St Johns College

St Johns College, college of the University of Cambridge, England. The second-largest college in Cambridge, St John's College was founded as the College of St John the Evangelist on the site of a 13th-century Hospital of St John by Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, at the instigation of St John Fisher, who completed its foundation in 1511 after her death in 1509. St John's College admits both male and female undergraduate and graduate students. The head of St John's College is known as the Master. Notable alumni include the Elizabethan statesman William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the scholar Roger Ascham, the English Civil War general Thomas Fairfax, the early scientist William Gilbert, the biologist William Bateson, the physicist Sir John Cockcroft, the economist Alfred Marshall, and the poet William Wordsworth. The present chapel was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott; a celebrated covered 'Bridge of Sighs', named after the one in Venice, connects the buildings of St John's College across the River Cam.