Author Description

This is the first history of Oriel College, Oxford for over a hundred years. It is an account of a distinctive society, the college of Thomas More, Walter Raleigh, Gilbert White, Thomas Arnold, John Henry Newman and Cecil Rhodes, written by a group of specialist scholars whose aim it is to place the body of Orielenses in the context not only of Oxford but of British and international history. It is therefore more than a domestic history of the college; it explores the ideas which have animated, and often divided, the members of the college in every generation since 1326, especially during the brilliant Noetic era of the early nineteenth century and the Oxford movement which succeeded it; and it considers the impact of Oriel on national life, including sport and the government of the British Empire. Though designed to conform to the highest standards of historical scholarship, the chapters are accessible to the general reader, and are fully illustrated throughout. Maps and plans are provided to make the physical development of the college easy to follow.