Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Colleges of the University of Cambridge Gonville and Caius College
Founders	Edmund Gonville (1348) John Caius (1557)
Established	1348, refounded 1557
Previously named	Gonville Hall (1348–1351) Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1351–1557)
Admission	Men and women
Master	Sir Alan Fersht
Undergraduates	475
Graduates	230
Sister college	Brasenose College, Oxford
Location	Trinity Street (map)
College website
Student Union website
MCR website
Boat Club website

Gonville and Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is often referred to simply as "Caius" (pron.: /ˈkiːz/) (pronounced "keys").

Outline

Gonville and Caius 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 twelve Nobel Prize winners, the second-most of any Oxbridge college (after Trinity College, Cambridge).

Academic accomplishment

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 (discoverer of the structure of DNA), Sir James Chadwick (discoverer of the neutron) and Sir Howard Florey (inventor of penicillin). Stephen Hawking, previously Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics Emeritus, is a current fellow of the college. The college also maintains world-class academic programmes in many other disciplines, including economics, English literature and history.

Gonville and 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. [citation needed]

History

The college was first founded, as Gonville Hall, by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington St Clement in Norfolk in 1348, making it the fourth-oldest surviving college. When Gonville died three years later, he left a struggling institution with almost no money. The executor of his will, William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, stepped in, transferring the college to the land close to the college he had just founded, Trinity Hall, and renamed it The Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, endowing it with its first buildings.

By the sixteenth century, the college had fallen into disrepair, and in 1557 it was refounded by Royal Charter as Gonville and Caius College by the physician John Caius. John Caius was master of the college from 1559 until shortly before his death in 1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly extended the buildings.

During his time as Master, Caius accepted no payment but insisted on several unusual rules. He insisted that the college admit no scholar who “is deformed, dumb, blind, lame, maimed, mutilated, a Welshman, or suffering from any grave or contagious illness, or an invalid, that is sick in a serious measure” (see Brooke's History, p. 69–70, where it is suggested that 'Wallicum' is a scribal error for 'Gallicum'). Caius also built a three-sided court, Caius Court, “lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul”. Caius did, however, found the college as a strong centre for the study of medicine, a tradition that it aims to keep to this day.

By 1630, the college had expanded greatly, having around 25 fellows and 150 students, but numbers fell over the next century, only returning to the 1630 level in the early nineteenth century. Since then the college has grown considerably and now has one of the largest undergraduate populations in the university.

The college first admitted women as fellows and students in 1979. It now has nearly 100 fellows, over 700 students and about 200 staff.

Gonville and Caius is the third wealthiest of all Cambridge colleges with an estimated financial endowment of £115m and net assets of £140.5m in 2006.^{[citation needed]}

Caius also admits foreign students for its various summer programmes, none of which are at the Tripos standard.[citation needed]

The college’s present Master, the 42nd, is Sir Alan Fersht.

Rules and traditions

Communal dinner at Gonville and Caius College.

Gonville and Caius College is one of the most traditional colleges of Cambridge. It is one of the few which still seeks to insist that its members attend communal dinners, known as 'Hall'. Consisting of a three-course meal served by waiting staff, undergraduates must buy thirty-six 'dinner tickets' per eight-week academic term, so that they must pay for four or five dinners a week, whether they eat them or not. Hall takes place in two sittings, with the second known as 'Formal Hall', which must be attended wearing gowns. At Formal Hall, the students rise as the fellows proceed in, a gong is rung, and a Latin grace or benediction is read.

The grace runs thus: "Benedic, Domine, nobis et donis tuis quae ex largitate tua sumus sumpturi; et concede ut, ab iis salubriter enutriti, tibi debitum obsequium praestare valeamus, per Jesum Christum dominum nostrum; mensae caelestis nos participes facias, Rex aeternae gloriae."

As at most Oxbridge colleges, it is tradition that only the fellows may walk on the grass.

The college also enforces the system of exeats, or official permission to leave the college. If a student wishes to be absent from college overnight during term time he or she must obtain permission from their tutors to leave the college.

