| Balliol College | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||
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 Arms:Azure, a lion rampant argent, crowned or, impaling Gules, an orle argent[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Broad Street, Oxford | |||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 51°45′17″N1°15′28″W / 51.7547°N 1.2578°W /51.7547; -1.2578 | |||||||||||||||||
| Full name | The Master and Scholars of Balliol College in the University of Oxford | |||||||||||||||||
| Latin name | Collegium Balliolense | |||||||||||||||||
| Established | 1263; 762 years ago (1263) | |||||||||||||||||
| Named for | John I de Balliol | |||||||||||||||||
| Sister college | St John's College, Cambridge | |||||||||||||||||
| Master | Helen Ghosh | |||||||||||||||||
| Undergraduates | c.395(2023)[2] | |||||||||||||||||
| Postgraduates | c.405(2023)[2] | |||||||||||||||||
| Endowment | £146 m(2023)[3] | |||||||||||||||||
| Website | balliol | |||||||||||||||||
| JCR | www | |||||||||||||||||
| MCR | www | |||||||||||||||||
| Boat club | Balliol College Boat Club | |||||||||||||||||
| Map | ||||||||||||||||||
  Location in Oxford city centre | ||||||||||||||||||
Balliol College (/ˈbeɪliəl/BAY-lee-əl) is aconstituent college of theUniversity of Oxford, England. Founded in 1263 by noblemanJohn I de Balliol,[4] it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world.[5]
With a governing body of a master and around 80 fellows, the college's main buildings are located on Broad Street with additional buildings to the east in Jowett Walk and Holywell Manor.[6] As one of the larger colleges of Oxford University, Balliol typically has around 400 of both undergraduates and graduates. The college pioneered thePPE degree in the 1920s.[7]
Balliol hasnotable alumni from a wide range of disciplines. These include 13Nobel Prize winners and fourBritish prime ministers.[8][9]
Balliol College was founded in about 1263 byJohn I de Balliol under the guidance ofWalter of Kirkham, theBishop of Durham.[10] 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.[11] After de Balliol's death in 1268, his widow,Dervorguilla of Galloway (their son would go on to becomeKing of Scotland), 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 the present.[12]
Balliol lays claim to being the oldest Oxford college, though this is disputed by bothUniversity College andMerton. Balliol's claim is that a house of scholars was established by the founder in Oxford in around 1263, in contrast to Merton, which was the first college to be granted an official statute in 1274, and University College, which, while provisionally founded by will in 1249, was only officially established around 1280. However, Balliol also acknowledges that the other two have legitimate claims on their respective bases, depending on what criteria are used to define the oldest.[13][14]
For over 700 years, Balliol College admitted men only.New College had in 1964 resolved to admit women, but had been prevented from doing so without the approval of the university, which argued that this would be detrimental to the existing women's colleges. On 2 June 1971, a consilium at Balliol voted 26–2 to admit women, and at the next college meeting on 6 December 1971 it was resolved 30–8 to admit women "as soon as the change in its Statutes permitting this was approved by the Privy Council". Permission was granted by the university on 8 March 1977. With the appointment of Carol Clark to a Tutorial Fellowship in Modern Languages in 1973, Balliol became the first ancient all-male college to appoint a female fellow.[15]
Before the full admission of women as undergraduates, the college had decided to establish a co-educational graduate institution. The decision was made on 16 March 1964, and the senior tutor approachedSt Anne's College shortly after this. The creation of the Balliol–St Anne's Graduate Institution with St Anne's in 1967 led to the coeducation of men and women on theHolywell Manor site. Following the arrival of women at Balliol and men at St Anne's in 1979, the joint Graduate Institution was terminated in 1984 by the consent of both colleges. Holywell Manor is now solely a part of Balliol College.[citation needed]
In 1979, along with many other previously all-male colleges, Balliol accepted its first cohort of female students.[16] One of the first woman undergraduates to live at Balliol was Elena Ceva-Valla, who arrived on 16 September 1979. Other female undergraduates who arrived that term wereCressida Dick, Katy Koralek and Penny Phillips. In 2010, the college unveiled a sundial in the Garden Quad commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the admission of women to the college,[17] inscribed with the phrase "About Time". The first portrait of a woman in hall since that of the co-founder,Dervorguilla of Galloway, was unveiled in 2012, depicting benefactor andOxford Internet Institute founderDame Stephanie Shirley.[18] This portrait has since been joined by portraits of Carol Clark and the mathematicianDame Frances Kirwan.[19][20]
