Balliol College

“ He became a fellow of Balliol College, and it was as an ex-fellow that he subscribed in 1325 his assent to a settlement of a dispute in the college as to whether members of the foundation were at liberty to follow studies in divinity. ”

“ In its progress towards what is most admired in modern Oxford, Balliol is the most interesting college. Nearly all other colleges have indeed acquired a more or less thorough resemblance to Balliol in its good and bad points, but no other college has been so long, so persistently, and so progressively devoted to the same ideal. Even those who do not wholly like that ideal cannot fail to admire the consistency and energy of the men who have achieved it, or could find the like to any comparable extent in colleges that cherish other affections. ”

“ Jihn's, and the master of Balliol— with a view to the education at some collee or hall in Oxford University of scholars from his own college of Glasgow, to which his letters and benefactions show him to have been warmly attached. By decree of the court of chancery in 1693, it was appointed that the scholars should go to Balliol College. A provision in the will that they should enter into holy orders and return to Scotland for preferment has several times given rise to litigation. ”

“ The modern greatness of Balliol is due to the fact that the college awoke more rapidly from the sleep of the eighteenth century than most of Oxford, and as early as 1828 threw open its scholarships to free competition. ”

“ Christ Church and Queen's College are the most modern, and, I think, indisputably the best built of all the colleges. Balliol College seems particularly to be distinguished on account of its antiquity, and its complete Gothic style of building.
Mr. Maud told me that a good deal of money might be sometimes earned by preaching at Oxford; for all the members of a certain standing are obliged in their turn to preach in the church of the university; but many of them, when it comes to their turn, prefer the procuring a substitute ”

“ Under the Balliol statutes no one could be made master who was not already a fellow; and, though the condition might be literally fulfilled by electing an outsider successively fellow and master, this supposition seems to be more hazardous than to accept the statement that Balliol was originally Wyclif's college. But there is no record, so far as is known, of the date when he came into residence, either at Oxford or at Balliol. ”

“ He matriculated at Oxford from Balliol College in 1837, but left the university on receiving in 1839 a nomination for the East India Company’s civil service, and was completing his course of training at Haileybury when the entreaties of his mother, who had lost a son in India, prevailed upon him to relinquish his nomination and return to Oxford. As Balliol was full, he entered University College and, devoting himself to the study of Sanskrit, he gained the Boden scholarship in 1843. ”

“ Every year his birthday comes round without the slightest effect upon him. He may be a little more substantial, but his bland, clean-shaven face is the same that confronted the Harrow masters. He has just the same smile. He went on to a brilliant career at Balliol College, Oxford, always famous for its retardation of adolescence, and emerged a devotee of the British Empire and of the games of Foreign Policy and War. ”

“ His hard reading was crowned in December, 1914, by a considerable achievement, for he won the coveted Brakenbury Scholarship in History and Modern Languages at Balliol College, Oxford. This scholarship, worth £80 per annum, is tenable for four years; to it subsequently Dulwich College added an exhibition of the annual value of £20. He was the first Balliol scholar in history from Dulwich. Not at all confident that he had won the Brakenbury, he went up to Oxford a second time, while the result of the Balliol examination was still unknown, to try for a less exacting scholarship. ”

“ During his career in Glasgow Tait came to the resolution to enter the ministry of the church of England. Owing to his father’s pecuniary difficulties, he competed in 1829 for a Snell exhibition to Balliol College at Oxford. He was successful and matriculated from Balliol on 29 Jan. 1830, and went into residence in October. In November he gained one of the Balliol scholarships. In the same month he was confirmed by Bishop Bagot.
His tutor at Balliol was George Moberly (afterwards headmaster of Winchester and bishop of Salisbury) . ”

“ Not much is known of his early days except that he went to school and to Oxford University. In time he became one of the most learned men of his day, and was made Head, or Master, of Balliol College.
This is the first time in this book that we have heard of a university. The monasteries had, until now, been the centers of learning. But now the two great universities of Oxford and Cambridge were taking their place. Men no longer went to the monasteries to learn, but to the universities; and this was one reason, perhaps, why the land had become filled with so many idle monks. ”

“ In the first bay of the wall, seen through the palisade fence, is the old Ashmolean Museum, and farther on is a glimpse of Exeter College. The spire is that of the College Chapel.
By the large tree standing near the Church of St. Mary Magdalen are the buildings of Balliol College, and nearer to the spectator is the entrance to Trinity College and Kettle Hall.
Some of the houses to the right of the picture are fair specimens of eighteenth-century domestic architecture.
Two or three bicycles are shown, and the time is early noon. ”

“ He was educated successively at a private school at Reading, at University College School, London, at the Normal College, Swansea, at University College, London, and finally at Balliol College, Oxford (1876-81) . He had a distinguished university career. At London he was first in honours at matriculation, graduated B.Sc. with honours, and became university scholar in geology, being elected fellow of University College. ”

“ GOOD, THOMAS (1609–1678) , master of Balliol College, born in 1609. was a native of Worcestershire or Shropshire. He was admitted scholar at Balliol College in 1624, and took the degree of B.A. in 1628. ”

“ That a youth born at Wycliffe should have been sent to the college founded by John Balliol, lord of Barnard Castle on the opposite bank of the Tees, is natural enough; and, as it was by Balliol College that Wycliffe was appointed to Fillingham, and it is certain that the vicar of Fillingham went on to Ludgershall and thence to the reformer's well-known living at Lutterworth, the identification of the master of Balliol with the reformer becomes certain. ”

“ From Eton he passed in 1862 to Balliol College, Oxford, and after taking first classes in classical moderations and the final classical school he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls College in 1867, an event which was to determine his subsequent career. ”

