Somerville College, a
constituent college
A collegiate university is a university in which functions are divided between a central administration and a number of constituent colleges. Historically, the first collegiate university was the University of Paris and its first college was the C ...
of the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two
women's college
Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male stud ...
s. Among
its alumnae have been
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
,
Indira Gandhi,
Dorothy Hodgkin,
Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her ...
,
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
and
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
. It began admitting men in 1994.
Its library is one of Oxford's largest college libraries. The college's liberal tone derives from its founding by
social liberals
Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
, as Oxford's first
non-denominational college for women, unlike the
Anglican Lady Margaret Hall, the other to open that year. In 1964, it was among the first to cease locking up at night to stop students staying out late.
No
gowns
A gown, from the Saxon word, ''gunna'', is a usually loose outer garment from knee-to-full-length worn by men and women in Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the 17th century, and continuing today in certain professions; later, the term ''gown ...
are worn at
formal halls.
In 2021 it was recognised as a
sanctuary campus A sanctuary campus is any college or university, typically in North America and Western Europe, that adopts policies to protect members of the campus community who are undocumented immigrants. The term is modeled after "sanctuary city", a status th ...
by
City of Sanctuary UK. It is one of three colleges to offer undergraduates on-site lodging throughout their course.
It stands near the
Science Area,
University Parks
The Oxford University Parks, commonly referred to locally as the University Parks, or just The Parks, is a large parkland area slightly northeast of the city centre in Oxford, England. The park is bounded to the east by the River Cherwell, thou ...
,
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
,
Jericho and
Green Templeton,
St Anne's,
Keble and
St Benet's. Over a third of its 650 students are not from the UK. Over half the UK admissions are from state schools – close to the university average.
Its total net assets in 2021 were £238 million,
the seventh highest of an Oxford undergraduate college. Its
sister college
In some countries, certain universities have a tradition of pairing their residential colleges or houses with one another. Colleges that are paired are referred to as sister colleges, and have a ceremonial and symbolic relationship to one another ...
at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
is
Girton.
History
Founding
In June 1878, the ''
Association for the Higher Education of Women'' was formed, aiming for the eventual creation of a college for women in Oxford. Some of the more prominent members of the association were
George Granville Bradley
George Granville Bradley (11 December 1821 – 13 March 1903) was an English divine, scholar, and schoolteacher, who was Dean of Westminster (1881–1902).
Life
George Bradley's father, Charles Bradley, was vicar of Glasbury, Brecon, mid Wales ...
, Master of
University College
In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...
,
T. H. Green, a prominent liberal philosopher and Fellow of
Balliol College
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 landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...
, and
Edward Stuart Talbot
Edward Stuart Talbot (19 February 1844 – 30 January 1934) was an Anglican bishop in the Church of England and the first Warden of Keble College, Oxford. He was successively the Bishop of Rochester, the Bishop of Southwark and the Bishop of ...
, Warden of
Keble College
Keble College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to ...
. Talbot insisted on a specifically
Anglican institution, which was unacceptable to most of the other members. The two parties eventually split, and Talbot's group (the "
Christ Church camp") founded
Lady Margaret Hall, which opened its doors for students in 1879, the same year as Somerville did.
Thus, in 1879, a second committee was formed to create a college "in which no distinction will be made between students on the ground of their belonging to different religious denominations." This committee was called the "
Balliol camp" and had close ties to the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
. This second committee included
A. H. D. Acland,
Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green (7 April 183626 March 1882), known as T. H. Green, was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influen ...
,
George William Kitchin
George William Kitchin (7 December 1827 – 13 October 1912) was the first Chancellor of the University of Durham, from the institution of the role in 1908 until his death in 1912. He was also the last Dean of Durham to govern the university.
...
,
James Legge
James Legge (; 20 December 181529 November 1897) was a Scottish linguist, missionary, sinologist, and translator
who was best known as an early translator of Classical Chinese texts into English. Legge served as a representative of the London ...
,
Henry Nettleship
Henry Nettleship (5 May 1839 – 10 July 1893) was an English classical scholar.
Life
Nettleship was born at Kettering, and was educated at Lancing College, Durham School and Charterhouse schools, and gained a scholarship for entry to Corpus Chri ...
,
Walter Pater
Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...
,
Henry Francis Pelham
Henry Francis Pelham, FSA, FBA (10 September 1846 in Bergh Apton, Norfolk – 13 February 1907) was an English scholar and historian. He was Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford from 1889 to 1907, and was also Pr ...
, its chairman
John Percival
John Percival (3 April 1779 – 7 September 1862), known as Mad Jack Percival, was a celebrated officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War with France, the War of 1812, the campaign against West Indies pirates, and the Mexican–Amer ...
,
Grace Prestwich,
Eleanor Smith,
A. G. Vernon Harcourt, and
Mary Ward Mary Ward may refer to:
Scientists and academics
* Mary Ward (nurse) (1884–1972) English nurse to the boat people on the waterways
* Mary Ward (scientist) (née King, 1827–1869) Irish amateur scientist, was killed by an experimental steam car ...
. Other people who assisted in the founding were
Anna Swanwick,
Bertha Johnson
Bertha Jane Johnson (20 January 1846 – 24 April 1927), née Todd, was the principal of the Society of Oxford Home-Students, which would become St Anne's College, University of Oxford, and a campaigner for women's education.
Life
Bertha J. Todd ...
,
Charlotte Byron Green
Charlotte Byron Green born Charlotte Byron Symonds (12 August 1842 – 4 September 1929) was a British promoter of women's education. She supported Somerville College from its foundation.
Life
Green was born at Berkeley Square in Bristol in 1842. ...
, and
Owen Roberts
Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945. He also led two Roberts Commissions, the first of which investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the sec ...
.
This new effort resulted in the founding of ''Somerville Hall'', named after the then recently deceased Scottish mathematician and renowned scientific writer
Mary Somerville. It was felt that the name would reflect the virtues of liberalism and academic success which the college wished to embody. She was admired by the founders of the college as a scholar, as well as for her religious and political views, including her conviction that women should have equality in terms of
suffrage and access to education.
Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre
Madeleine Septimia Shaw Lefevre (6 May 1835 – 19 September 1914) was the Principal of Somerville Hall for its first 10 years, from 1879 to 1889. The hall became Somerville College, Oxford in 1894.
