Brasenose College, Oxford was founded in 1509 by a Bishop (William Smith) and a lawyer (Richard Sutton). Both came from the North West of England, and the College has always been proud of its links with Lancashire and Cheshire. But over the centuries Brasenose - or 'B.N.C.' as it is usuallyknown - has expanded its reputation world-wide: in sport, law, politics, literature. This is the first general history of Brasenose for more than a hundred years. Using college archives, letters, and diaries, it aims to re-create something of the variety and texture of academic life over a period offive centuries: the learning, the conversation, the sport; the intellectual milieu, and physical setting; the architecture inside and out; the food and drink, the quirks of personality, the little dramas, and absurdities that make up the small change of corporate living.Brasenose was the first Oxford college to admit undergraduates on a statutory basis; and the first of the men's colleges to decide to admit women. From Walter Pater to William Golding; from Earl Haig to Archbishop Runcie; from Prince Obolenski to Colin Cowdrey; from Elias Ashmole and John Buchan toMichael Palin and David Cameron: Brasenose has never been short of personalities. The originator of rugby football (William Webb Ellis), the inventor of bottled beer (Alexander Nowell), the lyricist of Danny Boy (Fred Weatherley) the father of political economy (Sir William Petty), the physicist whodiscovered the fuel cell (Sir William Grove): all these were Brasenose men. Here Vincent's Club was founded. Here Brideshead Revisited was born: Sebastian was a Brasenose man. Here C. S. Lewis looked into a chapel wardrobe and emerged in the kingdom of Narnia.For the first time, this original and entertaining narrative places all these people, and hundreds more, in the context of college life and in the wider world of university politics. Brasenose is very far from being a dull, institutional history. It bubbles with anecdote and incident. This iscollective biography on an epic scale