We were delighted this week to make a new home in the Robinson College Archive for the College's Foundation Charter (RCGR 1/1/1). This Royal Charter is the instrument of incorporation founding Robinson College as a formal legal entity. As per the custom, Royal Charters are sealed with the monarch's Great Seal - ours therefore bears a beautiful example of the Great Seal of Queen Elizabeth II. Seals have been used for centuries, and always take the same format - the front depicts the monarch on their throne, and on the reverse, seated on horseback.  The text is printed on 14 pages of vellum (a high-quality type of parchment) and includes the College's original statutes.

As is customary with royal documents, it is dated using the regnal year system - it gives the year as the 33rd of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, dating the Charter as 20th December 1984.

Although 1984 is a few years after the College sprang to life (the first full cohort of students arrived in 1980), a wait of 4 years for a Royal Charter is relatively short - some other colleges had to wait for over a century!

The Foundation Charter has now been catalogued as part of the College Archive, and we hope to arrange for a bespoke box to be made for it to ensure its ongoing preservation.

Posted by Jude, 19th Jan 2022

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For any archives enquiries, please email archivist@robinson.cam.ac.uk.