's 1690
Cantabrigia illustrata , The college was founded in 1348 as
Gonville Hall by
Edmund Gonville, a clergyman who hailed from a gentry family of French origin. Gonville held various positions in the English Church, serving as Rector of three parishes,
Thelnetham (1320–26),
Rushford, Norfolk (1326–1342), and
Terrington St Clement (1343–1351). Such occupations afforded him sufficient wealth that he was able to lend money to
Edward III, an act that saw him appointed a
King's Clerk. With the support of
Sir Walter Manny, Gonville petitioned the king for permission to found a college at Cambridge consisting of 20 scholars. In January 1348, Edward III granted this request and issued
Letters patent. In June the same year the black death (bubonic plague) arrived in England. The disease likely came via a seaman into Melcombe Regis (Weymouth). However, it first spread westward towards Bristol rather than towards Cambridge. The 1348 founding makes Gonville and Caius the fourth-oldest surviving college at Cambridge. Gonville died three years later, in 1351, and left behind an institution that had begun to struggle financially.
William Bateman,
Bishop of Norwich, intervened and moved the college to its current location off Trinity Street in central Cambridge. He also leased himself land close to the
River Cam to set up his own college,
Trinity Hall. Gonville Hall was renamed
The Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Bateman appointed his former chaplain
John Colton, who was later made
Archbishop of Armagh, as the college's master. By the sixteenth century, the college had fallen into disrepair. In 1557, it was refounded by
Royal Charter as Gonville and Caius College by alumnus
John Caius. Caius had studied divinity at the college between 1529 and 1533 and later travelled to
Renaissance Italy, where he studied medicine at the
University of Padua under
Montanus and
Vesalius. Following his return to England, Caius had become a renowned physician and served many terms as president of the
Royal College of Physicians. At the time of the college's re-founding, he had worked as physician to two English monarchs,
Edward VI and
Mary I, and later served in the same capacity for
Elizabeth I. Following the death of
Thomas Bacon, Caius was appointed master of the college on 24 January 1559, a position he held until shortly before his own death in 1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly expanded the college's buildings. Caius accepted no payment for his services but insisted on several rules, including that the college admit no scholar who "is deformed, dumb, blind, lame, maimed, mutilated, a Welshman, or suffering from any grave or contagious illness, or an invalid, that is sick in a serious measure". Caius also built a three-sided court, Caius Court, "lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul". Caius was responsible for developing the college's strong global reputation in medicine, which continues to this day. By 1630, the college had expanded greatly with roughly 25 fellows and 150 students. But the number of fellows and students fell in the following century, returning to the 1630 level only in the early nineteenth century. Since then, Gonville and Caius has grown considerably, and it has now one of the University of Cambridge's largest undergraduate populations. In 1979, the college first admitted women as fellows and students. It now has over 110 Fellows, over 850 students and over 160 permanent staff. Gonville and Caius is one of the wealthiest of all Cambridge colleges with an endowment of £271 million in 2024. The college's present 44th
Master, appointed in 2025, is
Richard Gilbertson. == Buildings and grounds ==