Balliol College in fiction - Definition and Overview

This is a selection of instances where Balliol College, Oxford appears in fiction.

• Dorothy L. Sayers attributes a Balliol undergraduateship to her fictional character, Lord Peter Wimsey where he obtained a "double first" in history. Lord Peter's physical appearance is said to have been modelled on that of Roy Ridley.

• In Yes, Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby, the wily civil servant, went to Balliol (pronounced Baillie in the television programme) from where he got an MA. He went on to join the Civil Service. Having served in the War Office and seconded to the Scottish Office, he joined the Department for Administrative Affairs, eventually becoming Permanent Secretary. When Sir Arnold retired, he was appointed Cabinet Secretary. He went on to become Master of Balliol College when he retired from the Service. Sir Arnold Robinson, also a Balliol man, was Sir Humphrey's predecesser as Cabinet Secretary. After stepping down as Cabinet Secretary, he joined the Campaign for Freedom of Information, to ensure that that freedom was not abused.

• “I know I'd sooner win two School-house matches running than get the Balliol scholarship any day." (Frantic cheers.). Pater Brook extolling the virtues of fellowship and teamwork in Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days (1857).

• In Flash for Freedom!, one of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser, Balliol College is a ship captained by John Charity Spring. Although an Oriel man, Spring so named the ship because he "hate(d) the B----y place!" where his father and brothers had gone.

• In Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy, Jude Fawley, who dreams of studying for a university degree at Christminster (Oxford), is rejected by Biblioll college (Balliol).

• In Novel Notes by Jerome K. Jerome the boundary between fiction and reality is indistinct:

"He was a Balliol man," said MacShaughnassy, "and his Christian name was Joseph. He was a member of the 'Devonshire' at the time I knew him, and was, I think, the most superior person I have ever met. He sneered at the Saturday Review as the pet journal of the suburban literary club; and at the Athenaeum as the trade organ of the unsuccessful writer. Thackeray, he considered, was fairly entitled to his position of favourite author to the cultured clerk; and Carlyle he regarded as the exponent of the earnest artisan. Living authors he never read, but this did not prevent his criticising them contemptuously. The only inhabitants of the nineteenth century that he ever praised were a few obscure French novelists, of whom nobody but himself had ever heard. He had his own opinion about God Almighty, and objected to Heaven on account of the strong Clapham contingent likely to be found in residence there. Humour made him sad, and sentiment made him ill. Art irritated him and science bored him. He despised his own family and disliked everybody else. For exercise he yawned, and his conversation was mainly confined to an occasional shrug.

"Nobody liked him, but everybody respected him. One felt grateful to him for his condescension in living at all.