Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a rich landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the foundation and endowment for the college; when de Balliol died in 1269 his widow, Dervorguilla, a woman whose wealth far exceeded that of her husband, continued his work in setting up the college, providing a further endowment, writing the statutes. She is considered a co‑founder of the college. Among the college's alumni are three former prime ministers, Harald V of Norway, five Nobel laureates, numerous literary and philosophical figures, including Adam Smith, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Aldous Huxley. John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into English, was Master of the college in the 1360s. In 2018 Balliol had an endowment of £139.3m. Balliol College was founded in about 1263 by John I de Balliol under the guidance of Walter of Kirkham, the Bishop of Durham.
According to legend, the founder had abducted the bishop as part of a land dispute and as a penance he was publicly beaten by the bishop and had to support a group of scholars at Oxford. After de Balliol's death in 1268, his widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway, made arrangements to ensure the permanence of the college in that she provided capital and in 1282 formulated the college statutes, documents that survive to this day. Along with University and Merton, Balliol can claim to be the oldest Oxford college. Balliol’s claim is that a house of scholars was established by the founder in Oxford in around 1263, before Merton in 1274 and University in around 1280. Under a statute of 1881, New Inn Hall, one of the remaining medieval halls, was merged into Balliol College in 1887. Balliol acquired New Inn Hall's admissions and other records for 1831–1887 as well as the library of New Inn Hall, which contained 18th-century law books; the New Inn Hall site was sold and is now part of St Peter's College, Oxford.
In 1880, seven mischievous Balliol undergraduates published The Masque of B-ll--l, a broadsheet of forty quatrains making light of their superiors – the Master and selected Fellows and Commoners – and themselves. The outraged authorities suppressed the collection, only a few copies survived, three of which found their way into the College Library over the years, one into the Bodleian Library. Verses of this form are now known as Balliol rhymes; the best known of these rhymes is the one on Benjamin Jowett. This has been quoted and reprinted in every book about Jowett and about Balliol since. First come I. My name is J-W-TT. There's no knowledge but I know it. I am Master of this College; this and 18 others are attributed to Henry Charles Beeching. The other quatrains are much less well known. William Tuckwell included 18 of these quatrains in his Reminiscences in 1900, but they all came out only in 1939, thanks to Walter George Hiscock, an Oxford librarian, who issued them then and in a second edition in 1955.
For many years, there has been a traditional and fierce rivalry shown between the students of Balliol and those of its immediate neighbour to the east, Trinity College. It has manifested itself on the river; the rivalry reflects that which exists between Trinity College and Balliol's sister college, St John's College, Cambridge. In college folklore, the rivalry goes back to the late 17th century, when Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity, was observed throwing stones at Balliol's windows. In fact, in its modern form, the rivalry appears to date from the late 1890s, when the chant or song known as a "Gordouli" began to be sung from the Balliol side; the traditional words run: Gordouli Face like a ham,Bobby Johnson says so And he should know. The shouting of chants over the wall is still known as "a Gordouli", the tradition continues as the students gather to sing following boat club dinners and other events; the traditional Gordouli is said to have been sung by Balliol and Trinity men in the trenches of Mesopotamia in the First World War.
Balliol became known for its radicalism and political activism in the 20th century, saw an abortive coup in the 1960s in which students took over the college and declared it "the People's Republic of Balliol". The contrast between the radical tendencies of many Balliol students and the traditional conservatism and social exclusivity of Trinity gave the rivalry an extra edge; the fact that Balliol had admitted a number of Indian and Asiatic students gave many of the taunts from the Trinity side a distinctly racist tone: Balliol students, for example, were sometime referred to as "Basutos". In Five Red Herrings, a Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Somerville alumna Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter is asked whether he remembers a certain contemporary from Trinity. "'I never knew any Trinity men,' said Wimsey.'The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.'" Sayers alludes to the rivalry in Murder Must Advertise: Mr Ingleby, a Trinity man, comments, "If there is one thing more repulsive than another it is Balliolity."One of the wittier raids from Balliol, in 1962 or 1963, involved the turfing of the whole of Trinity JCR.
