Links to other archives and sources
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Not all Oxford archives have their own web-site so these pages are designed to give basic information about contacting archives, opening hours, conditions of access, and the things you will and won’t find in each repository. Just click on the name that you need, and you should be linked to the individual page for that archive. There may be another link from that page to the college’s or institution’s own web-site. If a college is not listed, it probably means that its archive is either temporarily unavailable, that the page is in preparation, or that there are no collections likely to be of interest yet to external researchers. If you have problems finding the information you require, please contact OAC on oac@chch.ox.ac.uk.
The Oxford Archivists’ Consortium (OAC) was set up in 2001 to provide a support network for all those working in archives in the city. We hope that these pages will answer any questions you have about archives in Oxford but if the answer you are looking for evades you, please contact OAC and we should be able to point you in the right direction.
The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, was founded by Henry VI and Henry Chichele (fellow of New College and Archbishop of Canterbury) on 20 May 1438. The Statutes provided for the Warden and forty fellows - all to take Holy Orders; twenty-four to study arts, philosophy and theology; and sixteen to study civil or canon law. Today the College is primarily an academic research institution at the University of Oxford, having strong ties to the public domain. Traditionally, there are no undergraduate members.
Address: The Librarian in Charge All Souls College High Street Oxford OX1 4AL
Phone: 01865 279379 E-mail: codrington.library@all-souls.ox.ac.uk Web: www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/library
Balliol College is one of the three colleges which claim to be the earliest in Oxford. The foundation date is traditionally reckoned as 1263.
Enquiries should be addressed to Anna Sander, Lonsdale Curator. The Fellow Archivist is Dr John Jones.
Address: The Lonsdale Curator Balliol College Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BJ
Fax: 01865 277803 E-mail: archivist@balliol.ox.ac.uk Web: www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/history History: J Jones, Balliol College: a history, (1997)
The foundation stone of Brasenose College was laid in 1509 and the College received its charter in 1512. The founders were William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard Sutton, a lawyer and the first lay founder of a college in Oxford or Cambridge. Both were from the north west, and the College has retained strong links with Cheshire and Lancashire throughout its history. Before the foundation of the College part of the site was occupied by one of the mediaeval Oxford halls. Brasenose Hall was in existence by at least 1270, and probably took its name from a 'brasen nose', a bronze door knocker in the shape of a nose.
The first buildings of Brasenose College are still to be seen in the Tower and lower two stories of Old Quad; the third storey was added in the early seventeenth century. The Library and Chapel were built between 1656 and 1666, making the Chapel one of the very few ecclesiastical buildings to be started in England during the Commonwealth period. New Quad, which extended the College to the High Street, was built between 1880 and 1911. The last major addition to the main College site was built in 1960-1961.
Like most long standing institutions Brasenose has undergone many changes of emphasis and fortune. In the early seventeenth century it had a Puritan reputation, but in the Civil War it was, like the rest of the University, firmly royalist. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 it was Jacobite, supporting the deposed line of James II. The College attracted wealthy benefactors over the years, and by the eighteenth century had the reputation of being one of the wealthiest colleges in Oxford; however, much of the wealth rested on agricultural estates, the value of which declined sharply during the nineteenth century. In the late 1700s Brasenose became the college of the country gentry, the place where the sons of gentlemen got a modicum of education and did a great deal of gambling, horse racing and fox hunting. In the nineteenth century it acquired a great sporting reputation, rowing head of the river for many years and at one stage providing no fewer than eight members of the University cricket team.
Many writers have been at Brasenose, the earliest including John Foxe (1516-1587), who wrote 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs', and Robert Burton (1577-1640), author of The Anatomy of Melancholy. Thomas Traherne (?1637-1674), the mystical poet, Richard Barham (1788-1845), of The Ingoldsby Legends, Walter Pater (1839-1894), a key figure in the history of the aesthetic movement, and the novelists John Buchan (1875-1940), William Golding (1911-1993) and JG Farrell (1935-1979) were members of the College.
NB. The Archivist is only in college on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Address: The Archivist Brasenose College Oxford OX1 4AJ
Phone: 01865 277826 E-mail: archives@brasenose.oxford.ac.uk Web: www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/history/index.html History: F Madan (ed.), Brasenose Quatercentenary Monographs, (1909); A new history is currently in preparation
Campion Hall was founded as Clarke’s Hall in 1896 by the Society of Jesus. It was renamed Campion Hall in 1918. Its building is the only example of the work of Edwin Lutyens in Oxford.