Early life
Shaw Lefevre was born in 1835, th ...
was chosen as the first principal because, though not a well-known academic at the time, her background was felt to reflect the college's political stance. Because of its status as both women's college and non-denominational institution, Somerville was widely regarded within Oxford as "an eccentric and somewhat alarming institution."
Women's college
When opened, Somerville Hall had twelve students, ranging in age between 17 and 36. The first 21 students from Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall attended lectures in rooms above a baker's shop on
Little Clarendon Street
Little Clarendon Street is a short shopping street in northwest Oxford, England. It runs east-west between the south end of Woodstock Road opposite St Giles' Church to the east, Somerville College to the north and Walton Street to the west ...
. Just two of the original 12 students admitted in 1879 remained in Oxford for three years, the period of residence required for male students to complete a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
.
Increasingly, however, as the college admitted more students, it became more formalized. Somerville appointed Lilla Haigh as its first in-house tutor in 1882, and by the end of the 1890s female students were permitted to attend lectures in almost all colleges. In 1891 it became the first women's hall to introduce entrance exams and in 1894 the first of the five women's halls of residence to adopt the title of college (changing its name to Somerville College), the first of them to appoint its own teaching staff, and the first to build
a library. In Oxford legend it soon became known as the "
bluestocking
''Bluestocking'' is a term for an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including E ...
college", its excellent examination results refuting the widespread belief that women were incapable of high academic achievement.
In the 1910s, Somerville became known for its support for the
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
campaign. In 1920, Oxford University allowed women to matriculate and therefore gain degrees. From the college's inception, all female students had to be chaperoned when in the presence of male students. The practice was abolished in 1925, although male visitors to the college were still subject to a curfew. In the same year the college was granted its charter.
''The Mutual Admiration Society''
''The Mutual Admiration Society (MAS)'' was a
literary society
A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsle ...
(or
literary circle) of women who became friends at Somerville College. Its members included
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
,
Muriel St Clare Byrne,
Charis Frankenburg, Dorothy Rowe, and
Amphilis Throckmorton Middlemore
Amphilis Throckmorton Middlemore (14 April 1891 – 18 July 1931) was a British writer and teacher.
With her friend Dorothy L Sayers, she founded ''Somerville College, Oxford#The Mutual Admiration Society, The Mutual Admiration Society'' at Som ...
, among others.
The society of the title was a real club. The members composed poetry and prose for each other's pleasure. Apart from Sayers, none of them was a household name, though all were notable.
Mo Moulton argued in their
Agatha Award-winning book, ''The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World For Women'', that each one lived a life worthy of attention.
Years later, the writer
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
— a Somerville contemporary of the group, but not one of its members — recalled that the MAS “took themselves very seriously”.
First World War
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Somerville College together with the
Examination Schools
The Examination Schools of the University of Oxford are located at 75–81 High Street, Oxford, England. The building was designed by Sir Thomas Jackson (1835–1924), who also designed several other University buildings, such as much of Brasen ...
and other Oxford buildings were requisitioned by the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
to create the Third Southern General Hospital, a facility for the
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...
to treat military casualties. For the duration of the war, Somerville students relocated to
Oriel College
Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, w ...
. Because many male students had left Oxford to enlist in the military, Somerville was able to rent
St Mary Hall Quad which they bricked off from the rest of the college to segregate it from Oriel's remaining male students. Many students and tutors were involved in work in World War I and some of them went to the
Western Front in France.
Notable patients who stayed in Somerville include the war poets
Robert Graves,
Siegfried Sassoon and
R. E. Vernède
Robert Ernest Vernède (1875 – 9 April 1917) was an English poet and writer, now remembered as a war poet.
He was born in London, and educated at St Paul's School (where he was a friend of G. K. Chesterton and E. C. Bentley), and at St ...
. Sassoon arrived on 2 August 1916. Graves and Sassoon were both to reminisce of their time at Somerville Hospital: ''How unlike you to crib my idea of going to the Ladies' College at Oxford'', Sassoon wrote to Graves in 1917, and called it ''very much like Paradise''. At Somerville College, Graves met his first love, a nurse and professional pianist called Marjorie. About his time at Somerville, he wrote: ''I enjoyed my stay at Somerville. The sun shone, and the discipline was easy''.
Alfred Mills was received in the hospital in 1916 and officer
Llewelyn Davies died at the college.
Once the war ended, the return to normality between Oriel and Somerville was delayed, sparking both frustration and an incident in spring 1919 known as the "Oriel raid," in which male students made a hole in the wall dividing the sexes. In July 1919 the principal (
Emily Penrose
Dame Emily Penrose, (18 September 1858 – 26 January 1942) was an ancient historian and principal of three early women's university colleges in the United Kingdom: Bedford College from 1893 until 1898, Royal Holloway College from 1898 until ...
) and fellows returned to Somerville. Alumna
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
wrote about the impact of the war in Oxford and paid tribute to the work of the principal, Miss Penrose, in her memoir ''
Testament of Youth
''Testament of Youth'' is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain (1893–1970). It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with ''Testament of Experience'', published in 1957, and encompassing th ...
''.
Admission of men
Starting in the 1970s, the traditionally all-male colleges in Oxford began to admit female students. Since it was assumed that recruiting from a wider demographic would guarantee better students, there was pressure on single-sex colleges to change their policy to avoid falling down the rankings. All-female colleges, like Somerville, found it increasingly difficult to attract good applicants and fell to the bottom of the intercollegiate academic rankings during the period.
During the 1980s, there was much debate as to whether women's colleges should become mixed. Somerville remained a women's college until 1992, when its statutes were amended to permit male students and fellows; the first male fellows were appointed in 1993, and the first male students admitted in 1994. Somerville became the second-to-last college (after
St Hilda's) to become coeducational. A 50 per cent male/female gender balance has been maintained to this day, though without formal quotas.
