Keble College, Oxford
Keble College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to the south by Museum Road, and to the west by Blackhall Road.
Keble was established in 1870, having been built as a monument to John Keble, who had been a leading member of the Oxford Movement which sought to stress the Catholic nature of the Church of England. Consequently, the college's original teaching focus was primarily theological, although the college now offers a broad range of subjects, reflecting the diversity of degrees offered across the wider university. In the period after the Second World War the trends were towards scientific courses. As originally constituted, it was for men only and the fellows were mostly bachelors resident in the college. Like many of Oxford's men's colleges, Keble admitted its first mixed-sex cohort in 1979.
It remains distinctive for its still-controversial neo-gothic red-brick buildings designed by William Butterfield. The buildings are also notable for breaking from Oxbridge tradition by arranging rooms along corridors rather than around staircases, in order that the scouts could supervise the comings and goings of visitors.
Keble is one of the larger colleges of the University of Oxford, with 433 undergraduates and 245 graduate students in 2011/12. Keble's sister college at the University of Cambridge is Selwyn College.
History
The best-known of Keble's Victorian founders was Edward Pusey, after whom the Pusey quad and Pusey room are named. The college itself is named after John Keble, one of Pusey's colleagues in the Oxford Movement, who died four years before the college's foundation in 1870. It was decided immediately after Keble's funeral that his memorial would be a new Oxford college bearing his name. The chosen architect was William Butterfield. Two years later, in 1868, the foundation stone was laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury on St Mark's Day. The college first opened in 1870, taking in thirty students, whilst the Chapel was opened on St Mark's Day 1876. Accordingly, the college continues to celebrate St Mark's Day each year.Butterfield produced a notable example of Victorian Gothic architecture, among his few secular buildings, which Pevsner characterised as "actively ugly", and which, according to Charles Eastlake, defied criticism. The social historian G. M. Trevelyan expressed the then commonly held, and highly dismissive, view; "the monstrosities of architecture erected by order of the dons of Oxford and Cambridge colleges in the days of William Butterfield and Alfred Waterhouse give daily pain to posterity." Sir Kenneth Clark recalled that during his Oxford years it was generally believed in Oxford not only that Keble College was "the ugliest building in the world" but that its architect was John Ruskin, author of The Stones of Venice. The college is built of red, blue, and white bricks; the main structure is of red brick, with white and blue patterned banding. The builders were Parnell & Son of Rugby.
On its construction, Keble was not always admired within the university. Undergraduates at St John's College started the Destroy Keble Society, which aimed to dismantle the college brick by brick.
An apocryphal story claims that a French visitor, on first sight of the college exclaimed C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la gare?. This is a play on Field Marshal Pierre Bosquet's memorable line, referring to the Charge of the Light Brigade, C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. This story may have been borrowed from Arthur Wing Pinero's identical quip said to have been made at the opening ceremony for the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Keble is mentioned in John Betjeman's poem "Myfanwy at Oxford", as well as in the writings of John Ruskin and in Monty Python's "Travel Agent" sketch. Horace Rumpole, the barrister in John Mortimer's books, was a Law graduate of Keble.
In 2005, Keble College featured in the national UK press when its bursar, Roger Boden, was found guilty of racial discrimination by an employment tribunal. An appeal was launched by the college and Boden against the tribunal's judgement, resulting in a financial out-of-court settlement with the aggrieved employee.
In Christmas of 2017, a team of alumni from Keble College won the University Challenge Alumni Christmas Special, a seasonal programme on BBC2. They beat the University of Reading by 240 points to 0 in the final.
Buildings
The main site of Keble contains five quads: Liddon, Pusey, Hayward, De Breyne and Newman.Original buildings
The best-known portion of Keble's buildings is the distinctive main brick complex, designed by Butterfield. The design remained incomplete due to shortage of funds. The Chapel and Hall were built later than the accommodation blocks to the east and west of the two original quadrangles and the warden's house at the south-east corner. The Chapel and Hall were both fully funded by William Gibbs and were also designed by Butterfield.Modern buildings
A section west of the Chapel was built in a different style in the 1950s with funds from Antonin Besse. Later still further significant additions have been added, most notably the modern, brick Hayward and de Breyne extensions by Ahrends, Burton and Koralek. The extensions were made possible by a generous response from the businessmen Charles Hayward and André de Breyne and other fund-raising efforts. The ABK buildings included the college's memorable, futuristic "goldfish bowl" bar, opened on 3 May 1977 and recently refurbished and expanded. In 1995, work was completed on the ARCO building by the US-born architect Rick Mather. This was followed in 2002 by another similarly styled building also designed by Mather, the Sloane-Robinson building. Along with a number of additional student bedrooms the Sloane Robinson building also provided the college with the O'Reilly Theatre, a dedicated room for musical practice, a number of seminar rooms and a large open plan space which during term time is used as a café and social space for all members of the college.The original fellows' garden was lost in the programme of extension, as were a range of houses on Blackhall Road.
H B Allen Centre
In July 2004 Keble announced the purchase of the former Acland Hospital for £10.75 million. This site, situated a couple of minutes walk from the main college buildings, housed an estimated 100 graduate students. In October 2015 it was confirmed that Keble College had received funding from The H B Allen Charitable Trust to redevelop the Acland Site in order to provide double the number of graduate rooms. This was the largest single donation in the college's history. Work on construction of the H B Allen Centre, designed by Rick Mather, began in 2016, with the first graduate students moving in in October 2018. Keble previously owned a number of houses across Oxford which were used as additional student accommodation, but these were sold following the purchase of the Acland site.The H B Allen Centre was officially opened by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge on 3 October 2019.
Student life
The college publishes a termly magazine called The Brick which is sent to Keble alumni to update them on college life. Students used to publish an irreverent spoof version on the last Friday of each term, also named The Brick, recording college gossip but this version has not been published since Hilary 2006. The college has since seen the release of a student publication calling itself The Breezeblock, containing both college gossip and a satirical take on college life.Each graduate is given a red brick along with their degree certificates.
Keble were champions of the television quiz show University Challenge in 1975 and 1987.
Each year the Advanced Studies Centre invites distinguished speakers for their Creativity Lecture Series. In 2011 the list included Nicholas Humphrey, Tim Ingold and Steve Rayner; in 2012 Robin Dunbar, Kevin Warwick and Margaret Boden were featured.
The Keble Ball is planned by the student committee to coincide with the day-long graduation ceremony in Trinity term week 2, although in 2020 the 150 year commemoration ball will be held in week 9 outside of term.
Sport
Keble fields a number of sports teams. Its rugby teams have been successful in winning the intercollegiate league for five seasons in a row and triumphing in the 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2017 rugby Cuppers, having also been finalists in 2008 and 2010. Keble College Boat Club, the college rowing club compete annually in Torpids and Summer Eights.Keble College Sports Ground is located on Woodstock Road, and as well as hosting intercollegiate matches, also lays the stage for annual fixtures between current undergraduates and Old Members, particularly in football and cricket. Commemorative photographs of important matches adorn the walls of the Keble Cricket Pavilion inside the ground.