composed of male students at King's and choristers from the nearby King's College School, is one of the most accomplished and renowned in the world. Every year on Christmas Eve the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (a service devised specifically for King's by college dean Eric Milner-White) is broadcast from the chapel to millions of listeners worldwide. There are eight Nobel laureates who were either students or fellows of King's - Charles Glover Barkla, Patrick Blackett, Frederick Sanger, Philip Noel-Baker, Patrick White, Richard Stone, Sydney Brenner and Oliver Hart. Alumni of the college includes prime ministers, archbishops, presidents and academics. Time published in 1999 a list of what it considered the most "influential and important" people of the twentieth century. In a list of one hundred names, King's claimed two: Alan Turing and John Maynard Keynes who had been both students and fellows at the college. Heads of State and Government educated at King's include first Prime Minister of Great Britain Robert Walpole,
Selwyn College
#910.9Selwyn College (formally "The Master, Fellows, and Scholars of Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The college was founded by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Augustus Selwyn (1809–1878), the first Bishop of New Zealand (1841–1868), and subsequently Bishop of Lichfield (1868–1878). It consists of three main courts built of brick and stone (Old Court, Cripps Court and Ann's Court) with some ancillary buildings, including houses serving as student hostels on Grange Road, West Road and Sidgwick Avenue. The college has some 60 Fellows and 110 non-academic staff. In 2017, Selwyn was ranked ninth out of the 29 Cambridge colleges in order of undergraduates' performances in examinations on the Tompkins Table but was first in 2008. In 2006 it had an estimated financial endowment of £75 million, and, in 2004, fixed assets were worth £70 million. The college was ranked 16th out of 30 in an assessment of college wealth conducted by the student newspaper Varsity in November 2006.
Jesus College
#1011.0Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes from the name of its chapel, Jesus Chapel. Jesus College was established between 1496 and 1516 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Mary and St Radegund by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely. The cockerel is a symbol of Jesus College, after the surname of its founder. Three members of Jesus College have received a Nobel Prize.[3] Two fellows of the college have been appointed to the International Court of Justice.[4] Notable alumni include Thomas Cranmer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Reid, Lord Toulson, Sir Rupert Jackson, Sir David Hare, Sir Roger Scruton, and Nick Hornby. Jesus College has assets of approximately £243m making it Cambridge’s third wealthiest college. The college is known for its particularly expansive grounds which include its sporting fields and for its close proximity to its boathouse.
Sidney Sussex College
#1111.4Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The college was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589) and named after its foundress. It was from its inception an avowedly Protestant foundation; "some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance of good learninge". In her will, Lady Sussex left the sum of £5,000 together with some plate to found a new college at Cambridge University "to be called the Lady Frances Sidney Sussex College". Her executors Sir John Harington and Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent, supervised by Archbishop John Whitgift, founded the college seven years after her death. As of 2014, the college had an endowment of £36.m., and total capital and reserves of £108.m. Sidney Sussex is recognised as one of the smaller, more classical Cambridge colleges. Its current student body consists of roughly 350 undergraduate students and 190 graduates. Academically, Sidney Sussex has tended towards a mid-table position in the unofficial Tompkins Table (placing 16th out of 29 in 2016). However, the college has traditionally excelled in certain subjects, notably Mathematics, History, Engineering and Law. It is also known for the high standard of pastoral support from the Tutorial team, and a sense of mutual support from students doing the same subject. The college ranks fourth highest amongst Cambridge colleges in Nobel Prizes won by alumni.