The College awards a number of scholarships, bursaries and prizes. Of these, the Schuldham Plate is the most prestigious being awarded annually to the best graduating student(s) in a given year.

Buildings

Cambridge University, Gonville & Caius College, from King's Parade

The first buildings to be erected on the college’s current site date from 1353 when Bishop Bateman built Gonville Court. The college chapel was added in 1393 with the Old Hall (used until recently as a library) and Master’s Lodge following in the next half century. Most of the stone used to build the college came from Ramsey Abbey near Ramsey, Cambridgeshire. Gonville and Caius has the oldest college chapel in either Oxford or Cambridge which has been in continuous use as such.

On the refoundation by Dr Caius, the college was expanded and updated. In 1565 the building of Caius Court began, and Caius planted an avenue of trees in what is now known as Tree Court. He was also responsible for the building of the college's three gates, symbolising the path of academic life. On matriculation, one arrives at the Gate of Humility (near the Porters' Lodge). In the centre of the college one passes through the Gate of Virtue regularly. And finally, graduating students pass through the Gate of Honour on their way to the neighbouring Senate House to receive their degrees. The students of Gonville and Caius commonly refer to the fourth gate in the college, between Tree Court and Gonville Court, which also gives access to some lavatories, as the Gate of Necessity.

The buildings of Gonville Court were given classical facades in the 1750s, and the Old Library and the Hall were designed by Anthony Salvin in 1854. On the wall of the Hall hangs a college flag which in 1912 was flown at the South Pole by Cambridge's Edward Adrian Wilson during the famous Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913.

St Michael's and St Mary's Courts lie across Trinity Street on land surrounding St Michael's Church. St Michael's Court was completed only in the 1930s, with the building on its south side of a new building overlooking the Market Place.

Students and fellows are accommodated in all of the courts on the college's main site.

Interior north-east corner of Waterhouse Building.

Sculpture of Dr. Stephen Perse set into the north-east corner of Waterhouse Building.

The Gate of Honour.

Caius also has one of the largest and most architecturally impressive libraries in Oxbridge, housed in the Cockerell Building. Previously the Seeley History Library and the Squire Law Library, Caius acquired the lease on the Cockerell Building in the 1990s. The college library was relocated from Gonville Court in the summer of 1996, following an extensive renovation of the Cockerell Building.

Caius owns a substantial amount of land between West Road and Selwyn Avenue. Set in landscaped gardens, the modern Harvey Court (named after William Harvey and designed by Sir Leslie Martin) was built on the West Road site in 1961.

Adjacent to Harvey Court is the Stephen Hawking Building, which opened its doors to first-year undergraduates in October 2006. Providing en-suite accommodation for 75 students and eight fellows, as well as providing conference facilities in the vacations, the Stephen Hawking Building boasts some of the highest-standard student accommodation in Cambridge.

The college also owns several residential properties around Cambridge, many of which are used to house undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Cambridge University, Gate of Honour, Gonville & Caius College

The Old Courts

Tree Court, Gonville & Caius College

Tree Court is the largest of the Old Courts. It is so named because John Caius planted an avenue of trees there. Although none of the original trees survive, the court retains a number of trees and the tree-lined avenue, which is unusual for a Cambridge front court.

Gonville Court, though remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is the oldest part of the college.

The Gate of Honour, at the south side of Caius Court, though the most direct way from the Old Courts to the College Library (Cockerell Building), is only used for special occasions such as graduation.

Notable members

Nobel Prize laureates

• 1932 Sir Charles Sherrington – neurophysiologist (student and fellow)
• 1935 Sir James Chadwick – physicist, discoverer of the neutron (student, fellow, and master)
• 1945 Sir Howard Florey – co-discover of penicillin (fellow)
• 1954 Max Born – physicist
• 1962 Francis Crick – discovery of the structure of DNA (PhD student and honorary fellow)
• 1972 Sir John Hicks – economist (fellow)
• 1974 Antony Hewish – astronomer (student and fellow)
• 1976 Milton Friedman – economist (visiting fellow)
• 1977 Sir Nevill Mott – theoretical physicist (fellow and Master)
• 1984 Sir Richard Stone – economist
• 2001 Joseph Stiglitz – economist (fellow)
• 2008 Roger Tsien – chemist (fellow)

Notable alumni

Main listing: Category:Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

The College from adjoining Senate House Passage.