The last incident suspected to relate to the feud was the vandalisation of Trinity's SCR pond, which led to the death of all but one of the fish. For
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, values, reason and language. Such questions are posed as problems to be studied or resolved; the term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? Philosophers pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust? Do humans have free will? "philosophy" encompassed any body of knowledge. From the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, "natural philosophy" encompassed astronomy and physics. For example, Newton's 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy became classified as a book of physics. In the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize.
In the modern era, some investigations that were traditionally part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology and economics. Other investigations related to art, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy. For example, is beauty objective or subjective? Are there many scientific methods or just one? Is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy? Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of science. Traditionally, the term "philosophy" referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, natural science and politics. Newton's 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy is classified in the 2000s as a book of physics. In the first part of the first book of his Academics, Cicero introduced the division of philosophy into logic and ethics. Metaphysical philosophy was the study of existence, God, logic and other abstract objects; this division has changed.
Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences astronomy, chemistry and cosmology. Moral philosophy still includes value theory. Metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today. Colin McGinn and others claim. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, while Talbot Brewer argued that "progress" is the wrong standard by which to judge philosophical activity. In one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as "how are we to live" and "what is the nature of reality". A broad and impartial conception of philosophy finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality and life in all world civilizations. Western philosophy is the philosophical tradition of the Western world and dates to Pre-Socratic thinkers who were active in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE such as Thales and Pythagoras who practiced a "love of wisdom" and were termed physiologoi.
Socrates was a influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom. Western philosophy can be divided into three eras: Ancient, Medieval philosophy, Modern philosophy; the Ancient era was dominated by Greek philosophical schools which arose out of the various pupils of Socrates, such as Plato, who founded the Platonic Academy and his student Aristotle, founding the Peripatetic school, who were both influential in Western tradition. Other traditions include Cynicism, Greek Skepticism and Epicureanism. Important topics covered by the Greeks included metaphysics, the nature of the well-lived life, the possibility of knowledge and the nature of reason. With the rise of the Roman empire, Greek philosophy was increasingly discussed in Latin by Romans such as Cicero and Seneca. Medieval philosophy is the period following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and was dominated by the ris
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 within the Liverpool City Council local authority in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region. Liverpool is on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the south west of the county of Lancashire, it became a borough in 1207 and a city in 1880. In 1889, it became a county borough independent of Lancashire, its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with handling general cargo, raw materials such as coal and cotton, the city merchants were involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In the 19th century, it was a major port of departure for Irish and English emigrants to North America.
Liverpool was home to both the Cunard and White Star Line, was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic, the RMS Lusitania, RMS Queen Mary and RMS Olympic. The popularity of the Beatles and other music groups from the Merseybeat era contributes to Liverpool's status as a tourist destination. Liverpool is the home of two Premier League football clubs and Everton, matches between the two being known as the Merseyside derby; the Grand National horse race takes place annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007. In 2008, it was nominated as the annual European Capital of Culture together with Norway. Several areas of the city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004; the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, William Brown Street. Liverpool's status as a port city has attracted a diverse population, drawn from a wide range of peoples and religions from Ireland and Wales.
The city is home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Natives and residents of the city of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians, colloquially as "Scousers", a reference to "scouse", a form of stew; the word "Scouse" has become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, pōl, meaning a pool or creek, is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained"; the adjective Liverpudlian is first recorded in 1833. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey; the name appeared in 1190 as "Liuerpul", the place appearing as Leyrpole, in a legal record of 1418, may refer to Liverpool. Another such suggestion is derivation from Welsh llyvr pwl meaning "expanse or confluence at the pool".
King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 500; the original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in an H shape: Bank Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street, Moor Street and Whiteacre Street. In the 17th century there was slow progress in population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during the English Civil War, including an eighteen-day siege in 1644. In 1699 Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament, that same year its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. Since Roman times, the nearby city of Chester on the River Dee had been the region's principal port on the Irish Sea. However, as the Dee began to silt up, maritime trade from Chester became difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey.
