MERTON COLLEGE

MERTON COLLEGE, founded in 1264 at Malden in Surrey, and transferred to Oxford in 1274 by Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, was the first institution in Oxford organised as a college; and is therefore the type which has been imitated by all existing foundations in Oxford or Cambridge. The old quadrangle ('Mob Quadrangle,' 1278) and the library (1376) of this college are the most primitive college buildings in Oxford. The chapel (1424) is a fine building, with some good early brasses. Members of Merton College have been remarkable benefactors to the university; Sir Thomas Bodley, who founded the university library, and Sir Henry Saville, who founded professorships in geometry and astronomy, were both fellows. Duns Scotus is said to have been fellow here; William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, was warden; and other members were Bishops Hooper, Jewel, and Patteson; Anthony Wood, the great Oxford antiquary (buried in the ante-chapel, 1695); and Steele.