[How we are fighting sexist laddism and abuse at Somerville College, Oxford]
Alice Prochaska, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 15 May 2015
Buildings and grounds
![Somerville College, Oxford - House](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Somerville_College%2C_Oxford_-_House.JPG)
The college and its main entrance, the Porters' Lodge, are located at the southern end of
Woodstock Road, with
Little Clarendon Street
Little Clarendon Street is a short shopping street in northwest Oxford, England. It runs east-west between the south end of Woodstock Road opposite St Giles' Church to the east, Somerville College to the north and Walton Street to the west ...
to the south,
Walton Street to the west and the
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter to the north. The front of the college runs between the
Oxford Oratory
The Oxford Oratory Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga (or Oxford Oratory for short) is the Catholic parish church for the centre of Oxford, England. It is located at 25 Woodstock Road, next to Somerville College. The church is served by the Congreg ...
and the
Faculty of Philosophy
A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...
. Somerville has buildings of various architectural styles, many of which bear the names of former principals of the college, located around one of Oxford's biggest
quads. Five buildings are
Grade II-listed.
A 2017 archaeological evaluation of the site shows that in the medieval period the area now occupied by Somerville lay in fields beyond the boundary of Oxford. There is evidence of 17th-century building and earthworks beneath the site, some of which almost certainly relates to the defensive network placed around the city by
Royalists
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...
during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. There are also remains of some 19th-century buildings, including a stone-lined well.
Walton House
![Walton House, Somerville College, Oxford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Walton_House%2C_Somerville_College%2C_Oxford.jpg)
The original building of Somerville Hall, Walton House (commonly called House) was built in 1826 and purchased from
St John's College in 1880 amid fears that the men's colleges might, in the future, repossess the site for their own purposes. The house could only accommodate seven of the twelve students who came up to Oxford in the first year.
In 1881, Sir
Thomas Graham Jackson
Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet (21 December 1835 – 7 November 1924) was one of the most distinguished British architects of his generation. He is best remembered for his work at Oxford, including the Oxford Military College at Cowl ...
was commissioned to build a new south wing which could accommodate eleven more students. In 1892,
Walter Cave
Walter Frederick Cave (17 September 1863 – 7 January 1939) was an English architect, active in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who worked firstly in the Arts and Crafts style, and latterly in the Classical Revival. In a ...
added a north wing and an extra storey. He also installed a gatehouse at the Woodstock Road entrance. In 1897/98, the Eleanor Smith Cottages were added, adjoining Walton House.
Today House is home to only one or two students, and, until 2014, it housed the college bar. It also contains Green Hall, where guests to college are often greeted and in which prospective students are registered and wait for interviews; some of the college's paintings by
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developme ...
are located here.
[ Most of the administration of college, and the academic pigeon-holes are in House, as is the Mary Somerville Room, a reception room featuring paintings by Mary Somerville, George Romney and ]George Frederic Watts
George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817, in London – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical work ...
.[
]
Park
Originally known as West, from its location in the college, the idea of building a second self-contained hall was inspired by Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...
. It was designed by Harry Wilkinson Moore
Harry Wilkinson Moore, FRIBA (1850–1915) was a Victorian and Edwardian architect. He was the son of Arthur Moore (1814–1873) and Mary Wilkinson (1821–1904), and a nephew of the architects George Wilkinson and William Wilkinson.
Care ...
and built in two stages. The 1885–1887 phase saw the construction of rooms for 18 students with their own dining-room, sitting rooms and vice-principal. This was a deliberate policy aimed at replicating the family environment that the women students had left. It had the effect of turning House and West into rivals. The second building stage (1888–1894) created two sets of tutors' rooms, a further 19 rooms and the West Lodge (now Park Lodge). In 2004 it was renamed Park in honour of Daphne Park
Daphne Margaret Sybil Désirée Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth, Order of St Michael and St George, CMG, Order of the British Empire, OBE, Royal Society of Arts, FRSA (1 September 1921 – 24 March 2010) was a British intelligence officer, dipl ...
, Principal from 1980 to 1989.
Today there are over 60 student and fellows' rooms in the building along with a music room and a computer room. Park is a Grade II-listed building.
Library
The Grade II-listed library designed by Basil Champneys
Basil Champneys (17 September 1842 – 5 April 1935) was an English architect and author whose most notable buildings include Manchester's John Rylands Library, Somerville College Library (Oxford), Newnham College, Cambridge, Lady Margaret Hal ...
in 1903 was opened by John Morley
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor.
Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leani ...
the following year. Specially for the opening, ''Demeter'' was written by Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...
and performed for the first time. Somerville Library was the first purpose-built library in the women's colleges of the university. With some foresight it was designed to contain 60,000 volumes, although the college only possessed 6,000 when it opened. It now holds around 120,000 items (95,000 on open shelves), as one of the largest college libraries in the university.
Amelia Edwards
Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (7 June 1831 – 15 April 1892), also known as Amelia B. Edwards, was an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist. Her literary successes included the ghost story "The Phantom Coach" (1864), the novel ...
, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...
and Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
have been notable benefactors to the library. It contains paintings by Mary Somerville, John Constable, Maud Sumner
Maud Frances Eyston Sumner (1902–1985) was a South African artist.
Sumner was born in Johannesburg, Transvaal Colony. After completing her schooling at Roedean in Johannesburg, she studied literature at Oxford University from 1922 to 1925 and t ...
and Patrick George
Patrick Herbert George (28 July 1923 – 23 April 2016) was an English painter who taught at the Slade School of Fine Art in London for most of his career. He was best known for his landscapes but also painted a number of portraits, including one ...
.[
The John Stuart Mill room contains what was Mill's personal library in London at the time of his death, with annotations in many of the books.
The library dominates the north wing of the main quadrangle, having been designed to bring the college together, and is open 24 hours, with access to college-wide wifi, a group study room, and computing and printing facilities. It gives full satisfaction according to several annual student surveys.
]
Hall and Maitland
There was no hall large enough to seat the entire college until 1911, when Maitland Hall and Maitland, designed by Edmund Fisher in Queen Anne style and Edwardian Baroque
Edwardian architecture is a Neo-Baroque architectural style that was popular in the British Empire during the Edwardian era (1901–1910). Architecture up to the year 1914 may also be included in this style.
Description
Edwardian architecture is ...
, were opened by H. A. L. Fisher, the Vice-Chancellor of the university and Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece ...
