Mansfield College, Oxford is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The college was founded in Birmingham in 1838 as a college for Nonconformist students. It moved to Oxford in 1886 and was renamed Mansfield College after George Mansfield and his sister Elizabeth. In 1995 a royal charter was awarded giving the institution full college status. The college grounds are located on Mansfield Road, near the centre of Oxford.
As of February 2018, the college comprises 231 undergraduates, 158 graduates, 34 visiting students, and 67 fellows and academics.
The principal of the college since 2018 is Helen Mountfield, a barrister and legal scholar.
History
The college was founded in 1838, under the patronage of George Storer Mansfield (1764–1837) and his two sisters Sarah (1767–1853) and Elizabeth (1772–1847), as Spring Hill College, Birmingham, a college for Nonconformist students. In the nineteenth century, although students from all religious denominations were legally entitled to attend universities, they were forbidden by statute from taking degrees unless they conformed to the Church of England.
In 1871, the Universities Tests Act abolished all religious tests for non-theological degrees at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham Universities. For the first time the educational and social opportunities offered by Britain's premier institutions were open to some Nonconformists. The Prime Minister who enacted these reforms, William Ewart Gladstone, encouraged the creation of a Nonconformist college at Oxford.
Spring Hill College moved to Oxford in 1886 and was renamed Mansfield College after George Mansfield and his sister Elizabeth. The Victorian buildings, designed by Basil Champneys on a site bought from Merton College, were formally opened in October 1889.
Mansfield was the first Nonconformist college to open in Oxford. Initially the college accepted men only, the first woman (Constance Coltman) being admitted to read for an external degree in 1913.
During World War II, over forty members of staff from the Government Code & Cypher School moved to the college to work on British codes and cyphers.
Like many of Oxford's colleges, Mansfield admitted its first mixed-sex cohort in 1979, having previously not accepted women to read for Oxford degrees.
In 1955 the college was granted the status of permanent private hall within the University of Oxford and in 1995 a royal charter was awarded giving the institution full college status.
Nonconformist roots
Since the college was first formally integrated into the university structure in 1955, its Nonconformist aspects have gradually diminished. Until 2007 Mansfield trained United Reformed Church (URC) ordinands, who became fully matriculated members of the university and received degrees.
The Nonconformist history of the college is however still apparent in a few of its features. A portrait of Oliver Cromwell hangs in the Senior Common Room and portraits of the dissenters of 1662 hang in the library and the corridors of the main college building, together with portraits of Viscount Saye and Sele, John Hampden, Thomas Jollie and Hugh Peters. The college chapel is unconsecrated, and contains stained glass windows and statues depicting leading figures from Nonconformist movements, including Cromwell, Sir Henry Vane and William Penn. Chapel services are still conducted in a Nonconformist tradition. Over the years attendance at chapel services has declined and the make-up of the general student body no longer reflects the Nonconformist religious origins of the college.
Because of its Nonconformist roots, the college still has strong links with American schools. It has a long established tradition of accepting around thirty "Junior Year Abroad" students from the US every year. These students come to study in Oxford for one academic year.
Grounds
The grounds of Mansfield College are located on Mansfield Road, near the centre of Oxford, and to the south of the Science Area. The grounds are near the University Parks and the River Cherwell. The college shares a boundary wall with Wadham College.