Interior of the chapel.

• Harold Abrahams – Olympic athlete men's 100-metre gold medalist, portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire.
• Harold Ackroyd – recipient of the Victoria Cross for his actions in the Battle of Passchendaele.
• Alistair Appleton – TV presenter.
• Andrew Baddeley – middle distance runner.
• Simon Russell Beale – actor, TV presenter and music historian.
• Homi J. Bhabha – Indian nuclear physicist and father of India's nuclear programme.
• Esmond Birnie – former member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
• Francis Blomefield – historian of Norfolk.
• Max Born – Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
• Alain de Botton – popular philosophy writer.
• John Brereton – chronicler of the first European voyage to New England, 1602.
• Lord Broers – vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, 1996–2003.
• Christopher N. L. Brooke – Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, 1997–94. Now a Life Fellow of the College.
• John Lindow Calderwood – lawyer and politician.
• Alastair Campbell – aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
• Jimmy Carr – comedian and television presenter.
• Robert Carr – former British Member of Parliament and Home Secretary.
• Helen Castor – historian and television presenter.
• Kenneth Clarke – British Member of Parliament, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• John Horton Conway – mathematician.
• Robin Cooke, Baron Cooke of Thorndon – New Zealand's only judge to have sat in the House of Lords.
• Ronald Cove-Smith - Captain of England rugby team and the 1924 Lions team
• Chris Davies – Liberal Democrat MEP.
• Mark Damazer – controller of BBC Radio 4.
• Nicholas Doig - composer and experimental musicologist.
• Carolyn Fairbairn – media executive.
• Henry Fancourt – naval aviator.
• David J. Farrar – aeronautical engineer.
• Orlando Figes – historian.
• Paola Doimi de Frankopan – Croatian aristocrat and wife of Lord Nicholas Windsor.
• Peter Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie – politician.
• John Hookham Frere – diplomat and author.
• Sir David Frost – broadcaster.
• Richard Geaves – international footballer.
• Sir Harold Gillies – “the father of plastic surgery”.
• Lord Goldsmith – Attorney General of England and Wales, 2001–2007.
• Jude Gomila – internet entrepreneur.
• Andrew Gowers – journalist.
• George Green – mathematician.
• Christopher Green – Regius professor of Physic 1700–1741.
• Sir Thomas Gresham – founder of the Royal Exchange.
• Anthony Habgood - chairman of Reed Elsevier and Whitbread.
• Sir Percy Wyn-Harris – mountaineer, adventurer & former governor of the Gambia.
• William Harvey – medical pioneer.
• Harish-Chandra – mathematician.
• Christopher Helm – publisher.
• Bill Inman – pharmacovigilance pioneer.
• Harold James (historian) – historian.
• Chandrashekhar Khare – mathematician.
• John F. Lehman – American Secretary of the Navy and member of the September 11th Commission.
• N.C.J. deQ. Lee - organist and fashion designer, 1993-1996.
• Thomas Lynch, Jr. – signatory, United States Declaration of Independence.
• John William Scott Macfie - entomologist.
• Iain Macleod – former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• Inagaki Manjiro – Japan’s first Minister Resident in Siam in 1897.
• Stephen Mangan – actor.
• Gordon Manley – climatologist.
• Stephen Marchant – ornithologist.
• Bevan Morris – president of Maharishi University of Management.
• Sir Douglas Myers – businessman and philanthropist.
• Jon Newman – author and archivist.
• Geoff Nicholson – novelist.
• Michael Joseph Oakeshott – philosopher.
• Titus Oates – Popish plotter, “17th century’s worst Briton”.
• Richard Overy – historian.
• G. H. Pember – theologian.
• Gideon Rachman – journalist.
• Andrew Roberts – historian.
• Sir Basil Schonland – physicist and academic.
• Simon Sebag Montefiore – historian.
• Thomas Shadwell – playwright, Poet Laureate.
• Howard Somervell – surgeon, mountaineer and missionary.
• A. C. Spearing, author, professor of English medieval literature.
• Norman Stone – historian.
• Sir Richard Stone – Nobel Prize-winning economist.
• Dorabji Tata – Indian industrialist and philanthropist.
• Jeremy Taylor – author and clergyman.
• Richard Tomlinson – former British MI6 Officer.
• Adair Turner – businessman.
• John Venn – logician, inventor of the Venn diagram.
• Edward Adrian Wilson – explorer who died with Robert Falcon Scott in the Antarctic.
• Vivian Wineman – President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
• William Wilkins – architect.

