Murray Edwards College
| Murray Edwards College | |
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Fountain Court in September 2014
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| University | Cambridge University |
| Location | Huntingdon Road (map) |
| Full name | The President and Fellows of Murray Edwards College, founded as New Hall, in the University of Cambridge |
| Established | 1954 |
| Named for | Dame Rosemary Murray, Ros and Steve Edwards |
| Gender | Women |
| Sister college | St Anne's College, Oxford |
| President | Dame |
| Undergraduates | 360 |
| Postgraduates | 132 |
| Website | www |
| JCR | mecsu |
| MCR | memcr |
| Boat club | mecbc |
Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, and unlike many other colleges, it was founded without a benefactor and did not bear a benefactor's name. This situation changed in 2008. Following a donation of £30 million by alumna Ros Edwards (née Smith) and her husband Steve Edwards, New Hall was renamed Murray Edwards College, honouring the donors and the first President, Dame Rosemary Murray.
New Hall was founded in 1954, housing sixteen students in Silver Street where Darwin College now stands. This was at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges (Girton and Newnham) admitted female students.
In 1962, members of the Darwin family gave their home, "The Orchard", to the College. This new site was located on Huntingdon Road, about a mile from the centre of Cambridge. The architects chosen were Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, who are known for their design of the Barbican in London, and fundraising commenced. The building work began in 1964 and was completed by W. & C. French in 1965. The new college could house up to 300 students.
In 1967, one of the College's PhD students, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a researcher in the university radio astronomy group, discovered the first four pulsars, leading to a Nobel Prize for her supervisor, and for Jocelyn Bell-Burnell herself, ultimately a position as a Research Professor at the University of Oxford.
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