St Hugh's College, Oxford Information

St Hughs College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a 14.5-acre (5.9-hectare) site on St Margarets Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a womens college, and accepted its first male students in its centenary year in 1986.

It enjoys a reputation as one of the most attractive colleges because of its extensive, pleasant gardens. In its 125th anniversary year, the college became a registered charity under the name The Principal and Fellows of St Hughs College in the University of Oxford. As of July 2018, the colleges financial endowment was £37.6 million.

St Hughs was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth (great-niece of the famous poet William Wordsworth) to help the growing number of women "who find the charges of the present Halls at Oxford and Cambridge (even the most moderate) beyond their means". Using money left to her by her father, who had been Bishop of Lincoln, she established the college at 25 Norham Road in North Oxford. She named the college after one of her fathers 13th-century predecessors, Hugh of Avalon, who was canonised in 1220, and in whose diocese Oxford had been.

The college was initially accommodated in properties in Norham Road, Norham Gardens and Fyfield Road. Its first six students were Annie Moberly, Jessie Annie Emmerson, Charlotte Jourdain, Constance E. Ashburner, Wilhelmina J. de Lorna Mitchell and Grace J. Parsons. Students were required to ask the Principal before accepting invitations to visit friends, and the college gates were locked at 9pm. Records show that rent was between £18 and £21 a term depending on the size of the room, with fires being charged extra.

The college began to move to its present site in 1913, when it purchased the lease of a house called The Mount from the Rev Robert Hartley for £2,500. This house was situated on the corner of St Margarets Road and Banbury Road, and was owned by University College. The house was demolished to make way for the Main Building of the college, which was constructed between 1914 and 1916 thanks to a gift from Clara Evelyn Mordan; the colleges new library was named Mordan Hall in her honour. The first book was a copy of Sales translation of the Koran, which was given to the college by the then Bishop of Tokyo.

The college soon took over other properties nearby. The leasehold of 4 St Margarets Road was acquired in 1919; it became the first College house. The leasehold of 82 Woodstock Road was donated to the college by Dr Joan Evans in 1924 and 89 Banbury Road was purchased from Lincoln College for £7,000 in 1927. The college obtained the freehold to the main site in 1927 and a year later the first stage of the Mary Gray Allen building was constructed by building over the tennis courts. The freeholds of 1–4 St Margarets Road and 74–82 Woodstock Road were purchased from St Johns College in 1931 and 1932 respectively. The college received a Royal Charter in 1926.

Between 1935 and 1936 1 St Margarets Road was demolished and a new library was built in the Mary Gray Allen building; it was named the Moberly Library after the first Principal of the College (the library was extensively renovated between 1999 and 2000 and renamed the Howard Piper Library after a St Hughs alumnus, after his parents made a large donation to the college).

At the outbreak of the Second World War the college site was requisitioned by the military for use as the Hospital for Head Injuries under the directorship of Hugh Cairns, the first Nuffield Professor of Surgery. Brick huts were constructed in the college grounds with space for 300 beds. Between 1940 and 1945, over 13,000 servicemen and women were treated at the college. Advances in medicine discovered at the hospital meant the mortality rate for brain-penetrating injuries fell from 90% to 9%. Staff and students were relocated to Holywell Manor, Savile House and St Hildas College for the duration of the war.

In 1943 the college acquired the leasehold of 72 Woodstock Road (known as The Shrubbery) from Dame Gertrude Whitehead for £1,500. It was used as a club for American soldiers during the war. In 1946, it was leased to the University of Paris as the Maison française dOxford, an Anglo-French educational establishment. One of the cottages in the grounds of number 72 was later leased by Barbara Gwyer after her retirement as Principal.

The college buildings were de-requisitioned in 1945. The hospital huts were initially leased as offices to university departments, including the Bureau of Animal Population, the Department of Zoological Field Studies and the Institute of Statistics, before being demolished in 1952.Agnes Headlam-Morley, a fellow of St Hughs, became the first woman to hold a chair at the University of Oxford in 1948.

In 1951 the college purchased the freeholds to 85 and 87 Banbury Road and 9 to 13 Canterbury Road from St Johns College. In addition, the freehold of The Shrubbery was acquired; this meant the college now owned the freehold of the entire fourteen and a half acre site. The college extended the Main Building in 1958.

The 1960s saw an extensive programme of building work at St Hughs. The Shrubbery was converted into the Principals Lodgings in 1963. Between 1964 and 1965 the Kenyon Building was constructed to provide accommodation for students (designed by modern architect David Roberts, the building has already been given a heritage listing). This was followed shortly after by the Wolfson Building, which was constructed between 1966 and 1967 and opened by Princess Alexandra and Harold Macmillan in his role as Chancellor of the University.

The Chapel was renovated in 1980; a new organ was installed. The following year, 78, 80 and 82 Woodstock Road were also renovated. The houses are now named SH Ho House, Ho Tim House and KK Leung House in recognition of the gifts from the three Hong Kong benefactors that funded the renovations.

A new boathouse was constructed (jointly with St Annes and Wadham Colleges) between 1989 and 1990. This was followed by the construction of the Rachel Trickett Building between 1991 and 1992 at a cost of £3.4 million.

Between 1998 and 2000 the Maplethorpe Building was constructed; the building contains conference facilities on the ground floor and student accommodation on the upper three floors. The building missed its planned opening date of summer 2000, meaning students had to be accommodated in BandBs throughout Michaelmas term. In addition, a new main entrance was constructed at the back of the college on Canterbury Road.

Between 1999 and 2000 the library was extensively renovated. It was reopened by Betty Boothroyd and was renamed after Howard Piper, a Maths student of the college who died shortly after graduating in a rafting accident. A major refurbishment of Mordan Hall, the old library, took place in 2007.

There are statues of both St Hugh and Elizabeth Wordsworth on the library stairs. These were presented to the college as gifts for its Jubilee in 1936. St Hugh carries a model of Lincoln Cathedral, which would have been very familiar to Elizabeth Wordsworth, and has his other hand resting on the head of a swan, probably the famous swan of Stow, although the swan is also a symbol of purity. Elizabeth Wordsworth is depicted wearing her doctoral robes.

St Hughs College celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011; a summer garden party was attended by over 1,200 guests.Aung San Suu Kyi sent a message to the college, saying "Happy moments are one of the pillars that keep the spirit uplifted during hard times. St Hugh’s and Oxford are inextricable from my happiest memories, those that I could draw on when the beauty of the world seemed dim. I so wish I could be with you at this very moment to relive old joys and to stir up new ones for the future. I would like to thank all my friends for the happiness we shared. To the present students of St Hugh’s I would simply like to say: Make the most of your time in this wonderful place."

In 2012 the college was sued for allegedly discriminating against the poor by requiring evidence of funds for living costs. St Hughs, which filed defence papers to the court, accepted barring the student on financial grounds, but claimed the measure was necessary to ensure students can complete their studies. The College eventually settled the claim, with the University promising to conduct a review of the Financial Guarantee policy. In September 2013, it was revealed that the University had decided to abolish the Financial Guarantee policy and replace it with a less restrictive Financial Declaration.

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