In 2018,Dame Helen Ghosh succeededSir Drummond Bone to become the college's first female master.[21] In the same year,Dame Frances Kirwan became the twentiethSavilian Professor of Geometry and the first woman to hold that post.[22]
In 2021, students sent an open letter to the college and protested regarding their welfare following an alleged incident of sexual assault on a female graduate student that was covered byAl Jazeera English.[23][24]
Balliol has a more or less permanent teaching staff, known as fellows. The college statutes provide for various categories of fellows and these include both tutorial fellows and professorial fellows. Professorial fellows areprofessors andreaders of the university who are allocated to the college by the university. One of these professorships is theBeit Professor of Commonwealth History, which is currently held byJames Belich. The Professorship of Internet Studies is currently held by political scientistPhilip N. Howard. Other professorships include theBoden Professor of Sanskrit and theMontague Burton Professor of International Relations. Official fellows are those who hold tutorial or administrative appointments in the college. There are also senior and junior research fellows. The college can also elect "distinguished persons" to honorary fellowships.[25]
The fellows are supplemented byacademics on short-term contracts. In addition, there are visiting international academics who come to Oxford for periods of up to a year, an example of this is the George Eastman Visiting Professorial Fellowship.[26]
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Balliol College is run by the master and fellows of the college. The master of the college must be "the person who is, in their [the Fellows] judgement, most fit for the government of the College as a place of religion, learning, and education".[27] The current master is DameHelen Ghosh, former Director-General of theNational Trust andHome OfficePermanent Secretary, and an alumna ofSt Hugh's andHertford colleges.
Although the rules in no way suggest there is a preference for an alumnus or fellow of the college to be chosen, there have been few who were not. Only one in the twentieth century had no previous connection. A former student of the college,Baruch Blumberg, was the first American master and the firstNobel Laureate, receiving his prize in medicine for the identification of thehepatitis B virus. The former Master of Balliol, SirDrummond Bone, was a post-graduate student (Snell Exhibitioner from Glasgow University) and a scholar of the Romantic poetLord Byron, and held the post from October 2011 to April 2018.[28]
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The college has been on its present site since its inception by Balliol's scholars as their residence with 1263 considered the traditional "foundation" date.[29]
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The oldest parts of the college are the north and west ranges of the front quadrangle, dated to 1431, respectively the medieval hall, west side, now the "new library" and the "old library" first floor north side. The ground floor is the Old Senior Common Room. Balliol's second library pre-dates the publication of printed books in Europe. There is a possibility that the original Master's Chamber, south west side, adorned with a fine oriel window, is earlier than these; it is now the Master's Dining Room.[citation needed]
William Grey, Bishop of Ely, was a benefactor of the college in the 15th century. Grey devoted much care to the collection of manuscripts, and wherever he lived constantly employed scribes to make copies of books he could not otherwise obtain. Many of these he had adorned with costly miniatures and initial letters by the skill of an artist who worked for him at Florence. It was his desire to make his collection the nucleus of a library for Balliol College, to the building of which, as well as to that of the master's lodgings and of the old buttery and hall, he contributed largely. The work was finished about 1477 byRobert Abdy, then master of the college, and enriched with some two hundred manuscripts, the bishop's gift. Of these, many were destroyed in the reign ofEdward VI and during the great rebellion, and by Wood's time few of the miniatures in the remaining volumes had escaped mutilation. But by 1890, no less than 152 of Grey's codices were still in the possession of the college, and form a large part ofRoger Mynors's 1963 catalogue of the college's manuscripts.[30] The bishop's coat of arms (gules, alion rampant, within a bordure engrailed argent) is displayed on two windows of the Old Library, and in the panels below the window of theMaster's dining room.[citation needed] The chapel is the third (perhaps fourth) on the site and was designed byWilliam Butterfield in 1857.[citation needed]
