(Redirected from Gonville and Caius College)
'Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge' is a constituent
college of
Cambridge University. It is located in
Cambridge,
England, in the
United Kingdom.
The College is often referred to simply as 'Caius' (
pronounced ) (the College’s second founder
John Keys fashionably latinized the spelling of his name after studying in Italy). The college’s present Master, the 41st, is Sir
Christopher Hum.
Outline
The College has been attended by . As an academic institution it has included nine
Nobel Prize winners on the official Cambridge Nobel list
[1]. Caius claims to be one of the colleges with consistently high undergraduate academic achievement
[2] and has been ranked 2nd in the
Tompkins Table for the last two years.
The college has long historical associations with medical teaching especially due to its alumni physicians
John Caius (who gave the college the
caduceus in its insignia) and
William Harvey.
The college first admitted women as fellows and students in
1979. The college now has nearly 100 fellows, over 700 students and about 200 staff.
History
The College was first founded, as 'Gonville Hall', by
Edmund Gonville, Rector of
Terrington St Clement in
Norfolk in
1348, making it the fourth-oldest surviving college. When Gonville died three years later, he left a struggling institution with almost no money. The executor of his will,
William Bateman,
Bishop of Norwich, stepped in, transferring the college to the land close to the college he had just founded,
Trinity Hall, and renamed it 'The Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary', endowing it with its first buildings.
By the sixteenth century, the college had fallen into disrepair, and in
1557 it was refounded by Royal Charter as 'Gonville and Caius College' by the physician
John Caius. John Caius was master of the college from
1559 until shortly before his death in
1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly extended the buildings.
During his time as Master, Caius accepted no payment but insisted on several unusual rules. He insisted that the college admit no scholar who “is deformed, dumb, blind, lame, maimed, mutilated, a Welshman, or suffering from any grave or contagious illness, or an invalid, that is sick in a serious measure” (see Brooke's ''History'', p. 69-70, where it is suggested that 'Wallicum' is a scribal error for 'Gallicum'). Caius also built a three-sided court, Caius Court, “lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul”. Caius did however found the college as a strong centre for the study of
medicine, a tradition that it aims to keep to this day.
By
1630, the college had expanded greatly, having around 25 fellows and 150 students, but numbers fell over the next century, only returning to the 1630 level in the early nineteenth century. Since then the college has grown considerably and now has one of the largest undergraduate populations in the university.
It is one of the more wealthy colleges with an estimated
financial endowment of £115m and net assets of £140.5m in 2006.
Caius also admits academically accomplished
American and other foreign students for its various summer programmes, the most prominent of which has been organized in the United States by the
University of New Hampshire, although these programmes are not to the
Tripos standard.
Rules & Traditions
Gonville and Caius College is one of the few remaining colleges which enforces attendance of its students at communal dinners, known as 'Hall'. Consisting of a three-course meal served by waiting staff, undergraduates must buy 45 'dinner tickets' per term. Hall takes place in two sittings, with the second sitting known as 'Formal Hall', which must be attended wearing gowns.
The college also enforces the system of
exeats, or official permission to leave the college. At the end of term students must get permission from their tutors to leave the college. If they do not, they are fined.
Buildings
The first buildings to be erected on the college’s current site date from
1353 when Bishop Bateman built Gonville Court. The college chapel was added in
1393 with the Old Hall (used until recently as a library) and Master’s Lodge following in the next half century. Most of the stone used to build the college came from
Ramsey Abbey near
Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.
On the refoundation by Dr Caius, the college was expanded and updated. In
1565 the building of Caius Court began, and he planted an avenue of trees in what is now known as Tree Court. Caius was also responsible for the building of the college’s three gates, symbolising the path of academic life. On matriculation, one arrives at the Gate of Humility (near the Porters’ Lodge). In the centre of the college one passes through the Gate of Virtue regularly. And finally, graduating students pass through the Gate of Honour on their way to the neighbouring Senate House to receive their degrees. The students of Gonville and Caius commonly refer to the fourth gate in the college, between Tree Court and Gonville Court, which also contains the access to the toilets, as The Gate of Necessity.
