College

Identity area

Type of entity

Corporate body

Authorized form of name

College

Parallel form(s) of name

Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

Other form(s) of name

Identifiers for corporate bodies

Description area

Dates of existence

1560-

History

College, the home of the Queen’s Scholars and the oldest house at Westminster, was effectively founded in 1560 when the school’s charter stipulated that there should be 40 Queen’s Scholars. Special weight in their selection was to be given to ability, good character and poverty. To become Scholars, boys had to pass an oral examination known as ‘The Challenge’, which shifted to paper in 1856.
Scholars had special privileges not accorded to other boys, such as the right to enter the Palace of Westminster.
The Scholars include John Dryden, the first Poet Laureate (1631-1700); John Locke (1632-1704), the empiricist philosopher; A. A. Milne (1882-1956), creator of Winnie-the-Pooh; and Kim Philby (1912-1988), of the Cambridge spy ring. The first female scholars were admitted to College in 2017.

Places

The boys were at first housed in the monastery’s former granary, but when this began to become delapidated they moved to the present site of College in 1730. The building, on the East side of Little Dean's Yard, is an example of neo-classicism by Lord Burlington and overlooks College Garden.

Legal status

Functions, occupations and activities

Mandates/sources of authority

Internal structures/genealogy

General context

Relationships area

Access points area

Subject access points

Place access points

Occupations

Control area

Authority record identifier

GB-2014-WSA-01868

Institution identifier

GB 2014

Rules and/or conventions used

Status

Final

Level of detail

Partial

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

Prepared by Felicity Crowe, Archives and Records Management Assistant, February 2020.

Language(s)

  • English

Script(s)

  • Latin

Sources

Westminster School Archive; Tanner, Lawrence, 'Westminster School: Its Buildings and their Associations' (Philip Allan & Co.).

Maintenance notes

  • Clipboard

  • Export

  • EAC

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