Hart Hall and the first Hertford College Hart Hall The first Hertford College began life as
Hart Hall (
Aula Cervina) in the 1280s, a small
tenement built roughly where the college's Old Hall is today, a few paces along
New College Lane on the southern side. In medieval Oxford,
academic halls were primarily lodging houses for students and resident tutors. The original tenement, mentioned in the deed of 1283, which was bought by Elias de Hertford from Walter de Grendon, mercer, lay between a tenement of the university (Blackhall) on the west, and a tenement of the Prioress of Studley on the east. In the deed by which Elias de Hertford sells it to John de Dokelynton in 1301, this last tenement is called Micheldhall. The deed was made over to his son, also Elias, in 1301. The name of the hall was likely a humorous reduction of the name of its founder's
home town, and allowed for the use of the symbol of a
hart to be used for identification. At that time, New College Lane was known as Hammer Hall Lane (named after a hall to the east, as
New College had not then been founded), and its northern side was the old town wall. The corner of Hammer Hall Lane and
Catte Street (which had a
postern in the wall called Smithgate) was taken by Black Hall, which was the place of
John Wycliffe's imprisonment by the Vice-Chancellor around 1378. On the other side of Hart Hall along the lane was Shield Hall. On Catte Street itself was the entrance to Arthur Hall, which lay down a narrow passage behind Hart Hall, and Cat Hall (
Aula Murilegorum), which stood further south, roughly where the Principal's Lodgings now stand. The younger Elias sold on Hart Hall (named in this deed as 'le Herthalle') after a month to a wealthy local fishmonger John of Ducklington, who, seven years later, bought Arthur Hall and annexed it to Hart Hall. In 1312, John sold the two halls to
Walter de Stapledon,
Bishop of Exeter, who desired to found a college. After just over a year, Stapledon moved his scholars to a larger site that he had purchased on
Turl Street, which became Stapledon Hall, later
Exeter College. However, Exeter College retained certain rights over Hart Hall, with which it plagued the hall's development for centuries. Hertford College specialises in both Irish studies and Irish history. Hertford has long been associated with Ireland and can trace its connections back to the 16th century, when Irish Roman Catholics and Irish Protestants studied alongside each other at Hart Hall, one of the few places at Oxford that admitted Roman Catholics at the time. In 1692, the political satirist
Jonathan Swift was incorporated from
Trinity College, Dublin, on the books of Hart Hall to receive his MA. and, on 18 May 1723, he presented his petition for a charter. The proposal met immediate opposition, especially from Exeter College, exercising its old rights, and All Souls, desiring to expand northward onto the hall's land. In addition, the appointments of principals for the various halls had established itself in a game of promotion, and a few would-be principals opposed the plan.
John Conybeare, then a Fellow of Exeter, and later Bishop of
Bristol, was Newton's most ardent opponent, penning the book
Calumny Refuted against Newton's reforms. After years of struggle, Richard Newton's statutes were accepted on 3 November 1739, and the charter incorporating 'the Principal and Fellows of Hertford College' (
Principalis et Socii Collegii Hertfordiensis) was received on 8 September 1740. The site is now Magdalen's St Swithun's quadrangle. It took the name of an earlier Magdalen Hall in the High Street, which was founded by
William Waynflete in 1448 and then closed on the opening of Magdalen College in 1458. The first master of the grammar school was appointed in 1480, and its original school building was erected in 1486. However, as the hall took independent students as well as those belonging to the college, it quickly became an independent institution under its own principal. The hall was known for its adherence to the teachings of
John Wycliffe;
William Tyndale, translator of the English Bible and martyr, studied there. Another famous student of the hall was the political philosopher
Thomas Hobbes, who came up in either 1601 or 1602. At the
English Civil War, Magdalen Hall was known as a
Puritan hall under the principalship of
Henry Wilkinson. In the two
world wars, a total of 171 members of Hertford College died. Those of
World War I are commemorated by a memorial on the south wall of the chancel in the Chapel, while those of
World War II are remembered in a memorial in the portico, to the right of the Chapel door. Notable among them is Major Percy Nugent FitzPatrick, son of
James Percy FitzPatrick, who was killed near
Cambrai on 14 December 1917. It was with the death of his son that James Percy FitzPatrick made the suggestion, after the war's end, to keep a
two-minute silence each year on
Armistice Day. In 1922, the novelist
Evelyn Waugh came up to Hertford, famously feuding with his history tutor
C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (who was to become the fourth principal of the refounded college, 1930–1939), and later naming a number of odious characters after him. Waugh wrote of his time at Hertford, "I do no work here and never go to Chapel". He novelised his time at Oxford in
Brideshead Revisited, having his
protagonist Charles Ryder at Hertford. Starting from 1965, Hertford made a special effort to encourage applicants from
state schools through the
Hertford Scheme, established by Physics Fellow Neil Tanner, under which candidates were interviewed early, outside the standard application process, and could be offered a place at the college without having to sit the university entrance exam. That had the effect of dramatically raising academic standards within the college, and other colleges introduced similar initiatives. Today, around 70% of undergraduate students at the college come from UK state schools. The percentage of individuals from state schools (out of all UK applicants/students) is higher than at most Oxford colleges. The commitment to diversity is in keeping with Hertford's earlier history of openness: in 1907 Hertford admitted the first African-American
Rhodes Scholar,
Alain Leroy Locke, after he had been refused by several other colleges.
Geoffrey Warnock served as the 9th Principal of the refounded college from 1971 until 1988. He presided over the latest period of growth, and established the college's leftist credentials. In 1974, Hertford became one of the first five
co-educational colleges in the university (the others being
Brasenose,
Jesus College,
St Catherine's, and
Wadham). The college now has an almost equal gender balance, with slight variations from year to year. In memory of Warnock, the college named a student-accommodation building near
Folly Bridge after him. He also has a memorial in the Chapel, and a portrait behind High Table in the Hall. == Buildings ==