Gonville Court was refaced in a classical design in the 1750s, and the Old Library and hall were designed by
Anthony Salvin in
1854. On the wall of the hall hangs a college flag that was flown at the
South Pole by
Dr Wilson during the famous
1912 expedition.
St Michael's and St Mary's Courts lie across Trinity Street on land surrounding St Michael's Church. The full formation of St Michael's Court only occurred in the 1930s, with the building at the south side of the court of a block overlooking the market place.
Students and fellows are accommodated in all of the courts on the central site.
Caius also has one of the largest and most architecturally impressive student libraries in Oxbridge
[3], housed in the Cockerell Building. Previously the Seeley History Library and the Squire Law Library, Caius acquired the lease on the Cockrell Building in the 1990s. The college library was relocated from Gonville Court in the late 1990s, following an extensive renovation of the Cockrell Building.
Caius owns a substantial amount of land between West Rd and Selwyn Avenue. Set in idyllic landscaped gardens, the modern Harvey Court (named after
William Harvey and designed by Sir
Leslie Martin.) was built on the West Rd site in
1961.
Adjacent to Harvey Court is the £13 million Stephen Hawking Building, which opened its doors to first-year undergraduates in October 2006. Providing en-suite accommodation for 75 students and eight fellows, as well as providing conference facilities in the vacations, the Stephen Hawking Building boasts some of the highest-standard student accommodation in Cambridge.
The college owns a large number of residential properties across Cambridge, many of which are used to house both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
The Old Courts
.jpg)
Interior north-east corner of Waterhouse Building
'Tree Court' is the largest of the Old Courts. It is so named because John Caius planted an avenue of trees there. Although none of the original trees survived, the court retains a number of trees and the tree-lined avenue, which is unusual for a Cambridge front court. The interior north-east corner of the Waterhouse Building can be seen on the left.
'Gonville Court', though remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is the oldest part of the college. The interior east side of Gonville Court, opposite Hall, can be seen on the left.

The ''Gate of Honour''
The ''Gate of Honour'' (to the left), at the south side of 'Caius Court', though the most direct way from the Old Courts to the College Library (''Cockerell Building'', behind the wall on the right), is only used for special occasions such as graduation. The ''Senate House'' (on the left) as well as ''King’s College Chapel'' (directly behind the Gate of Honour) can also be seen.
Notable alumni

Stained glass window in the dining hall of
Caius College, in Cambridge, commemorating John Venn and his invention of the Venn diagram.
''See also ''
★
Harold Abrahams –
Olympic athlete portrayed in the film
Chariots of Fire.
★
Francis Blomefield – Historian of Norfolk.
★
Max Born –
Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
★
Alain de Botton – popular philosophy writer.
★
Lord Broers – vice-chancellor of
Cambridge University, 1996-2003.
★
Alastair Campbell – aide to
British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
★
Jimmy Carr – comedian and television presenter.
★
Robert Carr – former
British Member of Parliament and
Home Secretary.
★
Ken Clarke –
British Member of Parliament and former
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
★
John Horton Conway – mathematician.
★
Mark Damazer- controller of Radio 4
★
Henry Fancourt – naval aviator.
★
Orlando Figes – historian.
★
Paola Doimi de Frankopan –
Croatian aristocrat and wife of
Lord Nicholas Windsor
★
Peter Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie – politician.
★
John Hookham Frere – diplomat and author.
★ Sir
David Frost – broadcaster.
★ Sir
Harold Gillies – “the father of plastic surgery”.
★
Lord Goldsmith –
Attorney General of England and Wales, 2001-07.
★
Andrew Gowers – journalist.
★
George Green – mathematician.
★
Sir Thomas Gresham – founder of the Royal Exchange.
★ Sir
Percy Wyn-Harris - Mountaineer, Adventurer & former governor of the Gambia
★
William Harvey – medical pioneer.