As trade from the West Indies, including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, as the River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow with increasing rapidity. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone, William Roscoe and Edward Rushton, were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the population continued to rise especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine. In her poem "Liverpool", which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers to the Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress.
Great Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place of both cotton and slavery in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in the words of historian Sven Beckert, "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself." For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. The term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics such as Thales and Pythagoras, covering a large area of the globe; the word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek: philosophia "the love of wisdom". The scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, the writings of the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors; this included the problems of philosophy. In the pre-Socratic period, ancient philosophers first articulated questions about the "arche" of the universe. Western philosophy is said to begin in the Greek cities of western Asia Minor with Thales of Miletus, active c. 585 BC and was responsible for the opaque dictum, "all is water." His most noted students were Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus Pythagoras, from the island of Samos off the coast of Ionia lived in Croton in southern Italy. Pythagoreans hold that "all is number," giving formal accounts in contrast to the previous material of the Ionians.
They believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation. A key figure in Greek philosophy is Socrates. Socrates studied under several Sophists but transformed Greek philosophy into a branch of philosophy, still pursued today, it is said that following a visit to the Oracle of Delphi he spent much of his life questioning anyone in Athens who would engage him, in order to disprove the oracular prophecy that there would be no man wiser than Socrates. Socrates used a critical approach called the "elenchus" or Socratic method to examine people's views, he aimed to study human things: the good life, justice and virtue. Although Socrates wrote nothing himself, some of his many disciples wrote down his conversations, he was tried for corrupting the impiety by the Greek democracy. He was sentenced to death. Although his friends offered to help him escape from prison, he chose to remain in Athens and abide by his principles, his execution consisted of drinking the poison hemlock and he died in 399 BC.
Plato was a student of Socrates. Plato founded the Academy of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, which applied the Socratic method of inquiry to examine philosophical problems; some central ideas of Plato's dialogues are the immortality of the soul, the benefits of being just, that evil is ignorance, the Theory of Forms. Forms are universal properties that constitute true reality and contrast with the changeable material things he called "becoming". Aristotle was a pupil of Plato. Aristotle was the first systematic philosopher and scientist, he wrote about physics, zoology, aesthetics, theater, rhetoric and logic. Aristotelian logic was the first type of logic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great, who in turn conquered much of the ancient world at a rapid pace. Hellenization and Aristotelian philosophy exercised considerable influence on all subsequent Western and Middle Eastern philosophers, including Hellenistic, Byzantine, Western medieval and Islamic thinkers.
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages extending from the Christianization of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance. Medieval philosophy is defined by the rediscovery and further development of classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, by the need to address theological problems and to integrate the widespread sacred doctrines of Abrahamic religion with secular learning. Early medieval philosophy was influenced by the likes of Stoicism, but, above all, the philosophy of Plato himself; some problems discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason, the existence and unity of God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the problems of knowledge, of universals, of individuation. The prominent figure of this period was Augustine of Hippo who adopted Plato's thought and Christianized it in the 4th century and whose influence dominated medieval philosophy up to end of the era but was checked with the arrival of Aristotle's texts.
Augustinianism was the preferred starting point for most philosophers up until the 13th century. The Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th/9th century was fed by Church missionaries travelling from Ireland, most notably John Scotus Eriugena, a Neoplatonic philosopher; the modern university system has roots in the European medieval university, created in Italy and evolved from Catholic Cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas, an academic philosopher and the father of Thomism, was immensely influential in Catholic Europe. Philosophers from the Middle Ages include the Christian philosophers Augustine of Hippo, Anselm, Gilbert de la Porrée, Peter Abelard, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aq
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private and statutory Ivy League research university in Ithaca, New York. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, the university was intended to teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge—from the classics to the sciences, from the theoretical to the applied; these ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell's founding principle, a popular 1868 Ezra Cornell quotation: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."The university is broadly organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus, with each college and division defining its own admission standards and academic programs in near autonomy. The university administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City and Cornell Tech, a graduate program that incorporates technology and creative thinking; the program moved from Google's Chelsea Building in New York City to its permanent campus on Roosevelt Island in September 2017.
