Peterhouse, Cambridge

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Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse heraldic shield
       
Full name Peterhouse
Motto -
Named after St Peter
Previous names The Scholars of the Bishop of Ely

St Peter’s College
Established 1284
Sister College(s) Merton College
Master The Lord Wilson of Tillyorn
Location Trumpington Street
Undergraduates 253
Postgraduates 125
Homepage Boatclub
The chapel cloisters, through which Old Court can be seen.
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The chapel cloisters, through which Old Court can be seen.
Old Court, facing the chapel
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Old Court, facing the chapel
Interior of the chapel
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Interior of the chapel
Exterior of the Hall
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Exterior of the Hall

Peterhouse is the oldest college in the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has 253 undergraduates, 125 graduate students and 45 fellows, making it the smallest College in Cambridge.

Contents

[edit] History

The foundation of Peterhouse dates to 1280, when Hugo de Balsham, the Bishop of Ely, planned to start a college on land that is now part of St John’s College. In 1284, he transferred to the present site with the purchase of two houses to accommodate a Master and fourteen “worthy but impoverished Fellows”, and Peterhouse was founded. A hall was built two years later; this is the oldest college building in Cambridge. Balsham died in 1286, bequeathing a sum of money that was used to buy further land.

In the early seventeenth century, under the Mastership of Andrew Perne, the College was known as a centre for Arminianism.

In the twentieth century, Peterhouse has had a reputation for excellence in both science and history. Notable history Fellows have included Adolphus William Ward, Harold Temperley, Herbert Butterfield, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Maurice Cowling and Niall Ferguson - see also Peterhouse school of history. Notable science Fellows have included Aaron Klug, Max Perutz and John Meurig Thomas.

In the 1980s Peterhouse acquired an association with Conservative, Thatcherite politics. Maurice Cowling and Roger Scruton were both influential Fellows of the College and are sometimes described as key figures in the so-called “Peterhouse right” – an intellectual movement linked to Margaret Thatcher. Michael Portillo and Michael Howard both studied at Peterhouse. This tradition of intellectual political thought has been upheld by the recent establishment of the Peterhouse Politics Society.

The college has an active Junior Combination Room (JCR) and was one of the few student bodies in Cambridge successful in keeping rents low during a series of rent strikes in 2000.

[edit] Buildings and grounds

Chapel

From the main entrance to Peterhouse from Trumpington Street, the altar end of the chapel is the most immediately visible building. The chapel was built in 1628 when the Master of the time Matthew Wren (Christopher Wren’s uncle) demolished the College’s original hostels. The chapel’s style reflects the contemporary religious trend towards Arminianism The Laudian Gothic style of the chapel mixes Renaissance details but incorporated them into a traditional Gothic building. The chapel’s Renaissance architecture contains a Pieta altarpiece and a striking ceiling of golden suns. The original stained glass was destroyed by Parliamentarian forces in 1643, with only the east window’s crucifixion scene (based on Rubens’ Le Coup de Lance) surviving. The current side windows are by Max Ainmuller, and were added in 1855. The cloisters on each side of the chapel date from the seventeenth cenrury. However, their design was classicised in 1709, while an ornamental porch was removed in 1755. The 1963 restoration of the Snetzler organ in the chapel was one of the many successes of Noel Mander.

Old Court

Old Court lies beyond the chapel cloisters. To the south of the court is the dining hall, the only College building that survives from the thirteenth century. It was re-mediaevalised in 1870 with fine panelling, an impressive oriel window, and a new timber roof by the architect George Gilbert Scott. The stained glass, with pieces by William Morris, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones, is a fine example of Pre-Raphaelite glass. The sixteenth-century fireplace now contains tiles, also by Morris.

The north and west sides of Old Court were added in the fifteenth century, and classicised three centuries later. The chapel makes up the fourth, east side to the court. Rooms in Old Court are occupied by a mixture of fellows and undergraduates. The west and north sides of the court also house Peterhouse’s JCR, and the student bar.

Gisborne Court

Gisborne Court is accessible through an archway leading from the west side of Old Court. It was built in 1825. Its cost was met with part of a benefaction of 1817 from the Rev. Francis Gisborne, a former Fellow. When the gift was announced to the Governing Body its size, £20,000, was so great that the Fellows took it at first as a practical joke. The court is built in white brick with stone dressings in a simple Tudor Gothic style from the designs of William Mclntosh Brookes. Only three sides to the court were built. The College is currently considering plans to build a fourth side in a similar style. Rooms in Gisborne Court are mainly occupied by undergraduates. Many previously housed distinguished alumni, including Lord Kelvin in I staircase.

