Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene.
Magdalene counted some of the most prominent men in the realm among its benefactors, including Britain's premier noble the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Chief Justice Christopher Wray. Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, was responsible for the refoundation of the college and also established its motto—garde ta foy. Audley's successors in the mastership and as benefactors of the college were, however, prone to dire ends; several benefactors were arraigned at various stages on charges of high treason and executed.
The college remains one of the smaller in the university, numbering around 400 undergraduate and 200 graduate students. It has maintained strong academic performance over the past decade, achieving an average of ninth in the Tompkins Table and coming second in 2015. Magdalene is home to the Pepys Library, which holds the collection of rare books and manuscripts that belonged to the English diarist Samuel Pepys, an alumnus of the college.
History
Buckingham College
Magdalene College was first founded in 1428 as Monk's Hostel, which hosted Benedictine student monks. The secluded location of the hostel was chosen because it was separated from the town centre by the River Cam and protected by Cambridge Castle. The main buildings of the college were constructed in the 1470s under the leadership of John de Wisbech, then Abbot of Crowland. Under the patronage of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, the institution was renamed Buckingham College.In the 16th century, the Church of England broke away from the Papacy. With the subsequent Dissolution of the Monasteries, the parent abbey of Buckingham College, Crowland Abbey, was dissolved. However, the college remained in operation.
Refoundation
Walden Abbey, one of the Benedictine abbeys associated with Buckingham College, came into the possession of Thomas Audley after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. On 3 April 1542 Audley refounded Buckingham College as the College of Saint Mary Magdalene. Derived from Audley were the arms of Magdalene, including the motto Garde Ta Foy, and the wyvern as the crest.Thomas Audley died in 1544 aged 56, only two years after he re-founded the college. He donated to the college seven acres of property at Aldgate in London, which was his reward from Henry VIII for disposing of Anne Boleyn. This property would have brought enormous income had it been retained by the college. However, under the conspiracy of the Elizabethan banker Benedict Spinola, the property was permanently alienated to the Crown in 1574. The transaction involved Spinola luring the master and fellows of the time to accept an increase in the annual rental from £9 to £15 a year in exchange for the property. The loss of the Aldgate property left the college in extreme poverty, and the street front of the college was only completed in the 1580s under the generosity of Christopher Wray, then Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench. The transaction was "almost certainly illegal", and was contested multiple times without success. The first and most famous such lawsuit was pursued in 1615 by Barnaby Goche, who was master of the college between 1604 and 1626. This court case landed Goche and the senior fellow in prison for two years. Goche was subsequently offered £10,000 as a compromise, which he refused to accept. When the Quayside development site of Magdalene College was completed in 1989, a gargoyle of Spinola which spits water into the Cam was installed as a "revenge at last".
In 1650, Samuel Pepys joined the college. He was best known for his private diaries, known to critics as the Pepys Diary, which provided a major eyewitness account for the Great Fire of London of 1666. Pepys was remembered by the Pepys Library, built around 1700, where the original manuscripts of his diaries and naval records are kept, in addition to his collection of printed books and engravings in their original bookcases. Pepys stipulated in his will that the library was to be left to Magdalene, and have been kept at the college since their donation by Pepys's nephew, John Jackson, in 1724. The building was also home to Magdalene College library, until the construction of the New Library.
Enlightenment
, a theologian by training, became master of the college in 1714 and prescribed a new curriculum for undergraduate students at Magdalene. His new curriculum included Mathematics, Newtonian Physics, Geography and Astronomy, as well as Classics, Logic and Metaphysics. Waterland was also successful in attracting financial aid for the college, including funds for scholarships. The mathematician Edward Waring was among those who joined the college during this period.In 1781, Peter Peckard, one of the earliest abolitionists, became master of Magdalene. The Zong massacre of 1781 prompted Peckard to speak strongly against slave trade in his sermons, some of which were published as tracts and pamphlets. Peckard set the college on the course of achieving a wider reputation of scholarship and sound thinking, and was later appointed as vice-chancellor of Cambridge University.
Magdalene continued to be a liberal college through the Victorian era. The college had more liberal admissions policies than most, admitting Arthur Cohen, the first practising Jew to graduate from Cambridge. During the same period, Magdalene also admitted Catholic students such as Charles Januarius Acton, and Asian students who were excluded from many other colleges until after the First World War.
Modern development
The modern development of Magdalene was shaped by A. C. Benson, master from 1915 to 1925. His enthusiasm and attention to detail produced outstanding pieces of poems, essays and literary criticism; his diaries were also studied by many later critics. His financial generosity effected significant impact on the modern appearance of the college grounds: at least 20 inscriptions around the college refer to him. In 1930, Benson Court was constructed and named after him.From 1972, the previously all-male colleges in Cambridge started admitting women, the first three being Churchill, Clare and King's. In 1985, Oriel College, Oxford, admitted women, making Magdalene the only surviving all-male Oxbridge college. The following year, Magdalene made the decision to admit women and become co-residential. When women joined the college in 1988, some male undergraduates protested by wearing black arm-bands and flying the college flag at half-mast.
