| King's College | |
|---|---|
| University of Cambridge | |
 King's College Chapel and the Gibbs' Building | |
 Arms of King's College Arms:Sable, three roses argent,[1] a chief per pale azure and gules charged on the dexter side with a fleur-de-lis and on the sinister with a lion passant gardant or | |
| Scarf colours: royal purple, with two equally-spaced narrow white stripes | |
| Location | King's Parade, Cambridge CB2 1ST (map) |
| Coordinates | 52°12′15″N0°06′58″E / 52.2043°N 0.1162°E /52.2043; 0.1162 (King's College) |
| Full name | The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge |
| Latin name | Collegium Regale beate Marie et sancti Nicholai Cantebrigie |
| Abbreviation | K[2] |
| Founder | Henry VI |
| Established | 1441; 584 years ago (1441) |
| Named after | Our Lady, patron saint of Eton College Nicholas, natal saint of Henry VI |
| Sister colleges | Eton College New College, Oxford |
| Provost | Gillian Tett |
| Undergraduates | 463 (2022–23) |
| Postgraduates | 326 (2022–23) |
| Endowment | £218M(2024)[3] |
| Visitor | Stephen Conway (Bishops of Lincolnex officio)[4] |
| Website | www |
| Student union | www |
| Graduate Union | www |
| Boat club | www |
| Map | |
  Location in Central Cambridge Show map of Central Cambridge Location in Cambridge Show map of Cambridge | |
King's College, formallyThe King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is aconstituent college of theUniversity of Cambridge. The college lies beside theRiver Cam and faces out ontoKing's Parade in the centre of the city.
King's was founded in 1441 by KingHenry VI soon after founding its sister institution,Eton College. Initially, King's accepted only students from Eton College. However, the king's plans for King's College were disrupted by theWars of the Roses and the resultant scarcity of funds, and then his eventual deposition. Little progress was made on the project until 1508, when KingHenry VII began to take an interest in the college, probably as a political move to legitimise his new position. The building of the college's chapel began in 1446, and was finished in 1544 during the reign ofHenry VIII.
King's College Chapel is regarded as one of the finest examples of lateEnglish Gothic architecture. It has the world's largestfan vault, while its stained-glass windows and wooden chancel screen are considered some of the finest from their era. The building is seen as emblematic of Cambridge.[5] It houses theChoir of King's College, Cambridge. Every year on Christmas Eve, theFestival of Nine Lessons and Carols (a service originally devised for Truro Cathedral byEdward White Benson in 1880, adapted by the college deanEric Milner-White in 1918) is broadcast from the chapel to millions of listeners worldwide.[6][7]
On 12 February 1441,King Henry VI issuedletters patent founding a college at Cambridge for a rector and 12 poor scholars.[8] This college was to be named afterSaint Nicholas upon whose feast day Henry had been born.[9] The first stone of the college's Old Court was laid by the King onPassion Sunday, 2 April 1441 on a site which lies directly north of the modern college and which was formerly a garden belonging toTrinity Hall. William Millington, a fellow ofClare College (then called Clare Hall) was installed as the rector.[10]
Henry directed the publication of the college's first governing statutes in 1443. His original modest plan for the college was abandoned, and provision was instead made for a community of 70 fellows and scholars headed by a provost. Henry had belatedly learned ofWilliam of Wykeham's 1379 twin foundations ofNew College, Oxford andWinchester College, and wanted his own achievements to surpass those of Wykeham.[11] The King had foundedEton College on 11 October 1440 but, up until 1443, King's and Eton had been unconnected.[12] However, that year the relationship between the two was remodelled upon Wykeham's successful institutions and the original sizes of the colleges scaled up to surpass Wykeham's. A second royal charter which re-founded the now much larger King's College was issued on 12 July 1443. On 1 September 1444, the Provosts of King's and Eton and the Wardens of Winchester and New College formally signed theAmicabilis Concordia ("friendly agreement") in which they bound their colleges to support one another legally and financially.[13][14]
Members of King's were to be recruited entirely from Eton. Each year, the provost and two fellows travelled to Eton to impartially select the worthiest boys to fill any vacancies at the college, always maintaining the total number of scholars and fellows at exactly 70.[15] Membership of King's was a vocation for life. Scholars were eligible for election to the fellowship after three years of probation, irrespective of whether they had achieved a degree or not. Undergraduates at King's – unlike those from other colleges – did not have to pass university examinations to achieve their BA degree and instead had only to satisfy the college. Every fellow was to study theology, save for two who were to study astronomy, two civil law, four canon law, and two medicine; all fellows save those studying secular subjects were obliged to takeHoly Orders and become priests, on pain of expulsion.[16][17][8] In 1445, aPapal Bull fromEugenius IV exempted college members from parish duties, and in 1457, an agreement between the provost andchancellor of the university limited the chancellor's authority and gave the college full jurisdiction over internal matters.
