Queens' College, Cambridge

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Colleges of the University of Cambridge

Queens' College
The Cloister Court, with the Long Gallery on the left
                     
College name The Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard, commonly called Queens' College, in the University of Cambridge
Founders Margaret of Anjou (1448)
Elizabeth Woodville (1465)
Named after Margaret the Virgin;
Bernard of Clairvaux
Established 1448
Refounded 1465
Admittance Men and women
President The Lord Eatwell
Undergraduates 490
Graduates 270
Sister college Pembroke College, Oxford
Location Silver Street (map)
Queens' College heraldic shield
Floreat Domus
(Latin, "May this house flourish")
College website
Boat Club website

Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.

The college was first founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou (the Queen of Henry VI), and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville (the Queen of Edward IV). 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.[1]

Queens' is the second southernmost of the colleges on the banks of the Cam, primarily on the East bank. (The others — in distance order — are King's, Clare, Trinity Hall, Trinity, St John's, and Magdalene to the north and Darwin to the south.)

The President's Lodge of Queens' is the oldest building on the river at Cambridge (ca. 1460).[2] Queens' College is also one of only two colleges with buildings on its main site on both sides of the River Cam (the other being St John's).

Contents

[edit] Buildings

The Gatehouse, as seen from the Old Court.
President's Lodge seen from Cloister Court

Old Court was erected in 1448. Stylistic matters suggest that this was designed by the master mason Reginald Ely, who was also at the same time erecting the original Old Court of King's College (now part of the University Old Schools opposite Clare College), and the start of King's College Chapel. Whereas King's was using very expensive stone, Queens' Old Court was made using cheaper clunch with a red brick skin. Queens' was finished within two years, whereas King's Old Court was never finished, and the chapel took nearly a century to build.

Cloister Court The Cloister walks were erected in the 1490s to connect the Old Court of 1448/9 with the riverside buildings of the 1460s, thus forming the court now known as Cloister Court.

Walnut Tree Court was erected 1616-18. Only the ground floor of the original construction remains after a fire in 1777, meaning it was rebuilt from the first floor upwards 1778-82.

Essex Building, erected 1756-60, is so named after its builder, James Essex the Younger (1722-1784), a local carpenter who had earlier erected the wooden bridge.

Dokett and Friar's In response to the college's growth in student numbers during the 19th century, the President's second garden was taken as the site for a new building, now called Friars' Court, in 1886. Dokett Building was built in 1912 of thin red Daneshill brick with Corsham stone dressings and mullioned windows.

Fisher Building was erected in 1936. It continued the Queens' tradition of using red brick. The window frames are of teak, and all internal woodwork is oak. It was the first student accommodation in Queens' to lie west of the river. It was also the first building in Queens' to have bathrooms and toilets on the staircase landings close to the student rooms. These were so clearly evident that it prompted an observer at that time to comment that the building "seemed to have been designed by a sanitary engineer".

Erasmus Building was erected in 1959, notable for being the first college building on the Backs to be designed in the modernist tradition.

Cripps Court was finished in stages between 1974 and 1980. It houses 171 student bedrooms, three Combination Rooms and a bar, three Fellows' Flats, Dining Hall and kitchens. It was the benefaction of the Cripps Foundation, and was the largest building ever put up by the College. It enables the College to offer accommodation to undergraduates within the main college site for three years. A fourth floor was added in 2007, providing student accommodation and fellow's offices

[edit] The Mathematical Bridge

The Mathematical Bridge and the President's Lodge
Erasmus, a notable alumnus
Stephen Fry graduated from Queens' in 1981 and is an honorary fellow

The Mathematical Bridge (officially named the Wooden Bridge) connects the older half of the college (affectionately referred to by students as The Dark Side) with the newer half (The Light Side). It is one of the most photographed scenes in Cambridge; the typical photo being taken from the nearby Silver Street bridge.

Popular fable is that the bridge was designed and built by Sir Isaac Newton without the use of nuts or bolts, and at some point in the past students or fellows attempted to take the bridge apart and put it back together. The myth continues that the over-ambitious engineers were unable to match Newton's feat of engineering, and had to resort to fastening the bridge by nuts and bolts. This is why nuts and bolts can be seen in the bridge today. This story is false: the bridge was built in 1749 by James Essex the Younger (1722–1784) to the design of William Etheridge (1709–1776), 22 years after Newton died. It was later repaired in 1866 due to decay and had to be completely rebuilt in 1905. The rebuild was to the same design except made from teak instead of oak and the stepped walkway was made sloped for increased wheelchair access. The ever-present boltheads are more visible in the post-1905 bridge which may have given rise to this failed reassembly myth.

[edit] Distinguished alumni

See also Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge

Name Birth Year Death Year Career
Desiderius Erasmus 1466 1536 Humanist and theologian
John Lambert 1539 Protestant martyr
John Whitgift 1530 1604 Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas Digges 1546 1595 English astronomer
John Hall 1635 Physician
John Goodwin 1594 1665 Preacher
Thomas Horton 1603 1649 Soldier
Charles Bridges 1794 1869 Preacher and theologian
Alexander Crummell 1819 1898 Priest
Thomas Nettleship Staley 1823 1898 Bishop of Honolulu
Frank Rutter 1836 1937 Art critic and curator
Osborne Reynolds 1842 1912 Fluid dynamicist
James Niven 1851 1925 Physician
Charles Villiers Stanford 1852 1924 Composer
T. H. White 1906 1964 Writer
Arthur Mooring 1908 1969 Knight of the British Empire
M. S. Bartlett 1910 2002 Statistician
Cyril Bibby 1914 1987 Biologist
Arnold W. G. Kean 1914 2000 Development of civil aviation law
Abba Eban 1915 2002 Israeli politician
Peter Down 1927 Architect
Kenneth Wedderburn 1927 Labour life peer
Peter Redgrove 1932 2003 Poet
David Hatch 1939 2007 Radio executive
Tom Lowenstein 1941 Poet
Richard Dearlove 1945 Former head of MI6
Lord Eatwell 1945 British economist
Derek Lewis 1946 Former Chief Executive and Director General of the Prison Service
Richard Hickox 1948 2008 Conductor
John E. Baldwin 1949 Radio-astronomer
Graham Swift 1949 Author
Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh 1950 Judge
John McCallum 1950 Canadian politician
Charles Leslie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton 1951 Lord Chancellor
Paul Greengrass 1955 Writer and film director
Michael Foale 1957 Astronaut
Stephen Fry 1957 Comedian, writer, actor, novelist
William Porter 1957 Banker
Peter Jukes 1960 Author and playwright
Vuk Jeremić 1975 Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Khalid Abdalla 1980 Actor
Mark Watson 1980 Comedian
Lindsay Ashford Journalist and novelist, the first ever woman to graduate from Queens' College[3]
Lucy Caldwell 1981 Novelist and playwright
Simon Bird 1984 Actor in E4 comedy series The Inbetweeners
Hannah Murray 1989 Actress in award-winning teenage series Skins

[edit] College officials

Refer to:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "That Apostrophe". Queens' College website. http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/page-237. Retrieved 2009-08-03. 
  2. ^ "President's Lodge". Queens' College. http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/default.asp?MIS=101. Retrieved 2009-01-29. 
  3. ^ lindsayashford.co.uk — Biography

[edit] External links

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University of Cambridge
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Coordinates: 52°12′08″N 0°06′53″E / 52.20222°N 0.11472°E / 52.20222; 0.11472 (Queens' College)

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