Keble College, Oxford, England

John Keble, author of The Christian Year and preacher of the "National Apostasy" sermon that in Newman's view began the Oxford Movement, died on 29 March 1866. As soon as his funeral was over, a group of his friends met at Hursley Park, the home of Sir William Heathcote, to discuss a memorial: the founding of a new Oxford college to bear his name. The idea for a new college had first been mooted some twenty years previously, but Keble's death provided an opportunity to develop the project. University reform had been under discussion in Oxford from at least the early 1840s. Since the mid-eighteenth century, Oxford had been little more than an expensive club for the sons of the aristocracy. By 1853 a University Commission had been established to reform Oxford; Keble and his circle welcomed this, but they also had misgivings: they feared that free-thinking liberals would take the opportunity afforded by the Commission to erode the Church's position at Oxford. The idea grew up among the Tractarians that they should launch their own reform plan by establishing a new college which would go back to the original aim of Oxford - the education of poor scholars who would live in a kind of monastic community, virtually under vows of poverty and obedience -and at the same time promote the ideals of the Oxford Movement. The scheme was first mooted in the mid-1840s by Charles Marriott, a Tractarian who held an Oriel Fellowship. Keble and Pusey supported him, though Keble felt that the college ought to be situated outside Oxford in order to protect its members from the hostility of the existing colleges, and the demoralising influence of their undergraduates. The project lapsed because the existing colleges were not full at the time, making it difficult to establish a case for a new one. By the early 1860s, towards the end of Keble's life, the position had changed. The general increase in population, and in particular the increase in the middle classes, had led to a greater demand for good education, and the existing Oxford colleges were full. There was also a call from within the Church of England for proper training for young men who were going to become clergymen. By the end of 1865 a committee to draw up proposals for 'University Extension' was meeting in Oxford. This committee spawned a sub-committee, whose members included Pusey, to consider a revived High-Church plan for the founding of 'a college or hall, on a large scale, with a view not exclusively, but especially to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admission into the Christian Ministry'. The idea behind this college was to create an institution where the educational, religious, and social advantages of Oxford life could be made available more cheaply. The college, intended for one hundred undergraduates, would have small rooms situated along corridors rather than large rooms or 'sets' arranged on staircases. This new arrangement would both be cheaper to maintain and would allow supervision of the undergraduates' way of life: the assumption seems to have been that it was easier to lead a debauched life on a narrow staircase than on a corridor. The rooms would be furnished by the college not the undergraduate, all meals would be taken in common in the dining-hall, eliminating the private entertaining in undergraduates' rooms that was a chief feature of social life in other colleges; and a strict check would be kept on how much students at the new college spent each term. When Keble died his friends turned the project into a memorial for him - his reputation as a popular hero among the Victorian public seemed a sure way of raising money. Within a few days an appeal went out for fifty thousand pounds, to build, in memory of Keble, 'a College...in which young men... may be trained in simple and religious habits, and in strict fidelity to the Church of England, with the hope, that among other advantages, it will tend to promote the supply of Candidates for Holy Orders'. Money poured in, with donations ranging from a few pence collected by Tractarian clergy from poor parishioners, to sums of several thousand pounds contributed by wealthy Tractarian sympathisers, most notably Frederick Lygon, sixth Earl Beauchamp. In less than two years there was enough for building to begin. A four-and-a-half acre site on Parks Road, some distance to the north of the existing colleges, was purchased from St. John's College for ????7,047, and a public house called The Pheasant' was demolished. On St. Mark's Day (25 April) 1868, the anniversary of John Keble's birthday, the Archbishop of Canterbury laid the foundation stone - which was then lost! It was the first new college to be founded at Oxford for two-and-a-half centuries; the last had been Wadham, founded in 1610.

From the guide to the Papers relating to the foundation of Keble College, Oxford, England, 1866-1885, (Keble College Archives)