Stained glass window in the dining hall of Caius College, in Cambridge, commemorating Francis Crick and representing the structure of DNA.

Stained glass window in the dining hall of Caius College, in Cambridge, commemorating John Venn and his invention of the Venn diagram.

Notable fellows and Masters

' See also List of Masters of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Category:Masters of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

• Edward Hall Alderson – mathematician, classicist, lawyer and, as Baron Alderson, judge (student and fellow)
• Lord Bauer – economist (student and fellow)
• Roger Carpenter – neurophysiologist (fellow)
• Sir James Chadwick – Nobel Prize-winning physicist, discoverer of the neutron (student, fellow, and Master).
• John Colton (archbishop) – Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh (Master).
• Francis Crick – co-Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of the structure of DNA (PhD student and honorary fellow).
• Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – Chief Rabbi of British Commonwealth (fellow).
• Sir Alan Fersht – chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society (student, fellow, and Master).
• Thomas Fink, physicist and author (fellow).
• Sir Ronald Fisher – statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist (student, fellow, and President).
• Sir Howard Florey – Nobel Prize-winning inventor of penicillin (fellow).
• James Fox (art historian) - art historian and broadcaster (fellow).
• Milton Friedman – Nobel Prize-winning economist (visiting fellow).
• Francis Glisson – physician, and one of the founders of the Royal Society (fellow).
• John Hartstonge – Bishop of Derry ( fellow).
• Stephen Hawking – theoretical physicist and former Lucasian Professor (fellow).
• Antony Hewish – Nobel Prize-winning astronomer (student and fellow).
• Sir John Hicks – Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
• Edmund Hickeringill – churchman (fellow)
• Robin Holloway – composer (fellow).
• Thijs van Leer – organist.
• William Lubbock – divine
• Sir Nevill Mott – Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist (fellow and Master).
• M. M. Pattison Muir – chemist (fellow).
• Joseph Needham – sinologist (student, fellow, and Master).
• Stephen Perse – founder of The Perse School in 1615.
• J. H. Prynne – British poet (student and fellow).
• Tun Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim – Chief Justice of Malaysia (student and fellow).
• Sir John Seeley – Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge (fellow)
• D.R. Shackleton Bailey – classicist (student and fellow).
• Sir Charles Sherrington – Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist (student and fellow).
• Quentin Skinner – Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge (student and fellow)
• Joseph Stiglitz – Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
• John Venn – inventor of the Venn diagram and historian of the College (student, fellow, and President).
• Peter Tranchell – composer (fellow)
• Sir William Wade – English academic lawyer (student and Master).
• Charles Wood – composer (fellow).
• Edward Wright – English mathematician and cartographer who first explained the mathematical basis for the Mercator projection (student and fellow).

Notable organ scholars

• Heathcote Dicken Statham (1908–1911)

Burials

• John Caius
• Martin Davy
• Sir Thomas Gooch
• John Gostlin
• Thomas Legge
• Sir John Lestrange
• Stephen Perse
• Walter Stubbe
• William Webbe

See also

• Caius Boat Club
• Gonville & Caius Association Football Club
• List of organ scholars

Bibliography

• Brooke, C. A history of Gonville and Caius College. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1985 (corrected reprint, 1996). ISBN 0-85115-423-9.

External links

• Gonville and Caius College website (the official college website)
• Gonville and Caius Students Union Website (the undergraduate student social organisation for the college)
• Gonville and Caius MCR Website (the graduate student social organisation for the college)