5i
BALLIOL COLLEGE.
52
favour of a particular locality. Still, no doubt, the College ' was a very close corporation, for Fellow nominated
Scholar, and out of the Scholars the Fellows were generally elected.' The four generations following the accession
of Queen Elizabeth saw the College enriched with a number of new benefactions, all (with the exception of the
Fellowship and Scholarships founded by Elizabeth, Lady Periam), distinguished from the older endowments by
restriction to a particular place or school. Among these the Fellowship and Scholarship — afterwards two of each
order — founded by Peter Blundell in connexion with his school at Tiverton deserve to be noticed. ' After the
Restoration two separate benefactions set up that close connexion between the College and Scotland which saved
Balliol from sinking into utter obscurity in the century following, and which has since contributed to it a large
share of its later fame. Bishop Warner of Rochester, who died in 1666, bequeathed to the College the annual
sum of eighty pounds for the support of four scholars from Scotland, to be chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Bishop of Rochester; and about ten years later certain Exhibitions were founded by Mr. John Snell for
persons nominated by Glasgow University. . . . Their importance in the history of the College cannot be
over-estimated, and it is to them that it owes such names among its members as Adam Smith, Sir William
Hamilton, and Archbishop Tait, to say nothing of a great company of distinguished Scotsmen now living.'
During the present reign the College has been able to establish a number of Scholarships for proficiency in the
newer studies of Law, Modern History, and Natural Science out of a fund endowed for the purpose by Miss
Hannah Brakenbury ; and two Exhibitions of ^100 a year each have been founded under the will of Richard
Jenkyns, formerly Master, which are awarded by examination to members of the College, and the list of holders
of which is of exceptional brilliancy.
In the first days of the College its members had to attend the parish Church of St. Mary Magdalen on all festivals ; they had not a Chapel licensed for the celebration of the Mass until 1364. A new Chapel was built in the reign of King Henry VIII. but was destroyed under the Mastership of Dr. Scott, when the present Chapel was erected on its site. Various blocks of buildings, which form what is called the garden quadrangle, grew up by degrees from the early part of last century until fifteen years ago, when they were completed by the erection of a new dining-hall suited to the requirements of what has become one of the largest Colleges in Oxford. Not long before this the whole of the outer quadrangle and the Master's lodgings were also taken down and rebuilt in a style, and on a scale, which are considered to harmonise ill with those of the rest of the College.
The history of Palliol during the centuries
bell TOWER, ST. ALBAN hall. — From Ingram.
following the Reformation offers few points
of interest. The College seems to have
been long in recovering from the misfor-
tunes into which it fell after the great civil
war ; and its numbers were so small that
in 1 68 1, when the Parliament sat in Oxford,
it was glad to place its buildings at the
service of the opposition peers. In the
eighteenth century it was probably not
much worse, and certainly not much better,
than the majority of other Colleges at a
time when the forms of the mediaeval
academic system survived without the
reality, and when the habits of social life
acquired a grossness too seldom tempered
by the refinement or the zeal for learning
which marked the century before it. As
an illustration of the manners of Balliol in
the days of Queen Anne it may be noticed
that the knives and forks were chained to
the table in hall, while the trenchers were
made of wood. The real revival of Balliol
College began after the election of John
Parsons as Masterin 1798. He was active
in forwarding the Statute which established
the modern system of public examinations,
which for good or for evil forms the charac-
teristic feature of the English Universities
of the nineteenth century, and in 1807 he
became Vice-Chancellor. In his College
he was distinguished for the energy with
which he reformed the Tutorial system
and set on a firm foundation an organisa-
tion for teaching undergraduates as well as
for keeping them in order.
When Parsons was made Bishop of Peterborough in 18 13 Richard Jenkyns, as Vice-Master, became the virtual gover- nor of the College, over which from 18 19 to 1854 he presided as Master. His reign is marked by the great changes which put an end completely to the old College system. In 1834 almost all the
