List of fictional Oxford colleges

Fictional colleges are found in many modern novels, films, and other works of fiction, probably because they allow the author greater licence for invention and a reduced risk of being accused of libel or slander, as might happen if the author depicted unsavory events as occurring at a real-life institution. Below is a list of some of the fictional colleges of the University of Oxford.

His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels feature a number of fictional Oxford colleges:

• Cardinal's College - Based on Christ Church College, which was founded by Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Cardinal Archbishop of York.
• Foxe College - Based on Corpus Christi College, which was founded by Richard Foxe.
• Gabriel College - Based on Wadham College.
• Jordan College - Loosely based on Exeter College.
• Queen Philippa's College - Based on Queen's College, which was founded in honour of Queen Philippa of Hainault.
• St Michael's College - Based on Jesus College.
• St Scholastica's College
• St Sophia's College - Based on Lady Margaret Hall.
• Wordsworth College
• Wykeham College - Based on New College, which was founded by William of Wykeham.

Inspector Morse

The Inspector Morse series of book by Colin Dexter is predominantly set within Oxford and environs, including the University. Consequently, many fictional colleges are named. The derived television series, Inspector Morse, Lewis and Endeavour, continue the idea.

• Arnold College - Inspector Morse TV series

Baidley College - Endeavour TV series; "Home", the last episode of the first season, was filmed in Keble College.

• Beaufort College - Inspector Morse TV series. Named after Henry Beaufort, a Plantagenet royal and Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1397 to 1399.
• Beaumont College - Inspector Morse novels. Beaumont Street is a short street in central Oxford. One end emerges opposite Balliol's side entrance, and it extends to the front of Worcester College. Beaumont Street was formerly the site of Beaumont Palace, perhaps the "location" of the college.
• Benison College - Lewis, episode "Intelligent Design" Series 7 episodes 5/6.
• Carlyle College - Lewis, episode "The Soul of Genius" (filmed in Exeter College).
• Chaucer College - Lewis, based on Merton College). Named after influential poet Geoffrey Chaucer, whose son Thomas Chaucer also managed the affairs of Henry Beaufort, Oxford's Chancellor.
• Courtenay College - Inspector Morse TV series, based on Oriel College). Nuneham Courtenay is a village 5 miles south-east of Oxford; in the 14th century, the village belonged to the influential Courtenay family. Nuneham House now belongs to the University.
• Gresham College - Lewis, episode "Dark Matter". Stand-in for Lincoln College. The "Invisible College" was a group of Oxford scientists (including Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren) who went on to establish the Royal Society. The group would meet at Gresham College in London.
• Lady Matilda's College - Lewis. Based on and filmed in Lady Margaret Hall.
• Lonsdale College - Inspector Morse novels and subsequent Lewis TV series; Lonsdale scenes were filmed at Brasenose College.
• Mayfield College - Lewis episode "Life Born of Fire". Mayfield Press is based in Cowley Road; the nearest college would be Greyfriars on Iffley Road. However, scenes were filmed in and around Brasenose College.
• Penville - Lewis episode Old School Ties. The leader of the Oxford Union says she usually lives here; this is presumably a reference to her fictional college.
• St Gerard's Hall - Lewis episode "Wild Justice"; fictional Permanent Private Hall. Filmed in St Edmund Hall and Christ Church; exterior of college filmed at New College, with a barn entrance in New College Lane.
• St Jude's College - Lewis
• St Saviour's College - Inspector Morse, episode "Fat Chance". Filmed in New College.
• Savile College - Lewis. Filmed in and around Trinity College
• Trevelyan College - Lewis
• Wolsey College - Inspector Morse novels and Endeavour. Based on Christ Church): Cardinal Wolsey founded Christ Church.

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure features a number of fictional 'Christminster' colleges, a thinly fictionalized version of Oxford:

• Biblioll College
• Cardinal College
• Crozier College
• Oldgate College
• Rubric College
• Sarcophagus College
• Sepulchre College
• Tudor College

Loss and Gain

Loss and Gain by Blessed John Henry Newman tells the story of the conversion of Charles Reding, an Oxford student, to Catholicism. In the novel, Newman creates the following colleges:

• Saint Saviour's (the college of the main character, Charles Reding)
• All Saints
• Leicester College
• Nun's Hall

