A History of
St Edmund's

The origins of St Edmund’s College lie in the repeal of the Test Act in 1871, permitting Jewish, Non-Conformist and Roman Catholic scholars to return to the University of Cambridge for the first time since the religious revolution of the sixteenth century. The lifting of this exclusion led to the formation of a small community of Catholic students under the supervision of Fr Edmond Nolan, a former Vice-President of St Edmund’s College at Ware, Hertfordshire.

The group of four students settled in Cambridge on 23 April 1896, moving to the former Ayerst Hostel, the site of the present Norfolk Building, on 2 November of that year. Known as St Edmund’s House, the new academic institution was initially a lodging house for students who were matriculated at the different Colleges in the University, and later was recognised as a House of Residence.

St Edmund’s house was co-founded by Henry Fitzalan Howard, the 15th Duke of Norfolk and Baron Anatole von Hügel, Curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Mgr Bernard Ward, the President of St Edmund’s College, Ware, the seminary for the archdiocese of Westminster, supported the initiative by sending three of the first four students, all of whom were studying for the priesthood. Within a few years most St Edmund’s House students had already been ordained to the priesthood before coming into residence as members of the University. They read a range of degrees to equip them for posts in grammar schools and universities.

There was a steady increase in the number of students towards the outbreak of the First World War. During this period the Chapel, which is now a Grade II listed building, was built. Designed by Father Benedict Williamson, CSSP, it was blessed by Cardinal Francis Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, in 1916. The dining hall and further student rooms were built in 1939 by the seventh Master, John Petit, later bishop of Menevia (1947–72).

Several distinguished scholars have been resident at St Edmund’s House, including Norman St John-Stevas, later Lord St John of Fawsley and Master of Emmanuel College 1991–96. St Edmund’s House was also a home for many distinguished visitors, notably Father Georges Lemaître, widely acknowledged as the father of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, who was resident here between 1923 and 1924 when he undertook some of his key research.

The decade of the 1960s, especially during the Mastership of Canon Garrett Sweeney (1964-76), was a period of steady progress, laying the foundation for the emergence of the present College. The increased number of postgraduates in the University during the later 1950s led the Regent House of the University to establish four graduate Colleges in 1965; the other three were Darwin College, Wolfson College and Clare Hall.

The graduate Colleges were permitted to matriculate their own postgraduates and to present them for degrees; this was later extended to mature and affiliated undergraduates. 1965 saw the election of the first four Fellows; others followed in succeeding years. The Fellows’ powers were circumscribed by the Association, that is, the Trustees, two thirds of the Trustees were Bishops, and a group of Catholic Dons, including some Fellows; the Association was invested with authority regarding matters of finance and the election of Fellows. Although laymen had been part of the College’s community from its inception, the years from 1965 saw a sharp increase in their number. In an act of remarkable generosity on 20 March 1973 the Catholic Church through the Association signed away the buildings and the land of the present College to the Master and Fellows.

The College achieved the status of an Approved Foundation on 8 March 1975. The old Association was dissolved on 30 June 1984 and replaced by a new governing body of Fellows and St Edmund’s became a fully autonomous and self-regulating society. Fr John Coventry, SJ, was the last Master in holy orders (1976-85) and was succeeded by Richard Laws, ScD, CBE, FRS (1985-96), but the Catholic identity of the College continued to be represented by the Archbishop of Westminster, serving as the Visitor, a Catholic priest as the Dean, the Chapel, which is the only Catholic chapel in a full Cambridge or Oxford College and the Von Hügel Institute, which fosters academic work on the relation of Christianity to Society and was founded to preserve and develop the Roman Catholic tradition of the College.

Successive Masters and Fellows worked towards full collegiate status, which was approved by the University in 1996. Centenary celebrations brought visits from Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB, Archbishop of Westminster, for a Mass of Thanksgiving on 15 June 1996 and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, the Chancellor of the University, for dinner on 25 June 1996. The College petitioned the Privy Council for a Royal Charter, which was granted by the Queen on 22 April 1998 in the Mastership of Professor Sir Brian Heap, ScD, CBE, FRS (1996-2004). The chapel was solemnly blessed by the Rt Rev. Peter Smith, Bishop of East Anglia, on 25 October 2000.

Changes in the governance of St Edmund’s House were accompanied by an increase in the number of Fellows, many of them distinguished academics, including Professor Martin Evans FRS, who was later knighted and became a Nobel laureate in 2007 for the discovery of embryonic stem cells when he was in Cambridge. There was also a dramatic rise in the number of students, such that from a College of less than 50 students in 1970, St Edmund’s expanded to become a College of 100 students in 1990, 200 in 2000, 400 in 2010 and over 450 by 2014. Several students in recent decades have played a wider role in the University’s life, with two being elected President of the Graduate Student Union and many representing the University in sporting contests against Oxford. Notable St Edmund’s sporting alumni include the rugby players Chris Oti and Tony Underwood who both played for England and Olympic rowing medallists Thorsten Streppelhoff, Marc Weber and Stuart Welch.

The rise in student numbers led to the development of the College site including the construction of rooms for students and visiting academics. In the period 1989 – 1993, the Norfolk building, which is the main College building, underwent a three phased expansion scheme designed by the architect, the late Roderick Gradidge. This included eighteen student sets, a new Senior Combination Room, an extension to the dining hall, small dining room and new kitchens, together with a new entrance hall and College offices. The culmination of the Gradidge development was the six storey entrance tower made possible with a magnificent benefaction from the Teikyo Foundation (UK). The tower not only provided another ten student sets but also a study for the Master and an air conditioned conference suite, The Okinaga Room, at the top of the tower with stunning views over the city and the surrounding countryside. The Okinaga Room was named after Dr Shoichi Okinaga, President of Teikyo University, Japan and an Honorary Fellow of the College. The tower was formally opened by the Right Honourable Betty Boothroyd, Speaker of the House of Commons.

In the mid 1990s a Master Plan for the College site was drawn up by the Dublin architect, Mr Sam Stephenson. The Stephenson plan sought to increase the student accommodation whilst retaining as much as possible of the existing landscaping of the College site. The plan, which envisaged two new courtyards located to the north and south of the existing College building on the east/west axis, was granted planning permission by the City architects on 17 July 1996. The Richard Laws Building, containing 50 student rooms and the Anglo-German garden of reconciliation were opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on 2 May 2002. The thirteenth Master, Professor Paul Luzio, FMedSci (2004-2014), previously one of the senior Fellows and a former Senior Tutor of the College, spearheaded the next stage of building, including a block of 70 rooms for students (the Brian Heap Building), a block of apartments (the Geoffrey Cook Building) and a facilities building including a library and multi-purpose meeting room (the Library Building including the Garden Room). These buildings were opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on 8th October 2007. In 2013-14 the College renewed and updated its development plan and elected Matthew Bullock MA as its fourteenth Master to lead the next phase of the College’s growth.