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The original plans for Old Court were too small to comfortably accommodate the larger college community of the second foundation, and so in 1443 Henry VI began to purchase the land upon which the modern college now stands. The gateway and south range of Old Court had already been built, but the rest was completed in a temporary fashion to serve until the new court was ready. The new college site was itself left unfinished and the "temporary" Old Court buildings, arranged to accommodate 70, served as the permanent residential fabric of the college until the beginning of the 19th century.[18][19] Henry's grand design for the new college buildings survives in the 1448Founder's Will, which describes his vision in detail. The new college site was to be centred on a great courtyard, bordered on all sides by adjoining buildings: a chapel to the north; accommodation and the entrance gate to the east; further accommodation and the provost's lodge to the south; and a library, hall and buttery to the west. Behind the hall and buttery was to be another courtyard, and behind the library a cloistered cemetery including a magnificent bell tower.
The first stone of the chapel was laid by the King on St James's Day, 25 July 1446. The King encouraged support for the college. In 1448, John Conches, former prior ofWootton Wawen gave the priory's lands to"John Chedworth provost of the king's college of St. Mary and St. Nicholas Cantebrigge and the scholars thereof, and to their successors."[20] Within a decade Henry's engagement in theWars of the Roses meant that funds began to dry up. By the time of Henry's deposition in 1461, the chapel walls had been raised 60 ft high at the east end but only 8 ft at the west; a building line which can still be seen today as the boundary between the lighter stone below and the darker above. Work proceeded sporadically until a generation later in 1508 when the Founder's nephewHenry VII was prevailed upon to finish the shell of the building. The interior had to wait a further generation until completion by 1544 with the aid ofHenry VIII. The chapel was the only part of Henry VI'sFounder's Will to be realised.
It has been speculated that the choice of the college as a beneficiary by the two later Henrys was a political one, with Henry VII in particular concerned to legitimate a new, post-civil war Tudor regime by demonstrating patronage of what was by definition the King's College. Later building work on the chapel is marked by an uninhibited branding with the Tudor rose and other symbols of the new establishment, quite against the precise instructions of theFounder's Will.
The college remained as the Old Court, chapel and a few small surrounding buildings for nearly two-hundred years until in 1724 the architectJames Gibbs provided a new plan to complete the courtyard of which the chapel formed the north side. Although his design was for the courtyard to be closed by three similar detachedNeoclassical buildings, due to lack of funds only the western of these was constructed. The first stone of what became known as the Gibbs' Building was laid by ProvostAndrew Snape, at the time alsovice-chancellor of the university, on 25 March 1723 and the building completed six years later.