. Murray, whose translations of Greek drama were performed at Somerville in 1912 and 1946, supported Somerville in many ways, including endowing its first research fellowship. A fund was raised as a memorial to Miss Maitland, Principal of Somerville Hall (College from 1894) from 1889 to 1906, and the money was used to pay for oak panelling in Hall. The panelling of the south wall was designed to frame a portrait of Mary Somerville by John Jackson. The buildings were constructed on the site of an adjoining building gifted to Somerville by E. J. Forester in 1897 and bought from University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
and Balliol Colleges for £4,000 and £1,400 respectively. There was difficulty in constructing the buildings, now thought to have resulted from the outer limit of the Oxford city fortifications running under the site. In 1935, Morley Horder reconstructed the archway connecting Maitland Hall and the south wing of Walton House, creating a Reading Room off the main hall; in 1947, André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...
gave a lecture that filled both these rooms and the staircase and quadrangle outside.
Somerville's is the one Oxford dining hall where all portraits show women. They were painted by Michael Noakes
Michael Noakes (28 October 1933 – 30 May 2018) was an English artist and portrait painter. , Herbert James Gunn
Sir Herbert James Gunn RA RP (30 June 1893– 30 December 1964) was a Scottish landscape and portrait painter.
Early life
Sir Herbert James Gunn (also known as Sir James Gunn) was born in Glasgow on 30 June 1893, the son of Richard Gunn, a dr ...
, George Percy Jacomb-Hood
George Percy Jacomb-Hood (6 July 1857 – 11 December 1929) was a painter, etcher and illustrator. He was a founding member of the New English Art Club and Society of Portrait Painters.
Early life
Jacomb-Hood was born on 6 July 1857 at Redhill ...
, William Coldstream
Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher.
Biography
Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of co ...
John Whittall
Francis Helps
Francis William Helps (1890-1972) was a British artist who, besides a long career as an art teacher, served as the official artist to the 1924 British expedition to Everest.
Biography
Helps was born in Dulwich in London and, between 1903 and 19 ...
, Claude Rogers, Humphrey Ocean, Thomas Leveritt
Thomas Leveritt is an Anglo-American artist who works in various media. His roots are in figurative painting, for which he has won the Carroll Medal for Portraiture from the UK's Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and other painting awards from ...
and Richard Twose
Richard Twose (born 10 January 1963) was an English cricketer. He was a left-handed batsman who played for Devon. He was born in Torquay.
Twose, who made his debut for Devon in the Minor Counties Championship in 1985, made his only List A appear ...
.
Hall and Maitland form the east face of the main quad, as Grade II-listed buildings. The Senior Common Room is situated on the ground floor. The first floor holds the pantry and the hall, in which Formal Hall (called guest night) is held weekly in term time.
Maitland now houses few students, being mainly occupied by fellows' offices and the college IT office. The building, named after Principal Agnes Maitland, stands to the south of Hall.
Penrose
The Penrose block was designed by Harold Rogers in 1925 and its first students were installed in 1927. A row of poplars had to be removed in 1926 to construct the south-western end of the main quadrangle on the site of 119 and 119A Walton Street. It was refurbished in 2014, with carpets replacing the bare wooden floorboards, and new furniture. Penrose is named after Dame Emily Penrose
Dame Emily Penrose, (18 September 1858 – 26 January 1942) was an ancient historian and principal of three early women's university colleges in the United Kingdom: Bedford College from 1893 until 1898, Royal Holloway College from 1898 until ...
, third Principal of the college. It contains mainly first-year accommodation in about 30 rooms.
Darbishire
Darbishire Quad was the culmination of a long-standing project to absorb Woodstock Road properties above the Oxford Oratory. In 1920, three houses (29, 31 and 33) were bought by the college from the vicar of St Giles' Church, Oxford
St. Giles' Church is a church in North Oxford, England. It is at the northern end of the wide thoroughfare of St Giles', at the point where it meets Woodstock Road and Banbury Road. It stands between where Little Clarendon Street joins Woo ...
for £1,300. The three had been constructed in 1859 and rented by the college before the purchase. The adjoining ''Waggon and Horses'' pub was purchased from St John's College in 1923. These buildings were demolished in 1932–1933 together with the old Gate House.
Morley Horder was commissioned to build a quadrangle that would fill the space left by the demolished structures, using a loan of £12,000 from Christ Church. The porters' lodge and New Council Room were constructed at the entrance to the quad, which housed undergraduates and fellows. The coat of arms of Somerville and of co-founder John Percival
John Percival (3 April 1779 – 7 September 1862), known as Mad Jack Percival, was a celebrated officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War with France, the War of 1812, the campaign against West Indies pirates, and the Mexican–Amer ...
, first Principal Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre
Madeleine Septimia Shaw Lefevre (6 May 1835 – 19 September 1914) was the Principal of Somerville Hall for its first 10 years, from 1879 to 1889. The hall became Somerville College, Oxford in 1894.
Early life
Shaw Lefevre was born in 1835, th ...
and Helen Darbishire were carved b
Edmund Ware
inside the quadrangle. The archway leading to Hall was added in 1938.
Originally the East Quadrangle, it was opened in June 1934 by Lord Halifax
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 19 ...
as "a notable addition to buildings of varying styles" (''varii generis aedificiia additamentum nobile'') in the Creweian Oration during the Encaenia
Encaenia (; ) is an academic or sometimes ecclesiastical ceremony, usually performed at colleges or universities. It generally occurs some time near the annual ceremony for the general conferral of degrees to students. The word is from Latin, mean ...
. Darbishire was renamed in 1962 in honour of the principal of the college during its construction, Helen Darbishire
Helen Darbishire, (1881–1961) was an English literary scholar, who was Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, from 1931 until her retirement in 1945.'Obituary: Miss Helen Darbishire, former principal of Somerville College', ''The Guardian' ...
.
Today Darbishire contains some 50 student rooms, along with tutors' offices, the college archive and a medical room. The offices of the Global Ocean Commission
The Global Ocean Commission was an international initiative between 2013 and 2016 to raise awareness, and promote action to address, the degradation of the ocean and help restore it to full health and productivity. Its focus was on the high sea ...
, co-chaired by José María Figueres
José María Figueres Olsen (born 24 December 1954 in San José, Costa Rica) is a Costa Rican businessman and politician, who served as President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. He also ran for president in the 2022 presidential election bu ...
