College Archives
What are Merton's College Archives?
The college was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, for twenty fellows. Undergraduates were formally admitted in the early 1380s, when John Wyliot, a former fellow and subwarden, endowed a number of scholarships, known at Merton as postmasterships. Eminent old members include Sir Thomas Bodley, JRR Tolkien, TS Eliot, Lennox Berkeley, Leonard Cheshire and Sir Roger Bannister.
The Merton archives comprise administrative records of the college and its estates, and papers created by a number of former members. Records of the college proper begin with the foundation statutes of 1264, bursarial accounts from 1277, and decisions of the governing body from 1483. Records of college estates include deeds, surveys, court rolls and maps, and date from the twelfth century onwards. The college owned estates in Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Surrey, Leicestershire, Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland, among others.
A register of fellows was begun c.1420, and postmasters are recorded from 1660, but there was no official record of commoners until 1881.
Merton - A Brief Bibliography
Archive Enquiries
The Archivist is normally in College on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Anyone with a genuine research interest may book an appointment to consult archival material. To schedule an appointment, please fill out the research visit request form and see the Consulting Special Collections material page for further information. (Please note that an appointment is required: we are unable to accommodate readers without one.)
Please send enquiries about College Archives to the email address library-archive@merton.ox.ac.uk (or, if your query is specifically about the archives and not a request for an appointment, directly to the Archivist, Julian Reid).