Page:Oxford men and their colleges.djvu/463

 /,i,i, i i„i i 3C

'#*ii^jrg

PARAPET ST. MARY'S CHURCH. — Mackenzie and Pugin.

XX.— HERTFORD COLLEGE.

LTHOUGH Hertford is the youngest College of the University, it stands close to the very centre of the Uni- versity's most ancient home, on a site which has been the scene of Academical life from the earliest times. At least four ancient Halls were comprised within the limits of the present College : Cat Hall, near the present Principal's lodgings ; Black Hall, at the corner of New College Lane ; Hart Hall and Arthur Halt, the two latter occupying the Library corner of the Quadrangle. Hart Hall eventually swallowed up all its neighbours as well as the ground between them.

Hart Hall, l28o(?)— 1740.

The house is first known to have been a residence for scholars when it had passed into the possession of one Elias de Hertford, from whom it got its name of Hert Hall (Aula Ccrvina). This was between 1 26 1 and 1284. A Hall was then simply a boarding- house, hired by a party of students as a residence. One of them, called a Principal, paid the rent and collected the amount from the rest. Eventually the University required that he should be a Graduate, and a new Principal had to be admitted by the Chancellor.

In 1 31 2, the Hall, after some intermediate transfers, passed to Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter. For some years before the acquisition of their present site, it was the habitation of the Rector and Scholars of Stapeldon Hall, now known as Exeter College. After this Hart Hall continued to belong to them, and was let to a Principal, usually one of their own fellows. At one time it was occupied by Wykeham's Scholars during the building of their own College.

The most distinguished man who can be fairly claimed as an alumnus of Hart Hall is the learned Selden (1600-1603) then "a long scabby-pol'd boy but a good student." Ken, the saintly Bishop of Bath

[ 585 ]

and Wells, was apparently a member of the Hall for a few months while waiting for a vacancy at New College. Sir Henry Wotton, one of the seventeenth century worthies immortalized by Isaac W 7 alton, re- sided here, though it would seem that he was not a member of the Hall but a gentleman -commoner of New College.

The first transformation of this ancient Hall into a College was the work of Richard Newton, formerly student of Christ Church, who became Principal in 1 7 10. He was a man of some eminence as a scholar, a teacher, and a divine, while a number of pamphlets testify to his zeal as a University Reformer. . . . Hertford College, 1740- 18 16.

But his great ambition was to found a college. " Dr. Newton is commonly said to be P'ounder-mad," wrote the malicious Hearne ; " Dr. Newton is very fond of founding a College," wrote another, in 1721. The patronage which he never stooped to ask for himself, he sought to use for his College. But his grand friends did little for him ; nearly all that he spent came out of his own pocket. He spent about £1500 on building a Chapel for the Hall (consecrated in 1 7 16) and the adjoining corner of the present Quad- rangle. He published an edition of Theophrastus by subscription for the benefit of his College, but it did not appear till after his death. His proposals for the foundation of a College were made public in 1734 in a Letter to the Vice-Chancellor, though he had already "made a noise" about it "many years." . . . At last, in 1740, after much opposition from Exeter College, Dr. Newton got his Charter of Incor- poration, and his Statutes approved by George II.

For a time the College enjoyed considerable pros- perity. Charles James Fox was one of its gentlemen commoners from 1764 to 1765. But Newton's means were not really adequate to the foundation of a College, and its scanty funds seem to have gradually dwindled away. On Dr. Hodgson's death in 1805 no one would accept the almost honorary headship, but at last in 1814, the one surviving fellow, who was (we are told)

[ 586 ]