21st century
Magdalene has an evenly mixed student body in terms of sex, race and education background. In recent years, Magdalene's access programme has attracted many applicants from state schools, especially from North West England; and the college's close affiliation with international students' bursaries such as the and the Jardine Foundation has attracted many applicants from Southeast Asia, most notably Wong Yan Lung who went on to become Secretary for Justice for Hong Kong.In October 2022, the new library designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects won the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture.
The hereditary visitor of the college is Baron Braybrooke ex officio as heir of the founder of the college, Lord Audley.
Buildings and grounds
Magdalene College is located at the bend of the River Cam on the northwestern side of the town centre, at the foot of Castle Hill. The college was deliberately built on the opposite end of Magdalene Bridge from the town centre so that the Benedictine student-monks would be secluded from the business and temptations of the town. As such, it was the first Cambridge college to be built on the northwestern side of the Cam. The college's main site was previously settled during the Roman occupation of England.The college's buildings are distributed on both sides of the river, and is roughly divided into four areas: the main site, where the oldest buildings including the porter's lodge and the Pepys Library are located; The Village, which was built in the 1930s and consists exclusively of student accommodation; Quayside, built on the southeastern side of the river in the 1980s as an investment project which also provides student accommodation; and Cripps Court, built in the 2000s for extra conference facilities and accommodation.
Magdalene's old buildings are representative of the college's ramshackle growth from a monks' foundation into a centre of education. It is also distinctive in that most of the old buildings are in brick rather than stone. Magdalene Street divides the ancient courts from more recent developments. One of the accommodation blocks in the newer part of the college was built by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the early 1930s. Opened in 2005, Cripps Court, on Chesterton Road, features new undergraduate rooms and conference facilities.
Main site
The main site of the college is the area bounded by Magdalene Street, Chesterton Lane and the River Cam. It was the original area of college buildings from the 1470s. This area includes Magdalene's First Court, Second Court, Fellows' Garden, and the buildings surrounding them such as the porters' lodge, the Master's Lodge, and the Pepys Library.Porters' lodge and First Court
Situated on the north-east side of Magdalene Street is the porters' lodge, where mail to members of the college is delivered and distributed. Past the gatehouse by which the porters' lodge is situated lies First Court. The First Court was the earliest court to be built. From 1760 the Court was faced with stucco, but most of the buildings were restored in a project between 1953 and 1966. The chapel was the first to be built in around 1470, while the gatehouse including the porters' lodge and the street-front of the college did not exist until 1585.The chapel lies in the north range of First Court, and its original construction dates to 1470-72. However, restoration works meant that little of the original chapel other than the original roof remains. Since the college is dedicated to Mary Magdalene, much of the chapel's artwork describes her story. The glass windows on the eastern wall of the chapel are dedicated to the encounters between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ around the time of the crucifixion of Jesus: anointing Jesus with her jug of ointment, watching the crucifixion, weeping at the tomb and recognising Jesus after his resurrection. Compared to most other Cambridge colleges of medieval origin, Magdalene's chapel is smaller in line with the college's relatively small population. Despite its smaller size, however, the chapel's physical proportions are in keeping with those of other medieval Oxbridge college chapels, reflecting the traditional layout of Solomon's Temple: the ratio of Magdalene's antechapel, choir, and sanctuary matches that of the Temple's porch, holy place, and holy of holies. In 2000, the chapel received a new Baroque-style pipe organ built by Goetze & Gwynn.
Past the chapel, the hall separates the First Court to the west and the Second Court to the east. This is where formal dinners are served. The hall itself was built in the early 16th century, again with many later refurbishments but never gas or electric lighting — Magdalene's hall is unique in Oxbridge in relying solely on candlelight. To the far end of the hall is the High Table, placed on a platform one step above ground level, where fellows and their guests dine. Students dine at three long benches in front of and perpendicular to the High Table and spanning to the entrance. Flanking the entrance is a double staircase leading to a minstrels' gallery and the senior combination room. The walls of the hall are decorated with 15 portraits of notable benefactors and past members.
Both the old and new Master's Lodges are located just to the north of First Court. The old Master's Lodge, connected to the building in which the porters' lodge is situated, was built in the 16th century and vacated in 1835. The Master's Lodge then moved to a new location about 50m north of the previous location. This new lodge was rebuilt in 1967 to give the Master a less grandiose, but more comfortable residence. The building which was the first Master's Lodge is now known as Old Lodge and is predominantly used for student accommodation. A number of senior fellows and students have rooms in the buildings surrounding First Court, including the Bursar, the Senior Tutor, and the Chaplain, as well as the President of the Middle Combination Room, the President of the Junior Combination Room, and the Captain of Boats.