Merton College, Oxford

by Henry Julian White, Edmund H. New (Illustrator)

The oldest of all Oxford and Cambridge colleges, Merton College enjoys a distinguished past that reflects many of the most significant moments in British history, including the Black Death and the Civil War. These and other crucial events are explored with wit and insight in White's chronicle of the college, first published in 1906. A biblical scholar, White was made a fellow and lecturer in theology at Merton in 1895, where he stayed until his promotion to Dean of Christ Church in 1905. Even after his departure, he remained intrigued by the history and customs of his old college and was eager to share his knowledge outside the academic community. Worldly as well as scholarly, White always intended his volume to be accessible to a wide audience, describing it in his preface as a 'popular handbook' rather than a scholarly tome; a function it continues to fulfil today.

124 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2009

About the author

Henry Julian White (1859-1934) was an English biblical scholar. White was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating on 11 October 1878, graduating B.A. in 1882. He was ordained in 1886, becoming the domestic chaplain of John Wordsworth in the same year. He was Chaplain and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where he taught theology, from 1895 to 1905; and a Fellow of King's College London from 1905 to 1920. He assisted Wordsworth in producing an edition of the Vulgate Bible. He was also co-author of A Grammar of the Vulgate. He was Dean of Christ Church in Oxford from 1920 to 1934.

White supported the appointment of Albert Einstein as a Student (Fellow) at Christ Church, despite opposition by J.G.C. Anderson on nationalistic and perhaps even xenophobic (according to White) grounds in the early 1930s.