Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, a childless husband and wife from the West country, where he was a prominent landowner. Dorothy was from an Essex family. There is a pedigree in Jackson’s Wadham College.
The archive largely comprises internal college documents, and records of college estates, of which the largest collection were in Essex. A catalogue of the Muniments of Wadham College was produced by Lawrence Stone for the National Register of Archives in 1962, and reproduced in limited numbers. This is especially useful for the historic college estates, providing an extensive calendar of the documents and sometimes complete transcripts. We have an updated version in college.
Gardiner’s Registers are a very good starting point for enquiries about members of the college (now available online, see links below) but the Archives often have supplemental detail.
Enquiries should be in writing or, (very much preferred) by e-mail. Visits by arrangement only, and please only normally use the phone by prior arrangement, in case I am teaching. I am usually able to give at least a preliminary answer to most enquiries within a matter of days, but if I am on annual leave, responses may unfortunately take up to three weeks.
Keeper of the Archives: Jeffrey Hackney
Opening hours: By appointment only
Address: Wadham College, Oxford, OX1 3PN
E-mail: archivist@wadham.ox.ac.uk
Web: www.wadham.ox.ac.uk
Phone: 01865 277900
Secondary sources:
T G Jackson, Wadham College, (1893) (an authoritative historical starting point, available online);
Joseph Wells, Wadham College, (1898) - especially valuable on the buildings;
C S L Davies and Jane Garnett (eds.), Wadham College 1610 – 2010, (2009);
R B Gardiner, Registers of Wadham College, 2 vols, (1889-95) (for Fellows and students up to 1871) available online: Volume 1 1613-1719 Volume 2 1719-1871 There are two versions: the visible one is the easier to negotiate but contains OCR errors. But a click on the bold large font Title reveals a photo image which gives the printed text
C S L Davies, A Woman in the Public Sphere; Dorothy Wadham and the Foundation of Wadham College, Oxford, English Historical Review, vol. 118 (2003), pp. 883-911.