Gonville and Caius College
#1212.3Gonville & Caius College (often referred to simply as Caius) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is the fourth-oldest college at the University of Cambridge and one of the wealthiest. The college has been attended by many students who have gone on to significant accomplishment, including fourteen Nobel Prize winners, the second-most of any Oxbridge college (after Trinity College, Cambridge). The college has long historical associations with medical teaching, especially due to its alumni physicians: John Caius (who gave the college the caduceus in its insignia) and William Harvey. Other famous alumni in the sciences include Francis Crick (joint discoverer, along with James Watson, of the structure of DNA), James Chadwick (discoverer of the neutron) and Howard Florey (developer of penicillin). Stephen Hawking, previously Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics Emeritus, is a current fellow of the college. The college also maintains academic programmes in many other disciplines, including economics, English literature and history. Gonville & Caius is said to own or have rights to much of the land in Cambridge. Several streets in the city, such as Harvey Road, Glisson Road and Gresham Road, are named after alumni of the College. The college's alumni includes 14 Nobel Laureates - Charles Scott Sherrington, James Chadwick, Howard Florey, Max Born, Francis Crick, John Hicks, Antony Hewish, Milton Friedman, Nevill Francis Mott, Richard Stone, Joseph Stiglitz, Roger Tsien, Michael Levitt and Michael Kosterlitz.
Churchill College
#1313.2Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its chairman of trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its Royal Charter and Statutes were approved by the Queen, in August 1960. It is situated on the outskirts of Cambridge, away from the traditional centre of the city, but close to the University's main new development zone (which now houses the Centre for Mathematical Sciences). Its 16 hectares (40 acres) of grounds make it physically the largest of all the colleges. Churchill was the first all-male college to decide to admit women, and was among three men's colleges to admit its first women students in 1972. Within 15 years all others had followed suit. The college has a reputation for relative informality compared with other Cambridge colleges, and traditionally admits a larger proportion of its undergraduates from state schools. The college motto is "Forward". It was taken from the final phrase of Winston Churchill's first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister – his famous "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" speech – in which he said "Come, then, let us go forward together".
Trinity Hall
#1413.7Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich. The devastation caused by the Black Death plague of the 1340s caused the loss of nearly half of the English population; Bishop Bateman himself lost nearly 700 of his parish priests, and so his decision to found a college was probably centred on a need to rebuild the priesthood. Thus in the foundation of 1350, Bateman stated that the college's aim was "the promotion of divine worship and of canon and civil science and direction of the commonwealth and especially of our church and diocese of Norwich." This led the college to be particularly strong in legal studies, a tradition that has continued over the centuries. Trinity Hall was known for teaching Law; today, it teaches the sciences, arts and humanities. Notable alumni include theoretical physicists Stephen Hawking and Nobel Prize winner David Thouless, Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, Canadian Governor General David Johnston, philosopher Marshall McLuhan, and Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham.
Peterhouse
#1514.7Peterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, and granted its charter by King Edward I. Today, Peterhouse has 226 undergraduates, 86 full-time graduate students and 45 fellows. The modern name of Peterhouse does not include the word "college". Peterhouse is one of the wealthiest colleges in Cambridge, with assets exceeding £250 million, including property in central London such as the Albany apartment complex in Piccadilly. Peterhouse is one of the few colleges that still seeks to insist that its members attend communal dinners, known as "Hall". Hall takes place in two sittings, with the second known as "Formal Hall", which consists of a three-course candlelit meal and which must be attended wearing gowns. At Formal Hall, the students rise as the fellows proceed in, a gong is rung, and two Latin graces are read. Academic performance tends to vary from year to year due to its very small student population; for example, Peterhouse came 25th in the Tompkins Table in 2007 but 7th in 2010, 12th in 2014 and 6th in 2015 (out of 29 colleges). The college has five Nobel laureates associated with it, either as former students or fellows: Sir John Kendrew, Sir Aaron Klug, Archer Martin, Max Perutz, and Michael Levitt.
Corpus Christi College
#1615.1Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guild of Corpus Christi and the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, making it the sixth-oldest college in Cambridge. With around 250 undergraduates and 200 postgraduates, it also has the second smallest student body of the traditional colleges of the University (after Peterhouse). The College has traditionally been one of the more academically successful colleges in the University of Cambridge. In the unofficial Tompkins Table, which ranks the colleges by the class of degrees obtained by their undergraduates, Corpus's 2012 position was 3rd, with 32.4% of its undergraduates achieving first-class results. The college's average position between 2003 and 2012 was 9th, and in the most recent rankings, placed in 10th. Corpus ranks among the wealthiest Cambridge colleges in terms of fixed assets, being exceptionally rich in silver. The College's endowment valued at £97.4M at the end of June 2016 and its freehold land and buildings were valued at £118M at the end of the fiscal year 2013.