Alfred Waterhouse designed the mainBroad Street frontage of the college (1867–68), along with gateway and tower, known as the Brackenbury Buildings after philanthropist and donorHannah Brackenbury, replacing earlier structures (Staircases I–VII). The first staircase next to the chapel contains the organ sholar's lodgings.[citation needed]
Under a statute of 1881,New Inn Hall, one of the remainingmedieval halls, was merged into Balliol College in 1887.[31] Balliol acquired New Inn Hall's admissions and other records for 1831–1887[32] as well as the library of New Inn Hall, which largely contained 18th-century law books.[31] The New Inn Hall site was later sold and is now part ofSt Peter's College, Oxford.[citation needed]
South-side is the front part of the Master's Lodgings on Broad Street from the Waterhouse improvements of the 1860s of the front quad. The neighbour to this is the Fisher Building of 1759 (Stc X) The undistinguished looking Stc XI, south west side, is in fact the oldest structure in this quadrangle, 1720, originally intended as accommodation for scholars from Bristol, hence its name. Continuing the west-side Stc XII–XIV dates from 1826, byGeorge Basevi, and marks the beginnings of the college's academic renaissance being required for the increasing number of commoners applying for places. Stc XV by Warren of 1912 filled in the last gap of the quadrangle; the ground floor and basement is the principal Junior Common Room. This obscures the lines of the Salvin designed Stc XVI–XIX with the tower of 1853, as does the 1968 building by Beard Stc XX, replacing a Victorian structure. This completely hides a formal gateway similar to that at the Broad Street main entrance, this can be viewed outside from Little Magdalen Street, through the gap marked XIX is the small function room "Massey Room". At the north side of Stc XX is the "Back Gate" which is part of the 1906 Warren building, west and north side, Stc XXI. 1 St Giles' is its neighbour which is part of the college and houses theOxford Internet Institute. Beard's Stc XXII replaces Victorian rooms, which were provided from the Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson benefaction. Beard's Stc XX and XXII are connected by the Snell Bridge accommodation at third-floor level, which was provided from Glasgow University's Snell Benefaction.[citation needed]
The college's dining hall was built in 1877, replacing an older hall in the front quadrangle, which had become too small for the college's population.[33] Designed by Alfred Waterhouse,[34] the hall is built in geometric style, usingBath stone and Tisbury stone, with roof and woodwork made of oak.[33] The hall features aWillis organ, again instituted by Benjamin Jowett.[35] The old hall became part of the library.[36]
The ground floor contains the college bar and shop, known as "The Buttery" (west side) and the Senior Common Room lunch room (east side). The 1966 new Senior Common Room range (Stc XXIII) (northern and eastern sides) was a benefaction of theBernard Sunley Foundation and contains some smaller rooms and the principal SCR lounge, replacing Victorian facilities. Below this is a Lecture Room ("LR XXIII").[citation needed]
The east side of the quad is a neighbouring wall with Trinity College, at the southern end is the Master's Garden, in front of the chapel, and the Fellows' Garden in front of the "Old" (Senior) Common Room. The Tower forming the corner between the "Old Hall" and "Old Library" is also by Salvin, of 1853 and balances that at Stc XVI–XIX.[citation needed]
Underneath part of the Garden Quad and extending into Trinity were theBalliol-Trinity Laboratories, the most prominent Oxford physical and chemical laboratories in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which physical chemistHenry Moseley (originator of theatomic number) andNobel LaureateCyril Hinshelwood worked. These are now disused, following the construction of the universityPhysical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory onSouth Parks Road.[citation needed]
