"Outspake the (Warden) roundly:
'The bridge must straight go down;
For if they once should get the bridge ...'"
MACAULAY, /Horatius/, adapted.
Academic bridges, over the Cam or elsewhere, are a great feature at
Cambridge. At Oxford they were unknown till this century, when
University first of all threw its modest little arch over Logic Lane;
later, in 1913. the "Bridge of Sighs," which forms the subject of
Plate XXIV, was completed. There was a hard struggle before leave
could be obtained from the City Council for thus bridging a public
thoroughfare; University only maintained their claim to a bridge by a
long lawsuit, in which the college rights were firmly established by
the production of charters, which went back to the reign of King
John. The great opposition to the Hertford Bridge was said to be due
to regard for the feelings of the old Warden of New College, who
considered that it would injure the view of his college bell-tower.
Whether this story be true or not, Hertford obtained its permission
at last, and Sir Thomas Jackson added a new attraction to Oxford's
buildings. His genius has been especially shown in triumphing over
the difficulties of the Hertford site, for it was no easy thing to
unite into a harmonious whole, buildings so various; his new chapel--
opened in 1908--is worthy to rank with the best classic architecture
in Oxford.
The variety of the Hertford buildings only reflects the chequered
history of the foundations that have occupied them. As early as the
thirteenth century Hart Hall stood on this site. In the eighteenth
century this old hall was turned into a college by an Oxford
reformer, Dr. Newton. But unfortunately Newton's endowments were not
equal to his ambition, and the first Hertford /College/ fell into
such decay that finally its buildings were transferred to an entirely
different foundation, Magdalen Hall. Almost immediately afterwards,
old Magdalen Hall, which stood close to Magdalen College, was burned
down, and the society sold their site, thus made empty, to their
wealthy namesake, and migrated, in 1822, to what had formerly been
Hertford College. Finally, in 1874, Magdalen Hall was re-endowed by
the head of the great financial house of Baring as "Hertford College"
once more.
This college then unites the traditions of two old halls, and of its
own predecessor, and from all of them it derives some famous names.
Hart Hall was the home of John Selden, one of the greatest of English
scholars; Hertford College had an undistinguished English prime
minister in Henry Pelham, and a most distinguished leader of
opposition in Charles James Foxe; while Magdalen Hall was even more
rich in traditions, as being the home of the translator of the Bible,
William Tyndale, as the centre of Puritan strength in the Laudian
days, when from its ranks were filled the vacancies all over Oxford
caused by the expulsions of Royalists, and finally as having trained
Lord Clarendon, famous as Charles II's minister, still more famous as
the historian, whose monumental work was one of the first endowments
of the Oxford Press.
All these traditions are now concentrated in the one college, and, as
has been said, the buildings have been greatly extended to meet the
needs of the new foundation. When Hertford College is completed
according to the plans already drawn by Sir Thomas Jackson, it will
reach from All Souls' to Holywell. This last northern part of its
front has been delayed by the European War.
The new--or, rather, the revived--college has, as yet, hardly had
time to make Oxford history, but the influence of its second
Principal. Dr. Boyd, whose long reign, happily not yet over, began in
1877, has had the result of finding for Oxford new benefactors in one
of the wealthiest of the London City Companies; the Drapers'
magnificent gifts of the new Science Library and of the Electrical
Laboratory are good instances to show that the days of the "pious
founder" are not yet over.
[Plate XXIV. Hertford College : The Bridge]