Portal:University of Oxford/Selected college/3

Brasenose College was established in 1509 and is located in the centre of the city on Radcliffe Square, near the Bodleian Library, the University Church of St Mary the Virgin and the Radcliffe Camera. It was founded by a lawyer, Sir Richard Sutton, and the Bishop of Lincoln, William Smyth, on the site of Brasenose Hall, one of the university's academic halls. The name is thought to derive from a "brazen" (i.e. bronze) door knocker in the shape of a nose. One such door knocker hangs above the high table in the college hall, and a replica is on display at Stamford School in Lincolnshire, where it is thought that the original was taken during the 1330s; the college repurchased it in 1890. There are three quadrangles in the main college site: the original Old Quad, a smaller second quad known as the Deer Park, and a larger New Quad designed by Thomas Graham Jackson and completed in 1911. Further buildings were added in the 1960s. Brasenose College Boat Club is one of the oldest boat clubs in the world, and participated in the first recorded inter-college race at Oxford, beating Jesus College Boat Club. There are approximately 550 undergraduate and postgraduate students, and notable former students include David Cameron (elected Prime Minister in 2010), the comedian Michael Palin, the supposed inventor of rugby football William Webb Ellis and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie. (Full article...)