Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, generally known as Caius (pronounced "Keys"), is a constituent college of Cambridge University, one of the world's most respected academic institutions.

History

The college was first founded, as Gonville Hall, by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington in Norfolk in 1348, making it the fourth-oldest surviving college. When Gonville died three years later, he left a struggling institution with almost no money. The executor of his will, William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, stepped in, transferring the college to the land close to the college he had just founded, Trinity Hall, and renamed it The Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, endowing it with its first buildings.

Related Topics:
Norfolk - 1348 - Bishop of Norwich - Trinity Hall

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By the sixteenth century, the college had fallen into disrepair, and in 1557 it was refounded by Royal Charter as Gonville and Caius College by the physician John Caius. John Caius was master of the college from 1559 until shortly before his death in 1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly extended the buildings.

Related Topics:
1557 - John Caius - 1559 - 1573

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During his time as Master, Caius accepted no payment but insisted on several unusual rules. He insisted that the college admit no "deaf, dumb, deformed, lame, chronic invalids, or Welshmen", and built a three-sided court "lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul". Caius did however found the college as a strong centre for the study of medicine, a tradition that it aims to keep to this day.

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By 1630, the college had expanded greatly, having around 25 fellows and 150 students, but numbers fell over the next century, only returning to the 1630 level in the early nineteenth century. Since then the college has grown considerably and now has one of the largest population of undergraduates in the university.

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It is one of the more wealthy colleges with an estimated financial endowment of £78m (2003).

Related Topics:
Financial endowment - 2003

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