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Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Trinity is among the largest and richest of the colleges in Cambridge, and is now a home to around 600 undergraduates, 300 graduates, and over 160 Fellows.

The college was founded by Henry VIII in 1546 and most of its major buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Trinity was formed by combining Michaelhouse and King's Hall, two older colleges. Michaelhouse had existed since 1324; King's Hall had been established by Edward II in 1317 and refounded by Edward III in 1337.

Much of the college was re-designed and re-built by Thomas Nevile, who became Master of Trinity in 1593. This work included the construction of Nevile's Court between Great Court and the river River Cam. The Court was completed in the late 17th century when the Wren library, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was built.

Trinity's rowing club is the First and Third Trinity Boat Club.

Some famous alumni:

  • George Gascoigne 1525-1577 Poet, dramatist - Jocasta, The Glasse of Government
  • John Dee 1527-1608 Alchemist, geographer, mathematician
  • Edward Coke 1552-1634 Lawyer, politician; Chief Justice of the King's Bench
  • Francis Bacon 1561-1626 Lawyer, philosopher; Lord Chancellor
  • Henry Spelman 1562-1641 Antiquary - 'Reliquiae Spelmannianae'
  • Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex 1566-1601 Soldier, courtier to Elizabeth I; executed for rebellion
  • Giles Fletcher 1588-1623 Poet - Christ's Victory and Triumph
  • George Herbert 1593-1633 Poet - The Temple; MP (Montgomery)
  • Thomas Randolph 1605-1635 Poet, dramatist
  • John Suckling (poet) 1609-1642 Poet, dramatist
  • John Pell 1610-1685 Mathematician
  • Abraham Cowley 1618-1667 Poet, dramatist - The Mistress
  • Andrew Marvell 1621-1678 Poet -'Horatian Ode', The Rehearsal Transpros'd; MP (Hull)
  • George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham 1627-1687 Wit, politician, dramatist - The Rehearsal; member of the 'Cabal'
  • John Ray 1627-1705 Naturalist; created the principles of plant classification
  • John Dryden 1631-1700 Poet Laureate -Absalom and Achitophel; Translator of Virgil
  • Francis Willughby 1635-1672 Naturalist
  • Isaac Newton 1642-1727 Mathematician, physicist; MP (Cambridge University)
  • George Jeffreys 1645-1689 Judge - 'Bloody Assizes'; Lord Chancellor
  • Nathaniel Lee 1649-1692 Dramatist - The Rival Queens
  • Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax 1661-1715 Founded Bank of England, 1694; Chancellor of Exchequer
  • Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset 1662-1748 Politician and Grandee
  • John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich 1718-1792 First Lord of the Admiralty; invented the 'sandwich'
  • Richard Cumberland 1732-1811 Playwright - The Brothers, The West Indian
  • Thomas Nelson 1738-1789 Signatory of the American Declaration of Independence
  • Thomas, Lord Erskine 1750-1823 Lord Chancellor, jurist
  • George Crabbe 1754-1832 Poet; did not matriculate
  • Richard Porson 1759-1808 Classical scholar
  • Spencer Perceval 1762-1812 Prime Minister 1809-1812 (Tory); assassinated
  • Charles Grey, Earl Grey 1764-1845 Prime Minister 1830-1834 (Whig); Great Reform Act (1832)
  • John Lyndhurst 1772-1863 Lawyer; Lord Chancellor
  • William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne 1779-1848 Prime Minister 1834, 1835-1841 (Whig)
  • John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer 1782-1845 Known as Lord Althorp; Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Henry Goulburn 1784-1856 Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Adam Sedgwick 1785-1873 Geologist
  • George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron 1788-1824 Poet - `She Walks in Beauty', Don Juan
  • Charles Babbage 1791-1871 Mathematician; Built the forerunner of modern computers
  • Constantine Henry Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby 1797-1863 Politician
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay 1800-1859 Historian, essayist
  • William Henry Fox Talbot 1800-1877 Inventor of photography
  • George Airy 1801-1895 Astronomer, geophysicist
  • William Smith O'Brien 1803-1864 Irish Nationalist
  • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton 1803-1873 Novelist - The Last Days of Pompeii; politician
  • James Challis 1803-1882 Astronomer; twice observed Neptune without noting it, before its discovery
  • Frederick D Maurice 1805-1872 Theologian, writer, Christian Socialist
  • Augustus De Morgan 1806-1871 Mathematician; symbolic logic
  • Richard Chenevix Trench 1807-1888 Poet, Archbishop of Dublin; Theorist of English Language
  • James Spedding 1808-1881 Scholar; editor of Bacon's Works
  • Monckton Milnes 1809-1885 Politician, man of letters
  • Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892 Poet - Maud, In Memoriam
  • Edward Fitzgerald 1809-1883 Poet - `The Rubá iyá t of Omar Khayyá m'
  • William M. Thackeray 1811-1863 Novelist - Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond
  • Tom Taylor 1817-1880 Scottish dramatist; editor of Punch
  • Thomas Wade 1818-1895 Diplomat; invented Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration
  • Arthur Cayley 1821-1895 Mathematician; non-Euclidean geometry, invented matrices
  • Francis Galton 1822-1911 Scientist; meteorology, heredity
  • Brooke Westcott 1825-1901 Canon of Westminster, Bishop of Durham
  • Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby 1826-1893 Foreign Secretary
  • William Waddington 1826-1894 French Prime Minister 1879; archaeologist
  • William Harcourt 1827-1904 Liberal statesman; home secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Hugh Childers 1827-1896 Australian statesman, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Joseph Barber Lightfoot 1828-1889 Bishop of Durham; theologian
  • Edward White Benson 1829-1896 Archbishop of Canterbury, 1883-1896
  • James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879 Physicist; electromagnetism
  • Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire 1833-1908; politician
  • John, Lord Acton 1834-1902 Historian
  • Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1836-1908 Prime Minister 1905-1908 (Liberal)
  • Michael Foster 1836-1907 Physiologist; MP (London University)
  • Henry Sidgwick 1838-1900 Philosopher, major proponent of women's colleges
  • George Otto Trevelyan 1838-1928 Historian; MP; Father of G. M. Trevelyan
  • Richard Jebb 1841-1905 Greek scholar
  • King Edward VII 1841-1910 Reigned 1901-1910
  • Frederick Pollock 1845-1937 Jurist
  • Edmund Gosse 1845-1928 Poet, critic - On Viol and Flute
  • Arthur Balfour 1848-1930 Prime Minister 1902-1905 (Conservative)
  • F. W. Maitland 1850-1906 Legal historian
  • Charles Stanford 1852-1924 Composer, organist
  • James Frazer 1854-1941 Anthropologist; writer - The Golden Bough
  • A. E. Housman 1859-1936 Poet - A Shropshire Lad; Classical scholar
  • A. N. Whitehead 1861-1947 Philosopher, mathematician
  • George, Lord Carnarvon 1866-1923 Egyptologist; funded the discovery of Tut'ankhamun's tomb
  • Freeman Freeman-Thomas, Marquis of Willingdon 1866-1941 Administrator; Viceroy of India
  • Stanley Baldwin 1867-1947 Prime Minister 1923-24, 1924-29, 1935-37 (Conservative)
  • Erskine Childers 1870-1922 Writer, Irish Nationalist - The Riddle of The Sands
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958 Composer - Sea Symphony, Pilgrim's Progress
  • Prince Ranjitsinhji 1872-1933 Cricketer; Indian Prince
  • G. E. Moore 1873-1958 Philosopher
  • Aleister Crowley 1875-1947 Writer and 'Magician'; 'the wickedest man alive'
  • Mohammed Iqbal 1875-1938 Islamic poet and philosopher
  • Charles Rolls 1877-1910 Co-founder of Rolls-Royce; aviator
  • James Jeans 1877-1946 Astronomer, mathematician; stellar evolution
  • Godfrey Harold Hardy 1877-1947 Mathematician; A Mathematician's Apology
  • Lytton Strachey 1880-1932 Biographer - Eminent Victorians; Bloomsbury Group
  • Leonard Woolf 1880-1969 Writer; husband of Virginia; Bloomsbury Group
  • Clive Bell 1881-1964 Art and literary critic; husband of Vanessa
  • Alfred Radcliffe-Brown 1881-1955 Social anthropologist
  • A. A. Milne 1882-1956 Novelist - Winnie the Pooh
  • Arthur Eddington 1882-1944 Astronomer
  • John Edensor Littlewood 1885-1977 Mathematician; Fourier Series, Zeta Function
  • Harry Philby 1885-1960 Explorer of Arabia; father of Kim
  • G. I. Taylor 1886-1975 Physicist, mathematician; Fluid dynamics, crystals
  • C. D. Broad 1887-1971 Philosopher
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan 1887-1920 Mathematician; analytic number theory, elliptic integrals
  • Sydney Chapman 1888-1970 Mathematician, geophysicist; kinetic theory, geomagnetism
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951 Philosopher
  • Jawaharlal Nehru 1889-1964 First Prime Minister of India, 1949-1964
  • George VI of the United Kingdom 1895-1952 Reigned 1936-1952
  • Vladimir Nabokov 1899-1977 Russian and English novelist - Lolita
  • Christopher, Lord Hinton 1901-1983 Nuclear engineer; constructed Calder Hall, the first large scale reactor
  • George 'Gubby' Allen 1902-1989 Cricketer - captained England; played in Bodyline series
  • Frank Plumpton Ramsey 1903-1930 Philosopher, mathematician, economist
  • Otto Frisch 1904-1979 Nuclear physicist; first used the term 'nuclear fission'
  • Erskine Childers 1905-1974 President of the Irish Republic, 1973-74
  • John Lehmann 1907-1987 Poet, man of letters; inaugurated The London Magazine
  • Anthony Blunt 1907-1983 Soviet spy; art historian
  • Peter Scott 1909-1989 Artist, ornithologist; Olympic sailor (1936)
  • Nicholas Monsarrat 1910-1979 Novelist - The Cruel Sea
  • Guy Burgess 1910-1963 Soviet spy and traitor
  • Kim Philby 1911-1988 Double agent; communist
  • Enoch Powell 1912-1998 Statesman; Minister of Health, 1960-3
  • Willie Whitelaw 1918-1999 Statesman; Home Secretary, 1979-83
  • John Robinson 1919-1983 Theologian; Bishop of Woolwich, Dean of Trinity
  • Raymond Williams 1921-1988 Marxist critic, novelist - The Country and the City
  • Rajiv Gandhi 1944-1989 Prime Minister of India, 1984-1989
  • Charles, Prince of Wales
  • Antony Gormley born 1950 Sculptor, best known for Angel of the North 1968-71

The head of Trinity College is the Master. The first Master was John Redman who was appointed in 1546. The role is a Royal appointment and in the past was sometimes made by the Monarch as a favour to an important person. Nowadays the Fellows of the College, and to a lesser extent the Government, choose the new Master and the Royal role is only nominal. A complete list of the Masters of Trinity is below.

Former Deans

External links


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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Trinity College, Cambridge".