Cambridge Colleges - Part 2 - Churchill College

Today's post is on Churchill College.
















In 1955 on holiday in Sicily soon after his resignation as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill discussed with Sir John Colville and Lord Cherwell the possibility of founding a new institution. Churchill had been impressed by MIT and wanted a British version, but the plans evolved to the more modest proposal of creating a Scientific and Technological based college within the University of Cambridge. Winston Churchill wanted a mix of non-scientists to ensure a well rounded education and environment for scholars and fellows.

The first postgraduate students arrived in October 1960, and the first undergraduates a year later. Full College status was received in 1966.

The bias to science and engineering remains as policy to the current day, with the statutes requiring approximately 70% science and technology students amongst the students. The college statutes also stipulate that one-third of Junior Members of the college should be advanced (postgraduate) students.

In 1958, a 42 acre (170,000 m²) site was purchased to the west of the city centre, which had previously been farmland. After a competition, Richard Sheppard was appointed to design the new college. Building was completed by 1968 with nine main residential courts, separate graduate flats and a central building consisting of the dining hall, buttery, combination rooms and offices.

In the centre of the college is the Churchill Archive Centre, opened in 1974 to provide a home to Sir Winston’s papers (and also more recently endowed with papers from Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock alongside those of eminent scientists, including Rosalind Franklin.
At the farthest end of the college is Churchill College Chapel. The idea of having a religious building within a modern, scientifically-oriented, academic institution deeply annoyed some of the original fellows, reputedly leading to the resignation of Francis Crick in protest. Eventually a compromise was found: the chapel was sited away from the other buildings, and funded and managed separately from the rest of the College itself, being tactfully referred to as "the Chapel at Churchill College". The chimney of the heating system at the front of the college substitutes visually for the missing chapel tower.

According to an anecdote, Crick had agreed to become a fellow on the basis that no chapel be placed in Churchill. A donation was later made byLord Beaumont of Whitley to Churchill College for the establishment of one, and the majority of fellows voted for it. Winston Churchill reputedly wrote to Crick, saying that no-one need enter the chapel except under free will so it need not be a problem. Crick, in short order, replied with a letter containing 10 guineas saying that if that were the case, here were 10 guineas for the establishment of a brothel.

Notable Alumni
Sir Christopher Frayling - Writer and Educationalist
Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director of the Toyota Formula One Team
Diarmid MacCulloch - historian
Ian Steward - Mathematician

Also, Churchill College grounds are the home base of the NCI (Cambridge New Chesterton Institute) Cricket Team's First Team.

Thanks To WikiPedia and The Cambridge University Website for this info.