Campion Hall has a small archive, containing material from the history of the Private Hall and its Jesuit community since its foundation in 1896. Its major holding consists in the vast majority of the extant non-epistolary prose of Gerard M Hopkins, the Jesuit poet. There are also plans for the Hall's current building, drawn up by Edwin Lutyens. A catalogue of the art works collected for the Hall, principally by Martin D'Arcy (Master 1933-1945), is available on request.
Address: Philip Endean The Archivist Campion Hall Brewer Street Oxford OX1 1QS
E-mail: philip.endean@campion.ox.ac.uk Web: www.campion.ox.ac.uk
Christ Church was founded initially by Thomas Wolsey in 1525 as Cardinal College on the site of St Frideswide’s Priory and Canterbury College. After Wolsey’s fall from grace in 1529, the monarch established King Henry VIII’s College and then, in 1546, Christ Church as both a college of the University and the cathedral for the diocese of Oxford. It is the largest of the Oxford colleges, and its site includes the famous Meadow which leads down to the river. Famous alumni include13 Prime Ministers, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Robert Burton, author of Anatomy of Melancholy, John Locke, and WH Auden.
The archives for Christ Church are extensive and rich, and include the papers of the Dean and Chapter. Unusually, there are excellent records of undergraduate study in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and good runs of account books. Estate records are extensive as Christ Church had an interest in over 180 parishes in England and Wales. There are very few records of Cardinal College, fewer still for King Henry VIII’s College, and none for Canterbury College. The medieval deeds of the Christ Church’s property were deposited in the Bodleian Library in 1927 and are listed in N Denholm-Young’s Cartulary of the Medieval Archives of Christ Church.
NB. Diocesan records, including ordinations and faculties, are kept at the Oxfordshire Record Office (see Links).
Christ Church archives are open Monday - Friday, 9am - 12 noon, and 2pm - 4pm
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The Christ Church archives will be closed
for at least twelve months from the end of June 2007. The Archivist will
still be in post and will endeavour to answer as many enquiries as
possible without the benefit of original source material. The
papers of Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre, will still be available for
readers. It is hoped that the archive will once again be available
from the beginning of the 2008/9 academic year, but up-to-date
information will be posted on this site.
Address: Judith Curthoys The Archivist Christ Church Oxford OX1 1DP
Phone: 01865 276171 E-mail: archives@chch.ox.ac.uk Web: www.chch.ox.ac.uk/modules/standard/viewpage.asp?id=241 History: HL Thompson, Christ Church, (1900); EGW Bill, Education at Christ Church, Oxford, 1660 - 1800, (1988; EGW Bill and J.F.A. Mason, Christ Church and reform, 1850 - 1867, (1970 ); D Fletcher, The emergence of estate maps: Christ Church, Oxford, 1600 - 1840, (1995); WG Hiscock, A Christ Church Miscellany, (1946)
Corpus Christi College was founded in 1517 by Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, for twenty fellows and twenty scholars, principally from the counties and dioceses with which he had associations, e.g. owned land or had been bishop (Bath and Wells, Exeter, Durham, and Winchester). The number of places was increased following university reform in the 1850s.
The archives comprise administrative records of the college, its estates, and papers created by a few members. Records of the college proper begin with deeds of the site of the college 1513, accounts 1521, and decisions of the governing body 1748. Records of college estates include deeds, surveys, court rolls and maps, and date from the thirteenth century onwards. The admissions of fellows and scholars are recorded from 1517 but there was no official record of commoners until c.1850.
NB. The Archivist is only in Corpus Christi College on Monday and Tuesday.
Address: Julian Reid The Archivist Corpus Christi College Oxford OX1 4JF
Phone: 01865 276717 E-mail: archives@ccc.ox.ac.uk Web: www.ccc.ox.ac.uk/library/library.htm History: PA Hunt and NA Flanagan, Corpus Christi College Oxford Biographical Register, 1880-1974 (1988); A Nockels, Corpus Christi College Oxford: supplement to the Biographical Register 1974-1991, (1992)
Exeter College was founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter. The founder's intention was to provide an education for a limited number of men from the diocese of Exeter (Devon and Cornwall) in order to provide them with an initial training for the priesthood. The area of recruitment was enlarged in the fifteenth century to cover the other south-western counties and the College was substantially re-endowed by Sir William Petre in the late sixteenth century. It maintained a strong connection with the West Country until the mid nineteenth century and a vestigial connection until today. The earliest college building, Palmer's Tower, dates from the mid fifteenth century, and the remaining buildings range from the early seventeenth century, including the fine hall, to the twentieth century.
