College History

A Short History of the College was prepared by Corpus Fellow, former Warden of Leckhampton, and historian Patrick Bury (revised by Oliver Rackham).

The development of the College plans and buildings can be found in The Courts of Corpus Christi by Oliver Rackham and Peter Carolin.

Corpus Christi Cambridge: A Timeline

1352
FOUNDATION		 Corpus becomes the 6th College to be founded at Cambridge University, primarily to train priests. Unusually, it is founded by townspeople, members of two Cambridge gilds: the Gild of Corpus Christi and the Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The College was founded in the aftermath of the Black Death, which ravaged Europe. The College gives pride of place in its list of benefactors to Margaret Andrew of Chesterton who, by her deathbed will of 7 May 1349, gave lands to both the Gild of St Mary and the Gild of Corpus Christi. 
1381
TOWN VS GOWN		 A mob led by the mayor of Cambridge stormed the College in protest against its rigid extraction of 'candle rents', charges assessed upon houses in its ownership according to the number of wax tapers found. Many books and documents are burned.
1460
FIRST SCHOLARSHIP		 The first of a series of scholarships was endowed by Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, in memory of her sister, Eleanor née Talbot. Money was still short at the time, and records report that the half-built shell of a bakehouse was used as a tennis court. A carved stone monument of a dog called a Talbot still sits atop the gable of Old Court and can be seen from Free School Lane.
1544
GREATEST BENEFACTOR		 Former Corpus student and future Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, became Master in 1544. He obtained some of the greatest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts from monasteries that had fallen foul of the Reformation, and left them to Corpus. These treasures form the core collection of the Parker Library, one of the world's greatest collections of Anglo-Saxon and early English books.
1569
TROUBLES WITH THE MASTERSHIP		 Religious strife in the country was bound to affect a college that had been founded to educate the clergy. Every Master's appointment was strongly disputed within College. In the end, Queen Elizabeth I imposed a new Master by royal mandate, suspending the Fellows' right to elections for some time.
1573
NEW COLLEGE RULES		 New rules required that Latin be spoken at all times during Full Term or a scholar would be "subject to the heaviest penalties for speaking English". Being 'beaten at the Buttery hatch' was a regular punishment for various misdemeanors. 
1577
A NEW CHAPEL		 Corpus gets its own Chapel for lectures as well as prayers. Prior to this, Fellows and students used St Bene't church adjacent to the College. The College was known for many years as Bene't College or Benet Hall. The Saxon tower of the church stands to this day and is connected to Old Court by a long gallery built in the 15th century. 
1580
CHRISTOPHER MARLOW		 The Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe arrives at Corpus in December and lives in Old Court. Buttery records report mysterious absences from College and expenditures of up to 12d a week on food and wine, a considerable sum at the time.
1630
THE RETURN OF THE PLAGUE		 The Black Death once more sweeps through Cambridge, and everyone in Corpus fled but the Master, Dr Butts. He bravely stayed in an attempt to stop the pestilence spreading and to organise supplies and relief. He described himself as "alone, a destitute and forsaken man; not a scholar with me in College". In 1632, he was found hanging in his garters from the strain of it all.
1642
THE CIVIL WAR		 Whilst many Colleges surrendered their silver to one side or another of the conflict, the Corpus silver collection was left largely intact because it had been distributed to Fellows who were given leave of absence. As a result, the College retains one of the finest collections of medieval silver in Oxbridge.
1700
PEACEFUL TIMES		 Eighteenth-century life seems to have been relatively tranquil. A chief topic of debate at the time was matrimony. No Fellow was allowed to marry until well into the 19th century. Corpus was famous for the Benedictine Antiquaries, some dozen antiquarian researchers, including William Stukeley and Richard Gough.
1822
A NEW COURT		 Work began on new buildings for Corpus. Architect William Wilkins, also responsible for the National Gallery and the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, cited New Court as his favourite building and requested that he be buried in the Chapel. Work was completed in 1827, sadly at the expense of the old Chapel.
1904
GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON		 Like any respectable ancient building, Corpus has its very own ghost, perhaps even more than one. Some say it's the ghost of Dr Butts, who committed suicide after the Plague; others believe it is the daughter of a Master, Elizabeth Spencer, or her lover. The ghost was last sighted in the Easter term of 1904, when three undergraduates then tried to exorcise the tortured soul.
1906
A LAYMAN FOR A MASTER		 Colonel Caldwell was elected Master and determined to retrieve the College's flagging fortunes. An influx of new blood followed; a wider admittance policy allowed a far broader intake of students. Corpus was no longer a seminary for the production of clergymen.
1919
A GOLDEN AGE		 In the inter-war years, Corpus produced a host of distinguished alumni. These included two mayors of Cambridge, emphasising anew the original intent of the College to bridge the gap between town and university; and two Burgesses for the University, one of whom, Geoffrey Butler, gave his name to the newly built undergraduate library.
1939
WORLD WAR II		 During the war the Master was Sir Will Spens, who was also Regional Commissioner for the Eastern Region. Had Hitler invaded, Sir Will would have been in charge of running Eastern England. Whilst there were fewer undergraduates during the war, their spaces were taken by cadets and officers on short training courses.
1953
DISCOVERY OF DNA		 On 28 February 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson interrupted the patrons lunching at the Eagle Pub (then and still owned by Corpus) to announce they had "discovered the secret of life". Working at the nearby Cavendish Laboratory, Watson and Crick and decoded the double helix structure of DNA based on the x-ray data of Rosalind Franklin.
1962
A HOME FOR POSTGRADS		 The development of the Leckhampton site as a home for research students and Fellows was the brainchild of the Senior Tutor M W McCrum. It enabled postgraduate numbers to increase from forty to over a hundred, and has attracted PhD and Master's/MPhil students from around the world ever since.
1983
FIRST WOMEN MATRICULATE		 In 1980 Corpus decided to admit women undergraduates, the first of whom matriculated in 1983. Now the College is thoroughly egalitarian, with even numbers of men and women at undergraduate level.
2008
THE TAYLOR LEGACY		 The Corpus Chronophage is officially unveiled to the public on 19 September by physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. Built by Dr John C Taylor OBE, Corpus alumnus and benefactor of the College, the landmark sits at the front of the Taylor Library, a newly renovated 24-hour undergraduate library.
2012
THE KHO BUILDING		 A generous donation from the Kho family enables a distinctive new postgraduate student housing block to be built at Leckhampton, providing comfortable accommodation for the growing postgraduate community.