Front Court was finally completed in 1828 under plans drawn up byWilliam Wilkins. The courtyard was closed by a screen and gatehouse to the east; and residential staircases either side of a hall to the south. The southern buildings continued towards the river with a library and Provost's lodge. All these buildings were, at the college's insistence, built in theGothic Revival style rather than Wilkins's preferred Neoclassical.[21]
With the courtyard to the south of the chapel now able to accommodate the college, the land to the north was sold to the university in 1828. It has been erroneously claimed that this was the site of the world's first bonsai tree, cultivated in King's College in the mid 18th century.[22][23][24]The university demolished most of the original Old Court buildings in order to make room for an extension to theUniversity Library; only the gateway arch opposite Clare College survives. The library subsequently moved away from this site, known as theOld Schools, and the buildings are currently used for the main administrative offices of the university.[21][25]
Under the provostship of Richard Okes, from 1850 until his death in 1888, the college began a period of reform. On 1 May 1851 it was agreed to abolish the privilege of King's members to be granted a degree without passing the university examinations. In 1861 the college statutes were amended so as to expand the college and, more radically, to allow for the election of non-Etonian King's members: the new statutes provided for 46 Fellows, 24 scholarships reserved for boys from Eton, and 24 "open" scholarships for boys from any school. At the same time all formal obligation to take Holy Orders – unenforced since the 17th century – was removed.[26] The statutes were again amended in 1882, this time ensuring fellowships were not always for life and were awarded on merit after submissions of original research. In his 1930 memoirAs We Were, A Victorian Peep Show,[27]E. F. Benson, an alumnus of King's,[28] recollected the peculiar behaviour of some of the surviving Life Fellows from his undergraduate years of 1887–1890 and before. Of one he wrote, "He then shuffled out on to the big lawn, with a stick in his hand, and he prodded with it at the worms in the grass, muttering to himself, 'Ah, damn ye: ye haven't got me yet.'" The first non-Etonian students were admitted to study at King's in 1865, and the first non-Etonian scholars and the first non-Etonian fellow were elected in 1873. These reforms continued over subsequent decades and there are now no special privileges for Etonians at King's.
Expansion of the college through the 1861 statutes necessitated more building work to accommodate the larger community. In 1869, the area alongKing's Parade between the Wilkins' Buildings and King's Lane was built upon after a design byGeorge Gilbert Scott. When completed a year later, the new courtyard formed was named after Walter Chetwynd, a fellow of the college.[21][29] However, after subsequent plans to expand college accommodation fell through, King's opened negotiations to amalgamate withSt Catharine's College. Although St Catharine's had been founded byRobert Woodlark (sometimes spelled Wodelarke), a Provost of King's, the college declined the invitation to combine.[30] Eventually, in 1893, the east and south wings of another new courtyard within King's – designed byGeorge Frederick Bodley and overlooking the river – were completed.[31]
In 1909, the south range of a third new courtyard – named after its architectAston Webb – was built to the south of the library. In 1927, designs by G. L. Kennedy completed Bodley's Court with a new northern range, and Webb's Court with a new Provost's Lodge on its western side.[8][21]
In 1930, aCambridge Borough Police officer was shot dead by a student who also shot his tutor in the same incident.[32]
On 1 September 1939, the day of theGerman invasion of Poland and the cause of the UK's entrance intoWorld War II, permission was sought from the College Council to remove the stained glass from the east window of the chapel. By the end of 1941, all the ancient glass had been removed to various cellars in Cambridge for safekeeping. Despite most of the windows of the chapel being covered over by sheets of tar-paper, which rattled loudly in the wind, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols continued to be broadcast from the chapel every Christmas Eve throughout the war – even though the name of the college could not be broadcast for security reasons. King's took the opportunity of these years to clean, repair and photograph the glass. By 1949, all the windows had been restored.[6][33]
In 1961, the property millionaireAlfred Ernest Allnatt offered King's theAdoration of the Magi byPeter Paul Rubens, which he had purchased in 1959 for a world-record price. The college accepted "this munificent gift" with the intention of displaying the painting in the chapel, possibly as an altarpiece. The painting was initially displayed in the antechapel but a significant faction of the fellowship – includingMichael Jaffé and the ProvostNoel Annan – were determined for the painting to become the focal point of an entirely redesigned east end planned by the architect Sir Martyn Beckett, who was "philosophical about the furore this inevitably occasioned – which quickly became acceptance of a solution to a difficult problem."[34]
As the first stage of this project, the Edwardianreredos and 17th-century wood panelling were removed and the Rubens installed in their stead behind the altar in April 1964. The painting was so big that the raised floor of the chapel's east end, required by the 1448Founder's Will, would have to be levelled so as to prevent thebaroque artwork obscuring the bottom of the Tudor east window. However 20 fellows and the honorary fellowE. M. Forster signed a letter urging the college to reverse its plan and "admit that it has made a mistake"; the levelling of the floor nevertheless went ahead. The newly refitted east end opened in 1968 and proved highly controversial, with theArchitects' Journal criticising it as "motivated not by the demands of liturgical worship but by those of museum display."[35]
The last main-site building to be erected by the college was the Keynes Building, finished in 1967 and named after the former college bursarJohn Maynard Keynes. This building enclosed Chetwynd Court along with the Wilkins' and Scott's buildings, and provided more than 70 en-suite accommodation rooms along with other facilities.[21]
The college, along with most others at the university, had been all-male since its foundation. However, in 1972, under the provostEdmund Leach, King's together withChurchill and Clare became the first three previously all-male colleges to admit women.[36]
Henry VI is not completely forgotten at the college. The Saturday after the end ofMichaelmas term each year is Founder's Day, which begins with a Founder's Eucharist in the chapel, followed by a Founder's Breakfast with ale and culminating in a sumptuous dinner in his memory called "Founder's Feast" to which all members of college in their third year of studies are invited.
