Jesus College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth I at the request of Hugh Price, a Welsh clergyman, who was Treasurer of St David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire. The college still has strong links with Wales, and about 15% of students are Welsh. There are 340 undergraduates and 190 students carrying out postgraduate studies. Women have been admitted since 1974, when the college was one of the first five men's colleges to become co-educational. Old members of Jesus College are sometimes known as "Jesubites".
The college had its own science laboratories from 1907 to 1947, which were overseen (for all but the last three years) by the physical chemistDavid Chapman, a Fellow of the college from 1907 to 1944. At the time of their closure, they were the last college-based science laboratories at the university. They were named the Sir Leoline Jenkins laboratories, after a former principal of the college. Scientific research and tuition (particularly in chemistry) became an important part of the college's academic life after the construction of the laboratories. The brochure produced for the opening ceremony noted that the number of science students at the college had increased rapidly in recent years, and that provision of college laboratories would assist the tuition of undergraduates, as well as attracting to Jesus College those graduates of the University of Wales who wished to continue their research at Oxford. One of the college science lecturers had a link with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI); 17 students joined ICI between the two World Wars, some of whom (such as John Rose) reached senior levels in the company. The laboratories became unnecessary when the university began to provide centralised facilities for students, and they were closed in 1947.
Alumni
Abbreviations used in the following tables
M – Year of matriculation at Jesus College (a dash indicates that the individual did not matriculate at the college)
G – Year of graduation / conclusion of study at Jesus College (a dash indicates that the individual moved to another college before graduating or concluding studies)
DNG – Did not graduate: left the college without obtaining a degree
? – Year unknown; approximate year used for table-sorting purposes
The subject studied and the degree classification are included, where known. Until the early 19th century, undergraduates read for a Bachelor of Arts degree that included study of Latin and Greek texts, mathematics, geometry, philosophy and theology. Individual subjects at undergraduate level were only introduced later: for example, Mathematics (1805), Natural Science (1850), Jurisprudence (1851, although it had been available before this to students who obtained special permission), Modern History (1851) and Theology (1871). Geography and Modern Languages were introduced in the 20th century. Music had been taught as a specialist subject, rather than being part of the BA course, before these changes; medicine was studied as a post-graduate subject.
Eighteenth-century Welsh physician; also worked with Moses Williams to collect and publish material contained in Welsh language manuscripts; he graduated from the University of Aberdeen and is not recorded in Foster's Alumni Oxonienses
Welsh clergyman and botanist, whose main work, Welsh Botanology (1813), was the first to cross-reference the names of plants in Welsh with their scientific names
Matriculated at New College before transferring to Jesus with a scholarship; a clergyman, headmaster and entomologist who was President of the Incorporated Association of Head Masters and President of the Entomological Society of London
Keeper of the Department of Chemistry at the Science Museum (1967–1980); Reader in the History of Science at the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory of the Royal Institution (1970–1985)
Inventor of the world's first wearable hearing aid and a major benefactor to the college, which named its flats in north Oxford "Stevens Close" in his honour
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