Emmanuel College (Cambridge)

Emmanuel College
founding	1584
Sponsorship	University of Cambridge
place	Cambridge
master	Fiona Reynolds
Students	500 ; postgraduates : 150-170
Website	www.emma.cam.ac.uk

The Emmanuel College is a college of the University of Cambridge , England .

Since 1998, Emmanuel has been regularly ranked among the top five colleges in the Tompkins Table , which rates the University of Cambridge colleges based on the performance of the undergraduates in the annual final exams . During this period, Emmanuel was named best college five times (2003, '04, '06, '07, '10) and came in second six times (2001, '02, '08, '09, '11, '12).

The college's net worth at the end of fiscal 2010/2011 was approximately £ 150m , including provisions for pension obligations.

Like many other colleges, Emmanuel was originally only open to men and in 1979 accepted women as students for the first time.

history

The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay . Originally was located on the site of today's college, a convent of Dominicans . Towards the middle of the 16th century, however, the English monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII. Mildmay was able to fall back on the remains of the monastery when the college was founded.

Chapel, seen from the front courtyard.

Indeed, Mildmay had religious goals. As a Puritan , he intended to train Protestant preachers in Emmanuel to counterbalance the successful Catholic schools that had long produced Dominican monks.

During the English Civil War, when the parliamentary troops occupied the college, which resulted in many other colleges losing their fellows, the college was promoted as a well-known cadre school by Puritans, and members of the college filled many of the posts vacated by the layoffs at other colleges in Cambridge. Around the same time, the Cambridge Platonists , most of whom came from Emmanuel College, developed an interpretation of the Christian religion based on reason and tolerance.

Trivia

Emmanuel has a spacious garden with a large pond that provides food, shelter and habitat for a colony of ducks and a few swans . The ducks are an unofficial landmark of the college, and under the name Green Duck Scheme it started an environmental protection initiative in 2007.

In one of the gardens there is also a swimming pool , which goes back to an older bath used by the monks. It is said to be one of the oldest swimming pools in Europe.

The Antarctic Emmanuel Glacier was named after the college.

Main entrance and Porters' Lodge as seen from Downing Street

Famous alumni

Graham Chapman , writer, actor and comedian, member of Monty Python
Malcolm Dixon , biochemist
Michael Frayn , writer
John Harvard , politician and founder of Harvard College
Jeremiah Horrocks , astronomer
John Wallis , mathematician

The fictional narrator Lemuel Gulliver from Jonathan Swift's work Gulliver's Travels is also said to be an Emmanuel alumnus.

literature

The Statutes of Sir Walter Mildmay Kt. Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of Her Majesty's Privy Councilors, authorized by him for the government of Emmanuel College founded by him. Translated and introduced by Frank Stubbings . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983. - Review of: Claire Cross, in: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 34, 1983, 656-657, online .