Other works

• All Saints College - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Stand-in for All Souls College.
• Baillie College - Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, attended by successive Cabinet Secretaries, Sir Arnold Robinson and Sir Humphrey Appleby. A very thinly veiled stand-in for Balliol; in several episodes Sir Humphrey Appleby is seen wearing a Balliol tie, and in the 2011 stage play version, Appleby is stated as having gone to Balliol, not "Baillie."
• Bartlemas College - Kate Ivory detective novels by Veronica Stallwood. Takes its name from St Bartholomew's Chapel, part of Oriel College.
• Bede College - Operation Pax by Michael Innes (pseudonym of J. I. M. Stewart). Allusion to the Old English polymath Bede, whose histories give us the account of St Hilda, from whom St Hilda's College, Oxford takes its name^[1]
• Brazenface College - Verdant Green by Cuthbert Bede. Very thinly veiled reference to Brasenose College.
• Cardinal College - A Yank at Oxford. Based on Christ Church): Christ Church was originally founded by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as "Cardinal College" in 1525.
• Charsley College - The Casual Ward by A. D. Godley
• Clapperton College - The Oxford Virus by Adam Kolczynski. Based on Christ Church.
• Episcopus College - Where the Rivers Meet and Comedies by John Wain
• Hacker College - The Complete Yes Minister
• Judas College - Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. Based on Merton College.
• The King's College (known as "Dick's" after its founder Richard II) - Colonel Butler's Wolf and Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price. "The King's College" is another name for Oriel College; Richard II has no historically significant involvement with Oxford.
• Kingsbridge College - World Without End by Ken Follett
• Lancaster College - Incense for the Damned, a Peter Cushing horror film set partially in Oxford, based on Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven
• Lazarus College - Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope; several novels by Angela Thirkell, beginning with Summer Half (1937); and The Secret World massively multiplayer online role-playing game
• Magog College - A Study in Sorcery by Michael Kurland/Randall Garrett
• Mandeville College - The Crime of the Communist, a Father Brown story by G. K. Chesterton
• Old College - Lot No. 249 by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Pentecost College - Montague Egg short story "Murder at Pentecost", Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Plymouth College - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Alludes to Exeter College.
• Raleigh College - The Oxford Inheritance by Ann A. McDonald
• St Ambrose's College - Tom Brown at Oxford by Thomas Hughes. Probably based on Oriel College); filmed at Oriel.
• St Bride's College - Michaelmas Term at St Brides, by Brunette Coleman (Philip Larkin)
• St Christopher's College - The Case of the Gilded Fly and The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. Located on the north side of St John's College at the junction of St Giles' and Banbury Road.
• St Clements College - An elusive college housing Law and Politics students.
• St David's College - A Study in Sorcery by Michael Kurland/Randall Garrett
• St George's College - Yes Minister TV series - This college existed according to this British History Page
• St Jerome's College - Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton: on St Giles', with echoes of Somerville; also, The Reluctant Cannibals by Ian Flitcroft (south of High Street)
• St Joseph's College - Rumpole series by John Mortimer
• St Jude's College - Formosa by Dion Boucicault; August Folly by Angela Thirkell (also in Lewis; see above)
• St Matthew's College - The Dimension Riders by Daniel Blythe
• St Margaret's College - Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Probably based on Lady Margaret Hall.
• St Mark's College - The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford; Patrick Grant crime novels by Margaret Yorke; The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry
• St Mary's College - Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (based closely on Magdalen College, MacKenzie's old college); and The Poison Tree by Tony Strong (based on St Peter's College)
• St Paul's College - Ravenshoe by Henry Kingsley; August Folly by Angela Thirkell
• St Severin's College – The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh using Dorothy L. Sayers' characters
• St Sexburga's College - Horace Sippog and the siren's song by Su Walton
• St Thomas' College - An Oxford Tragedy and The Case of the Four Friends by John Cecil Masterman. St Thomas the Martyr's Church is located near Osney, and belongs to Christ Church.
• Scone College - Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh; Something Nasty in the Woodshed and The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery by Kyril Bonfiglioli, in whose novels Scone College represents Balliol College. King John de Balliol was crowned king at Scone, Scotland in 1292.
• Shrewsbury College - Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. Women's college, probably based on Somerville College.
• Simon Magus College - Let Dons Delight by Ronald Knox.
• Tresingham College - The Oxford Virus by Adam Kolczynski. Based on Keble College.
• Warlock College - Landscape with Dead Dons by Robert Robinson
• An unnamed college in A Staircase in Surrey, a quintet of novels by J. I. M. Stewart, based on Christ Church, but never named; Surrey is the name of a quadrangle within the college.

Fictional Library

• In Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, Oxford's Bodleian Library has a secret part, known and accessible only to practitioners of Magic and containing among other things the secret writings of Isaac Newton on this subject.

See also

• Colleges of the University of Oxford
• List of fictional Cambridge colleges
• List of fictional Oxbridge colleges
• School and university in literature

References