The history of Brasenose College, Oxford, stretches back to 1509, when Brasenose College was founded on the site of Brasenose Hall. Its name is believed to derive from the name of a bronze knocker that adorned the hall's door. The college was associated with Lancashire and Cheshire, the county origins of its two founders – Sir Richard Sutton and the Bishop of Lincoln, William Smyth – a link that was maintained strongly until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first principals navigated Brasenose, with its Catholic sympathisers, through the reformation and continuing religious reforms. Most of Brasenose favoured the Royalist side during the English Civil War, although it produced notable generals and clergy on both sides. The library and chapel were completed in the mid-seventeenth century, despite Brasenose suffering continuing financial problems.
The post-1785 period would see an era of prosperity of the college under Principal William Cleaver. The college began to be populated by gentlemen, its income doubling between 1790 and 1810, and academic success considerable. Efforts to reconstruct Brasenose were not completed, however, until the second half of the century with the addition of New Quad between 1886 and 1911. Brasenose's financial position remained secure, although under the tenure of Principal Edward Hartopp Cradock Brasenose's academic record waned greatly, with much of its success focussed on sports – where it excelled most notably in cricket and rowing. The mid-Century Royal Commissions were navigated – although they were opposed in form, their recommendations welcomed including the submission of accounts. The election of Charles Buller Heberden as principal in 1889 led to a reversal in Brasenose's academic failures, although its sporting performance suffered. Heberden was the first lay principal, presiding over an increasingly secular college, opening up the library to undergraduates, instituting an entrance exam for the first time and accepting Rhodes scholarships.
Brasenose lost 115 men in the First World War (including a quarter of the 1913 year), with its undergraduate numbers greatly reduced. Lord Curzon's post-war reforms were successfully instituted. The inter-war period was defined by William Stallybrass, who as fellow and eventual principal (until 1948) dominated college life. Brasenose once again produced top sportsmen – cricketers, rowers, and others. This came at the cost of falling academic standards and poorly performing finances, which would see Stallybrass' authority challenged. He died in a railway accident before he could be forced out, however. After the war, sporting achievements waned (although there were notable exceptions) but academic success did not improve significantly, in what was now one of Oxford's largest colleges.
The 1970s saw considerable social change in Brasenose: the admission of women beginning in 1974, more post-graduate attendees and fewer domestic staff. There was also considerable construction work to ensure that undergraduates could be housed for the entirety of their degree on the main site and on the Frewin site; this task was only completed in 1997 with the opening of the St Cross Building and Frewin extension. Law continued to be a strong subject for Brasenose (following on from Stallybrass, through Principals Barry Nicholas and Herbert Hart) as was the emerging subject of Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), starting with the fellowship of Vernon Bogdanor. Brasenose's finances were secured, and it thus entered the twenty-first century in a good position as regards financial, extracurricular and academic success – the last having significantly recovered from its lows, helped by PPE.
Foundation and early history
Brasenose Hall and Stamford migration
Brasenose Hall was a building on the medieval Schools Street in central Oxford, now the west side of Radcliffe Square. Its location is now part of the site of the current front quadrangle of Brasenose College. The building was bought by the chancellor of the university in 1261 and is first mentioned by name in 1278, when it had four schools or lecture rooms.Buchan (1898). pp. 1–6. The name "Brasenose" is thought to originate from a brass–lead door knocker in the shape of a leopard (or lion) head. An alternative theory is that the name is a corruption of brasenhuis (brewhouse), but this is not widely accepted, although the college did have its own brewhouse up until 1889. The brewhouse theory is believed to date back only to 1837.Crook (2008) p. 9.
Brasenose appears to have aligned itself with Oxford's "Northerners" during periods of Northerner–Southerner violence in Oxford,Buchan (1898). pp. 8–9. and clerks from Brasenose Hall seem to have been part of the group of "Northerners" who left the ongoing violence in 1333 and made their way to Stamford, Lincolnshire, where they attempted to found a new university - one "Philippus le manciple atte Brasenose" was recorded in the list of Stamford scholars in 1335. The Stamford establishment was considered a rival, and after appeals from Oxford University it was closed down in 1335 by Edward III. Candidates for degrees at Oxford were required to swear that they would not give or attend lectures in Stamford as late as 1827.Buchan (1898). pp. 7–8.
Between the 17th and 19th centuries, various historians proposed that a demolished medieval building in Stamford known as "Brazenose Hall"While the Oxford college has settled on the spelling 'Brasenose', Stamford uses the form 'Brazenose'. or "The College", had been a Stamford University hall founded by clerks from Oxford's Brasenose Hall, and that the 12th-century knocker on the building's surviving gate was the original from the Oxford hall. In 1890, the college purchased the house standing on the site in order to obtain the knocker, which they removed to Oxford, where it is now mounted above the college's high table.
