MS 322 & Sarah Holmes
MS 322: Scrapbook of Thomas Fry (England, 18th century)
Women at Oxford & St John’s College
It took Oxford University an astonishingly long time to fully admit women. The first Oxford women’s college, Lady Margaret Hall, was founded in 1878, but women were awarded degrees only from October 1920 onwards. It was more than another fifty years until the first male colleges (Jesus, Wadham, Hertford, Brasenose, and St Catherine’s) admitted women in 1974.
St John’s College welcomed the first female undergraduates in 1979 and the first female fellow as late as 1990. Largely forgotten today, women did nevertheless contribute to the College before they were admitted as members.
Sarah Holmes (c.1700-1750)
The scrapbook of President Thomas Fry (1718-1772) contains documents concerning St John’s College during the previous two presidencies of William Holmes, 1728-1748, and William Derham, 1748-1757, respectively. Among these is a contemporary copy of a declaration made by Sarah Holmes, the wife of President Holmes, on 15 February 1743/4 [sic], in which she promised to bestow ‘her whole Fortune […] for the Benefit of the College’. This copy of her intent to bequest the College was signed by several witnesses, including William Derham and Thomas Fry.
Attributed to Enoch Seeman the Younger (c.1694-1745), Portrait of Sarah Holmes (c.1700-1750) [Oil on canvas]. St John’s College, Oxford.
The Bequest
Sarah died in September 1750, leaving the College £1,000 (today over £115,000). Her bequest was the only legacy that St John’s received for its own benefit in the second half of the 18th century (Costin 1958, p. 210). It was a vital contribution to the running of the College at a time when it had not yet acquired its standing among the richest Oxford colleges. The bequest enabled the construction of the Holmes Building south of the library. Completed in 1795, it was the first new building project in a hundred years. In addition, the bequest paid for the monument to her husband in the College chapel and the funding of ‘exhibitions’ (similar to scholarships). To this day, there is an annual dinner at St John’s to honour Sarah Holmes’ contribution to the College.
MS 322, folio 21r: Contemporary copy of Sarah Holmes declaration
The Foundress: Lady Joan White
Lady Joan White (c.1495-1573) married Sir Thomas White in 1558 as a widow with two children. The daughter from her first marriage to Sir Ralph Warren (a London mercer, twice Lord Mayor of London) was the first wife of Sir Henry Cromwell (1537-1604), uncle of the Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). The marriage with Thomas White was childless.
Referred to early on as ‘Foundress’, Lady Joan was more than just the Founder’s wife in the background. When Thomas White amended the College Statutes in 1567, he gave her ‘full power and authority to freely and frankly add, renew, change and alter any thing or things contained or mentioned in the [College’s] Statutes as it seems best to her the increase of God’s glory and the furtherance of my College’ (Stevenson and Salter 1939, pp. 469-70).
As explained in Stevenson and Salter (1939, pp. 155-2), Lady Joan agreed on payments to help save St John’s from financial ruin in an indenture from 11 June 1570, which aimed to resolve the legal and financial problems that had arisen from Sir Thomas’s will. This released £3,000 (today c. £715,000) between 1571 and 1575 to the benefit of the College, although lands bought with it would be for her use during her lifetime. Lady Joan died on 8 February 1573.
Indenture between Lady Joan White and St John’s College from 11 June 1570, St John’s College Archive, MUN I.23
The Founder’s Niece: Amy Leech
Amy Leech (1547?-1631) was the niece of Sir Thomas White. Although hardly anything is known about her, Amy Leech’s importance to the College is underlined by the twenty funeral verses the St John’s scholars wrote in her honour (preserved in a fair copy from c.1631). A list of first lines include the following: ‘Farewell blest Matron: of thy sex the best’, ‘This Matron chast, and Mild, and Graue’, ‘What need I tell thy vertues, they are knowne?’, and ‘Soe like in Grace and virtue to our founder’.
MS 213, folio 1r: Funeral Verses on Amy Leech (England, c.1631)
Today she is best remembered as the one who gave some ‘old superstitious church ornaments’ to St John’s in 1602 (Stevenson and Salter 1939, p. 196). These 15th-century vestments are still in the College under the misleading name of ‘The Laudian Vestments’. Although the children of one 19th-century president used them to dress up, the collection has remained largely intact. They are exhibited once a term.
Incidentally, when the ‘new library’ (today’s Old Library) was built in 1595, the house of Amy Leech and her husband was ‘taken down, removed, and translated to the said College […] for the building and erecting of the said library’ (Stevenson and Salter 1939, p. 293).