Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

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

Table of contents

1 The Old Courts 1.1 Tree Court 1.2 Caius Court 1.3 Gonville Court 2 Notable Alumni 3 External links

The Old Courts

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.

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.

Gonville Court

Gonville Court has the most student residences on it.

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
• Edward Wilson - Explorer who died with Scott in the Antarctic
• Harold Abrahams - Olympic athlete fictionalised in the film Chariots of Fire
• Francis Crick - Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of DNA
• Sir Nevill Mott - Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist
• Henry Fancourt - Naval Aviator
• Kenneth Clarke - Chancellor of the Exchequer
• J. H. Prynne - modern British poet
• Stephen Hawking - Mathematician
• Alistair Appleton - Television Presenter

• Caius College Website
• Caius JCR (JCR = Junior Common Room, the undergraduate student social organisation for the college)