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    • Source: St Alban Hall, Oxford

      • St Alban Hall, sometimes known as St Alban's Hall or Stubbins, was one of the medieval halls of the University of Oxford, and one of the longest-surviving. It was established in the 13th century, acquired by neighbouring Merton College in the 16th century but operated separately until the institutions merged in the late 19th century. The site in Merton Street, Oxford, is now occupied by Merton's Edwardian St Alban's Quad.


      History


      St Alban Hall took its name from Robert of Saint Alban, a citizen of Oxford, who conveyed the property to the priory of nuns at Littlemore, near Oxford, about the year 1230.

      In February 1525, on the recommendation of Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor, as a result of the Littlemore Priory scandals, the priory was dissolved. Its lands and houses in Oxford passed to Wolsey for the use of his new Cardinal College. When Wolsey fell from power in 1529, Littlemore Priory, along with the rest of his wealth and estates, escheated to the Crown. Henry VIII then granted St Alban Hall to George Owen, D.M., who was both the king's physician and a Fellow of Merton College. Owen conveyed it to Sir John Williams, later Lord Williams of Thame, and Sir John Gresham. By permission of Edward VI, in 1547 they transferred the Hall to John Pollard and Robert Perrot, Esquires, who sold it to the Warden and Fellows of Merton College.
      St Alban Hall continued for another three centuries as a separate hall with its own students and principal. It was governed by the university's statutes for Academical Halls, and its principal was chosen by the chancellor of the university.

      Chancellor Grenville appointed Richard Whately as principal in 1825, in an attempt to raise standards there. John Henry Newman was Whately's vice-principal from 1825 to 1826, and Samuel Hinds from 1827 to 1831.
      As later recalled by Dr Henry Robinson, in the mid-1830s there was only one undergraduate, John Robert Tennant, who was known as "the solitary tenant of Alban Hall". There were seven members when Robinson arrived in 1838, rising to twelve by the time he came down. The only tutor was the vice-principal, while the principal, Edward Cardwell, was a university lecturer on divinity. Those aiming for an honours degree took a private tutor, of whom Bob Lowe of Magdalen was the most popular. The Hall then had four servants, a cook, a manciple, a porter, and a boy. Robinson had found St Alban Hall "rather an expensive place, the number being so few, and there was no endowment."
      The last principal, William Salter, was appointed in 1861 and resigned in 1882. In 1877 Prime Minister Disraeli appointed commissioners under Lord Selborne and later Mountague Bernard to consider and implement reform of the university and its colleges. The commissioners came to the view that the four remaining medieval halls were not viable and should merge with colleges. In 1881, the commissioners made a University Statute which provided for St Alban Hall to be united with Merton College in the event of Principal Salter's resignation or death. The Hall then had eighteen members in residence, who were admitted to Merton. In 1887, a similar Statute extinguished New Inn Hall and combined it with Balliol College, on the death of Henry Hubert Cornish. In the event, of the halls only St Edmund Hall would avoid merger.

      Henry Robinson cast some of the blame for the end of the Hall on Lord Salisbury, the university's chancellor: "St Alban Hall is destroyed because it has no friends. No one is interested in it except the principal, and he has been pensioned off... I am sure its extinction was not called for, but there was no one to speak up for it. The Chancellor of the University is the Visitor of all the halls, and he holds his place in trust for his successor."
      Robinson died a few days after his article was published.


      Buildings


      St Alban Hall's buildings included a main quadrangle and a smaller court. The Merton Street front of the quad was rebuilt in 1600, funded by Benedict Barnham. The buildings were reconstructed again and a chapel added by John Gibbs from 1863, funded by Principal Salter. After 1882 the chapel was no longer needed and was secularized. Between 1904 and 1910 the buildings of the former hall were demolished, apart from part of their front elevation on Merton Street, and the St Alban's Quadrangle of Merton College built on the site.


      Principals



      A list of the principals of St Alban Hall.

      1437: Roger Martin
      1439: Robert Ashe
      1444: John Gygur
      1450: William Shyrefe
      1452: William Romsey
      1468–1477: Thomas Danett
      1477: Richard FitzJames, later Bishop of London
      Thomas Lynley
      Robert Gosbourne
      Ralph Hamsterley
      1501: Hugh Saunders, alias Shakspeere
      1503: John Forster
      1507: John Beverstone
      1507: William Bysse
      1509: Richard Walker
      1510: John Pokyswell
      1514: John Hoper
      Simon Balle
      1527: Walter Buckler
      1530: Robert Tailer
      1532: William Pedyll
      1535: Robert Huyck
      1536: Richard Smyth, also first Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford
      1539: Humphrey Burneford
      1543: John Estwyck
      1547: William Marshall
      1567: Arthur Atye
      Richard Radclyffe

      1599: Robert Masters
      1603: Henry Masters
      1614: Anthony Morgan
      1621: Richard Parker
      1624: Edward Chaloner
      1625–1661: Richard Zouch
      1641: Sir Giles Sweit
      1664–1673: Thomas Lamplugh
      1673–1679: Narcissus Marsh
      1679: Thomas Bouchier
      1692: Richard Duckworth,
      1723: James Bouchier
      1736: Robert Leyborne
      1759: Francis Randolph

      1797–1823: Thomas Winstanley
      1823–1825: Peter Elmsley
      1825–1831: Richard Whately, later Archbishop of Dublin
      1831–1861: Edward Cardwell
      1861–1882: William Charles Salter


      Notable alumni



      Cuthbert Mayne (c. 1543–1577), Roman Catholic priest executed in the time of Elizabeth I
      Sir Thomas Gresham (died 1630), landowner and member of parliament
      Robert Harcourt (died 1631), explorer
      Thomas Crompton (died 1608), a barrister and judge
      Thomas Lawton (c. 1558–1606), a barrister and judge
      John Penry (1563–1593), Welsh Protestant martyr
      Matthew Slade (1569–1628), nonconformist minister
      Gervase Clifton, 1st Baron Clifton (c. 1570–1618), landowner and peer
      Edward Lapworth (1574–1636), physician and Latin poet
      Philip Massinger (1583–1640), dramatist
      William Lenthall (1591–1662), Speaker of the House of Commons,
      Samuel Turner (c. 1582–1647), Cavalier soldier
      Sir Richard Browne, 1st Baronet, of Deptford (died 1683), English ambassador to France
      Richard Alleine (1610/11–1681), Puritan divine
      William Alleine (1614–1677), clergyman,
      Bartholomew Ashwood (1622–1680), puritan divine
      John Durel (1625–1683), clergyman
      Thomas Hancorne (1642–1731), clergyman
      Francis Willis (1718–1807), physician
      John Evans (1756–1846), Welsh surgeon and cartographer
      Stephen Reay (1782–1861), Laudian Professor of Arabic
      Nathaniel Dawes (1843–1910), Anglican bishop in Australia
      Edward Smith (1854–1908), clergyman and first class cricketer


      Notes




      External links


      Henry Robinson, DD, "St Alban Hall, Oxford" in London Society, January 1887, reprinted in Volume 51, London: F. V. White & Co., 1887, pp. 191–198

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