Permanent Private Hall

A permanent private hall (PPH) in the University of Oxford is an educational institution within the University. There are four permanent private halls at Oxford, three of which admit undergraduates. They were founded by different Christian denominations.

Students at PPHs are members of the University of Oxford and have full access to the University's facilities and activities.

Overview

Regent's Park College is the largest PPH and is, to all intents and purposes, a small college specialising in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences with a total student body of c.200. Regent's also trains Baptist ministerial students. Since 1919, Regent's has admitted both men and women. Blackfriars Hall, and Wycliffe Hall were all male-only institutions historically, but both are now co-educational, training ordinands for their respective denominations, and also admitting students for a range of other courses of study. Campion Hall admits graduate students in Humanities and Social Science subjects, and occasionally in other disciplines.

History

Private halls

The Oxford University Act 1854 and the university statute ''De aulis privatis'' (On private Halls) of 1855 allowed any Master of Arts aged at least 28 years to open a private hall after obtaining a licence to do so. The longest lived of the thirteen private halls was Charsley's Hall (1862–1891). Notable masters of private halls included William Edward Addis and George Butler.

The Universities Tests Act 1871 opened all university degrees and positions to men who were not members of the Church of England (subject to safeguards for religious instruction and worship), which made it possible for Roman Catholics and Nonconformists to open private halls. These non-Anglican private halls included Clarke's Hall (now Campion Hall), opened by the Jesuit Order in 1896, and Hunter Blair's Hall (later St Benet's Hall) opened by the Benedictine Order in 1899.

Permanent private halls

In 1918 the university passed a statute to allow private halls which were not run for profit to become permanent private halls and the two halls took new names.

In some cases, a PPH can be granted full collegiate status; recent examples include St Peter's College (became a full college in 1961), Mansfield College (became a full college in 1995) and Harris Manchester College (became a full college in 1996).

Greyfriars (1224; refounded 1910) closed in 2008. St Benet's Hall closed in 2022. Students from both Greyfriars and St Benets Hall were subsumed into Regent's Park College when their halls closed. St Stephen's House became a permanent private hall in 2003, and ceased to be one in September 2023, but continued to be an Anglican theological college.

List of permanent private halls

Former permanent private halls

References

External links

Regulations for the Establishment and Maintenance of Permanent Private Halls

Review of the Permanent Private Halls associated with the University of Oxford

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Terminology of the University of Oxford