Christ Church (, the temple or house, , of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniquely a joint foundation of the university and the cathedral of the Oxford diocese, Christ Church Cathedral, which also serves as the college chapel and whose dean is ex officio the college head.
As of 2022, the college had 661 students. Its grounds contain a number of architecturally significant buildings including Tom Tower (designed by Sir Christopher Wren), Tom Quad (the largest quadrangle in Oxford), and the Great Dining Hall, which was the seat of the parliament assembled by King Charles I during the English Civil War. The buildings have inspired replicas throughout the world in addition to being featured in films such as Harry Potter and The Golden Compass, helping Christ Church become the most popular Oxford college for tourists with almost half a million visitors annually.
The college's alumni include 13 British prime ministers (the highest number of any Oxbridge college), as well as former prime ministers of Pakistan and Ceylon. Other notable alumni include King Edward VII, King William II of the Netherlands, William Penn, writers Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) and W. H. Auden, philosopher John Locke, and scientist Robert Hooke. Two Nobel laureates, Martin Ryle and John Gurdon, studied at Christ Church. Albert Einstein is also associated with the college. The college has several cities and places named after it.
History
In 1525, at the height of his power, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, suppressed St Frideswide's Priory in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands, using funds from the dissolution of Bayham Old Abbey, Wallingford Priory and other minor priories. He planned the establishment on a magnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, with the buildings only three-quarters complete, as they were to remain for 140 years.
In 1531 the college was itself suppressed, but it was 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 Catholic Church and acquired great wealth through the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church as part of the reorganisation of the Church of England. The former priory church was made both the cathedral of the recently created Diocese of Oxford, and the chapel of the new college.
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. The dean remains to this day an ex officio member of the school's governing body.
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 Christopher Wren. To this day, the bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 9 pm measured by Oxford time, meaning at 9:05 pm GMT/BST every night, once for each of the 100 original scholars of the college, plus one more stroke added in 1664. In former times this was done at midnight, signalling the close of all college gates throughout Oxford. Since it took 20 minutes to ring the 101, the Christ Church gates, unlike those of other colleges, did not close until 12:20 am. When the ringing was moved back to 9:00 pm, Christ Church gates still remained open until 12.20, 20 minutes later than any other college. Although the clock itself now shows GMT/BST, Christ Church still follows Oxford time in the timings of services in the cathedral.
King Charles I made the Deanery his palace and held his Parliament in the Great Hall during the English Civil War. In the evening of 29 May 1645, during the second siege of Oxford, a "bullet of IX lb. weight" shot from the Parliamentarians' warning-piece at Marston fell against the wall of the north side of the Hall.
Several of Christ Church's deans achieved high academic distinction, notably Owen under the Commonwealth, Aldrich and Fell in the Restoration period, Jackson and Gaisford in the early 19th century and Liddell in the high Victorian era.
For more than four centuries Christ Church admitted men only; the first female students at Christ Church matriculated in 1980.
Organisation Christ Church, formally titled "The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry the Eighth", is the only academic institution in the world which is also a cathedral, the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Oxford. The visitor of Christ Church, as a royal foundation, is the reigning British sovereign (currently ), and the Bishop of Oxford is unique among English bishops in not being the visitor of his own cathedral.
The head of the college is the Dean of Christ Church. Christ Church is unique among Oxford colleges in that its head of house, who is head of both college and cathedral, must be an Anglican cleric appointed by the Crown as dean of the cathedral church. The dean lives on site in a grand 16th-century house in the main quadrangle. The college's activities are managed by a senior and a junior censor (formally titled the Censor Moralis Philosophiae and the Censor Naturalis Philosophiae) the former of whom is responsible for academic matters, the latter for undergraduate discipline. They are chosen from among the members of the governing body. A censor theologiae is also appointed to act as the dean's deputy.
The college is always referred to as simply "Christ Church", and never "Christ Church College". The college's own statutes refer to the institution as either "Christ Church" or "the House".
Governing body The governing body of Christ Church consists of the dean and chapter of the cathedral, together with the "Students of Christ Church", who are not junior members but rather the equivalent of the fellows of the other colleges. Until the later 19th century, the students differed from fellows in that they had no governing powers in their own college, as those resided solely with the dean and chapter. The governing body of Christ Church now has around 60 members. Serving alongside the seven members of chapter, the other members include statutory professors and associate professors with joint appointments (employed both by the University and Christ Church) as well as early-career career development fellows on fixed-term contracts. Sir John Bell and Sir Tim Berners-Lee are both members of the governing body of Christ Church.