The majority of research and post-graduate students are housed in theHolywell Manor complex, a Grade II listed building acquired by Balliol in 1932 under the direction ofKenneth Norman Bell. It hosts a collection of artworks by alumni of the college, including a mural byGilbert Spencer depicting the college's founding, and hosts a biennial Holywell Manor Festival,[37] Garden Party, and Garden Play. Balliol hosts more graduate students than any other ancient college,[38] and the Manor forms the centre of this community, providing facilities such as the Middle Common Room (MCR) itself, an extensive garden, TV and computer rooms, music practice rooms, a 'Cockpit' leisure room, and the graduate-student-run 'Megaron' bar. The Manor from 1967 until the full admission of women at Balliol in 1979 was host to the Balliol-St Anne's Graduate Institution, including students fromSt Anne's College, Oxford. Former residents includeBill Clinton andMasako, Empress of Japan.[citation needed]
The 20th century saw several further additions to the college's accommodation, the Martin Building of 1966 ('HolywellMinor, a reference to Holywell Manor, across the road) and the Dellal Building (1986) for graduates on Manor Road.[citation needed]
Many undergraduates and some graduates live in buildings onJowett Walk a phased development 1996–2004 (Phase 1 completed September 1996, Phase 2 completed July 2004),[39] containing a small theatre facility, theMichael Pilch Studio, five minutes' walking distance from the main college site; these two developments are on the outskirts of the Master's Field, the sports ground and pavilion facilities of the college. Jowett Walk has also provided accommodation for some non-Balliol undergraduates, as part of an arrangement withWadham College, Oxford.[citation needed]
From 2010,St Cross Church, next to the Manor, has been the college's Historic Collections Centre, an extension to the library's services. The church dates from the 11th or 12th century and is aGrade I listed building. This is the third time an Oxford college has incorporated a redundant church as a Library (seeLincoln College andSt. Edmund Hall).[40]
In 2017, the college entered into a specialised financial arrangement which enabled it to project a new 200 plus 'study-bedsits' accommodation range at the Master's Field/ Jowett Walk/ St Cross Road site which would also replace the Eastman Professor's House, Martin and Dellal buildings there. This would mean a net increase of approximately 140 rooms fulfilling the college's long-term intention of providing accommodation to all its undergraduates for all their degree terms and also some rooms for dons.[citation needed]
The project includes ten new buildings and a new sports pavilion, including a space for dining, events, spectators and squash courts in the basement. The first building opened in spring 2019 and the completion and occupation of the rest is due by January 2021. In the first phase, work began on the south of the site, at the corner of Jowett Walk and St Cross Road, to provide the accommodation for undergraduates and the new pavilion.[citation needed]
Balliol College, and its previous MasterAndrew Graham, played a major role in 2000–01 in setting up theOxford Internet Institute. This was the first multidisciplinary research and policy centre in a European university devoted to examining the impact of the Internet on society. It is a department within theSocial Sciences Division ofOxford University, but is physically located within the grounds of Balliol, and its previous Director (William H. Dutton) was a Professorial Fellow of Balliol.
Each year the college matriculates approximately 260 undergraduates and postgraduates combined according to the most recent data which is from the three-year period 2021–2023.[41] The same source gives the socio-demographic profile of the students is as follows: male 54.5%; state educated 69.6%; white 73.4%. The proportion of male students decreased from 60.6% between the years of 2015 and 2017.[42]
The college provides its students with facilities including accommodation, the Hall (refectory), alibrary, two bars, and separate common rooms for the fellows, thegraduates andundergraduates. The JCR provides many services from laundry facilities, one of the few entirely student-run bars left in Oxford (the Manager, Lord/Lady Lindsay, is elected each year by students in the JCR) to a student-run cafeteria known as Pantry. There is a garden quadrangle and a nearby sports ground (the Master's Field) andboathouse. The sports ground is mainly used forcricket,tennis,hockey andfootball.Croquet may be played in the Master's Field or, in the summer term, in the garden quadrangle.[citation needed]
The majority of undergraduates are housed within the main college or in the modern annexes (Jowett Walk buildings) around the sports ground. The graduates are housed mainly withinHolywell Manor which has its own bar, gardens, common room, gym and computing facilities.[43]
Along with many of the ancient colleges, Balliol has evolved its own traditions and customs over the centuries, many of which occupy a regular calendar slot.
