St Peter's College, Oxford

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Colleges and halls of the University of Oxford

St Peter's College
St Peter's College, Oxford
                               
College name St Peter's College
Latin name Collegium Sancti Petri-le-Bailey
Named after Saint Peter
Previously named St Peter's Hall (1929-1961)
Established 1929 (attained full college status in 1961)
Sister college None
Master Mark Damazer
Undergraduates 342[1] (2011/2012)
Graduates 130
Location New Inn Hall Street
St Peter's College, Oxford is located in Oxford city centre

Location of St Peter's College within central OxfordCoordinates: 51°45′10″N 1°15′39″W / 51.752762°N 1.260721°W / 51.752762; -1.260721
Homepage
Boatclub
St-Peters College Oxford Coat Of Arms.svg
Blazon see article

St Peter's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, located in New Inn Hall Street. It occupies the site of two of the University's oldest Inns, both of which were founded in the 13th century.

The modern college was founded as St Peter's Hall in 1929 by Francis James Chavasse, Bishop of Liverpool and achieved full collegiate status in 1961, becoming St Peter's College.

As of 2006, the college has an estimated financial endowment of £34 million.[2]

Contents

History [edit]

St Peter's occupies the site of two of the University's oldest Inns, or medieval hostels - Bishop Trellick's, later New Inn Hall, and Rose Hall - both of which were founded in the 13th century and were part of the University in their own right. During the First English Civil War, the University's college plate was requisitioned by the King's Oxford Parliament and taken to New Inn Hall to be melted down into "Oxford Crowns".[3] In the 18th century, William Blackstone became the Principal of New Inn Hall after being appointed the Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford. New Inn Hall and Rose Hall later became part of Balliol College.

The modern history of the college in its present form began in 1929 when St Peter's Hall was founded by Francis James Chavasse, Bishop of Liverpool, who was concerned at the rising cost of education in the older universities in Britain, and projected St Peter's as a College where promising students, who might otherwise be deterred by the costs of College life elsewhere, could obtain an Oxford education. The commitment to make Oxford accessible to any student of ability, irrespective of means, remains a feature of St Peter's today.

In 1961, the University approved a statute giving St Peter's Hall full collegiate status. With the granting of its Royal Charter in the same year, it took the name St Peter's College.

Coat of arms [edit]

In heraldic terminology: Per pale vert and argent, to the dexter two keys in saltire or surmounted by a triple towered castle argent masoned sable and on the sinister a cross gules surmounted by a mitre or between four martlets sable, the whole within a bordure or.

The colours of the college are green and yellow.

Buildings [edit]

Linton House, show the Porters' Lodge

St Peter's has an interesting and varied set of buildings, many of them much older than the College itself. The College has, in effect, adapted existing buildings to provide the collective facilities needed for College life, and built new ones to provide for student accommodation. Linton House, a handsome Georgian rectory, dating from 1797, is the entrance to the College, and houses the Porters' Lodge and College library. Canal House, the Master's Lodge, dates from the early 19th century.

The College Dining Hall, known as Hannington Hall after the Victorian missionary, Bishop James Hannington, dates from 1832 and is the only surviving part of New Inn Hall. The College chapel was originally the Church of St Peter-le-Bailey, built in 1874, and the third church of that name on this site. The buildings of the former Oxford Girls' School, which adjoin the original site of the College, have been acquired more recently and provide living accommodation for students, seminar rooms, a Middle Common Room (for postgraduates) and a Music Room.

Accommodation [edit]

The Chavasse Building at night

The college has four quads: Linton Quad (the main quad), Mulberry Quad, Hannington Quad and Chavasse Quad. On-site, students are housed in the modern New Block, in the spacious Chavasse building, in Staircase IV and in the Matthews block (this latter building also housing a spacious JCR and student run bar). The senior executive of the MCR are generally provided with housing in the Morris Building. Fellows and college staff occupy rooms mostly in Staircases I-III, the Latner building and Staircase IV.

St Peter's also has a few off-site accommodation blocks for students, all just a few minutes away from the main college site. St Thomas Street, and St George's Gate house undergraduates, while Paradise Street (which was only officially opened in June 2008) houses postgraduates and fourth-year undergraduates.

Student life [edit]

The student-run Junior Common Room organises a wide variety of social events throughout the academic year, ranging from formal events to celebrate such things as Burns Night (complete with Haggis and poetry) to creatively themed parties that run into the early hours of the morning. The college is one of the few to feature its own student-edited arts magazine, "Misc", which is published termly.[4]

Sports [edit]

The college's has sports teams competing in rowing, cricket, football, table football and rugby. It shares a sports field with Exeter and Hertford which has two cricket pitches and pavilions, two rugby and football pitches, a hockey pitch, tennis courts and a squash court.[5]

Rowing [edit]

Rowing is a popular sport at the college with the college boat club, St Peter's College Boat Club, competing regularly. The club shares a boat house with University College Boat Club. The club has had a number of successes in recent years. In 2008 St. Peters won the Christ Church Regatta, the biggest novice rowing event at Oxford, for the first time. In Torpids 2009, no fewer than five boats competed, winning two "blades" and +15 "bumps", a result only bettered by two other colleges.[6] In Torpids 2010 the boat club bettered this achievement and were the most successful college on the river, achieving the equal most bumps as a college in total, and the most bumps per boat on average.

People associated with the college [edit]

List of Masters [edit]

Notable alumni [edit]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Undergraduate numbers by college 2011-12". University of Oxford. 
  2. ^ Oxford College Endowment Incomes, 1973-2006 (updated July 2007)[dead link]
  3. ^ Clyde L. Grose. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec., 1932), pp. 624-625. Review of Frederick John Varley. The Siege of Oxford: An Account of Oxford during the Civil War, 1642-1646.
  4. ^ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2258560188&ref=ts
  5. ^ Sports - St Peter's College, University of Oxford
  6. ^ http://sites.google.com/site/spcboatclub/news/untitledpost
  7. ^ "Obituary". The Times. 29 August 2008. Retrieved 2010-03-13. 

External links [edit]

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