An Oxbridge Sort Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cambridge

Originally founded in 1326 as University Hall, Clare College, Cambridge took the name of Elizabeth de Clare, granddaughter of King Edward I of England, in 1338 after she provided the necessary funds to support the college's fellows when the original endowments proved insufficient.

Famous alumni of the college include broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, writer Peter Ackroyd, British Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles and General Charles Cornwallis, who infamously surrendered to American and French forces at Yorktown to end the fighting in the American War of Independence.

Answer: Cambridge

Newnham College was founded in 1871, the second of Cambridge University's colleges for women. Initially set up as a house where women who wanted to attend lectures at the university could stay, it was formally established as a college in 1881 when women were first allowed to sit university exams. However, women would have to wait until 1948 before they were admitted as full members of the university.

Newnham's famous alumni include UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, actress Emma Thompson and classicist and historian Mary Beard.

Answer: Cambridge

Peterhouse was the first college to be founded at Cambridge University in 1284 when a royal charter issued by King Edward I gave authority for scholars from the Hospital of St John to be transferred to two hostels outside Trumpington Gate. Initially called St Peter's College, after the church St Peter's-without-Trumpington-Gate that was situated next to the hostels, it took its current name in the late 19th century and its name is simply Peterhouse not Peterhouse College.

Peterhouse has many famous alumni in the scientific world such as "father of the computer" Charles Babbage, Lord Kelvin, pioneer in the study of thermodynamics and Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine. In the arts it was also the alma mater of comedian David Mitchell, actor James Mason and poet Thomas Gray.

Answer: Cambridge

Although commonly known as Caius (pronounced keys) it was originally founded as Gonville Hall in 1348, making it the fourth oldest college at Cambridge. The founder Edmund Gonville died in 1351 and although he left a generous endowment for the expansion of the college, he failed to secure a royal charter and the executor of his will, Bishop Bateman, also omitted to do so. With a precarious legal position and dwindling funds, the college was struggling to survive by the mid-sixteenth century. A former scholar, Dr. John Caius, royal physician to King Edward Vi and Queen Mary I, secured a charter and with it re-founded the college in 1557 as Gonville and Caius.

The college has produced numerous Nobel Prize winners including Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA, and Milton Friedman, the American economist. Other notable alumni include John Venn, the inventor of the Venn diagram and Harold Abrahams, winner of Olympic gold over 100 metres in 1924 and subject of the Oscar-winning 1981 film "Chariots of Fire".

Answer: Cambridge

Famous for its carol services held in its magnificent 15th century Gothic chapel, King's College, Cambridge was founded by King Henry VI of England in 1441 to house students from Eton College who wanted to attend the university. It remained exclusive to boys from Eton until 1865 when pupils from other schools were first admitted.

Given that history, unsurprisingly a large number of its famous alumni are also alumni of Eton College such as Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole and renowned economist John Maynard Keynes. But it also produced such luminaries as authors Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith, noted mathematician Alan Turing and comedian David Baddiel.

Answer: Oxford

Apparently named after a brass door knocker that once adorned its front door, Brasenose College, Oxford was founded in 1509 on the site of a prior academic institution, Brasenose Hall.

It's alumni include Prime Ministers David Cameron of the UK and Malcolm Turnbull of Australia, the "Monty Python" comedian, Michael Palin and English sporting legends, Colin Cowdrey the cricketer and William Webb Ellis the supposed inventor of rugby union.

Answer: Oxford

Relatively modern in Oxbridge terms, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford was founded in 1878 alongside Somerville College as the first colleges for women at Oxford University. It was named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII of England, the first of the Tudor monarchs. For 100 years it remained a women-only college until it started admitting men in 1979.

Notable alumni include Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto, historian and biographer, Lady Antonia Fraser, women's rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai and food writer and TV personality Nigella Lawson.

Answer: Oxford

Though some legends have it that University College, Oxford was founded by King Alfred the Great in 872, most scholars accept that it was founded in 1249 thanks to a bequest from William of Durham. This date allows it to lay claim to being the oldest existing college at the university.

Famous students include a number of very well-known politicians including Prime Minister Clement Attlee of the UK, Prime Minister Bob Hawke of Australia and President Bill Clinton of the USA. Other alumni include writers V.S. Naipaul and C.S. Lewis, physicist Stephen Hawking and the satirist Armando Ianucci.

Answer: Oxford

If the story of King Alfred's founding of University College is not to believed then it is Oriel College that lays claim to being the oldest college to have received royal patronage. Founded in 1326 as King's College it took its modern name from the manor house, La Oriele, that was gifted to it by King Edward II three years later.

Among its famous alumni are Cecil Rhodes, the businessman who founded the state of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), the historian AJP Taylor, the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh and the authors of the alternative English history "1066 and All That", WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman.

