Jesus College Oxford N/A

Jesus College Oxford was founded by Queen Elizabeth I on 27 June 1571 by royal proclamation for the education of clergy. It was the first Protestant college to be founded at Oxford, and the only college to be founded during Elizabeth’s reign. A major driving force behind the establishment of the college was Hugh Price, a churchman from Brecon in Wales, who became one of Jesus’s Commissioners. It was Price who had petitioned the queen to found a college at Oxford "that he might bestow his estate of the maintenance of certain scholars of Wales to be trained up in good letters." The intention of the college was to satisfy a need for dedicated, learned clergy to promote the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in the parishes of England, Ireland and Wales
In 1621 Sir Eubule Thelwall became Principal and succeeded in securing a new charter and statutes for the college from James I. He spent much of his own money on the construction of a chapel, hall and library for the college. The next principal was Francis Mansell (1630-1649) who was replaced by Michael Roberts as a result of the Civil War.

A number of Royal Commissions were established during the nineteenth century to investigate the privileges extended to Welshmen. It was noted that academic standards had fallen, and that the Welsh preferred to study at other Oxford colleges in preference to Jesus.

In 1974 Jesus was among the first group of five men's colleges at Oxford to admit women as members. Today between one-third and one-half of the undergraduates are women.

The Library holds eleven thousand antiquarian printed books, and houses many of the college's rare texts, including a Greek Bible dating from 1545, signed by Philipp Melanchthon. It also contains much of the library of the scholar and philosopher Lord Herbert of Cherbury