Portal:University of Oxford/Selected college/18

Merton College was established in 1264 by Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I. Building work began on a site to the south-east of the city centre (on what is now called Merton Street) thereafter, with the hall, college chapel (on the site of the old church of St John the Baptist) and front quadrangle completed by the end of the 13th century. The front quad is probably the earliest collegiate quadrangle; Mob Quad was built in the 14th century, with the old library occupies the upper floor of the south and west ranges. Merton purchased St Alban Hall, an independent academic hall, in 1548 and ran it as a separate institution until annexing it in 1881. There are about 300 undergraduates and 300 postgraduates. People associated with Merton include the theologian John Wycliffe, the statesman Lord Randolph Churchill, the poet T. S. Eliot and the author J. R. R. Tolkien. The college's Warden is the mathematician Sir Martin J. Taylor. It is one of the three colleges at Oxford that claims to be the oldest, on the basis that it had "statutes" (i.e. a constitution to govern the college) before Balliol and University.