St Catharine's College
#1715.9St Catharine’s College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The college is located in the historic city-centre of Cambridge, and lies just south of King's College and across the street from Corpus Christi College. The college is notable for its open court (rather than closed quadrangle) that faces towards Trumpington Street. St Catharine’s is unique in being the only Oxbridge college founded by the serving head of another college. The college community is moderately sized, consisting of approximately 70 fellows, 150 graduate students, and 410 undergraduates. As of 2016, the college's endowment stood at £62.2 million, placing the college 15th richest of the University's colleges. The college's alumni includes President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, actor Sir Ian McKellen, journalist Jeremy Paxman, naturalist John Ray, comedian and actor Richard Ayoade, actress Rebecca Hall, comedian and actor Ben Miller, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman, billionaire CEO of Winton Capital David Harding and Chairwoman of the BBC Trust Rona Fairhead.
Downing College
#1816.2Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old. The current Master of the college is Geoffrey Grimmett, Professor of Mathematical Statistics at the University. The college was founded by Sir George Downing. Upon the death of Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet in 1749, the wealth left by his grandfather, Sir George Downing, who served both Cromwell and Charles II and built 10 Downing Street (a door formerly from Number 10 is in use in the college), was applied by his will. Notable alumni of the college include English actor and comedian John Cleese, senior Pakistani politician Aitzaz Ahsan, Victoria Cross recipient John Leslie Green, comedian Andy Hamilton, invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist Sir Ray Lankester, BAFTA award-winning actress Thandie Newton, theoretical physicist Sir John Pendry and Prime Minister of the Cape Colony during the Second Boer War William Philip Schreiner.
Fitzwilliam College
#1918.2Fitzwilliam College (often abbreviated "Fitz") is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge, England. The college traces its origins back to 1869 and the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer students from less financially privileged backgrounds a chance to study at the university. The institution was originally based at Fitzwilliam Hall (later renamed Fitzwilliam House), opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum in central Cambridge. Having moved to its present site in the north of the city, Fitzwilliam attained collegiate status in 1966. Female undergraduates were first admitted in 1978, around the time most colleges were first admitting women. Six members of Fitzwilliam College have received a Nobel Prize. Notable alumni include the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Albert Szent-Györgyi, the Indian revolutionary leader Subhas Chandra Bose, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Angus Deaton, and politician Lee Kuan Yew. Fitzwilliam is now home to around 450 undergraduates, 300 graduate students and 90 fellows.
Lucy Cavendish College
#2019.2Lucy Cavendish College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge which admits only postgraduates and undergraduates aged 21 or over. It only accepts female students and fellows, making the college one of only three women-only university colleges in England. The college is named in honour of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education. The college was founded in 1965 by female academics of the University of Cambridge who believed that the university offered too few and too restricted opportunities for women as either students or academics. Its origins are traceable to the Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges (informally known as the Dining Group) which in the 1950s sought to provide the benefits of collegiality to its members who, being female, were not college fellows. At the time there were only two women's colleges in Cambridge, Girton and Newnham, insufficient for the large and growing numbers of female academic staff in the university. The overall examination results of the college's comparatively few undergraduates has improved drastically in later years compared to other Cambridge colleges, with Lucy Cavendish recently making a record-breaking leap of 8 places in the Tompkins table - the best result for any mature college in the history of the rankings.
