Christ Church
Established	1546
Sister College	Trinity College, Cambridge
Dean	The Very Revd Christopher Lewis
Graduates	174
Undergraduates	426

Christ Church (in full: The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII) is one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Traditionally it has been seen as the most aristocratic college. It has produced 13 British prime ministers (the most recent being Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-1964), which is more than any other Oxford or Cambridge college (and more than the total number for Cambridge University, at 11). However today the proportion of undergraduates from maintained and independent schools is roughly equal, which is typical of most Oxford colleges.

The city of Christchurch, New Zealand was named after the college, which was the setting of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. The college is also the setting for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. More recently the college was used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Organisation

Christ Church is the only Oxford college which is also a cathedral (the smallest in England, and the seat of the Bishop of Oxford), and its corporate title is The Dean, Chapter and Students of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII. The cathedral has a famous men and boys' choir, and is one of the main choral foundations in Oxford. The Visitor of the college is the reigning British Sovereign. The Governing Body of Christ Church consists of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, together with several "Students", who until the 19th century had no governing powers, but are now equivalent to Fellows in other colleges. Two Censors are responsible for undergraduate discipline.

Student life

As well as providing accommodation, the college houses a cathedral (which also acts as the college chapel), a great hall, two libraries, two bars, and common rooms for dons, graduates and undergraduates. There are also gardens and a neighbouring sportsground and boat-house.

Accommodation is provided for all undergraduates, and for some graduates, though some accommodation is off-site. Members are generally expected to dine in hall, where there are two sittings every evening, one informal and one formal (where jackets, ties and gowns are worn). The Buttery next to the Hall serves drinks around dinner time. There is also a college undercroft bar, as well as a Junior Common Room (JCR) and a Graduate Common Room (GCR).

There is a college lending library which supplements the university libraries (many of which are non-lending). Law students have the additional facility of the college law library. Most undergraduate tutorials are carried out in the college, though for some specialist papers undergraduates may be sent to tutors in other colleges.

Croquet may be played in the Master's Garden in the summer. The sportsground is mainly used for cricket, tennis, rugby and soccer, and also contains a bar. Rowing and punting is carried out by the boat-house across Christ Church Meadow.

History

In 1525, at the height of his power, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, suppressed the Abbey of St Frideswide in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands. He planned the establishment on a magnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, before the college was completed.

In 1531 the college was itself suppressed, and refounded in 1532 as King Henry VIII's College by Henry VIII, to whom Wolsey's property had escheated. Then in 1546 the King, who had broken from the Church of Rome and acquired great wealth through the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church as part of the re-organisation of the Church of England and made it the cathedral of the recently created diocese of Oxford.

Christ Church's sister college in the University of Cambridge is Trinity College, Cambridge, founded the same year by Henry VIII. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth I the college has also been associated with Westminster School, which continues to supply a large proportion of the scholars of the college.

Tom Tower.

Major additions have been made to the buildings through the centuries, and Wolsey's Great Quadrangle was crowned with the famous gate-tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren. To this day the bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 9:05 GMT (9 o'clock Oxford time) every night for the 101 original scholars of the college. In former times this signalled the close of all the college gates throughout Oxford.

King Charles I made the Deanery his palace and held his Parliament in the Great Hall during the English Civil War.

Deans of Christ Church

• 1546 Richard Cox
• 1553 Richard Marshall
• 1559 George Carew
• 1561 Thomas Sampson
• 1565 Thomas Godwin
• 1567 Thomas Cooper
• 1570 John Piers
• 1576 Tobie Matthew
• 1584 William James
• 1596 Thomas Ravis
• 1605 John King
• 1611 William Goodwin
• 1620 Richard Corbet
• 1629 Brian Duppa
• 1638 Samuel Fell
• 1648 Edward Reynolds
• 1651 John Owen
• 1659 Edward Reynolds
• 1660 George Morley
• 1660 John Fell
• 1686 John Massey
• 1689 Henry Aldrich
• 1711 Francis Atterbury
• 1713 George Smalridge
• 1719 Hugh Boulter
• 1724 William Bradshaw
• 1733 John Conybeare
• 1756 David Gregory
• 1767 William Markham
• 1777 Lewis Bagot
• 1783 Cyril Jackson
• 1809 Charles Henry Hall
• 1824 Samuel Smith
• 1831 Thomas Gaisford
• 1855 Henry George Liddell
• 1892 Francis Paget
• 1901 Thomas Banks Strong
• 1920 Henry Julian White
• 1934 Alwyn Terrell Petre Williams
• 1939 John Lowe
• 1959 Cuthbert Aikman Simpson
• 1969 Henry Chadwick
• 1979 Eric William Heaton
• 1991 John Henry Drury
• 2003 Christopher Andrew Lewis

Famous Members

Christ Church's famous Tom Tower, seen from St Aldate's (street).

• Jonathan Aitken
• William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst
• Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
• George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland
• W. H. Auden
• Joseph Banks
• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
• Adrian Boult
• Robert Burton
• George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham
• William Camden
• George Canning
• Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning
• Richard Carew
• Lewis Carroll
• Robert Cecil
• Alan Clark
• Richard Curtis
• James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie
• Edward Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
• David Dimbleby
• Alec Douglas-Home
• Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava
• Anthony Eden
• Edward VII of the United Kingdom
• Albert Einstein (briefly a research student (i.e. fellow))
• James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin
• William Gladstone
• Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville
• John Carteret, 3rd Earl of Granville
• William Grenville
• Edward Gunter
• Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
• Richard Hakluyt
• Robert Hooke
• Trevor Huddleston
• Ludovic Kennedy
• John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley
• Nigel Lawson
• Francis Godolphin Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds
• George Cornewall Lewis
• Matthew Gregory Lewis
• Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
• John Locke
• Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto
• Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook
• Robert Peel
• William Penn
• William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland
• John Rawls
• Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery
• A. L. Rowse
• John Ruskin
• Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
• Philip Sidney
• William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
• Edward Granville Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans
• John Taverner
• Hugh Trevor-Roper
• William Walton
• Auberon Waugh
• Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
• Charles Wesley
• John Wesley
• Christopher Wren

Grace

Before formal Hall each evening, the following Latin grace is recited by a scholar of the House:

Nos miseri homines et egeni, pro cibis quos nobis ad corporis subsidium benigne es largitus, tibi Deus omnipotens, Pater cælestis, gratias reverenter agimus; simul obsecrantes, ut iis sobrie, modeste atque grate utamur. Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.

On special occasions the following words replace Per Jesum Christum, etc.:

Insuper petimus, ut cibum angelorum, verum panem cælestem, verbum Dei æternem, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, nobis impertiaris; utque illo mens nostra pascatur et per carnem et sanguinem eius foveamur, alamur, et corroboremur.

External link

• Official Website
• Oxford Cathedral, King's Handbook of Cathedrals (1865): The Cathedral, History of the See

References

• Adams, Reginald (1992). The college graces of Oxford and Cambridge. Perpetua Press. ISBN 1870882067.