Emmanuel College, Cambridge

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Coordinates: 52°12′13″N 0°7′26.3″E / 52.20361°N 0.123972°E / 52.20361; 0.123972

Colleges of the University of Cambridge

Emmanuel College
Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
                     
Name in Latin Collegii Emanuelis
Founder Sir Walter Mildmay
Named after Jesus of Nazareth (Emmanuel)
Established 1584
Admission Men and women
Master Fiona Reynolds
Undergraduates 500[1]
Graduates 134
Sister college Exeter College, Oxford
Location St Andrew's Street (map)
Emmanuel College heraldic shield
College website
Student Union website
MCR website
Boat Club website

Emmanuel 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.[2]

Since 1998, Emmanuel has been among the top five colleges in the Tompkins Table, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results. Emmanuel has topped the table five times since then (2003-07 and 2010) and placed second six times (2001, '02, '08, '09, '11, '12).

Emmanuel is one of the wealthier colleges at Cambridge with a financial endowment of approximately £105m and net assets of £150m (2012).[3]

Contents

History [edit]

View of Emmanuel College Chapel, 1690.

The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I.[2] The site had been occupied by a Dominican friary until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, some 45 years earlier. Mildmay's foundation made use of the existing buildings.

Mildmay, a Puritan, intended Emmanuel to be a college of training for Protestant preachers to rival the successful Catholic theological schools that had trained Dominican friars for years.

Like all of the older Cambridge Colleges, Emmanuel originally took only male students. It first admitted female students in 1979.

Civil partnerships [edit]

Emmanuel College chapel

In February 2006, the Rev. Jeremy Caddick, the Dean of Emmanuel College, announced that Emmanuel's chapel would be open to the blessing of same-sex civil partnerships—becoming the first in the Church of England to do so.[4] Emmanuel's chapel is not under the formal jurisdiction of the local Church of England bishop, and did not have to obey a House of Bishops ruling against such blessings.

Only members and alumni of the college may be blessed in this way. The decision was supported both by the College council and the students' union.

Buildings and grounds [edit]

New Court which was built in 1824-25

Under Mildmay's instruction, the chapel of the original Dominican Friary had been converted to be the College's dining hall, with the friar's dining hall becoming a puritan chapel. In the late 17th century, the College commissioned a new chapel, one of three buildings in Cambridge to be designed by Christopher Wren (1677). After Wren's construction, the puritan chapel became the College library until it out-grew the space and a purpose-built library was constructed in 1930.

There is a large fish pond in the grounds, part of the legacy of the friary. The pond is home of a colony of ducks.

The Fellows' Garden contains a swimming pool, which was originally the friar's bathing pool, making it one of the oldest bathing pools in Europe.

There is a fine example of an Oriental plane tree, also in the Fellows' Garden, which is reputed to have lived far longer than is typical of the species.[5]

Student life [edit]

College sports grounds

The Emmanuel College Students' Union (ECSU) is the society of all undergraduate students at Emmanuel College. It provides a shop, a bar, a common room, and funding for sports and other societies. ECSU's Executive Committee is elected on a yearly basis at the end of Michaelmas Term.[6]

The Emmanuel College Middle Combination Room (Emma MCR) is the society of all post-graduate students at Emmanuel College. The Room itself is a comfortable and well equipped space in the Queen's Building. The MCR committee organises regular social events for graduate students, including well-attended formal dinners in hall every few weeks.[7]

Sports and societies [edit]

A large number of student societies and sports clubs exist at Emmanuel College. Sports clubs include Emmanuel Boat Club, tennis, badminton, cricket, squash, rugby, football and netball. Societies include the Emmanuel College Music Society (ECMS),[8] the Christian Union, the Mountaineering Club, the Emmanuel Real Ice Cream Society (ERICS) and the Politics and Economics Society. Funding for societies, old and new, come from applications to the Emmanuel College Student union (ECSU).

College Grace [edit]

Front façade of Emmanuel College viewed from Downing Street.
The Latin grace (Oratio Ante Cibum) is recited before formal dinners at Emmanuel College.
Latin English

Oculi omnium in te sperant, Domine,
et tu das escam illorum in tempore opportuno.
Aperis tu manum tuam
et imples omne animal benedictione.
Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua
quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi;
per Christum Dominum nostrum.
Amen.

The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord,
and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest thine hand
and fillest every living thing with blessing.
Bless us, O Lord and these the gifts
which of thy bounty we are about to receive;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen
The Oratio Post Cibum is sometimes read after dinner:
Latin English

Confiteantur tibi, Domine, omnia opera tua,
et sancti tui benedicant te.
Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus,
pro universis beneficiis tuis,
qui vivis et regnas Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum.
Amen.

Let all thy works give thanks to thee. O Lord,
and let thy saints bless thee.
We give thanks to thee, almighty God,
for all thy goodness,
who livest and reignest as God for ever and ever.
Amen.

People associated with Emmanuel [edit]

See also: Category:Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Category:Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and List of Masters of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Former students [edit]

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, with student exchanges through the Herchel Smith scholarships, and the annual Gomes lecture and dinner held each February at Emmanuel in honour of Peter Gomes, erstwhile minister at Harvard's Memorial Church.

Early Emmanuel men included several translators of the 1611 Authorised Version.

Other alumni and members of Emmanuel include:

Fictional characters who have been said to have gone to Emmanuel include Jonathan Swift's Lemuel Gulliver. It is implied that Sebastian Faulks' eponymous Engleby and Thomas Richardson also matriculated at Emmanuel.

See also [edit]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ University Factsheet 2012
  2. ^ a b Sarah Bendall, Christopher Brooke, Patrick Collinson (1999). A History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-393-3. 
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Dean considers blessing gay couples in civil partnerships
  5. ^ Ron Gray, The Great Oriental Plane Tree at Emmanuel College
  6. ^ ECSU
  7. ^ Emma MCR
  8. ^ Emmanuel College Music Society
  9. ^ Moore, Patrick (January 2009). "Hoyle, Sir Fred (1915–2001)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2009-08-10.  (Subscription required)

External links [edit]

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