Thepatron saint of the college isSaint Catherine of Alexandria. On her feast day (25 November), a formal dinner is held for all final year students within Balliol. This festival was well established by 1550. Another important feast is the Snell Dinner. This dinner is held in memory ofJohn Snell, whose benefaction established exhibitions for students from theUniversity of Glasgow to study at Balliol (the first exhibitioners were matriculated in 1699) one of whom wasAdam Smith. The feast is attended by fellows of Balliol College, the current Snell Exhibitioners, and representatives from Glasgow University andSt John's College, Cambridge.[citation needed]
The MCR has one black-tie dinner each term: the Christmas Dinner in Michaelmas,Burns Night in Hilary, and the May Dinner in Trinity Term.[citation needed]
By far the most eccentric event is The Nepotists carol-singing event organised by the college's Arnold and Brackenbury Society. This event happens on the last Friday ofMichaelmas term each year. On this occasion, Balliol students congregate in the college hall to enjoymulled wine and the singing of carols. The evening historically ended with a rendition of "The Gordouli" (seeBalliol–Trinity rivalry below) on Broad Street, outside the gates ofTrinity College, although in recent years the song has been sung from within the college walls.[citation needed]
A college society which no longer survives is theHysteron Proteron Club, which aimed to live one day of each term backwards.[44]
Balliol also takes pride in its college tortoises. The original tortoise, who lived at the college for at least 43 years, was known as Rosa, named after theMarxistRosa Luxemburg. Each June, pet tortoises from various Oxford colleges are brought toCorpus Christi College where they participate in a very slow race; Balliol's own Rosa competed and won many times. Rosa disappeared in the Spring of 2004, and while numerous conspiracy theories abounded, none is officially recognised by the college. However, on 29 April 2007,Chris Skidmore, a graduate ofChrist Church working at the House of Commons, donated a pair of tortoises - one to his own college, and one to Balliol, where he had attended an open day in 1999. The new tortoise, Matilda, died in April 2009. Taking care of the resident tortoise is one of the many tasks assigned to Balliol students each year. This position, known as "Comrade Tortoise", has been filled by a first year student.[45]
For many years, there has been a traditional and fiercerivalry shown between the students of Balliol and those of its immediate neighbour to the east,Trinity College.[46] It has manifested itself on the sports field and the river; in the form of songs (of varying degrees of offensiveness) sung over the dividing walls; and in the form of "raids" on the other college. The rivalry reflects that which also exists betweenTrinity College, Cambridge and Balliol's sister college,St John's College, Cambridge.[47]
In collegefolklore, the rivalry goes back to the late 17th century, whenRalph Bathurst, President of Trinity, was supposedly observed throwing stones at Balliol's windows.[48] 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.[49]
The traditional words run:[50]
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", and 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 ofMesopotamia in theFirst World War.[51]
Balliol became known for its radicalism and political activism in the 20th century, and saw an abortive coup in the 1960s in which students took over the college and declared it "the People's Republic of Balliol".[52] The contrast between theradical tendencies of many Balliol students and the traditional conservatism and social exclusivity of Trinity gave the rivalry an extra edge. The fact that Balliol (in contrast to Trinity) had admitted a number of Indian and Asiatic students also gave many of the taunts from the Trinity side a distinctlyracist tone: Balliol students, for example, were sometime referred to as "Basutos".[53]
InFive Red Herrings (1931), aLord Peter Wimsey novel bySomerville alumnaDorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter (a Balliol man) 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.'"[54] Sayers also alludes to the rivalry inMurder Must Advertise (1933): Mr Ingleby, a Trinity man, comments, "If there is one thing more repulsive than another it is Balliolity."[55]
One of the wittier raids from Balliol, in 1962 or 1963, involved the turfing of the whole of TrinityJCR (complete with daffodils).[56] The last incident suspected to relate to the feud was the vandalism of Trinity's Senior Common Room pond, which led to the death of all but one of the fish.[57]
The Garden Quad at Balliol is the scene of the well-known[citation needed] limerick that parodies theimmaterialist philosophy ofBishop Berkeley:
There was a young man who said, God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Still continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.
and also of the response, by the Balliol-educated Catholic theologian and Bible translatorRonald Knox, which more accurately reflects Berkeley's own beliefs:
Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd:
I amalways about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, GOD.
In 1880, seven mischievous Balliol undergraduates publishedThe Masque of B-ll--l, a broadsheet of forty quatrains making light of their superiors – the master and selected fellows, scholars, and commoners – and themselves. The outraged authorities immediately suppressed the collection, and only a few copies survived, three of which found their way into the college library over the years, and one into theBodleian Library. Verses of this form are now known asBalliol rhymes.[citation needed]
The best known of these rhymes is the one onBenjamin Jowett. This has been widely quoted and reprinted in virtually every book about Jowett and about Balliol ever since.[citation needed]
First come I.