Buildings and grounds
Christ Church sits in approximately 175 acres (71 hectares) of land. This includes the Christ Church Meadow (including Merton Field and Boathouse Island), which is open to the public all year round. In addition Christ Church own Aston's Eyot (purchased from All Souls College in 1891), Christ Church recreation ground (including the site of Liddell Building), and School Field which has been leased to Magdalen College School since 1893. The meadow itself is inhabited by English Longhorn cattle. In October 1783 James Sadler made the first hot air balloon ascent in Britain from the meadow. The college gardens, quadrangles, and meadow are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Christ Church has a number of architecturally significant buildings. These include:
Grade I listed: Christ Church Library Christ Church Cathedral Peckwater Quadrangle The Great Quadrangle or Tom Quad including: Tom Tower Great Hall Mercury Fountain Canterbury Quadrangle Chapter HouseGrade II* listed: Blue Boar Quadrangle Christ Church Picture Gallery Others: The Meadow Building (Grade II) The Old Library The Lee Building/Anatomy School (Grade II) Christ Church Kitchen & Scullery (Grade II) Old Brew House (Grade II) Liddell Building The Pococke Garden, named after Edward Pococke, Regius Professor of Hebrew (1648–91)
Influences
The college buildings and grounds are the setting for parts of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, as well as a small part of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. More recently it has been used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and also the film adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel Northern Lights (the film bearing the title of the American edition of the book, The Golden Compass). Distinctive features of the college's architecture have been used as models by a number of other academic institutions, including the NUI Galway, which reproduces Tom Quad. The University of Chicago, Cornell University, and Kneuterdijk Palace have reproductions of Christ Church's dining hall (in the forms of Hutchinson Hall, the dining hall of Risley Residential College, and the Gothic hall of Kneuterdijk Palace, respectively). ChristChurch Cathedral in New Zealand, after which the City of Christchurch is named, is itself named after Christ Church, Oxford. Stained glass windows in the cathedral and other buildings are by the Pre-Raphaelite William Morris group with designs by Edward Burne-Jones.PreRaphaelite Painting and Design University of Texas
Resident animals on grounds Historically, there has been a resident tortoise for the annual Oxford tortoise races. However, since 2020, due to the pandemic, there has not been a tortoise. Recently, there have been two "resident" ducks, which can be seen in Tom Quad, affectionately named "Tom" and "Peck" after two of the famous quadrangles in Christ Church.
The Mercury fountain also houses carp, notably a large koi carp named George, which was a gift from the Empress of Japan. A heron may also be frequently seen visiting the pond as its hunting ground. This stopped in September 2022, when the fish were moved to a spacious lake home somewhere in Oxfordshire while the College performed essential maintenance on the pond.
Outside the Meadow Building in the Christ Church Meadow, there are also cows present during the day. The cows are of rare English Longhorn breed.
Cathedral choir
Long associated with high church Anglicanism, Christ Church is unique in that it has both a cathedral choir and a college choir. The cathedral choir comprises twelve adults and sixteen boys. The adults are made up of lay clerks and choral scholars, or academical clerks. The choir was all male until 2019, when they welcomed alto Elizabeth Nurse, the first female clerk of Christ Church Cathedral Choir. The boys, whose ages range from eight to thirteen, are chosen for their musical ability and attend Christ Church Cathedral School. Aside from the director, Peter Holder, there is also a sub-organist and two organ scholars. The college choir, however, is always a student-run society, and sings Evensong once a week in term time. In vacations the services are sung by the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church – a choir drawn from semi-professional singers in and around Oxford. The cathedral also hosts visiting choirs from time to time during vacations.Throughout its history, the cathedral choir has attracted many distinguished composers and organists – from its first director, John Taverner, appointed by Cardinal Wolsey in 1526, to William Walton in the twentieth century. In recent years, the choir have commissioned recorded works by contemporary composers such as John Tavener, William Mathias and Howard Goodall, also patron of Christ Church Music Society.