History
The new College took over the premises of St Bernard's College, founded in 1437 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, for Cistercian monks studying at Oxford University. The College had been suppressed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, and in 1546 the buildings were granted by Henry VIII to his own new collegiate foundation, Christ Church. It was from Christ Church that Thomas White bought the buildings and land to the east of them. The first members of the new College took up residence in 1557.
Thomas White was Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company, oneof the most illustrious livery companies in the City of London, and he establisheda number of educational foundations including the Merchant Taylors' schools.The choice of name was significant: St John was the patron saint both of tailorsand of the Merchant Taylor’s Company. Most medieval colleges had beenestablished by churchmen: St John’s was the first in Oxford to be founded by amerchant.
The College remainedclosely linked to the Merchant Taylor’s institutions for many centuries, but itbecame a more open society in the later 19th century. The endowments which StJohn's was given at its foundation, and during the 20 or so years afterward,served it very well. In the second half of the 19th century it benefited, asground landlord, from the suburban development of the city of Oxford and wasunusual among colleges for the size and extent of its property within the city.
Althoughprimarily a producer of Anglican clergymen in the earlier periods of itshistory, St John's also gained a reputation for both law and medicine. Fellowsand alumni have included Archbishop Laud, who became Chancellor of theUniversity in 1629 and was executed in the English Civil War, Jane Austen'sfather and brothers, the early Fabian intellectual Sidney Ball who was veryinfluential in the creation of the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), andAbdul Rasul, one of the first Bengalis to gain the degree of Bachelor of CivilLaw at Oxford.
Morerecently, graduates of St John's have included the novelists and poets A.E.Housman, Robert Graves, Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin and John Wain, as well asformer Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
'Oxonia Illustrata', St John's College by David Loggan, 1675. 'Oxonia Illustrata' was the first illustrated book on Oxford and a major work of the 17th century.