The archives include the deeds by which the present site was put together, including some from the mid thirteenth century, predating the foundation; account rolls (a broken series for the later middle ages) and account books (virtually continuous from the mid sixteenth century); the minutes of governing body decisions from the mid sixteenth century to the present; copies of successive versions of the statutes from the fourteenth century onwards; deeds relating to college property, especially in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Cornwall; and many miscellaneous papers relating to undergraduate affairs, including the minutes of clubs and societies. There is a typescript handlist of the archives, copies of which are kept on open shelves in Duke Humfrey's Library(Bodleian Library) , and in the College.
Address: Dr John Maddicott Fellow Archivist Exeter College Oxford OX1 3DP
Phone: 01865 279600 E-mail: john.maddicott@exeter.ox.ac.uk Web: www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/index.htm History: CW Boase, Register of Exeter College, Oxford, (2nd ed., 1894) WK Stride, Exeter College, (1900)
Harris Manchester College was founded in Manchester as Manchester Academy in 1786 by English Presbyterians. It was one of the last of a long line of "dissenting academies" established after the Restoration to provide higher education for Nonconformists, who were denied degrees from the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge by religious tests. The principle of religious liberty was fundamental to the new foundation, which was to be open to 'young men of every religious denomination, from whom no test, or confession of faith' would be required. Both lay and divinity students would be enrolled. The College came to Oxford in 1889 and opened its new buildings designed by Thomas Worthington in 1893, housing its students, as now, in the seventeenth-century houses in Holywell Street. The College was granted Permanent Private Hall status in 1990. In 1996 Her Majesty the Queen gave her approval to a new royal charter for the College, granting it full college status within the University. Today the College admits mature students to read for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and is the only college in UK Higher Education dedicated solely to the education men and women mature students.
Address: The Librarian Harris Manchester College Oxford OX1 3TD
Phone: 01865 271016 E-mail: librarian@hmc.ox.ac.uk Web: www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/collegelibrary.html
The College was founded by royal charter in 1571, the only college to be founded in Oxford in the reign of Elizabeth I. It was granted the privileges, site and buildings of a much older academic establishment, White Hall. Its principal function was the education of clergymen, and until the end of the 19th century its character was predominantly Welsh.
The royal foundation charter of 1571is the oldest record relating to the affairs of the College. Series of administrative records do not begin until the 1630s. Both bursars’ accounts and buttery books survive, though with gaps, from this decade; they are useful sources for tracing College members as well as more generally for the College’s history.
There are substantial records of the College’s estates in England and Wales, notably in Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Glamorgan. The records of estates which have been sold have in most cases been transferred to the relevant local authority record office to ease access by local historians.
The College’s best-known alumnus was TE Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935). The College holds a copy of his thesis on Crusader Castles. Another was the popular historian, John Richard Green (1837-83); some of his private papers are in the archive.
The College’s important collection of literary manuscripts, which includes the Red Book of Hergest, one of the most important Welsh manuscripts of the Middle Ages, is held at the Bodleian Library.
The archivist works one day a week; access can only be arranged by prior appointment. Limited enquiries by post or e-mail are welcomed.
Address: Ms Rosemary Dunhill The Archivist Jesus College Oxford OX1 3DW
Phone: 01865 279761 E-mail: rosemary.dunhill@jesus.ox.ac.uk Web: www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/history/
After the death of the Revd John Keble, one-time Professor of Poetry and the vicar of Hursley from 1836 to 1866, his friends collected money to found a college in his memory. The result is Keble College, founded by Royal Charter on 6 June 1870. Its ideal was to allow ‘gentlemen wishing to live economically’ access to Oxford, and was viewed by some contemporaries as a seminary for High Church ordinands. However, Edward Stuart Talbot, its first Warden, from the very beginning encouraged a wider curriculum, and it has been said that the college’s reputation as an open, friendly, egalitarian and supportive community owes much to his principles.
The architecture of Keble College has always attracted considerable attention. Designed by William Butterfield, a difficult man of decided aesthetic and theological views, the original buildings of the college are now recognized as a triumph of Victorian Gothic. Recent additions to the college, such as the Arco building and the Sloane Robinson building, have won prizes for their own merits as well as blending in with Butterfield’s masterpiece.