Newnham College
#2120.1Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College. The co-founder of the college was Millicent Garrett Fawcett. The history of Newnham begins with the formation of the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge in 1869. The progress of women at Cambridge University owes much to the pioneering work undertaken by the philosopher Henry Sidgwick, fellow of Trinity. Lectures for Ladies had been started in Cambridge in 1869, and such was the demand from those who could not travel in and out on a daily basis that in 1871 Sidgwick, one of the organisers of the lectures, rented a house at 74, Regent Street to house five female students who wished to attend lectures but did not live near enough to the University to do so. He persuaded Anne Jemima Clough, who had previously run a school in the Lake District, to take charge of this house. The following year (1872), this moved to Merton House (built c1800) on Queen's Road, then to premises in Bateman Street. Demand continued to increase and the supporters of the enterprise formed a limited company to raise funds, lease land and build on it. in 1875 the first building for Newnham College was built on the site off Sidgwick Avenue where the college remains. In 1876 Henry Sidgwick married Elizabeth Balfour who was already a supporter of women's education. They lived at Newnham from 1893. The college formally came into existence in 1880 with the amalgamation of the Association and the Company. Women were admitted to titles of degrees from 1881. Notable alumni of the college include actress Emma Thompson, primatologist Jane Goodall, feminist leader Germaine Greer, former government minister Patricia Hewitt, Member of Parliament Diane Abbott and television presenter Clare Balding.
Magdalene College
#2220.5Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene. Magdalene counted some of the greatest men in the realm among its benefactors, including Britain's premier noble the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Chief Justice Christopher Wray. Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, was responsible for the refoundation of the college and also established its motto—garde ta foy (Old French: "keep your faith"). Audley's successors in the Mastership and as benefactors of the College were, however, prone to dire ends; several benefactors were arraigned at various stages on charges of high treason and executed. The college's most famous alumnus is the 17th century chronicler Samuel Pepys. His papers and books were donated to the college upon his death and are housed in the Pepys Library in the Pepys Building. A portrait of the diarist by Peter Lely hangs in the Hall. Magdalene is noted for its 'traditional' style: it boasts a well-regarded candlelit formal hall (held every evening) and was the last all-male college in Oxford or Cambridge to admit women in 1988 (Oriel College was the last in Oxford, admitting women in 1986). Magdalene remains one of the smaller colleges in the University, numbering some 300 undergraduates. Magdalene has been an academically strong-performing college over the past decade, achieving an average of ninth in the Tompkins Table and coming second in 2015.
St Edmund's College
#2321.2St Edmund's College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. It is the second oldest of the four Cambridge colleges oriented to mature students, which only accept students reading for either masters or doctorate degrees, or undergraduate degrees if they are aged 21 or older (the oldest being Hughes Hall and the others being Wolfson College and Lucy Cavendish College; additionally, Darwin College and Clare Hall admit graduate students only). Over three-quarters of St Edmund's students are studying towards higher degrees, usually the PhD, MPhil or LLM degrees. The college is named after St Edmund of Abingdon (1175–1240) who was the first known Oxford Master of Arts and the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1234 to 1240. The college is located about 10 minutes' walk northwest of the centre of Cambridge, quite near to Lucy Cavendish College, Murray Edwards College and the Fitzwilliam College. Its campus consists of a garden setting on the edge of what was Roman Cambridge, with housing for over 350 students. St Edmunds sister college at Oxford University is Green Templeton College, Oxford.
Homerton College
#2422.4Homerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. Its first premises were acquired in London in 1768, by an informal gathering of Protestant dissenters with origins in the seventeenth century. In 1894 the College moved from Homerton High Street, Hackney, London, to Cambridge, and received its Royal Charter in 2010, affirming its status as a full college of the university. The College will be celebrating its 250th anniversary in 2018. With around 600 undergraduates, 800 graduates, and 90 fellows, it has more students than any other Cambridge college, but because only half of these are resident undergraduates its undergraduate presence is similar to large colleges such as Trinity and St John's. Homerton has educated alumni of considerable influence – including prominent dissenting thinkers, educationalists, politicians, and missionary explorers. In this sense, the College has particularly strong ties to public service as well as academia. Homerton was admitted as an "Approved Society" of the university in 1976, and was granted full college status by the university in 2010. The College has extensive grounds which encompass sports fields, water features, beehives and the focal point of the college, its Victorian Gothic hall. It also has a wide range of student clubs and societies, including Homerton College Boat Club, Homerton College Music Society and the Homerton College Rugby Football Club. In 2011 and 2012 the college was also selected to field a team on University Challenge. Notable alumni from the college include: (a) Samuel Dyer (1804–1843), typographer and translator of the Bible into Chinese. (b) William Ellis (1794–1872) English missionary, traveller, geographer, and ethnographer. (c) Robert Cotton Mather (1808–1877), English missionary, author, and translator in India. (d) Edward Stallybrass (1794-1884), translator of the Bible into Mongolian. (e) William Johnson Fox (1786–1864) English religious and political orator. (f) Charles Wellbeloved (1769–1858) English Unitarian divine, archaeologist, and author.