Cornell is one of ten private land grant universities in the United States and the only one in New York. Of its seven undergraduate colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the State University of New York system, including its agricultural and human ecology colleges as well as its industrial labor relations school. Of Cornell's graduate schools, only the veterinary college is state-supported; as a land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension outreach program in every county of New York and receives annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions. The Cornell University Ithaca Campus comprises 745 acres, but is much larger when the Cornell Botanic Gardens and the numerous university-owned lands in New York City are considered; as of October 2018, 58 Nobel laureates, four Turing Award winners and one Fields Medalist have been affiliated with Cornell University. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race.
Cornell counts more than 245,000 living alumni, its former and present faculty and alumni include 34 Marshall Scholars, 30 Rhodes Scholars, 29 Truman Scholars, 7 Gates Scholars, 55 Olympic Medalists, 14 living billionaires. The student body consists of more than 14,000 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and 116 countries. Cornell University was founded on April 27, 1865. Senator Ezra Cornell offered his farm in Ithaca, New York, as a site and $500,000 of his personal fortune as an initial endowment. Fellow senator and educator Andrew Dickson White agreed to be the first president. During the next three years, White oversaw the construction of the first two buildings and traveled to attract students and faculty; the university was inaugurated on October 7, 1868, 412 men were enrolled the next day. Cornell developed as a technologically innovative institution, applying its research to its own campus and to outreach efforts. For example, in 1883 it was one of the first university campuses to use electricity from a water-powered dynamo to light the grounds.
Since 1894, Cornell fulfill statutory requirements. Cornell has had active alumni since its earliest classes, it was one of the first universities to include alumni-elected representatives on its Board of Trustees. Cornell was among the Ivies that had heightened student activism during the 1960s related to cultural issues, civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War. Today the university has more than 4,000 courses. Cornell is known for the Residential Club Fire of 1967, a fire in the Residential Club building that killed eight students and one professor. Since 2000, Cornell has been expanding its international programs. In 2004, the university opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, it has partnerships with institutions in India and the People's Republic of China. Former president Jeffrey S. Lehman described the university, with its high international profile, a "transnational university". On March 9, 2004, Cornell and Stanford University laid the cornerstone for a new'Bridging the Rift Center' to be built and jointly operated for education on the Israel–Jordan border.
Cornell's main campus is on East Hill in Ithaca, New York, overlooking Cayuga Lake. Since the university was founded, it has expanded to about 2,300 acres, encompassing both the hill and much of the surrounding areas. Central Campus has laboratories, administrative buildings, all of the campus' academic buildings, athletic facilities and museums. North Campus is composed of ten residence halls that house first-year students, although the Townhouse Community houses transfer students; the five main residence halls on West Campus make up the West Campus House System, along with several Gothic-style buildings, referred to as "the Gothics". Collegetown contains two upper-level residence halls and the Schwartz Performing Arts Center amid a mixed-use neighborhood of apartments and businesses; the main campus is marked by an irregular layout and eclectic architectural styles, including ornate Collegiate Gothic and Neoclassical buildings, the more spare international and modernist structures. The more ornat
Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas Pope, on land occupied by Durham College, home to Benedictine monks from Durham Cathedral. Despite its large physical size, the college is small in terms of student numbers at 400, it was founded as a men's college and has been coeducational since 1979. As of July 2013, Trinity had a financial endowment of £104.2 million. Trinity has produced three British prime ministers, placing it joint-second with Balliol College in terms of former students who have held the office; the site where Trinity College now stands was occupied by Durham College, built for Benedictine monks from Durham Cathedral. This college had been founded after land was bought in 1291, though monks had been sent to Oxford for a few years previous to this; the site was surrendered to the crown in March 1545, being granted to private owners in 1553. They were acquired by civil servant Thomas Pope on 20 February 1555, who used them to found Trinity College 16 days later.