The College Chapel, an example of lateGothic architecture, was built over a period of a hundred years (1446–1531) in three stages. The Chapel features the world's largestfan vault ceiling; 26 large stained-glass windows, 24 of which date from the 16th century; andPeter Paul Rubens's painting theAdoration of the Magi as analtarpiece.
The chapel is actively used as a place of worship and also for some concerts and college events. TheChapel choir consists of organ scholars, choral scholars (male students from the college and other colleges) and choristers (boys educated at the nearbyKing's College School). The choir sings services on most days in term-time, and also performs concerts and makes recordings and broadcasts. In particular, it has broadcast itsNine Lessons and Carols on theBBC[37] from the Chapel onChristmas Eve for many decades. Additionally, there is a mixed-voice Chapel choir of male and female students,King's Voices, which singsevensong on Mondays during term-time.
Since its foundation, the college has housed a library, providing books for all students, covering all the subjects offered by King's. Around 130,000 books are held: some available for teaching and for reference, others being rare books andmanuscripts. The library operates a user-oriented purchasing policy: students and Directors of Studies recommend new purchases in their subject.[38] There is both Wi-Fi and Ethernet internet access throughout the library as well as a library computer room.[39] Special collections include a separate Music Library, the Keynes Library, a Global Warming collection, and an Audio Visual Library.[40]
The unofficialTompkins Table comparing academic performance ranked King's 12th out of a total of 29 rated colleges at the University of Cambridge in 2019. In terms of first-class degrees, King's ranked 9th in the university with 31.3% of final year students achieving a first.[citation needed]
King's offers all undergraduate courses available at the university, except foreducation, land economy andveterinary medicine, although Directors of Studies for Anglo-Saxon Norse & Celtic and Management Studies visit from other colleges. With more than 100 fellows and some 420 undergraduate students, King's has one of the highest ratios of fellows to students of all the Cambridge colleges.[citation needed]
The college has gradually broadened its intake to include many students fromstate schools, often having the highest proportion of maintained school acceptances of the undergraduate colleges. This has led to accusations of reactionary bias againstpublic school pupils and of affirmative action (positive discrimination), although the relatively high proportion of state-school students reflects the far greater number of applications from pupils at maintained schools in comparison to other Cambridge colleges.[41]
King's has established a Schools Liaison Officer post in order to provide support to students, whatever their background, and schools and colleges of any type to find out more about theUniversity of Cambridge and the college.[42] King's is the link Cambridge college for schools in North East England through Cambridge University Area Links Scheme.[43]
Generally, the atmosphere at King's is considered to be easier than that of other colleges to integrate into for students from a working-class or minority background. However, a survey conducted by Varsity Newspaper in January 2009 revealed that the average parental income of students who participated in the survey at King's was higher than the university average.[44]
In June 2018,Priyamvada Gopal alleged racial profiling by college porters at the gate of King's College, Cambridge. Gopal said that she was subjected to racial profiling and aggression by the porters and gatekeepers of King's and said porters frequently hassled non-white staff and students at the gates. While several students and staff corroborated her accusations, a King's College spokeswoman denied wrongdoing by staff.[45][46] As a result of the attention the issue received, Cambridge University students came forward describing similar experiences. Gopal said that she received hate mail following her announcement. Gopal announced that she would no longer supervise students at King's until there was a resolution to the long-standing problem.[47]
In 2014, King's College established an Entrepreneurship Prize opened to King's College students[48] with alumni as judges, includingHermann Hauser, and Stuart Lyons, the former chairman ofBeales.[49] In 2021, it launched the King's Entrepreneurship Lab to "support students with a future interest in innovation, entrepreneurship, and business"[50] co-directed by King's fellowsKamiar Mohaddes andThomas Roulet, who are lecturers at theCambridge Judge Business School. In 2022, it received an additional donation from theGatsby Foundation to enlarge its scope.
