Pembroke College

Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2007, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £45.5 million.

History

In the early seventeenth century, the endowment of Thomas Tesdale - a merchant from nearby Abingdon - and Richard Wightwick - a clergyman from Berkshire - enabled the conversion of the Broadgates Hall, which had been a University hostel for law students since its construction in the fifteenth century, to form the basis of a fully fledged college. The letters patent to found the college were signed by King James I in 1624, with the college being named after William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain and then-Chancellor of the University.

Following its foundation, the college proceeded to expand around Broadgates, building what is now known as "Old Quad" in the 1600s. Built in stages through the seventeenth century out of the local Cotswold limestone, space restrictions saw the south-side of the Quad built directly on top of the old City Wall. A Chapel was built in 1732, and the introduction of further accommodation and the Hall in the mid-nineteenth century created "Chapel Quad" - widely considered one of the most beautiful Quads in the University. The Chapel was designed and built by William Townsend, although the interior was dramatically redesigned by Charles Kempe - a Pembroke graduate - in 1884. Pembroke alumnus Dr. Damon Wells is a significant benefactor of the College over many years; he enabled the restoration of the Chapel in 1972, and continues to support the Chaplaincy and History Fellowship. The Chapel which is still used for regular worship bears his name.

The most recent expansion of the college came in the 1960s, after the closure of Beef Lane to the north of Chapel Quad. The private houses north of the closed road were acquired by the College in a piecemeal fashion and reversed so that access was only possible from the rear. The new area is now known as "North Quad", which was formally opened in 1962. A modern annex was built near to college on the banks of the Isis at Grandpont, provides accommodation for almost a hundred undergraduates, usually those in their final year. The building is commonly known as "The GAB", after being named after the diplomat Sir Geoffrey Arthur - a former master of the college (1975-1985).

Samuel Johnson was one of the College's more famous alumni, though he did not complete his degree (he was later awarded an honorary degree by the University); lack of funds forced him to leave Oxford after about a year and a half. Two of his desks and various other possessions are displayed around the college. James Smithson, whose bequest founded the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (despite him never having visited the United States) was an undergraduate at Pembroke, under the name "James Lewis Macie" — he changed his name to that of his natural father after the death of his mother. Meanwhile Senator J. William Fulbright, who established the Fulbright Fellowships, was a Rhodes Scholar at Pembroke in the 1920s.

Although he had been an undergraduate at Exeter College, J.R.R. Tolkien was a Fellow of Pembroke from 1925 to 1945, and wrote The Hobbit and the first two books of The Lord of the Rings during his time there.

Among the College's more recent Masters was Roger Bannister, the first man to run the mile in under four minutes.

Pembroke was described by John Betjeman, in Summoned by Bells:

How empty, creeper-grown and odd
Seems lonely Pembroke's second quad
Still, when I see it, do I wonder why
That college so polite and shy
Should have more character than Queen's
Or Univ, splendid in the High.