Christ Church (in full: The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII) is
one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
The city of Christchurch, New Zealand was named after the college, which was the setting of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. The college itself is the setting for Lewis
Carroll's Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland. More recently the college was used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Organisation
Christ Church is the only Oxford
college which is also a cathedral (the smallest in England, and the seat of
the Bishop of Oxford), and its corporate title is The Dean, Chapter and Students of
the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII. The cathedral has a famous men and boys'
choir, and is one of the main choral foundations in Oxford. The Visitor of the
college is the reigning British Sovereign. The Governing Body of
Christ Church consists of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, together with several "Students", who until the 19th century had
no governing powers, but are now equivalent to Fellows in other colleges. Two Censors are responsible for undergraduate discipline.
Student life
As well as providing accommodation, the college houses a cathedral (which also acts as the college chapel), a great hall, two
libraries, two bars, and common rooms for dons, graduates and undergraduates. There are also gardens and a neighbouring
sportsground and boat-house.
Accommodation is provided for all undergraduates, and for some graduates, though some accommodation is off-site. Members are
generally expected to dine in hall, where there are two sittings every evening, one informal and one formal (where jackets, ties
and gowns are worn). The Buttery next to the Hall serves drinks around dinner time. There is also a college undercroft bar, as
well as a Junior Common Room (JCR) and a Graduate Common Room (GCR).
There is a college lending library which supplements the university libraries (many of which are non-lending). Law students
have the additional facility of the college law library. Most undergraduate tutorials are carried out in the college, though for
some specialist papers undergraduates may be sent to tutors in other colleges.
Croquet may be played in the Master's Garden in the summer. The sportsground is mainly used for cricket, tennis, rugby and
soccer, and also contains a bar. Rowing and punting is carried out by the boat-house across Christ Church Meadow.
History
In 1525, at the height of his power, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor
of England and Archbishop of York, suppressed the Abbey of St
Frideswide in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands. He
planned the establishment on a magnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, before the
college was completed.
In 1531 the college was itself suppressed, and refounded in 1532 as King Henry VIII's College by Henry
VIII, to whom Wolsey's property had escheated. Then in 1546 the King, who had broken
from the Church of Rome and acquired great wealth through
the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church as part of the re-organisation of
the Church of England and made it the cathedral of the recently
created diocese of Oxford.
Christ Church's sister college
in the University of Cambridge is Trinity College, Cambridge, founded the same year by
Henry VIII. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth I the
college has also been associated with Westminster School, which
continues to supply a large proportion of the scholars of the college.
Major additions have been made to the buildings through the centuries, and Wolsey's Great Quadrangle was crowned with the
famous gate-tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren. To this day the
bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 9:05 GMT (9 o'clock Oxford time) every night for the 101 original scholars of
the college. In former times this signalled the close of all the college gates throughout Oxford.
King Charles I made the Deanery his palace and held his
Parliament in the Great Hall during the English Civil War.
The college has traditionally been considered to be one of the most prestigious of the colleges of the University due to its
wealth and the nobility of its undergraduates. However, while it continues to be one of the richest colleges, the proportion
today of undergraduates from maintained and independent schools is roughly equal, which is typical of most Oxford colleges.
Christ Church has produced 13 British prime ministers (the most recent being Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-1964), which is more than any other Oxford or Cambridge college (and more than the total number for Cambridge
University, at 11).
Deans of Christ Church
Famous Members
- Jonathan Aitken
- William Pitt Amherst,
1st Earl Amherst
- Henry
William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
- George Eden, 1st Earl of
Auckland
- W. H. Auden
- Joseph Banks
- Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
- Adrian Boult
- Robert Burton
- George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham
- William Camden
- George Canning
- Charles John Canning,
1st Earl Canning
- Richard Carew
- Lewis Carroll
- Robert Cecil
- Alan Clark
- Richard Curtis
- James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie
- Edward Stanley, 14th Earl of
Derby
- David Dimbleby
- Alec Douglas-Home
- Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of
Dufferin and Ava
- Anthony Eden
- Edward VII of the United
Kingdom
- Albert Einstein (briefly a research student (i.e. fellow))
- James Bruce, 8th Earl of
Elgin
- William Gladstone
- Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville
- John Carteret, 3rd Earl of
Granville
- William Grenville
- Edward Gunter
- Edward Wood, 1st Earl of
Halifax
- Richard Hakluyt
- Alec Douglas-Home
- Robert Hooke
- Trevor Huddleston
- Ludovic Kennedy
- John Wodehouse, 1st
Earl of Kimberley
- Nigel Lawson
- Francis
Godolphin Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds
- George Cornewall Lewis
- Matthew Gregory Lewis
- Robert Jenkinson,
2nd Earl of Liverpool
- John Locke
- Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto
- Thomas
George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook
- Robert Peel
- William Penn
- William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland
- John Rawls
- Archibald
Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery
- A L Rowse
- John Ruskin
- Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of
Salisbury
- Philip Sidney
- William Petty, 2nd Earl
of Shelburne
- Edward Granville Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans
- John Taverner
- Hugh Trevor-Roper
- William Walton
- Auberon Waugh
- Richard
Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
- Charles Wesley
- John Wesley
- Christopher Wren
Grace
Before formal Hall each evening, the following Latin grace is recited by a scholar of the House:
Nos miseri homines et egeni, pro cibis quos nobis ad corporis subsidium benigne es largitus, tibi Deus omnipotens, Pater
cælestis, gratias reverenter agimus; simul obsecrantes, ut iis sobrie, modeste atque grate utamur. Per Jesum Christum Dominum
nostrum.
On special occasions the following words replace Per Jesum Christum, etc.:
Insuper petimus, ut cibum angelorum, verum panem cælestem, verbum Dei æternem, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, nobis
impertiaris; utque illo mens nostra pascatur et per carnem et sanguinem eius foveamur, alamur, et corroboremur.
External link
- Official Website (http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/)
-
Oxford Cathedral (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Great_Britain/England/_Topics/churches/_Texts/KINCAT*/Oxford/1.html),
King's Handbook of Cathedrals (1865): The Cathedral, History of the See
References
- Adams, Reginald (1992). The college graces of Oxford and Cambridge. Perpetua Press. ISBN 1870882067.
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