Girton College
#2523.2Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies, Barbara Bodichon and Lady Stanley of Alderley as a college for women. Girton was granted full college status by the university in 1948, marking the official admittance of women to the university. In 1976, Girton was Cambridge university's first women's college to become coeducational. The main college site, situated on the outskirts of the village of Girton, about 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of the university town, comprises 33 acres (13.4 ha) of land. Held in typical Victorian red brick design, most was built by architect Alfred Waterhouse between 1872 and 1887. It provides extensive sports facilities, an indoor swimming pool, an award-winning library and a chapel with two organs. There is an accommodation annexe, known as Wolfson Court, situated in Cambridge's western suburbs, close to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. This annexe was opened in 1961 and provides housing for graduates, and for second year undergraduates and above. Notable alumni of the college include Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Baroness of Vernham Dean and British peer Elizabeth Symons, comedian and author Sandi Toksvig, member of the Japanese Imperial Family Hisako, Princess Takamado, Queen consort of Jordan Dina bint 'Abdu'l-Hamid, Baroness of Richmond and President Designate of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Brenda Hale, Baroness and former President of the International Court of Justice Rosalyn Higgins and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington.
Darwin College
#2624.4Darwin College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded on 28 July 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and women. The college is named after one of the university's most famous families, that of Charles Darwin. The Darwin family previously owned some of the land, Newnham Grange, on which the college now stands. The college has between 600 and 700 students, mostly studying for PhD or MPhil degrees. About half the students come from outside the United Kingdom, representing 80 nationalities as of 2016. Darwin is the largest graduate college of Cambridge. Notable alumni of the college include 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine Elizabeth Blackburn, 2007 Nobel laureate in economics Eric Maskin, Virologist Nancy Cox, Former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement, American zoologist Dian Fossey and Canadian politician and journalist Seamus O'Regan.
Robinson College
#2724.9Robinson College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. Founded in 1977, Robinson is the newest of the Cambridge colleges and is unique in being the only one to have been intended, from its inception, for both undergraduate and graduate students of both sexes. The college was founded after the British philanthropist Sir David Robinson offered the university £17 million to establish a new college in Cambridge; this is one of the largest donations ever accepted by the university. Robinson later gave his college another £1 million on the occasion of its official opening. The first graduate students and fellows joined the college in 1977. Undergraduates (20 of them) were first admitted in 1979, but significant numbers only began arriving the following year. The college was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II in May 1981. Despite maintaining some Cambridge traditions, such as Formal Hall, the college has avoided others: for example, it is one of the few colleges that allows its students to walk on the grass in the college gardens. Robinson is in general less formal and traditional than most of the older colleges in the university. Notable alumni of the college include Robert Webb, Nick Clegg, Konnie Huq, Justine Thornton and Marc Quinn.
Murray Edwards College
#2825.8Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, and unlike many other colleges, it was founded without a benefactor and did not bear a benefactor's name. This situation changed in 2008. Following a donation of £30 million by alumna Ros Edwards (née Smith) and her husband Steve Edwards, New Hall was renamed Murray Edwards College, honouring the donors and the first President, Dame Rosemary Murray. New Hall was founded in 1954, housing sixteen students in Silver Street where Darwin College now stands. This was at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges (Girton and Newnham) admitted female students. In 1962, members of the Darwin family gave their home, "The Orchard", to the College. This new site was located on Huntingdon Road, about a mile from the centre of Cambridge. The architects chosen were Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, who are known for their design of the Barbican in London, and fundraising commenced. The building work began in 1964 and was completed by W. & C. French in 1965. The new college could house up to 300 students. In 1967, one of the College's PhD students, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a researcher in the university radio astronomy group, discovered the first four pulsars, leading to a Nobel Prize for her supervisor, and for Jocelyn Bell-Burnell herself, ultimately a position as a Research Professor at the University of Oxford. In 1975, the College's President Dame Rosemary Murray became the first woman to hold the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Since then, two subsequent presidents, Anne Lonsdale and Jennifer Barnes, have become Pro-Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge.