, Trevor Manuel
Trevor Andrew Manuel (born 31 January 1956) is a South African politician who served in the government of South Africa as Minister of Finance from 1996 to 2009, during the presidencies of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, an ...
and David Miliband, were housed in Darbishire as part of a partnership with Somerville in 2012–2016, when the organisation completed its work.
Darbishire Quad is described on the opening page of ''Gaudy Night
''Gaudy Night'' (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third including Harriet Vane.
The dons of Harriet Vane's '' alma mater'', the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford (based on S ...
'' by alumna Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
. The clock was donated by alumna Eleanor Rathbone.
Chapel
Built largely with funds provided by alumna Emily Georgiana Kemp
Emily Georgiana Kemp (1860–1939) was a British adventurer, artist and writer. She was awarded the Grande Médaille de Vermeil by the French Geographical Society for her 1921 work ''Chinese Mettle''.
Biography
Kemp was a Baptist from a we ...
in 1935, Somerville Chapel reflects the non-denominational principle on which the college was founded in 1879. No religious tests were used for admission and non-denominational Christian prayers were said in college.
Instead of a chaplain, there is a "Chapel Director", in keeping with its non-denominational tradition. The chapel provides opportunities for Christian worship in addition to hosting speakers with a multiple range of religious perspectives. It holds an excellent mixed-voice Choir of Somerville College, which tours and issues occasional recordings.
Hostel and Holtby
Hostel is a small block between House and Darbishire completed in 1950 by Geddes Hyslop
Charles Geddes Clarkson Hyslop (29 December 1900''1939 England and Wales Register'' – 13 November 1988)''England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007'' was a 20th-century British architect, trained at the British School in Rome. ...
. It houses 10 students on three floors. The Bursary is on the ground floor.
Holtby, designed in 1951 and completed in 1956 by Hyslop, lies above the library extension, adjacent to Park. It has ten rooms for undergraduates and is named after the alumna Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby (23 June 1898 – 29 September 1935) was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel '' South Riding'', which was posthumously published in 1936.
Biography
Holtby was born to a prosperous farming family in ...
.
Vaughan and Margery Fry & Elizabeth Nuffield House
Designed by Sir Philip Dowson
Sir Philip Henry Manning Dowson (16 August 1924 – 22 August 2014) was a leading British architect. He served as President of the Royal Academy from 1993 to 1999.
Early life
Philip Dowson was born in South Africa. Having moved to England, he ...
between 1958 and 1966, Vaughan
Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...
and Margery Fry
__NOTOC__
Margery is a heavily buffered, lightly populated hamlet in the Reigate and Banstead district, in the English county of Surrey. It sits on the North Downs, is bordered by the London Orbital Motorway, at a lower altitude, and its predo ...
& Elizabeth Nuffield
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sc ...
House (commonly shortened to Margery Fry) are both named for former principals of the college, while Elizabeth Nuffield was an important proponent of women's education and along with her husband Lord Nuffield
William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, (10 October 1877 – 22 August 1963) was an English motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was the founder of Morris Motors Limited and is remembered as the founder of the Nuffield Foundation, ...
, a financial benefactor of the college. Margery Fry was opened in 1964 by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (''née'' Swarup Nehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian diplomat and politician who was the 6th Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964 and 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 19 ...
and Vaughan in 1966. Constructed in the same architectural style, with an exterior concrete frame standing away from the walls of the interior edifice, the two buildings overlie a podium of shops and an arcaded walkway in Little Clarendon Street.
Vaughan is the larger of the two, with eleven rows to its concrete frame compared to eight. It is Grade II-listed and contains some 60 undergraduate rooms, smaller than those of Margery Fry and used exclusively for first-year students, along with the junior deans. Vaughan was refurbished in 2013, with new bathroom facilities, including, for the first time, sinks. Beneath the two buildings, a tunnel provides access to Somerville from Little Clarendon Street.
Margery Fry serves as the centre of the postgraduate student community at Somerville, with 24 graduate rooms. Other accommodation for graduate students is provided in buildings adjacent to the college.
Wolfson
Sir Philip Dowson was commissioned to design a building at the back of the college to house undergraduates and offices for fellows and Wolfson. Like his other work in Somerville, it is constructed largely of glass and concrete; it is also Grade II listed. A four-storey building with five bays on each floor, Wolfson has impressive views of Walton Street from the rear and Somerville's main quadrangle from the front. Wolfson is named after the building's main benefactor, Sir Isaac Wolfson
Sir Isaac Wolfson, 1st Baronet FRS (; 17 September 1897 – 20 June 1991) was a Scottish businessman and philanthropist. He was managing director of Great Universal Stores (G.U.S. or Gussies) 1932–1947 and chairman 1947–1987. He establishe ...
, and was opened in 1967 by Principal Barbara Craig, with Harold Macmillan, Dorothy Hodgkin and Lord Wolfson giving speeches.
The ground floor contains the Flora Anderson Hall (FAH) and Brittain-Williams Room, named after Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
and Shirley Williams
Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...
, the college's most famous mother-daughter alumnae. The room was designed in 2012 by the architect Niall McLaughlin Niall McLaughlin Architects is an architectural firm in London, England. Niall McLaughlin established the practice in 1991. He has been described as "a favourite with Oxbridge clients"; as of 2022, McLaughlin has had commissions from 15 colleges at ...
and opened on 29 November 2013 by Williams at an event that included her unveiling a portrait of herself, which now hangs in the room. The FAH is used for lectures and events, notably college parties (or bops) and mock exams, known as Collections
Collection or Collections may refer to:
* Cash collection, the function of an accounts receivable department
* Collection (church), money donated by the congregation during a church service
* Collection agency, agency to collect cash
* Collection ...
.
Margaret Thatcher Centre and Dorothy Hodgkin Quadrangle
Named after the Margaret Thatcher, alumna-Prime Minister, the MTC comprises a lecture room, ante room and lobby used for meetings, conferences and other internal college events. The lecture room has full AV facilities and for 60 seated patrons. A bust of Margaret Thatcher stands in the lobby and the meeting room has portraits of Somerville's two prime-minister alumnae: of Margaret Thatcher by Michael Noakes
Michael Noakes (28 October 1933 – 30 May 2018) was an English artist and portrait painter. and Indira Gandhi by Sanjay Bhattacharyya.
