The New International Encyclopædia/Downing College

DOWNING COLLEGE. A college of Cambridge University, founded by Sir George Downing, of Gamlingay Park, Cambridge, who died in 1749, leaving his estates to be appropriated to the founding of a college in Cambridge, after various trust provisions had expired. The succession on which the trust depended dying out, a charter was obtained in 1800 for a college devoted especially to the study of law and medicine, for a master, two professors, and sixteen fellows. The original scheme was straitened by costly litigation, and though the buildings were begun in 1807, only two sides of the quadrangle have so far been completed. The statutes were framed in 1805 and altered in 1860. The college had, in 1902, a master, eight fellowships, restricted to law and medicine, and ten scholars.