Among the records of Keble College held here are minutes of the meetings of the Council from 1870 to 1950 which not only tell of how the college was run, but also include information on financial matters and on freshmen; a good series of accounts and ledgers; minutes of the Boat Club from 1870 to 1956, etc.
One collection of international importance held at Keble College is that relating to John Keble, father of the Oxford Movement. The papers held here include his letters to John Henry Newman, 1829-1863; his manuscripts of poems that became ‘The Christian Year’; and his papers on the lives of Richard Hooker, Anglican divine and Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.
The College Archives also hold papers for other leaders of the Oxford Movement, such as EB Pusey and HP Liddon.
Please note that the archives of the College are not yet listed in detail. While the Archivist will offer every assistance he cannot be held responsible for drawing visitors' attention to every available item, printed or documentary, on a specific subject.
NB. The Archivist is only in college on Thursdays and Fridays
Address: Mr Robert Petre The Archivist Keble College Oxford OX1 3PG
Phone: 01865 272797 E-mail: archives@keble.ox.ac.uk Web: www.keble.ox.ac.uk
The Delegacy for Extension Studies was given a permanent home in Oxford -Rewley House in Wellington Square - in1927. In 1971 the Delegacy became a University Department and in 1982, a generous benefaction from the WK Kellogg Foundation, enabled the Department to develop as a major centre for continuing education in Britain. The Department is the only Kellogg Center for Continuing Education outside the United States. This designation underlines the very strong international links which the Department has built up over the years.
In recognition of the growing importance of the work of the Department, the University approved its incorporation as a Society of Entitlement. On 1 October 1994, the 36th College of the University took the name Kellogg College in recognition of the outstanding support given to continuing education at Oxford by the WK Kellogg Foundation, and in honour of Will Keith Kellogg, whose generosity made that possible.
Kellogg College is now responsible for those students who are on part-time courses leading to qualifications such as MSc, MSt, DPhil or PGCE, and are matriculated members of the University. All remaining students fall under the Department for Continuing Education. The name Rewley House lives on and is now reserved for the building in Wellington Square which houses Kellogg College and the Department for Continuing Education.
As such a new college, Kellogg does not yet have an archive which would be of great interest to external researchers and, of course, the vast majority of its alumni are still alive. Information about the college, its close association with the Department for Continuing Education, and its planned move to a new location can be found on its website. Records of the Department and its predecessor, the Delegacy, are kept in the University Archives.
Address: The College Secretary Kellogg College Oxford OX1 2JA
Phone: 01865 270383 E-mail: college-office@kellogg.ox.ac.uk Web: www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk
Lady Margaret Hall (usually referred to as ‘LMH’) was founded in 1878 by a small group of High Anglicans, including the Warden of Keble College, Edward (later Bishop) Talbot, and his wife Lavinia. It was, with Somerville, the first of the Colleges for women and opened in October1879 with nine students under the supervision of its first principal Elizabeth Wordsworth. Among the early students were the explorer Gertrude Bell (1886), Eglantyne Jebb (1895) the founder of the Save the Children Fund, and Maude Royden (1896) and Kathleen Courtney (1897), both prominent campaigners for women’s rights and international relations.
LMH became co-educational in 1979 and now has an undergraduate student body of four hundred, with a hundred and fifty graduate students and over forty tutors and lecturers. In 2004, as part of its anniversary celebrations, it published a short illustrated history Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, the first 125 years, written by its eighth principal Frances Lannon.
The LMH Archive preserves the College’s formal administrative records, including minutes of its governing body and committees, annual reports, accounts, student and staff files, records relating to its buildings and gardens and several albums of photographs and cuttings. Other records deposited by the junior, middle and senior common rooms provide a good picture of College social life. The Archive also holds a smaller amount of privately donated papers and photographs from former students and staff.
The Archive is open by appointment only. Researchers should contact the Librarian in the first instance. The Archivist is only in College on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; also on Thursdays afternoons.