Hughes Hall
#2927.4Hughes Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. It is the oldest of the four Cambridge colleges which admit only mature students. The majority of Hughes Hall students are postgraduate, although nearly one-fifth of the student population comprises individuals aged 21 and above who are studying undergraduate degree courses at the University. Hughes Hall was founded in the 19th century as the Cambridge Training College for Women with the purpose of providing a college of the University dedicated to training women graduates for the teaching profession. Since then it has enlarged and expanded to support a community of students and researchers, both male and female, working in all the academic domains encompassed by the University of Cambridge. The college is housed in a number of 19th and 20th century buildings at a main site immediately adjacent to the University of Cambridge's Cricket ground, and between the City Centre and the railway station. Notable alumni of the college include Conservative Party politician and Minister of State for Northern Ireland Andrew Murrison, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Evan Wallach, Liberal Democrats MP Annette Brooke, British author Alison Uttley, Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and Leader of the Civic Party Alan Leong, GB Rower, World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist Tom Ransley and American journalist for Al Jazeera America and former Miss North Dakota Roxana Saberi.
Wolfson College
#3028.3Wolfson College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The majority of students at the college are postgraduates. The college also admits "mature" undergraduates (aged 21 and above), with around 15% of students studying undergraduate degree courses at the university. The college was founded in 1965 as "University College", and changed its name to Wolfson College in 1973 in recognition of the benefaction of the Wolfson Foundation. Wolfson is located to the west of Cambridge city centre, near the University Library. It was the first college of the university to admit men and women as both students and Fellows. As one of the more modern colleges in Cambridge, Wolfson does not follow all of the traditions of some of the University's older colleges. For example, since the college's founding there has been no "High Table" reserved for Fellows at Formal Hall dinners; students and Fellows mix and dine together, although the tradition of wearing academic gowns to such occasions is still preserved. Both Fellows and students at the college have access to all the facilities. With students from over 70 countries, Wolfson claims to be one of Cambridge's most cosmopolitan colleges. Notable alumni include President of Zambia Rupiah Banda, President of the International Criminal Court Song Sang-Hyun and Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Clare Hall
#3129.2Clare Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. Founded in 1966 by Clare College, Clare Hall is a college for advanced study, admitting only postgraduate students alongside postdoctoral researchers and fellows. Clare Hall is one of the smallest colleges with 180 graduate students, but around 125 Fellows, making it the highest Fellow to Student ratio at Cambridge University. Clare Hall was founded by Clare College (which had previously been known as "Clare Hall" from 1338 to 1856) as a centre for advanced study, but was also intended to become a social group of men and women with their families that would include graduate students studying for higher degrees in the university, research fellows working at post-doctoral level, permanent fellows holding faculty or research posts in the university, and visiting fellows on leave from universities around the world. After Clare College decided to establish this new centre in January 1964, the initial planning was carried through by a small group of fellows of the college chaired by the Master, Sir Eric Ashby. It was soon agreed that the new centre would be called Clare Hall, the ancient name by which the college itself had been known for more than five hundred years until the mid-19th century. Notable alumni of the college include Filipino writer José Wendell Capili, British historian and schoolmaster David N. Farr, Hindu theologian Tamala Krishna Goswami, American anthropologist Tobias Hecht, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology Barbara Sahakian, former Labour Party MP Phyllis Starkey, Indonesian activist and politician Budiman Sudjatmiko, Lieutenant Governor of Kansas Jeff Colyer and Former President of South Korea Kim Dae-jung,
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