Durham College was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St Cuthbert, the Trinity, it is thought that Trinity College took its name from the last element of this dedication. Trinity College was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas Pope, on land bought following the abolition of Durham College during the period of Protestant Reformation, whose buildings housed the original foundation. Pope was a Catholic who had no surviving children, he hoped that by founding a college he would be remembered in the prayers of its students, his remains are still encased beside the chapel altar. The original foundation provided for a president, 12 fellows, 12 scholars, for up to 20 undergraduates; the fellows were required to remain unmarried. The college remained a all-male institution until 1979, when it admitted its first women undergraduates, it is now co-educational and co-residential. Trinity was one of the locations used for filming of the original series Brideshead Revisited. Trinity has featured in episodes of Inspector Morse and Endeavour.
Dame Hilary Boulding principal of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, succeeded Sir Ivor Roberts as president in August 2017. For many years, there has been a traditional and fierce rivalry shown between the students of Trinity and those of its immediate neighbour to the west, Balliol College, it has manifested itself on the river. The rivalry is reflected in that which exists between Trinity College and Balliol's sister college, St John's College, Cambridge though the two Trinities are not themselves sister colleges. In college folklore, the rivalry goes back to the late 17th century, when Ralph Bathurst, president of Trinity, was observed throwing stones at Balliol's windows. In fact, although the first antagonism was recorded in 1583, the rivalry in its modern form appears to date from the late 1890s, when the chant or song known as a "Gordouli" began to be sung from the Balliol side; the traditional words run: "Gordouli Face like a ham, Bobby Johnson says so And he should know."Although these words are now heard, the singing of songs over the wall is still known as "a Gordouli".
The traditional Gordouli is said to have been sung by Balliol and Trinity men in the trenches of Mesopotamia during the First World War. The rivalry was given an extra edge in the early 20th century by the contrast between the radical tendencies of many Balliol students and Trinity's traditional conservatism and social exclusivity; the president of Trinity between 1907 and 1938 was Herbert Blakiston, who became notorious for his reluctance to admit non-white students. Notably, he stubbornly resisted pressure from the India Office to admit undergraduates from British India, something that government department was attempting to promote. Balliol in contrast did admit a number of Indian and Asiatic students which gave many of the taunts from the Trinity side a distinctly racist tone: Balliol students, for example, were sometime referred to as "Basutos". In Five Red Herrings, a Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter is asked whether he remembers a certain contemporary from Trinity.
"'I never knew any Trinity men,' said Wimsey.'The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.'" Sayers alludes to the rivalry in Murder Must Advertise: Mr Ingleby, a Trinity man, comments, "If there is one thing more repulsive than another it is Balliolity."One of the wittier raids from Balliol, in 1962 or 1963, involved the turfing of the whole of Trinity JCR. One of the most famous incidents was perpetrated by three Trinity students on the new intake of freshers to Balliol in October 1985, they sent addressed letters to each of Balliol's new freshers on Balliol headed notepaper. It enclosed a narrow neck 100ml screw-top receptacle; the attached letter read, "Dear, Welcome to Balliol. As you are aware the university requires a short medical check-up as part of your Coming-Up. Could you therefore please provide a urine sample in the attached sample bottle and return it to your college tutor's office by no than 5.00 PM on Wednesday." The letters were sent out on that
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The college is located on Turl Street, where it was founded in 1314 by Devon-born Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, as a school to educate clergymen. At its foundation Exeter was popular with the sons of the Devonshire gentry, though has since become associated with a much broader range of notable alumni, including William Morris, J. R. R. Tolkien, Richard Burton, Roger Bannister, Alan Bennett, Philip Pullman; as of 2018, the college had an estimated financial endowment of £74.5 million. Still situated in its original location in Turl Street, Exeter College was founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon of Devon, Bishop of Exeter and treasurer to Edward II, as a school to educate clergy. During its first century, it was known as Stapeldon Hall and was smaller, with just twelve to fourteen students; the college grew from the 15th century onward, began offering rooms to its students.