“ An incident in the life of Bathurst may excite a smile. No college in Oxford suffered more severely in the Civil Wars than Balliol. After the Restoration, Trinity, which had been more fortunate, soon recovered itself, but the blackened walls of Balliol remained for years a picture of desolation, and a sad memento of the fury of factious animosity. ”

“ At the end of the session he gained the Cowan gold medal in the Blackstone Latin examination, and he also specially distinguished himself in the Greek, mathematics and logic classes. Having been elected in 1850 to a Snell exhibition, he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. Here, contrary to the expectations of his tutors, who had the poorest opinions of his chances, he, in 1853, obtained a first class both in classical and mathematical moderations (a record for Balliol College) ; but, owing to ill-health and other causes, only a second in the final schools. ”

“ He was not fourteen when he entered Balliol College, where he acquired a great store of knowledge outside the regular curriculum. He read French, Italian, German and Spanish, was interested in classical and British antiquities, and became versed in heraldic and genealogical lore. ”

“ Its tower and chapel are Grecian, and the chapel has a most beautiful carved screen and altarpiece. The library contains a chalice that once belonged to St. Alban's Abbey. Kettel Hall, now a private dwelling, is a picturesque building in front of Trinity. On Broad Street, where Trinity stands, is also Balliol College, founded in the thirteenth century by John Balliol. None of the existing buildings are earlier than the fifteenth century, while the south front, with its massive tower, has just been rebuilt. ”

“ It was soon apparent that Balliol tutors had the knack of equipping men to face the ordeal of "the Schools"; the College speedily came to the front, and its intellectual pre-eminence in Oxford during the nineteenth century is now universally admitted. Men trained at Balliol during this period occupied and still occupy some of the very highest positions in the State. ”

“ On 9 June 1832 he matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, but became a demy of Magdalen College in the same year, and in 1847 was elected fellow of his college. In 1835 he was placed in the first class in mathematics and in the second in literæ humaniores. ”

“ In October 1855 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, as a pupil of Mr. Jowett. He obtained only a second class in moderations, but in 1859 was in the first class in literæ humaniores afterwards obtaining a third class in the school of law and modern history. In 1860 he became a lecturer upon ancient and modern history in Balliol during the absence of Mr. ”

“ He resigned his demyship in 1754 (Bloxam, Magdalen College Register, vi. 264) . Returning to Balliol College on being elected a fellow of that society, he took the degrees of B.D. and D.D. by cumulation in 1778. ”

“ Scott of Greek dictionary fame, and Professor Jowett, the translator of Plato and the hero of more Oxford stories than any other man, it has been ready to adapt itself to every new movement. While the governing bodies of other colleges in the middle of the last century were too often looking only to raising their own fellowships to the highest possible point, the Balliol dons were denying their own pockets to enrich and strengthen their college. ”

“ To live at one of them would be more expensive than to put up with the rough lodging and fare of a "chamber dekyn," or to enter at the average hall; and it is reasonable to suppose that a student at Balliol or Merton, unless he came to Oxford at the charges of a wealthy patron, must have belonged to a fairly prosperous family. according to an undisturbed tradition, John Wyclif was a scholar at Balliol, either as soon as he came up or after preliminary training at a grammar school. He afterwards became fellow and master of the college. ”

“ In the unconscious preparation for such a place William of Durham was the first to leave money; the founders of Balliol the first to gather a number of scholars under one roof, with a corporate life, and as we may assume, a set of customary, unwritten laws; but Walter de Merton was the first to endow and provide with tenements and statutes a college, in all important respects, like a college of to-day,—a place even at that time standing in a genial avuncular relationship towards [Pg 92] the students, which was rich in influence and the making of endearing tradition. ”

“ As to their way of living and learning, they shall behave as they are directed by some fit and experienced men appointed by the Chancellor.37
His residence at Balliol gave him special opportunities to become proficient in arts. The college had been endowed to enable sixteen scholars to study in arts, each scholar receiving a yearly revenue of twenty-seven marks. His residence in University College enabled him to cultivate theology. ”

“ B.A. 1804, M.A. 1806, B.D. and D.D. 1819, master of the schools 1809, public examiner 1811–12, vice [81] chancellor 1824–28; V. of Evercreech, Somerset 1822–40; preb. of Wells cath. 1824–45; R. of Dinder, Somerset 1824–46; dean of Wells 4 June 1845 to death; one of the 6 doctors who condemned Pusey’s sermon in 1843; founder of the modern greatness of Balliol college. d. Balliol college, Oxford 6 March 1854. bur. Wells 13 March; by his will founded 2 exhibitions of £100 at Balliol. G.M. xli 425–6 (1854) ; G. V. Cox’s Recollections of Oxford 2 ed. (1870) 209–11; The Month, Jany. 1866 pp. 50–9. ”

“ We have seen how the foundation of Merton, and therefore of Exeter and Oriel, was directly due to the coming of the friars. And it is to their influence that yet another great and once beautiful college, beautiful no longer, but greater now and more famous than ever by virtue of the services in politics and letters of its successful alumni, owes its origin. For it was under the guidance of a Franciscan friar, one Richard de Slikeburne, that the widow of Sir John de Balliol carried out her husband’s intention of placing upon a thoroughly organised footing his house for poor scholars. ”

“ Some of the college halls preserved their old central fireplaces, under a louvre, until early in the last century. While the fellows dined, a servitor stood there, and read aloud from the Bible, in the first days of the college; or, as at Trinity in 1792, recited a passage from Homer or Virgil or Milton. Southey records it as a rule, that every member of the University could go by right once a year to Balliol hall, and “be treated with bread and cheese and beer, and all on condition that, when called upon, he should either sing a song or tell a story.” ”