Pipe Organs of England - Pipedreams - American Public Media

PAGE 66FRIDAY, 18 MAYThe College and the ChapelTrinity College was founded by Henry VIII in 1546as part of the University of Cambridge. The Collegegrew rapidly in importance during the century afterits foundation and by 1564 it accounted for abouta quarter of the total number of resident membersof the University. Since then Trinity has flourishedand grown, and is now a home to around 600undergraduates, 300 graduates, and over 160 Fellows.The oldest parts of the College date from the timeof King’s Hall, including the range behind the ClockTower, which are medieval, and the Great Gate, whichwas built at the beginning of the 16th century. Manyof the buildings that we see today were built throughthe efforts of Thomas Nevile, who became Masterof Trinity in 1593. Nevile’s Court was completed inthe late 17th century when the library designed bySir Christopher Wren was built. The Wren Librarycontains many treasures, the oldest of which is an 8th century copy of the Epistles of St Paul. New Court and courts on the otherside of Trinity Street opposite the Great Gate were erected in the 19th century. In more recent times, much new building has beencompleted, including Blue Boar Court and Burrell’s Field. Undergraduates of the 16th century included Francis Bacon, philosopherand statesman, and the Earl of Essex, a favourite of Elizabeth I. The poets George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and John Dryden wereat Trinity in the first half of the 17th century. Isaac Newton, one of the greatest of all physical scientists, entered the College as anundergraduate in 1661 and remained at Trinity until 1696, by which time his most important mathematical and scientific workhad been completed. Byron, Thackeray, and Tennyson were Trinity undergraduates in the early part of the 19th century. Earl Grey,whose government introduced the great Reform Bill of 1832, is one of Trinity’s six Prime Ministers. Famous figures associatedwith Trinity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries include James Clerk Maxwell, author of the theory of electromagnetism; J.J.Thomson and Ernest Rutherford, two of the pioneers of atomic physics; the historian G.M. Trevelyan; philosophers Bertrand Russelland Ludwig Wittgenstein; Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India; and the novelist Vladimir Nabokov. In science andeconomics, for example, Trinity has provided 32 Nobel Prizewinners since they were first awarded in 1901.The Chapel was built by two queens, Mary and Elizabeth I, in the mid-16th century. The building was begun in 1554-55 by QueenMary, the daughter of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Mary, a Roman Catholic, was succeeded by her Protestanthalf-sister Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn’s daughter, who completed the Chapel in 1567, though the date inscribed on the east end ofthe building, overlooking Trinity Street, is 1564. The architectural style is Tudor-Gothic, with Perpendicular tracery and pinnacles.The stained glass windows are mid-Victorian (1871-5).