The College motto is "Floreat Exon.", meaning "Let Exeter Flourish". In the 16th century, donations from Sir William Petre, assumed to be an Exeter graduate, whose daughter Dorothy Wadham was a co-founder with her husband Nicholas Wadham of Wadham College, created the eight Petrean Fellowships, further contributions from his son John Petre, 1st Baron Petre helped to expand and transform the college. Sir John Acland, a Devonshire gentleman, donated £800, which financed the building of a new dining hall, established two scholarships for poor students, the first to be created at the college. In a clever move by the bursar to fill the new buildings as they were completed, a significant number of noble Roman Catholic students were invited to enrol and take classes at the enlarged college; as a result, over time, Exeter College became one of the leading colleges in the University. In the 18th century the college experienced declining popularity, as did all of Oxford's other colleges. University reforms in the 1850s helped to end this period of stagnation.
For over six centuries after its founding, women were not permitted to study at Exeter, but in 1979 it joined many other men's colleges in admitting its first female students. In 1993 Exeter College became the first of the former all-male colleges to elect a woman, Marilyn Butler, as its rector; when Butler's tenure expired in October 2004, the college elected another woman—Frances Cairncross, former senior editor of The Economist—as rector. In 2014, the author J. K. Rowling was elected an honorary fellow of the college. Formed in the 1850s, the Adelphi Wine Club is reputed to be one of the oldest three wine clubs in Oxford; the club draws its membership from undergraduates studying at Exeter College. It has been forcibly closed down by college authorities several times throughout its tumultuous existence and is believed to be dormant; the club was renowned for its extravagant dinners, for excessive gambling after each meeting. One black ball was sufficient to exclude an undergraduate from membership.
Beginning in 1923, the college forbade any student holding an exhibition or scholarship to join the club. Notable members include Sir Martin Le Quesne, J. P. V. D. Balsdon. Exeter College is the basis for the fictional Jordan College in Philip Pullman's novel trilogy His Dark Materials; the 2007 film version of the first novel, The Golden Compass, used the college for location filming. The final episode of Inspector Morse, The Remorseful Day, was filmed in the college chapel and Front Quadrangle, where Morse has a heart attack; the Front Quadrangle sits on the site of the medieval college, although of the earliest buildings, only Palmer's Tower in the north-eastern corner remains. Constructed in 1432, the tower, once the primary entrance to the college, now houses various offices and lodgings for fellows, at its base is a memorial to members who were killed in the Second World War; the quadrangle is dominated by the chapel, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and constructed in 1854–60, inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
On the opposite side stands the hall, constructed in 1618, notable for its vaulted ceilings and numerous fine portraits, underneath, the college bar. Building work over the following century resulted in the quadrangle taking on its current appearance in 1710; the Front Quadrangle houses the Junior and Senior Common Rooms, as well as lodgings for fellows and undergraduates. The Margary quadrangle was completed in 1964 with the construction of the Thomas Wood building to commemorate the 650th anniversary of the college and named for Ivan Margary, who paid for its restoration; the quadrangle incorporates the rector's lodgings, designed by Gilbert Scott and constructed in 1864, staircases nine and eleven erected during the 19th century. A passageway from the Front Quadrangle leads through to the college's Fellows' Garden, in which stands the library, designed by Gilbert Scott in the 13th-century style; the area is bounded on the left hand side by Convocation House, the Divinity School and the Bodleian Library, on the right by Brasenose Lane.
The Mound, situated at the end of the Garden, offers views over Radcliffe Square, including All Souls College and the Radcliffe Camera. In 2007–08, the college purchased the main site of Ruskin College on nearby Walton Street for £7 million; the site was redeveloped to provide a range of student bedrooms, teaching rooms, study space. In 2017 it was formally opened, named Cohen Quad for the parents of Sir
