tf1
WORCESTER COLLEGE.
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buildings were converted into "workshops for the
manufacture of swords and guns." Wood, describing
the general depression of the University says that
"not one Scholar matriculated in 1675, ^76, 1677,
1678, not one Scholar in Gloucester Hall, only the
Principal and his family, and two or three more
families that live there in some part to keep it from
ruin, the paths are grown over with grass, the way
into the Hall and Chapel made up with boards."
Prideaux, under date 1676, gives a like story of decay,
and Loggan's picturesque view, taken in 1675, with
its pathetic motto " Quare fecit dominus sic domui
huic," illustrates the mournful desolation which had
settled on the place.
Such was the condition of the Hall, when, in 1692, Dr. Byrom Eaton, who had been Principal for thirty years, resigned, and was succeeded by a man of vigorous, bustling, pushing character, a kind of academical adventurer. This was Dr. Woodroffe, a Canon of Christ Church, whose nomination to the Deanery by James II., in 1688, had been cancelled at the Revolution in favour of Dean Aldrich. Wood- roffe's first venture with the Hall was on the old lines, but apparently with but slight success, for though, according to Wood, "by his great interest among the gentry he made it flourish with hopeful sprouts," it is also Wood's evidence that in 1694 there were but " 6 in Commons at Gloucester Hall, his 2 sons two." His next venture was the conversion of the Hall into a Greek College — a scheme promoted by Archbishop Sancroft, and others who favoured the hope of reunion with the Eastern Church. Under this scheme five young Grecians were in 1698 brought from Smyrna, and placed in Gloucester Hall. Put mismanagement and neglect soon ruined the experi- ment ; Students bound for Oxford were caught on their way in the vortex of London temptations, and in 1705 the Greek College received its quietus in a missive from the Patriarch of Constantinople forbidding " any togo and study at Oxford be they ever so willing. "
But while the Greek College was still perishing of inanition, its Principal was engaged in a scheme of a more ambitious though less interesting nature. A Worcestershire Baronet, Sir Thomas Cookes, had made known his desire, through the Bishop of Wor- cester, of founding a College at Oxford; ^10,000 was the sum he proposed for an endowment. There was competition for the prize. Dr. Woodroffe wanted to secure it for Gloucester Hall, Dr. Mill for St. Edmund Hall, Dr. Lancaster for Magdalen Hall.
But local rivals were not the only difficulty in the way of Dr. Woodroffe. He had to contend as well with the vacillations of Sir Thomas Cookes, who at one time was for Balliol College, at another favoured the notion of a workhouse for his own County. However, at last Dr. Woodroffe was so far successful as to obtain a charter in 1698 for the incorporation of the Hall under the title of the Provost, Fellows, and Scholars of Worcester College, with Dr. Woodroffe for the first Provost. This was followed by a Ratifica- tion, dated November 18th, naming the Bishop of Worcester as Visitor, and the Bishop of Oxford as his assessor in difficult cases, and making elaborate pro- vision for the organization, conduct, and educational system of the College on the old fashioned lines.
But the charter remained after all a dead letter. Sir Thomas Cookes on various grounds still held back, and it was not till after his death in 1701, and that of Dr. Woodroffe in 171 1, that the trustees of Sir T. Cookes' will, saw their way to carrying it out in favour of Gloucester Hall.
In 1 7 13 St. John's College agrees to alienate
the Hall for the sum of ^200, and a quit-rent
of 2CW. per annum. In the following year, two
days only before the Queen's death, a Charter of
Incorporation, for the second time, passes the Great
Seal, and Gloucester Hall or College is finally
merged in Worcester College. The foundation was
now to consist of a Provost, six Fellows, and six
Scholars, whose emoluments were to be on a some-
what more liberal scale than that of the original
statutes. Fellows and Scholars were to be allowed
sixpence a day for commons, the Fellows to have
^30 per annum, the Scholars 13^. 8d. a quarter, the
Provost ,£80 per annum, but no allowance for
commons ; at the same time the original elaborate
provisions for government and education were simpli-
fied and modernised. The Principal of the Hall,
Blechynden, was named as the first Provost. The
rebuilding of the College, commenced with a modest
benefaction of Mrs. Margaret Alcorne in 1720, pro-
ceeded by very slow degrees. The interior of the
Library was completed in 1736, its exterior in 1746.
The Hall was finished in 1784, while the Chapel still
remained incomplete in 1786, when Gutch wrote his
account. In the meantime two considerable bene-
factors arose. Dr. Clarke, Fellow of All Souls' and
member for the University, left an endowment for six
Fellowships and three Scholarships, together with his
valuable Library, while Mrs. Sarah Eaton, daughter
of the former Principal, bequeathed an endowment
for seven Fellowships and five Scholarships to be held
by the sons of Clergymen. These new Foundations
were incorporated by Charter in 1744. For lodging
Dr. Clarke's Foundation the demolition of the old
Buildings on the North side of the quadrangle was
begun, and nine sets of rooms erected by his trustees
in 1753-9, while in 1773 the remainder of the old
North side was, with the exception of the East end,
swept away, and twelve sets were built for Mrs.
Eaton's Foundation, together with the present Pro-
vost's lodgings. Fortunately funds ran short for
further reconstruction, so that the old Benedictine
tenements still form the Southern side of the quad-
rangle, which has another great merit, that of being
open on its Western side. Meantime the College
from time to time secured adjacent property, and
surrounded itself with an open belt of land, while the
ornamental grounds, as they now exist, were laid out
about 1827.
The latest structural improvements of the College took place in 1864, when the Chapel was decorated after the elaborate designs of the late Mr. William Burges, and again in 1877, when the Hall was rendered a fitting pendant to the Chapel by the same Architect. Of the varying fortunes of the College — exceptionally, and picturesquely varying — some few relics survive. The annual quit-rent which it still pays to St. John's is a memorial of one stage of its history, while the old tenements lining its quadrangle attest its earlier connection with the great Benedictine Order, of whom a lingering echo still survives, as it is said, in the reveille which the Porter, making his morning rounds, hammers out with a wooden mallet upon the door of each several staircase.
In drawing up this short account we have been permitted by the courtesy of the Publishers to make use of the History of the Colleges and Halls of Oxford, edited by Mr. Clarke, a work to which the reader is referred for fuller details.
C. H. O. Daniel, M.A.