Address: The Archivist Lady Margaret Hall Oxford OX2 6QA
Phone: 01865 274302 E-mail: archivist@lmh.ox.ac.uk Web: www.lmh.ox.ac.uk History: Frances Lannon, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, the first 125 years (2004)
Linacre College in St Cross Road opened for graduate students in Michaelmas 1962. It was named after Thomas Linacre (1460 - 1524), the humanist scholar and medical scientist. It has a small archive in about 250 sq. feet, comprising all student records, financial records, minutes of College committees and the Governing Body, and documents arising from its foundation, transfer from St. Aldates to Cherwell Edge, photographic records and memorabilia. It is particularly useful for the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the future of graduate studies in Oxford was under discussion.
There are finding aids and a CD of records listed.
Address: The Archivist Linacre College Oxford OX1 3JA
E-mail: colin.newbury@linacre.ox.ac.uk Web: www.linacre.ox.ac.uk History: Colin Newbury, ‘The Origins of Linacre College, 1956-1965', in the Linacre Journal, 1 (1997), 5-28
Lincoln, one of the smaller Oxford colleges, occupies the south-eastern part of Turl Street. It was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, as a bulwark of right belief against Lollardry and in 1478 was further endowed by another Bishop of Lincoln, Thomas Rotherham, the "Second Founder". In 1630 a third Bishop of Lincoln, John Williams, built the Chapel and other additions. The former All Saints church was incorporated into the site and converted into the College library, 1971-75. Best-known among Old Members and Fellows is perhaps John Wesley, Fellow from 1726 to 1751, during which time he developed, in the "Holy Club", the principles of Methodism. Notable among the Fellows of the 19th century was Mark Pattison, reformer (and husband of the future Lady Dilke), Fellow from 1839 and Rector from 1861 until his death in 1884. In the 20th century a strong scientific connection is apparent, including not only Nevil Sidgwick (chemist), but also Georges Dreyer, Lord Florey, Sir Edward Abraham, Norman Heatley, Sir James Gowans, Sir Henry Harris and others, all notably connected with pathology and the development of penicillin, cephalosporin and other antibiotics. On the literary side, Old Members include Edward Thomas, the war poet; John Le Carre (David Cornwell); Sir Osbert Lancaster; and (briefly) Dr Seuss (Theodore Geisel). The archives consist mostly of the College's own business records, principally relating to accounts and administration of estates (C15th onwards). Student records, in the form of matriculation registers, begin in the late C17th. Other administrative records begin in connected series only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The archives also contain photographs, college publications and ephemera. There are also some collections of private deposited papers. The main ones relate to: John Wesley and Edward Thomas (both largely secondary material); Mark Pattison; Nevil Sidgwick; Osbert Lancaster; Warde Fowler (classicist and ornithologist); and a few smaller ones. Please note in particular that the archives contain NOTHING by or relating to Dr Seuss, except for the bare entries in the matriculation register and battels books. The Archivist is on-site one day a week only and this imposes obvious limitations on the amount of research that can be done on behalf of an enquirer. In particular, extensive enquiries relating to the College's estates and properties should in the first instance be referred to the appropriate county record office or other appropriate repository. For the same reason, enquiries should please be made by e-mail or by letter only, and not by telephone. Please also note that access, if necessary, is strictly by prior appointment only, because of limitations on space: I regret that we are not able to deal with callers who have not made appointments. Address: Mr Andrew Mussell College Archivist Lincoln College Oxford OX1 3DR
E-mail: andrew.mussell@lincoln.ox.ac.uk Web: www.lincoln.ox.ac.uk History: V. H. H. Green, The Commonwealth of Lincoln College, 1427-1977 (OUP 1979)
Magdalen College (pronounced “maudlin”) was founded in 1458 by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester. It was one of the largest and wealthiest Colleges in Oxford, supporting many Fellows and scholars, as well as a chapel choir. Its buildings and gardens are among the finest of any College in Oxford. Famous alumni include Cardinal Wolsey, Joseph Addison, Edward Gibbon, Oscar Wilde, and Dudley Moore.
The archives contain financial documents from the 1480s onwards, many title deeds, going back to the early 1100s, and estate papers (including maps) relating to the College’s properties, which stretched from Wiltshire up to Lincolnshire. Some title deeds have been published, namely those relating to properties in Oxford (in HE Salter’s Cartulary of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist), Hampshire (WD Macray’s Charters of Selborne Priory), and Sussex (LF Salzman’s The Chartulary of the Priory of St. Peter at Sele). The College has a large collection of architectural drawings relating to its buildings. A catalogue of these has been published as R White and RH Darwall-Smith, The Architectural Drawings of Magdalen College Oxford: a Catalogue. There are v |