Answer: Oxford

Another college that lays claim to being the oldest at Oxford University is Balliol College. It was founded in 1263 by the wealthy nobleman John I de Balliol, a close confidant of King Henry III of England, allegedly as penance for Balliol's kidnap of the Bishop of Durham over a land dispute. Though it was the first of the traditional all-male colleges to appoint a female fellow in 1973, it did not admit its first female undergraduate until as late as 1977.

Famous Balliol graduates include UK Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Boris Johnson, MI6 intelligence chief, Sir John Rennie and movie directors Michael Winterbottom, Anthony Asquith and John Schlesinger.

Answer: Both

Founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth I of England, Jesus College, Oxford was the first Protestant college to be founded and was inspired by lawyer and clergyman Hugh Price, who wanted to bestow a grant for a college where his fellow Welshmen could study at the university.

Not surprisingly given its roots, Jesus has produced numerous Welsh rugby union internationals including Viv Jenkins who played for the British Lions on their tour of South Africa in 1938. Other former students include Prime Ministers Harold Wilson of the UK, Kevin Rudd of Australia and Norman Washington Manley of Jamaica, the archaeologist and Army officer T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and "Mastermind" presenter Magnus Magnusson.

Jesus College, Cambridge, whose full name is in fact The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and the glorious Virgin St. Radegund was founded in 1496 by the Bishop of Ely. Its buildings are based around the site of a former 12th century nunnery that had been dissolved in the reign of King Henry VII.

Notable alumni include the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, who established the observatory at Greenwich, novelists Laurence Sterne and Nick Hornby, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.

Answer: Both

Once also known as St Benet's College, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge was founded in 1352 by the Cambridge Guild of Corpus Christi and the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, making it unique among Cambridge colleges in being founded by people from the town itself.

Former pupils include dramatist Christopher Marlowe, actor Hugh Bonneville and novelist Christopher Isherwood.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford was founded in 1517 by Richard Foxe, the Bishop of Winchester and a close confidant of King Henry VII. Foxe was Master at Pembroke College, Cambridge at the time of Corpus's foundation. Aside from its academic achievements, the college is famous for its Pelican Sundial, a pillar built in the 16th century that contains 27 different sundials within it.

Notable alumni include novelist Vikram Seth, politician brothers David and Ed Miliband, former foreign secretary and leader of the Labour Party respectively and another less successful but equally legendary would-be politician, Count Binface.

Answer: Both

Trinity College, Oxford was founded in 1555 by civil servant Thomas Pope. It took over the grounds on which Durham College had stood since its foundation in 1381. As Durham College was founded and run by Benedictine monks from Durham College, its land and buildings had been surrendered to the crown as part of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540 before being sold to Pope. Its famous alumni include UK Prime Ministers Lord North and William Pitt the Elder, King Phillipe of Belgium and the Catholic saint, Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Trinity College, Cambridge was established ten years earlier in 1545, also as a consequence of the dissolution of the monasteries. King Henry VIII was persuaded by his sixth wife, Catherine Parr not to seize university lands but to create a new college instead. To do this he ordered the merger of Michaelhouse and King's Hall, both of which had been founded more than 200 years previously. It has a very long list of notable alumni including King Charles III of the UK, Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and Arthur Balfour of the UK and Rajiv Gandhi of India, Sir Isaac Newton, Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne and the writers Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson and A.A. Milne.

Cambridge University also has a Trinity Hall College that was founded in 1350.

Answer: Both

Pembroke College, Cambridge was founded as The Hall of Valence Mary in 1347 by Maria de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke with the patronage of King Edward III of England. It initially admitted only French students who had already studied elsewhere in England.

It's alumni include British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, actors Tom Hiddlestone and Naomie Harris and satirist and "Private Eye" founder, Peter Cook.

Pembridge College, Oxford was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and was named after William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, who was chancellor of Oxford University at the time.

Notable alumni include lexicographer Samuel Johnson, athlete and neurologist, Sir Roger Bannister and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Answer: Both

St. John's College, Cambridge was founded in 1511 by Lady Margaret Beaufort, after whom Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford is named. John Merrivale, a student at St. John's was responsible with his friend and counterpart Charles Wordsworth at Christ Church College, Oxford for setting up the first University Boat Race in 1829. The college takes its name from the Hospital of St John that stood on the same site from the early 13th century.

Famous alumni include William Wilberforce, the leading politician in the UK abolitionist movement, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir John Cockroft, who was the first to split the atomic nucleus and Olympic gold medallist and founder of the London Marathon, Chris Brasher.

St. John's College, Oxford was founded in 1555 by Thomas White, former Lord Mayor of London. A leading supporter of the Catholic counter-reformation under Queen Mary I of England, the college was initially established as a place for Roman Catholics to study divinity.

Notable former students include UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, two 16th century Archbishops of Canterbury, William Juxon and William Laud, and the poets A.E. Housman, Robert Graves and Philip Larkin.