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ORIEL COLLEGE.
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benefactions materially altered the position of the
College and gave it a place, not indeed on a level
with the more splendid foundations of Merton, New
College, and Magdalen, but still one of substantial
wealth and importance. The number of fellows was
raised, as a consequence of these accessions, to the
number of eighteen, at which it remained to a very
recent time.
The Reformation was followed by very important changes in the character and constitution of the Uni- versity. It was part of the religious policy of Elizabeth and her ministers to keep a hold on the study and teaching of the great seats of learning : and this was to be effected through the machinery of the Colleges. Under the influence of the Chancellor, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, statutes were passed, requiring all students to be members of one or other of the Colleges and Halls. The effect of these regulations was, in a few years, to give to the ancient Colleges a wholly new character. A College was no longer only the small family of Fellows, following the rule of life prescribed for them by their founders' statutes ; but it became an integral part of the University. Hitherto the Colleges had been places of learning within the University, but not even in the aggregate, co-extensive with it : the bulk of the students were independent, or as they would now be called, non -collegiate. Henceforth, the Colleges and the University be- came for many important purposes, identical : and in popular language to go to the University was to go to College. Oriel now became, what it has con- tinued ever since, an educational establishment, re- ceiving students of all conditions, subject to strict discipline, and directed in their University studies by tutors, appointed by the Head of the College out of the Fellows of the ancient society. The occupation of the Fellows was the instruction of their pupils, rather than that continuation of their own studies, which had been the aim of their original foundation.
An immediate consequence of this change at Oriel was the demolition of the existing fabric : and the erection on its site of new buildings, suitable to the altered conditions. This work was begun in 161 8, when the south and west sides of the present front quadrangle were erected : the north and east sides, with the Hall and Chapel, were completed in 1642. No part of the old Oriole was preserved. The cost was wholly defrayed by the contributions of the mem- bers of the College, past and present : Provosts Blencowe, Lewis and Tolson, whose arms were till recently to be seen on stone shields round the quad- rangle : the Earl of Kingston and Sir Robert Hailey, commemorated in like manner in the windows of the College Hall, were some of the principal benefactors. The northern part of the site was for sometime reserved as a garden or grove : but early in the eighteenth century two additional blocks of buildings were erected by Dr. Robinson, Bishop of London, and formerly Fellow, and by Provost Carter. The present Library, at the extreme north end of the garden, was built in 1786, to receive the collection of books from Stoneleigh Abbey, the bequest of Edward, Lord Leigh. Further extensions of building were made on the East side at the beginning of the present century. Even with these additions the accomodation for students within the walls remains very limited : the present number of sets of rooms falls considerably short of sixty. And the confined site, in the heart of the town, and closely shut in by streets, forbids any great expansion. By recent legislation it has been provided that St Mary's Hall, which adjoins the
College on the north, shall before long be united with
Oriel: this accession will admit at a future time of the
extension of the College to the High Street, bringing
it face to face with the Church with which its original
foundation is so closely connected.
The most eminent names among the former mem- bers of Oriel in previous centuries are those of Sir Walter Raleigh : Lord Holt, Chief Justice of England: William Talbot, Bishop successively of Oxford, Salis- bury and Durham : Charles Talbot, his son, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain : Bishop Robinson, already referred to, Lord Privy Seal, and negotiator of the Peace of Utrecht : Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham : William Gerrard Hamilton : and Gilbert White, fifty years Fellow. But it is in a more recent period that the fame of the College has reached its highest level.
Although, as has been stated, Oriel, like the rest, opened its doors to students outside the corporate body, it remained in one respect singular among its sister-foundations. There existed no body of junior members, elsewhere called Scholars, with rights or expectations of succession to Fellowships. The choice of Fellows remained, with a few exceptions in favour of certain counties and dioceses, open to the whole University. And it was this peculiar liberty that enabled the College at the close of the last century to take the decisive step which lifted it into eminence. From 1795, when Edward Copleston of Corpus was invited, on account of his high academical reputation, to fill the vacant Fellowship at Oriel, the principle was firmly maintained of selecting upon merit alone, without considerations of interest or favour. The result was in a short time to make the Oriel Fellow- ship the highest prize of an Oxford career. Among those, whose names under these conditions have been placed on the Oriel roll, the following are some of the most eminent : Archbishop Whately : Dr. Arnold : Dr. Pusey : Cardinal Newman : Dr. Hampden, Bishop of Hereford : John Keble : Richard William Church, Dean of St. Paul's : James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester: Matthew Arnold : Arthur Hugh Clough and many others.
Floreat Oriel.
Charles L. Shadwell, M.A., B.C.L.
For a fuller account of the constitution and history of this College by the same author, see "The Col- leges of Oxford," by A. Clark, M.A., Methuen, London, 1 891.