The college has had a number of notable alumni in business, includingAlfred Allen Booth,Phil Vincent,Nancy Zhang and famous innovators such asCharles Townshend.
King's has its own student unions, both for undergraduates (King's College Student Union or KCSU) and for graduates (King's College Graduate Union or KCGU). Students at King's have used both organisations to assist in the decision-making processes in the college itself and the university. The college students have a reputation for radical political activity going back to the late 1960s, and the college has not infrequently been the centre of demonstrations, rent strikes and so forth, sparked by political events.
There are a number of rooms around college which students can book out to hold society events. Societies who commonly do this include King's Politics, The Turing Maths Society, The History Society, The Marxist Society, Keynes Economics Society and King's Feminist Society.
The main bar at King's is the site of many social events, open mic nights, and informal meetings and debates between students, whilst a venue known as the Bunker (formerly the Cellar), a second bar in a basement of the college, acts occasionally as a music or dance-night venue and most recently the set for a King's Drama productions including Sartre'sNo Exit[51] and a series of monologue showcase events.[needs update] Even more recently, the Bunker has been used by the King's Electronic Music Society, allowing students to learn how to DJ.
Whereas many Cambridge colleges celebrateMay Week with aMay Ball (which actually falls in June), since the early 1980s King's has instead held aJune Event (an informal version of a May Ball with fancy dress) known as The King's Affair. This takes place annually on the Wednesday night of May Week (usually around 20 June), and is attended by around 1,500 students, occupying the Front Court, bar, Hall and Chapel. Past performers have includedthe Stranglers,Fatboy Slim,Noah and the Whale and, in 2009,Clean Bandit. There are also large student-run college parties at the end of each term known as Mingles.
King's has a number of competitive and casual sports clubs.King's College Boat Club has the largest active membership of any club in King's. In 2013 the first men's boat qualified to race in theTemple Challenge Cup at theHenley Royal Regatta.[52] After several years of poor performances, the boat club has returned to success in the Lent and May Bumps, with blades being awarded four times in 2023, including twice to the first women's VIII. Another major club is the King's Mountaineering and Kayaking Association, which has a fleet of kayaks for use on theRiver Cam (which runs through the college) and regularly runs climbing, walking and kayaking trips for students of the college during university vacations.[53] Its rugby team is joint with Corpus Christi and Clare colleges and consequently known as CCK. Its historic crest is the hallowed Elephant of Wisdom.
King's College is home to theChoir of King's College, Cambridge, which was founded in the 15th century and is now one of today's most well-renowned representatives of the English choral tradition. In 2013, the choir launched its own label, King's College Recordings, allowing it to gain more artistic freedom over its releases. Its releases and worldwide fame have led to global tours and performances.[54] The Choir of King's College sings evensong and Eucharist services on all days of the week apart from Mondays, with two services on a Sunday. It is currently led by the incumbent Director of Music,Daniel Hyde.