The Dorothy Hodgkin Quad (DHQ) was conceived in 1985, completed in 1991 and named after Somerville's Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel Prize-winner. The quadrangle is above the MTC and designed around self-contained flats of two and four bedrooms with communal kitchens, housing mainly finalists and some second-year students.
Architect Geoffrey Beard's scheme was submitted to Oxford City Council in 1986 and the energies of Sir Geoffrey Leigh and alumna and former principal Baroness Daphne Park
Daphne Margaret Sybil Désirée Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth, Order of St Michael and St George, CMG, Order of the British Empire, OBE, Royal Society of Arts, FRSA (1 September 1921 – 24 March 2010) was a British intelligence officer, dipl ...
brought support from around the world. The buildings were opened in 1991 by Margaret Thatcher, Dorothy Hodgkin, Principal Catherine Hughes (civil servant), Catherine Hughes and College Visitor Baron Roy Jenkins.
St Paul's Nursery
Somerville College was the first Oxford college to provide a nursery school, nursery for children of Fellows and staff and is still one of the few colleges to do so. Alumna Dorothy Hodgkin donated much of her Nobel Prize money to the project. St Paul's Nursery is also open to families unconnected with the college and cares for 16 children between the ages of three months and five years.
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter
ROQ East and West flank the north side of Somerville and overlook the site of the university's new Blavatnik School of Government and Mathematical Institute. Completed in 2011, they were the first new buildings in the university's Radcliffe Observatory Quarter and have won four awards for their architect Niall McLaughlin. The project was also awarded Oxford City Council's David Steel Sustainable Building Award, being commended for balancing Somerville's collegiate heritage with the need for energy efficiency. Energy-efficiency measures include renewable technologies such as solar thermal energy and ground source heat pumps.
The buildings house 68 students in en-suite rooms. There are several rooms and facilities designed to help those with disabilities, including lifts and adjoining carer rooms. The buildings were funded by donations of over £2.7 million from over 1,000 alumni and friends of the college and by a significant loan. There is now an unimpeded view of the Radcliffe Observatory.
The Terrace
The bar and café of the college, The Terrace, opened in 2013 (replacing the old bar in House) and is attached to the Vaughan building. It is housed in a mainly glass structure, with seating in the college colours of red and black. It has an open-air terrace (building), terrace looking down on Little Clarendon Street
Little Clarendon Street is a short shopping street in northwest Oxford, England. It runs east-west between the south end of Woodstock Road opposite St Giles' Church to the east, Somerville College to the north and Walton Street to the west ...
. The Terrace has the usual pool table and bar facilities and serves the college drink, "Stone-cold Jane Austen", consisting of blue alcopop, VK, Southern Comfort, and Magners cider, as well as the "College Triple" and the non-alcoholic "Somerville Sunset".
Catherine Hughes Building
Named after Somerville's late principal in 1989–1996, the Catherine Hughes (civil servant), Catherine Hughes Building was completed in October 2019 and provides 68 additional bedrooms. Designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects, it includes en suite bathrooms, kitchens and accessible rooms on every floor and a new communal study area for graduate students.[
The red-brick building has a frontage onto Walton Street and additional access from the college gardens, aligning with key levels on the adjacent Penrose Building. The bedrooms are arranged in clusters with kitchens and circulation spaces forming social focal points.
The building's construction has given Somerville sufficient accommodation to be one of three Oxford colleges which can allow all students applying from 2017 to live in college for the entirety of their three or four-year undergraduate degree courses.][
]
Gardens
Somerville is one of few Oxford colleges where students may walk on the grass. An unassuming frontage opens onto a vast green space looked after by two gardeners. The original site consisted of a paddock, an orchard and a vegetable garden and was bounded by large trees. It was home to a donkey, two cows, a pony and a pig. The paddock was soon transformed into tennis courts, where huge tents were erected during World War I. During World War II, large water tanks were dug in the Main Quad and in Darbishire Quad in case of firebombing, and the lawns dug up and planted with vegetables.
In the Main or Library Quad has a cedar planted by Harold Macmillan in 1976, after an earlier cedar fell victim to a winter storm. Another tree, a ''Picea likiangensis'' (var. ''rubescens''), was planted in 2007 on the chapel lawn, providing Somerville with an outdoor Christmas tree. The library border of lavender and ''Agapanthus'' references the bluestocking
''Bluestocking'' is a term for an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including E ...
reputation of Somerville. The tory blue ''Ceratostigma willmottianum'' stands outside the Margaret Thatcher Centre. The garden outside the Thatcher Centre, now dedicated to Lisa Minoprio, was originally designed by the former director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford Botanic Garden and Lecturer in Plant Sciences Timothy Walker (botanist), Timothy Walker, and retains yellow and blue as its theme colours.
There are nods to Somerville's long-standing links with India, the most notable being a large specimen of the Indian horse chestnut, ''Aesculus indica'', planted on the Library lawn in 2019. Features of interest include a narrow bed of low-growing Mediterranean plants in front of Wolfson in a modernist style, a varied selection of mature trees in the Library Quad, and large herbaceous borders containing emblematic Somerville thistles (''Echinops'').[
The annual summer and winter bedding plants in Darbishire Quad, the beds outside the SCR, and those in pots around site have traditionally been in the Victorian style, to reflect the era of inception of the college. However, this is evolving due to a change in garden management in late 2019, with aims of following more environmentally friendly growing principles and developing a more contemporary style. The western wall of Penrose and the northern wall of Vaughan form a secluded area, historically known as the Fellows' Garden (currently in a transitional phase). It is distinct from the main quad and separated from it by a hedge and a wall, and which were previously kitchen gardens. This walled garden is home to a sundial, commissioned in 1926 and commemorating first principal ]Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre
Madeleine Septimia Shaw Lefevre (6 May 1835 – 19 September 1914) was the Principal of Somerville Hall for its first 10 years, from 1879 to 1889. The hall became Somerville College, Oxford in 1894.
Early life
Shaw Lefevre was born in 1835, th ...
, and a garden roller gifted by the parents of tutor Rose Sidgwick.
In 1962, Henry Moore lent his work ''Falling Warrior'' to the college and Barbara Hepworth lent ''Core'' shortly afterwards. There are also permanent sculptures by Wendy Taylor, Friedrich Werthmann and Somervillian Polly Ionides. The most striking sculpture on site is Taylor's ''Triad'' (1971), situated on the Chapel Lawn in front of Maitland building.
