Campion Hall is a Permanent Private Hall of the University. It was founded in 1896 (as Clarke’s Hall) as a Private Hall for members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), shortly after Roman Catholics were officially permitted to return to the University. It acquired the status of Permanent Private Hall, and permission to use the name Campion Hall, in 1918. Originally situated on St Giles, it moved to its current premises on Brewer Street in 1935 which were designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The Hall is now an international community of graduate students, fellows, and staff from diverse backgrounds and faiths.
The Hall archives are small in scope and extent. They chiefly comprise the institutional records of the Hall, as both a Jesuit community and as a constituent hall of the University. These include Lutyens’s plans of the Brewer Street building and correspondence concerning its construction. They also include records concerning the Hall’s collection of art and artefacts, which was begun in the 1930s by former Master, Fr Martin D’Arcy SJ (shown above, with hand raised, at the new Hall's opening ceremony in 1936). These include correspondence with a number of artists, including Charles Mahoney, painter of the Lady Chapel murals.
The archives holds a small number of personal papers of former Jesuit members of the Hall. Personal papers of members of Jesuits in Britain are chiefly held by the British Jesuit Archives in London https://www.jesuitarchives.co.uk/ .
The archives also holds a substantial collection of papers of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). The papers comprise journals, notebooks, correspondence, spiritual writings and sketches. The papers are extremely fragile and surrogates only are available for consultation. Original material may be consulted in exceptional circumstances only by permission of the Master.
The archives also holds a collection of research papers and correspondence of the literary scholar, Humphry House (1908-1955), relating to his published editions of the works of Hopkins.
Facilities for researchers are limited, and access is by prior appointment with the Assistant Archivist.
Information about the Hall, including a brief history and articles on the art collection, can also be found on its website.
Assistant Archivist: Alice Millea
Address: Campion Hall, Brewer Street, Oxford, OX1 1QS
E-mail: alice.millea@campion.ox.ac.uk
Web: https://www.campion.ox.ac.uk/archive
