Hertford College
Established	1282
Sister College	None
Principal	Sir Walter Bodmer
College Cat	Simpkins
Undergraduates	360

Hertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library.

History

The college was originally founded as Hart Hall in 1282 by Elias de Hertford . In medieval Oxford, halls were primarily lodging houses for students and resident tutors, and thus did not have the same status as fully-fledged colleges. The first attempt to establish Hart Hall as a full college came in the late 18th century, but ran into funding problems. The buildings were subsequently taken over as Magdalen Hall (not related to the similarly named Magdalen College whose separate Hall had been incorporated into the University as a college years before)¹ .

In 1874, the combined Hart Hall / Magdalen Hall was finally re-established as a full college, largely due to the sponsorship of Sir Thomas Baring .

Hertford was one of the first five co-educational colleges in the university. It has a higher ratio of women to men than is usual at Oxford University. In the 1960s it was also one of the first colleges to encourage applicants from state schools , and has a significantly higher proportion of students from state schools relative to private schools.

The College Site

Bridge of Sighs in Hertford College

The main college consists of three quadrangles: Old Quadrangle, New Quadrangle and Holywell Quadrangle.

The Old Quadrangle (Old quad or OB (old building) quad for short), as the name suggests, is the oldest and the original quadrangle. It incorporates the lodge, library, chapel, hall, bursary and other administrative buildings. It is also home to many of the studies of senior fellows and tutors. Old quad is the only Hertford quadrangle to have a lawn in the centre, in the traditional college style. The lawn is off-limits during Michaelmas and Hilary terms but freely traversable during Trinity term. Senior fellows of the college are granted the privilege of being able to walk across the lawn all year round.

The New Quadrangle (New Quad or NB quad for short) is connected to the Old Quadrangle via the famous Hertford Bridge, also known as the Bridge of Sighs, which was designed by Thomas Jackson. New quad is primarily composed of undergraduate housing and associated facilities. The MCR (Middle Common Room) octagon is also situated in New quad and is off limits to undergraduates.

Holywell Quadrangle backs directly onto New quad and the two are connected by an arched corridor which also contains the steps down to Hertford's subterranean bar. Holywell is almost exclusively first year undergraduate housing and therefore contains the JCR (Junior Common Room). The Baring room occupies the highest level of one of the 5 staircases in Holywell and is named after the benefactor whose funding made the transition from Hertford being classed as a hall of residence to a fully fledged college.

Fellows of the College

• Sir Walter Bodmer, Principal
• Mr Roger J. Van Noorden, Tutor in Economics, Investments Bursar , Senior Tutor
• Roy Foster , Carroll Professor of Irish History
• Dr Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gilbert Ryle Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy
• Kay Davies , Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy
• Emma J Smith , Tutor in English and Tutor for Admissions
• Tom Paulin, G M Young Lecturer and Tutor in English

Famous Former Students

• William Robinson Clark
• David Dilks
• George Dangerfield
• John Donne
• Samuel Daniel
• John Meade Falkner
• Charles James Fox
• Thomas Hobbes
• Jeffrey John
• Gavin Maxwell
• Dom Mintoff, Former PM of Malta
• Max Nicholson
• Peter Pears
• Henry Pelham
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
• Andrew B Raker
• Jonathan Swift
• Saint Alexander Briant [1]
• William Tyndale
• Evelyn Waugh
• Marian Bell
• Dom Mintoff
• Byron White
• Fiona Bruce
• Natasha Kaplinsky

External links

• Hertford College, Oxford (official website)
• Virtual Tour of the College - has large images

Notes

• Goudie, Andrew (ed.), Seven Hundred Years of an Oxford College: Hertford College, 1284-1984, Hertford College Press (Oxford, c1984).