In 1381, University College leased Brasenose Hall as an independent academic hall.Crook (2008). p. 7. Between 1480 and 1509 the Hall was responsible for supplying a vice-chancellor of the University and two of its proctors.Buchan (1898). pp. 8–9.
Foundation The college is traditionally considered to have been founded in 1509 by a lawyer, Sir Richard Sutton, of Prestbury, Cheshire, and the Bishop of Lincoln, William Smyth. William Smyth has risen quickly through the ranks of the Church – albeit as a more able administrator than prelate – to become Bishop of Lincoln in 1496, Chancellor of the university between 1500 and 1503 and Lord President of the Marches in 1501, assisted by the influence of Lady Margaret Beaufort.
It was on 20 October 1508 that Smyth and eight other members of the college leased the site for the college – Brasenose Hall and neighbouring Little University Hall – from University College for ninety-two years at the cost of £3 a year, provided that they spend £40 improving the site within a year.Buchan (1898). p. 12. On 1 June 1509, the foundation stone for Staircase I was laid.Buchan (1898). p. 13. It was not until 15 January 1512 that a royal charter was obtained from Henry VIII.Crook (2008) p. 11. The transition between hall and college was not clear-cut; rather, the hall was left standing whilst the new buildings for the college were completed. Matthew Smyth, last principal of the hall, became first principal of the college, although he was referred to as "Principal of the College and Hall of Brasen Nose" as late as September 1514.Buchan (1898). p. 14. It was in 1523 that Sutton transferred the lease formally over to the principal and fellows of the new college.
The Abbey of Oseney leased several halls to the new college, including Haberdasher, Glass, Black and Little St. Edmund, in 1530, and in 1556 Lincoln College let Staple Hall to Brasenose on a nominal rent of twenty shillings a year. These complemented other halls which had been taken on as Brasenose Hall had grown, including St Thomas's Hall, Shield Hall, Ivy Hall, St Mary's Entry, Salissury Hall and Broadgates Hall.Crook (2008) p. 8. The early college was governed by the statutes laid down by the formal charter of foundation in 1511–1512 (altered by a revised code of Sutton after Smyth's death) which was prefaced with the words:Buchan (1898). p. 15. In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God, Mary the glorious Virgin, and of Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, and also of St. Michael the archangel: We, William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Sutton, Esquire, confiding in the aid of the Supreme Creator, who knows, directs, and disposes the wills of all that trust in him, do out of goods which in this life, not by our merits, but of the grace of His fulness, we have received abundantly, by royal authority and charter found, institute and establish in the University of Oxford, a perpetual College of poor and indigent scholars, who shall study and make progress in philosophy and sacred theology; commonly called The King's Haule and College of Brasennose in Oxford; to the praise, glory, and honour of Almighty God, of the glorious Virgin Mary, Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, St. Michael the archangel and All Saints; for the support and exaltation of the Christian Faith, for the advancement of holy church, and for the furtherance of divine worship. Smyth had planned for a college of a principal and sixty bachelor fellows; however, Sutton lowered this to only twelve.Buchan (1898). p. 16.Crook (2008) pp. 13–14. The principal was required to be over thirty, a graduate and priest, and have the support of the Visitor, the Bishop of Lincoln. He was entitled to take up ecclesiastic office or duties that did not interfere overly with his job as principal; the fellows were required to be resident for ten months of each year. Entrants to the college would have been only 11 or 12 years old, with an intake both from those whose income was very low, alongside those from gentlemanly backgrounds.Crook (2008) p. 14. Fellows had a high degree of autonomy, but received only board and lodging as reward.
Early history
The college remained associated with Lancashire and Cheshire, with a particular preference for those from Prestbury and Prescot, the founders' birthplaces. This was also reflected in early benefactors. These included the donation of John Port, serjeant-at-law, for two fellowships for natives of Chester in 1522; that of William Clyfton, the sub-dean of York, for residents of York, Lincoln and Nottingham in 1538; and for the Brian Higden, Dean of York, who sponsored a fellowship for those in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in 1549.Buchan (1898). p. 18. Another notable benefactor during this period was John Claymond, the first President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who in 1538 gave funds to maintain six scholars at Brasenose, provided that their lectures on humanity and Greek take place at his own college.Buchan (1898). pp. 18–19. Only in 1572 was a Lectureship in Greek established at Brasenose, symptomatic of a conservatism that attached Brasenose to a monastic teaching style that was increasingly problematic during the reformation. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, the college did boast lectureships ("public readerships") in the new disciplines of logic and natural philosophy.Crook (2008) pp. 15–16. By 1547, the income of the college had increased to almost £200 yearly, with an endowment that placed it squarely in the midst of other colleges in size; it did, however, make a yearly loss.Crook (2008) p. 23.