My name is J-W-TT.
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am Master of this College,
What I don't know isn't knowledge.
This and 18 others are attributed toHenry Charles Beeching. The other quatrains are much less well known.[citation needed]
William Tuckwell included 18 of these quatrains in hisReminiscences in 1900, but they all came out only in 1939, thanks to Walter George Hiscock, an Oxford librarian, who issued them personally then and in a second edition in 1955.[58]
A wide range of figures who have contributed deeply to public life were either educated or taught at Balliol. Balliol people were, for example, prominent in establishing theInternational Baccalaureate, theNational Trust, theWorkers Educational Association, thewelfare state, theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament andAmnesty International.[59]
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Nobel Prize winners
Five former Balliol students and seven fellows became Nobel Laureates, with Linus Pauling winning two Nobel Prizes.
| Name | Field | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Linus Pauling | Chemistry | 1954 |
| Cyril Norman Hinshelwood | Chemistry | 1956 |
| George Beadle | Physiology or Medicine | 1958 |
| Linus Pauling | Peace | 1962 |
| John Hicks | Economics | 1972 |
| Gunnar Myrdal | Economics | 1974 |
| Baruch S. Blumberg | Physiology or Medicine | 1976 |
| John Van Vleck | Physics | 1977 |
| Robert Solow | Economics | 1987 |
| Norman Ramsey | Physics | 1989 |
| William D. Phillips | Physics | 1997 |
| Anthony J. Leggett | Physics | 2003 |
| Oliver Smithies | Physiology or Medicine | 2007 |
Science
Balliol played an important role in early modern science:
Evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins was a Balliol student from 1959 to 1962.[63]
Politics
Balliol has produced fourBritish prime ministers;H. H. Asquith,Harold Macmillan,Edward Heath andBoris Johnson.
Current prominent alumni in UK politics include;Yvette Cooper, Foreign Secretary and former Home Secretary;Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State for Housing and Planning;Jo Johnson, life peer and former Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation; andSimon Stevens, formerChief Executive of NHS England.
International leaders include;Richard von Weizsäcker,President of Germany from 1984 to 1994, oversaw thereunification of Germany; SirSeretse Khama, the firstPresident of Botswana who led hiscountry's independence movement and transition from British rule into an independent democratic nation;Abdullah Bishara, first secretary general of theGulf Cooperation Council (1981–1993) who played a vital role during thefirst Gulf War, former Kuwait representative to the United Nations (1971–1981) andVincent Massey, governor general of Canada from 1952-59.
Royal alumni include;Empress Masako of Japan,Ja'afar of Negeri Sembilan of Malaysia,Olav V of Norway and his sonHarald V of Norway, current King of Norway.
Political journalists:
Law
Literature
The height of Baliol's literary influence came in theVictorian era, when virtually all major poets had some connection with Balliol:
Of 20th-century writers:
Among contemporary writers:
In terms of critics, Balliol has producedA. C. Bradley, writer ofShakespearean Tragedy, described as probably the most influential single work ofShakespearean criticism ever published,[67] the "polyglot andpolymath"George Steiner,[68] andChristopher Ricks who has been acclaimed as the "greatest living critic"[69]
Philosophy
Notable Balliol philosophers include:
Like most philosophy faculties in theAnglosphere, contemporary thought at Balliol is firmly grounded in the so-calledanalytic tradition:
Other notable contemporary philosophers includeJ. R. Lucas,R. M. Hare,Michael Sandel,Joseph Raz,Peter Geach,Michael Otsuka,Michael E. Rosen, andTimothy Williamson.
Sport
Balliol has also contributed to the sporting world;Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and his sonMansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, bothIndia cricket captains and the 8th and 9thNawabs of Pataudi respectively, were both Balliol graduates who played for the university. US Olympian rowerCaryn Davies received her MBA at Balliol.
History
Other
Chancellors of the University of Oxford
Balliol members have predominated as holders of the office ofchancellor of the university from the 20th century to the present;
The last two being opposed in their election byEdward Heath andLord Bingham of Cornhill respectively. Members of the college have been elected to masterships not only at Balliol but also at other colleges and include the former master ofChrist's College, Cambridge,Jane Stapleton, a former fellow of Balliol.
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