The other resident choir of the college is the mixed-voice choirKing's Voices, founded in October 1997 under DrJohn Butt, with the intention of giving women in King's the opportunity to sing in the chapel and be eligible for choral awards within the college. Currently, the choir sings evensong every Monday in university term, as well as performing at King's College Music Society (KCMS) and college events throughout the year.[55] King's Voices has also appeared on albums alongside the Choir of King's College, most recently in the Te Deum and Magnificat of theCollegium Regale service byHerbert Howells on a double album of music by Howells.[56] Sopranos in King's Voices also featured in a live recording ofBenjamin Britten'sSaint Nicolas alongside theBBC Singers andBritten Sinfonia as part ofSir Stephen Cleobury's Farewell Concert, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2019.[57] The choir's current director isBen Parry, who is assistant director of Music at King's.
Once someone has been admitted to the college, they become a member for life. Alumni of the college includes prime ministers, archbishops, presidents and academics.Time published in 1999 a list of what it considered the most "influential and important" people of the 20th century. In a list of one hundred names, King's claimed two:Alan Turing andJohn Maynard Keynes who had been both students and fellows at the college.[58]
Heads of State and Government educated at King's include the first Prime Minister of Great Britain,Robert Walpole. Also in the 18th century, alumni include the Secretary of StateCharles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend (Turnip Townshend), who was also known for his interest in agriculture and his role in theBritish Agricultural Revolution, the judge andLord ChancellorCharles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. Historical figures includeFrancis Walsingham, spymaster toQueen Elizabeth.
Politicians educated at King's include the former British Home SecretaryCharles Clarke, the peer andChancellor of the University of CambridgeDavid Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, andMartin Bell.
In law, alumni include the barrister and vice-chancellorRobert Alexander, Baron Alexander of Weedon, and the former President of the British Supreme CourtNicholas Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers.
Alumni in religion includeWilliam Thomas, the 16th-century Protestant martyrJohn Frith, theArchbishop of CanterburyJohn Sumner, andRichard Cox, who served asChancellor of Oxford before appointment asDean of Westminster and eventuallyBishop of Ely.
Notable alumni in literature and poetry include the authorsZadie Smith,Salman Rushdie,Martin Jacques,J. G. Ballard andE. M. Forster, the Nobel Prize winnerPatrick White, the poetsRupert Brooke,Walter Raleigh andXu Zhimo, and the playwrightStephen Poliakoff. The ghost story writer and medievalistM. R. James spent much of his life at King's as a student, fellow and Provost. The author and translator of AristotleSir John Harington is also an alumnus, and a benefactor of mankind for having invented theflush toilet.
In the arts, alumni include the philosopherGeorge Santayana; the historiansBenedict Anderson,Eric Hobsbawm andTony Judt; composersGeorge Benjamin,Judith Weir (Master of the Queen's Music),Thomas Ades, andJulian Anderson; the original members of theGrammy Award-winninga cappella groupKing's Singers; the folk musicianJohn Spiers; the comedianDavid Baddiel; the modelLily Cole; the tenorJames Gilchrist; and the countertenorJohn Whitworth.[59]
In thesciences andsocial sciences, King's alumni include the British sociologistAnthony Giddens, the physicistPatrick Blackett, the chemistFrederick Sanger, the psychologistEdgar Anstey, the palaeontologistRichard Fortey, the economistJohn Craven, the political theoristJohn Dunn, the engineerCharles Inglis, and the mathematician and eugenicistKarl Pearson. The Governor of the Bank of EnglandMervyn King was also educated at King's. The technology entrepreneurHermann Hauser, ofAcorn andARM, studied postgraduate physics there.
Of the current fellows of King's prominent fellows include Whitehead and Adams' Prize WinnerClément Mouhot and the Fellow of the Royal Society and Clay Research award winnerMark Gross.
There are nine Nobel laureates who were either students or fellows of King's:
The head of King's College is called theProvost. The current Provost, as of 2023[update], is DrGillian Tett, a British author and journalist.[73]
Thevisitor of the college is theBishop of Lincoln.[74]
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A version of the arms with the rosesargent, barbed and seeded proper (i.e. white or silver, with green barbs and yellow seeds) is often used, though the blazon simply describes the roses asargent. The embellished shield can be seen in the box at the top-right of this page.
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The total value of the Endowment was £218.3m in 2024 ...
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