Fen Court and the Birdwood Building

Beyond Gisborne Court is Fen Court, a twentieth century building partially on stilts. Fen Court was added in 1940 from designs by H. C. Hughes and his partner Peter Bicknell. It was amongst the earliest buildings in Cambridge designed in the style of the Modern Movement pioneered by Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus. The carved panel by Anthony Foster over the entrance doorway evokes the mood in Britain as the building was completed. It bears the inscription DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI MCMXL (“out of the depths have I cried out 1940″), the first words of Psalm 130, one of the Penitential Psalms, and a depiction of St Peter saved in the midst of the sea.

In 1933 Bicknell and Hughes also designed the adjacent bath-house, known as the Birdwood Building, that makes up the western side of Gisborne Court. It is now used as a gym.

The Deer Park

The grounds to the south of Gisborne Court have been known as the Deer Park since deer were brought there in the nineteenth century. During that period it achieved fame as the smallest deer park in England. After the First World War the deer sickened and passed their illness onto stock imported from the Duke of Portland’s estate at Welbeck Abbey in an attempt to improve the situation.

The William Stone building

The William Stone building lies to the south of the Deer Park and was funded by a bequest from William Stone (1857-1958), a former scholar of the college. Erected in 1963, it is an eight-storey brick tower which was much admired and photographed in the 1960s and 1970s by architectural students, especially from Japan. It houses a mixture of Fellows and undergraduates.

The Burroughs building

The Burroughs building is situated at the front of the college, parallel to the Chapel. It is named after its architect, Sir James Burroughs, the Master of Caius, and was built in 1736. It is one of several Cambridge neo-Palladian buildings designed by Burroughs. Others include the remodelling of the Hall and Old Court at Trinity Hall and the chapel at Clare College.

The Master’s Lodge

The Master’s Lodge is situated across Trumpington Street from the College, and was bequeathed to the College in 1727 by a Fellow, Dr Charles Beaumont, son of a former Master, Joseph Beaumont. It is built in red brick in the Queen Anne style.

The Hostel

The Hostel is situated next to the Master’s Lodge. It was built in a neo-Georgian style in 1926 from designs by Thomas Henry Lyon. The Hostel was intended to be part of a larger complex but only one wing was built. It presently houses undergraduates and some fellows.

[edit] Oddities, traditions and legends

Thomas Gray was a Fellow of Peterhouse until he took offence at a practical joke. Terrified of fire, he had installed a metal bar by his window on the top floor of the Burrough’s building, so that in the event of a fire he could tie his sheets to it and climb to safety. One night undergraduates decided to play a prank and shouted “fire”. Gray climbed down from his window, landing in a barrel of water placed beneath. He is said to have moved across the road to become a Fellow of Pembroke College as a result.

A popular College rumour that the deer in the Deer Park were eaten as a result of rationing during the Second World War is apocryphal. A variation on this urban legend has it that the Fellows ate the deer during the recession of the 1970s, to cut corners on formal hall bills.

In 1997, Peterhouse’s May Ball was featured in Pseud’s Corner in Private Eye due to the superior nature of tailoring facilities offered by the Ball.

In 1998 Peterhouse was the subject of media interest in the UK after several members of kitchen staff claimed to have seen a ghost in the College’s Combination Room. The ghost was said to be that of a former Bursar, Francis Dawes, who is now buried in the churchyard of Little St Mary’s, immediately to the north of the College. Francis Dawes had hanged himself with a bell rope in 1789, following irregularities over the election of Francis Barnes, a highly unpopular master. After the ghost was publicised in a series of newspaper articles, the College was rumoured to have conducted an exorcism. This would have been the college’s third exorcism; there are suggestions that the college conducted an exorcism in the 18th century, to banish a poltergeist. Also, a former Dean carried out a ceremony because of the appearance of a dark presence in a corner of the old courtyard overlooking the graveyard.

Peterhouse is home to many oddly named dining societies, such as the Strafford Club, the Cocoa Tree Club, and the Adonians. One dining society, the Authenticators, was named in (dis)honour of a previous Master of the college, Lord Dacre of Glanton, who had made the mistake of authenticating the forged Hitler Diaries in the Sunday Times (see the obituary of Maurice Cowling in the Daily Telegraph which mentions his sponsorship of the first dinner [1]).

Peterhouse JCR’s official title is the Sexcentenary Club. This is often abbreviated to the Sex Club.

Note: It is incorrect to call it ‘Peterhouse College’; it is either Peterhouse or St Peter’s College (archaic).

[edit] Famous alumni of Peterhouse

See also Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge

[edit] Famous Fellows of Peterhouse

See also Category:Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge

[edit] External links


Colleges of the University of Cambridge Arms of the University

Christ's | Churchill | Clare | Clare Hall | Corpus Christi | Darwin | Downing | Emmanuel | Fitzwilliam | Girton | Gonville and Caius | Homerton | Hughes Hall | Jesus | King's | Lucy Cavendish | Magdalene | New Hall | Newnham | Pembroke | Peterhouse | Queens' | Robinson | St Catharine's | St Edmund's | St John's | Selwyn | Sidney Sussex | Trinity | Trinity Hall | Wolfson
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