Student life
In 2011 student satisfaction was rated in some categories as the highest in the university. Central to it is its large quad, onto which most accommodation blocks back; it is often filled with students in summer. Somerville is one of the few Oxford colleges where students (as opposed to just fellows) may walk on the grass.[ Somerville is sometimes nicknamed ''The Ville''. Formal (university), Formal Halls take place on some Tuesdays and Fridays about six times a term. No ]gowns
A gown, from the Saxon word, ''gunna'', is a usually loose outer garment from knee-to-full-length worn by men and women in Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the 17th century, and continuing today in certain professions; later, the term ''gown ...
are worn and the grace (prayer), grace is ''Benedictus benedicat''. The college song is ''Omnes laetae nunc sodales''.
Sports
Somerville has a gym beneath Vaughan with treadmills, cross-trainers and weights. It shares a sports ground with Wadham College, Oxford, Wadham College and St Hugh's College, Oxford, St Hugh's College, in Marston Ferry Road. There are clubs and teams in men's and women's football, rugby (with Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Corpus Christi), mixed lacrosse, cricket, swimming, hockey, netball, basketball, pool, water polo, tennis, squash, badminton, cycling and croquet.
Both the Somerville cricket and netball team won Cuppers for the 2014/15 season.[ The swimming team won Cuppers for the 2015/16 season.
]
Rowing
Somerville formed a rowing team in 1921. It competes in both of the annual university bumps races, Torpids and Summer Eights. The women are the most successful women's rowing team at the university, having won the title Head of the River eight times in Summer Eights and five times in Torpids. The club shares the award-winning University College Boathouse on The Isis with St Peter's College, Oxford, St Peter's College, University College
In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...
and Wolfson College, Oxford, Wolfson College.
Choir
The Choir of Somerville College is mixed voice and led by the Director of Chapel Music, Will Dawes. In conjunction with the organ scholars, the choir is central to the musical life at the college.
There are regular concerts and cathedral visits, and recitals featuring soloists from the choir. In recent years it has toured Germany (2005 and 2009), Italy (2010) and the United States (2014 and 2016). It sings every term-time Sunday at the evening service. The organ of the college chapel is a traditionally voiced instrument by Harrison & Harrison.
Somerville offers up to five Choral Exhibitions a year to applicants reading any subject.
The college choir has released two CDs on the Stone Records label, "Requiem Aeternam" (2012) and "Advent Calendar" (2013).
Triennial Ball
Once every three years, Somerville hosts a ball jointly with Jesus College, Oxford. The last, for 1500 people, was held in May 2019 and the next ball will come in 2022.
However, the 2013 ball, ''The Last Ball'', was mired in controversy reported in national news. The organisers had intended to display a live nurse shark as entertainment. Permission for the shark was initially granted by the principal Alice Prochaska, but was subsequently revoked following student protests. The ball was widely condemned for poor organisation, examples of which included a lack of canapés and the presence of only one food stand, serving pork; the vegetarian options were said to run out quickly and revellers were reportedly set on fire by the pork rôtisserie. ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' reported "The ball descended into farce with guests questioning what the organisers had done with the money paid by 1,000 guests."
Academic reputation
Before men were admitted Somerville, under the principalship of Barbara Craig, established a position at or near the head of the Norrington Table. Currently Somerville is in the lower half of the university's colleges for academic achievement. For the academic year 2018/19, it came 21st out of 30 in the Norrington Table, which lists the university's undergraduate colleges in order of their students' examination performances. The college has been recognized as a University College of Sanctuary by the UK charity City of Sanctuary (UK), City of Sanctuary, and offers a fully-funded postgraduate Sanctuary scholarship.
''University Challenge''
Somerville has had recent success disproportionate to its size on the TV quiz show ''University Challenge''. It won the competition once, triumphing in the University Challenge 2001–02 series by beating Imperial College London, Imperial College, London by 200 points to 185. Croatian quizzer Dorjana Širola was one of the contestants. Recently the college team reached the final of the University Challenge 2013–14 series, losing in the final to Trinity College, Cambridge, with a score of 135 to 240.
India
Somerville College plays a major role in relations between Oxford and India. Cornelia Sorabji, born in the Bombay Presidency of British India, became the first Indian woman to study at any British university, when she came to Somerville in 1889 to read law, while Indira Gandhi, India's first female prime minister, read Modern History at the college in 1937. Radhabai Subbarayan, the first woman member of the Rajya Sabha, Indian Council of States (Rajya Sabha) studied at Somerville College as well, as did princess Bamba Sutherland, the last surviving member of a family that had ruled the Sikh Empire in the Punjab region, Punjab, and her sister Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh. Other list of Somerville College, Oxford people, alumni with links to India include Moon Moon Sen, Agnes de Selincourt, Smit Singh, Gurmehar Kaur, Hilda Stewart Reid and Utsa Patnaik.[ Former principal Barbara Craig (1967–1980) and fellow Aditi Lahiri were born in Kolkata.
Sonia Gandhi visited Somerville in 2002 and presented a portrait of her late mother-in-law to her alma mater. Indira Gandhi received an honorary degree from the college in 1971.][
In 2012, the college and Oxford University announced a £19-million ''Indira Gandhi Centre for Sustainable Development''.][ India provided £3 million and the university and college £5.5 million. The name was later changed to the ''Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development'' (OICSD).][Indira Gandhi’s name dropped from Oxford centre]
''Hindustan Times'', 15 July 2017 The OICSD carries out research on sustainable development challenges facing India and provides scholarships for outstanding Indian students. The centre now hosts 12 India scholars. A new building is planned in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, adjacent to the college's ROQ accommodation.[
Choir of Somerville College, Oxford, Somerville's choir was in 2018 the first Oxford college choir to tour India.
]
People associated with Somerville
Alumni
Somervillians include Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
and Indira Gandhi, Nobel Prize winning scientist Dorothy Hodgkin, television personalities Esther Rantzen and Susie Dent, reformer Cornelia Sorabji, writers Marjorie Boulton, A. S. Byatt, Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
, Susan Cooper, Penelope Fitzgerald, Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby (23 June 1898 – 29 September 1935) was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel '' South Riding'', which was posthumously published in 1936.
