Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge - Definition and Overview

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, generally known as "Caius" (though pronounced "Keys") is a constituent college of Cambridge University.

Most of the stone used to build the college came from Ramsey Abbey near Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.

The college was first founded, as Gonville Hall, by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington in 1348. It was founded a second time as Gonville & Caius College in 1557 by the physician John Caius. John Caius was master of the college from 1559 and until shortly before his death in 1573. He provided the college with significant funds and greatly extended the buildings.

The college first admitted women as fellows and students in 1979. The college now has nearly 100 fellows, over 700 students and about 200 staff.

The Old Courts

Interior North-East Corner of Waterhouse Building, Tree Court
Tree Court is the largest of the old courts. It is so named because John Caius planted an avenue of trees there. Although none of the original trees survive, there are several trees which is unusual for a Cambridge front court.

Gate of Honour, Caius Court
The Gate of Honour, in Caius Court, though the most direct way from the old courts to the Cockrell Building library, is only used for special occasions.

Interior East Side of Gonville Court
Gonville Court has the most student residences on it.

Exterior South-East Corner of Tree Court

Notable Alumni

• John Venn - Inventor of the Venn diagram
• Charles Sherrington - Nobel Prize winning neurophysiologist
• Sir James Chadwick - Nobel Prize winning physicist, discoverer of the neutron
• E. A. Wilson - Explorer who died with Scott in the Antarctic.
• Harold Abrahams - Olympic athlete fictionalised in the film Chariots of Fire
• Sir Nevill Mott - Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist
• Henry Fancourt - Naval Aviator
• Kenneth Clarke - Chancellor of the Exchequer
• J. H. Prynne - modern British poet
• Inagaki Manjiro - (1861-1908) - Japan's first Minister Resident in Siam in 1897, Pan-Asianist, leading light of the Japanese Club at Cambridge
• Nabeshima Naomitsu - (1872-1943) - 12th daimyo of the Saga clan, Kyushu and keen rugby player at the College
• Mōri Gorō - (1871-1925) of the Choshu clan
• John Lehman - American Secretary of the Navy and member of the September 11th Commission
• Adair Turner
• Arthur Smith (rugby player)

Notable Fellows

• Francis Crick - Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of DNA
• Stephen Hawking - Theoretical physicist and Lucasian professor
• Neil McKendrick - Historian and Master of the College
• Joseph Stiglitz - Nobel Prize winning Economist

External links

• Caius College Website (http://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/)
• Caius JCR (http://www.caiusjcr.com/) (JCR = Junior Common Room, the undergraduate student social organisation for the college)

Colleges of the University of Cambridge
Christ's | Churchill | Clare | Clare Hall | Corpus Christi | Darwin | Downing | Emmanuel | Fitzwilliam | Girton | Gonville and Caius | Homerton | Hughes Hall | Jesus | King's | Lucy Cavendish | Magdalene | New Hall | Newnham | Pembroke | Peterhouse | Queens' | Robinson | St Catharine's | St Edmund's | St John's | Selwyn | Sidney Sussex | Trinity | Trinity Hall | Wolfson