★
Christopher Helm – publisher.
★
John F. Lehman –
American Secretary of the Navy and member of the
September 11th Commission.
★
Thomas Lynch, Jr. – signatory,
United States Declaration of Independence.
★
Iain Macleod – former
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
★
Inagaki Manjiro –
Japan’s first Minister Resident in
Siam in 1897.
★
Stephen Mangan – actor.
★
Gordon Manley – climatologist.
★
Stephen Marchant – ornithologist.
★
Michael Joseph Oakeshott – philosopher.
★
Titus Oates – Popish plotter, “17th century’s worst Briton”.
★
Richard Overy – Military historian.
★
G. H. Pember – theologian.
★
Andrew Roberts – historian.
★ Sir
Basil Schonland – physicist and academic.
★
Simon Sebag Montefiore – historian.
★
Thomas Shadwell – playwright, Poet Laureate.
★
Norman Stone - historian
★ Sir
Richard Stone –
Nobel Prize-winning economist.
★
Jeremy Taylor – author and clergyman.
★
Adair Turner –
British businessman.
★
Edward Adrian Wilson – explorer who died with
Robert Falcon Scott in the
Antarctic.
Notable fellows and Masters
''See also
★
Edward Hall Alderson - mathematician, classicist, lawyer and, as Baron Alderson, judge (student and fellow)
★
Lord Bauer - economist (student and fellow)
★
John Forbes Cameron - mathematician (fellow, Master, and Vice-Chancellor of the University).
★ Sir
James Chadwick -
Nobel Prize-winning physicist, discoverer of the
neutron (student, fellow, and Master).
★
Francis Crick - co-
Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of the structure of
DNA (Ph.D student and hon. fellow).
★
Richard J. Evans - historian (fellow).
★
Sir Alan Fersht - chemist and
Fellow of the Royal Society (fellow).
★
Thomas Fink, physicist and author (fellow).
★ Sir
Ronald Fisher - statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist (student, fellow, and President).
★ Sir
Howard Florey -
Nobel Prize-winning inventor of penicillin (fellow).
★
Milton Friedman -
Nobel Prize-winning economist (visiting fellow).
★
Francis Glisson - physician, and one of the founders of the
Royal Society (fellow).
★
Stephen Hawking - theoretical physicist and
Lucasian Professor (fellow).
★
Anthony Hewish -
Nobel Prize-winning astronomer (student and fellow).
★ Sir
John Hicks -
Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
★
Robin Holloway - composer (fellow).
★
William Lubbock - divine
★
Charles Henry Monro - Translator of the Digest of Justinian (student and fellow).
★ Sir
Nevill Mott -
Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist (fellow and Master).
★
Joseph Needham - sinologist (student, fellow, and Master).
★
Stephen Perse - founder of
The Perse School in
1615.
★
J. H. Prynne -
British poet (student and fellow).
★ Sir
John Seeley -
Regius Professor of Modern History at
Cambridge (fellow)
★
D.R. Shackleton Bailey - classicist (student and fellow).
★ Sir
Charles Sherrington -
Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist (student and fellow).
★
Quentin Skinner -
Regius Professor of Modern History at
Cambridge (student and fellow)
★
Joseph Stiglitz -
Nobel Prize-winning economist (fellow).
★
John Venn - inventor of the
Venn diagram and historian of the College (student, fellow, and President).
★
Peter Tranchell - composer (fellow)
★ Sir
William Wade - English academic lawyer (student and Master).
★
Charles Wood - composer (fellow).
See also
★
Caius Boat Club
★
Gonville & Caius Association Football Club
External links
★
Gonville and Caius College Website (the official college website)
★
Gonville and Caius Students Union Website (the undergraduate student social organisation for the college)
★
Gonville and Caius MCR Website (the graduate student social organisation for the college)
References
Brooke, C. ''A history of Gonville and Caius College.'' Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1985 (corrected reprint, 1996). ISBN 0-85115-423-9.