Biography
Holtby was born to a prosperous farming family in ...
, Nicole Krauss, Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her ...
and Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
, politicians Shirley Williams
Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...
, Thérèse Coffey, Margaret Jay and Sam Gyimah, Princess Bamba Sutherland and Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh, her sister, biologist Marian Dawkins, philosophers G. E. M. Anscombe, Patricia Churchland, Philippa Foot and Mary Midgley, psychologist Anne Treisman, archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, actress Moon Moon Sen, soprano Emma Kirkby, banker Baroness Vadera and numerous (women's rights) activists.
Somerville alumnae have achieved an impressive number of "firsts", both (inter)nationally and at the University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
. Arguably the most prominent of these are: the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher; the first, and only, British woman to win a Nobel Prize in science Dorothy Hodgkin and the first woman to lead the world's largest democracy Indira Gandhi, who was Prime Minister of India for much of the 1970s.
Somerville has educated at least 28 Dames, 17 Heads of Houses, heads of Colleges of the University of Oxford, Oxford colleges, 11 life peers, ten Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), MP's, four Olympic Games, Olympic rowers, three of ''The 50 greatest British writers since 1945'', two prime ministers, two princesses, a queen consort, and a Nobel laureate.
Former students of Somerville belong to an alumni group, the Somerville Association, which was originally founded in 1888.
Fellows
Notable List of Somerville College, Oxford people#Fellows, fellows of Somerville College (excluding alumni) include philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe, biochemist Louise Johnson, classical archaeologist Margarete Bieber, Egyptologist Käthe Bosse-Griffiths, classicists Edith Hall and Lotte Labowsky, author Alan Hollinghurst, astronomer Chris Lintott, International Federation of University Women founder Rose Sidgwick, botanist Timothy Walker (botanist), Timothy Walker and philologist Anna Morpurgo Davies.
Principals
The first principal of Somerville Hall was Madeleine Shaw-Lefèvre (1879–1889). The first principal of Somerville College was Agnes Catherine Maitland (1889–1906), when in 1894 it became the first of the five women's halls to adopt the title of college, the first to appoint its own teaching staff, the first to set an entrance examination, and the first to build a library. She was succeeded by the classical scholar Emily Penrose
Dame Emily Penrose, (18 September 1858 – 26 January 1942) was an ancient historian and principal of three early women's university colleges in the United Kingdom: Bedford College from 1893 until 1898, Royal Holloway College from 1898 until ...
(1906–1926), who set up in 1903 the ''Mary Somerville Research Fellowship'' offering women in Oxford opportunities for research.
The current principal is Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, who took up the appointment in August 2017, succeeding Alice Prochaska. To date seven principals have been alumnae of Somerville, two of St Hilda's College, Oxford, St Hilda's College.
Coat of arms and motto
Like all Oxford colleges, Somerville has a variety of symbols and colours which are associated with it. The college's colours, which feature on the Academic scarf, college scarf and on the blades of its boats, are red and black. The combination was originally adopted in the 1890s. Its flag has the shield from the arms on a yellow background.
The two colours also feature in the college's coat of arms, which depicts three Star (heraldry), mullets in Chevron (insignia), chevron reversed gules, between six Cross#As emblems and symbols, crosses crosslet fitched Sable (heraldry), sable. The college's motto, ''Donec rursus impleat orbem'', was originally that of the family of Mary Somerville. Her family befriended the new hall, allowing it to adopt their arms and motto. The Latin motto itself is described as "baffling" as, although it translates as "Until It Should Fill the World Again", what the Subject (grammar), subject of the sentence ("it") is left unspecified. The crest (heraldry), crest, which is often omitted, is a hand grasping a crescent and occasionally a helmet (heraldry), helmet with mantling is added.
In popular culture
*The mystery fiction, mystery novel ''Gaudy Night
''Gaudy Night'' (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third including Harriet Vane.
The dons of Harriet Vane's '' alma mater'', the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford (based on S ...
'' by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
featuring Lord Peter Wimsey is set in List of fictional Oxford colleges, Shrewsbury College (which is a thinly veiled take on Sayers' own Somerville College).
*In the 2014 film ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2'' directed by Marc Webb, one of the protagonists, Gwen Stacy, is offered a place to study medicine at Somerville. Its coat of arms is featured in one scene.
*The 2014 biopic ''Testament of Youth (film), Testament of Youth'', based on Brittain's memoir of the same name, substituted Merton College, Oxford in the scenes showing Brittain's time as a student at Somerville, arguing that filming in Somerville itself would have been too difficult in light of the new buildings constructed there since the film's time period.
*Somerville is the recognisable model for St Bride's College in ''Michaelmas Term at St Bride's'' by Brunette Coleman (Philip Larkin).
*In the film ''Iris (2001 film), Iris'' from 2001, telling of alumna Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her ...
and her relationship with her husband John Bayley (writer), John Bayley, whom she meets during a dinner at the Somerville.
*Somerville is featured in the BBC series ''Testament of Youth (TV series), Testament of Youth'' (1979).
*In the Japanese manga series ''Master Keaton'', the main character married a mathematics student from Somerville.
*St Jerome's College in ''Endymion Spring'' by alumnus Matthew Skelton is based on Somerville. The cat Mephistopheles is based on the former college cat Pogo.
*Amory Clay, the main character in ''Sweet Caress'' by William Boyd (writer), William Boyd, was encouraged by her teacher to go to Somerville.
*Grace Ritchie, the protagonist in ''Slave Of The Passion'' by Deirdre Wilson has gone up to Somerville.
*Helena Warner from ''A Likeness in Stone'' by Julia Wallis Martin, was a student of Somerville.
*Eleanor Drummond, the protagonist in ''Daddy's Girl'' by Valerie Mendes, went to Somerville.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
Official website
JCR website
MCR website
Choir Website
{{Authority control
Somerville College, Oxford, Somerville College
Colleges of the University of Oxford
Educational institutions established in 1879
1879 establishments in England
Former women's universities and colleges in the United Kingdom
Buildings and structures of the University of Oxford
Grade II listed buildings in Oxford
Grade II listed educational buildings
Feminism in England
Charities based in Oxfordshire