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public university in Williamsburg, Virginia
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The College of William & Mary (W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, among the original nine colonial colleges, and the ninth-oldest institution in the English-speaking world. William & Mary is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
In 1779, then led by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other reformers, it underwent a significant transformation that saw the abolition of the Divinity School, the establishment of the first university-affiliated American law school, and a modernization of the curriculum. It was one of the first American institutions to offer graduate instruction. William & Mary was also the first to adopt an honor code (1736). In 1750, its students founded the first collegiate secret and honor society, the F.H.C. Society, popularly known as the Flat Hat Club, followed by the Phi Beta Kappa in 1776, the first Greek letter fraternity.
The university comprises six schools, and the main campus spans 1,200 acres and includes restored colonial structures, research centers, and modern academic facilities. Its historic Wren Building, attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, is the oldest academic building still standing in the United States. William & Mary is the only U.S. university with an official Coat of Arms granted by the College of Arms in London.
Alumni include three U.S. presidents (Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler), numerous Founding Fathers, U.S. Supreme Court Chief justice John Marshall, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and early national leaders such as Edmund Randolph and Peyton Randolph. George Washington received his surveyor's license from the college in 1749 and later served as its first American chancellor.
A school of higher education for both Native American young men and the sons of the colonists was one of the earliest goals of the leaders of the Colony of Virginia. The college's royal charter was granted on February 8, 1693 to "make, found and establish a certain Place of Universal Study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good arts and sciences ... to be supported and maintained, in all time coming." Named in honor of the reigning monarchs King William III and Queen Mary II, the college is the second-oldest in the United States after Harvard University (1636). The original plans for the college date back to 1618 at Henrico but were thwarted by the Indian massacre of 1622, a change in government (in 1624, the Virginia Company's charter was revoked by King James I and the Virginia Colony was transferred to royal authority as a crown colony), events related to the English Civil War, and Bacon's Rebellion. In 1695, before the town of Williamsburg existed, construction began on the College Building, now known as the Sir Christopher Wren Building, in what was then called Middle Plantation. It is the oldest college building in America. The college is one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. The charter named James Blair as the college's first president (a lifetime appointment which he held until he died in 1743). William & Mary was founded as an Anglican institution; students were required to be members of the Church of England, and professors were required to declare adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles.
In 1693, the college was given a seat in the House of Burgesses, and it was determined tobacco taxes and export duties on furs and animal skins would support the college. The college acquired a 330 acres (1.3 km2) parcel for the new school, 8 miles (13 km) from Jamestown. In 1694, the new school opened in temporary buildings. Williamsburg was granted a royal charter as a city in 1722 by the Crown and served as the capital of Colonial Virginia from 1699 to 1780. During this time, the college served as a law center, and lawmakers frequently used its buildings. It educated future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler. The college had close ties to America's founding fathers and figures pivotal to the development and expansion of the United States. George Washington, who received his surveyor's license through the college despite never attending, was the college's first American chancellor. William & Mary is famous for its firsts: the first U.S. institution with a royal charter, the first Greek-letter society (Phi Beta Kappa, founded in 1776), the first collegiate society in the country (F.H.C. Society, founded in 1750), the first student honor code and the first collegiate law school in America. In the 1760s, due to a conflict between the faculty (almost entirely Anglian ministers) and the Board of Visitors (mainly leading local families whose students attended), discipline was weak. The college had a reputation as a "party school"; groups of students would also occasionally rampage through the city, damaging property and getting into fights with artisans.
During the American Revolution, the Colony of Virginia established a freedom of religion, notably with the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Future U.S. President James Madison was a key figure in the transition to religious freedom in Virginia, and James Madison, his cousin and Thomas Jefferson, who was on the Board of Visitors, helped the College of William & Mary make the transition. In 1779, the college established graduate schools in law and medicine, making it one of the institutions that claimed to be the first university in the United States. As its president, Madison worked with the new leaders of Virginia, most notably Jefferson, on a reorganization and changes for the college which included the abolition of the Divinity School and the Indian School and the establishment of the first elective system of study and honor system.
The College of William & Mary is home to the nation's first collegiate secret society, the F.H.C. Society, popularly known as the Flat Hat Club, founded on November 11, 1750. On December 5, 1776, students John Heath and William Short (class of 1779) founded Phi Beta Kappa as a secret literary and philosophical society. Other secret societies known to exist at the college currently include: The 7 Society, 13 Club, Alpha Club, Bishop James Madison Society, The Society, The Spades, W Society, and Wren Society. Thomas R. Dew, professor of history, metaphysics, and political economy, and then president of William & Mary from 1836 until he died in 1846, was an influential academic defender of slavery. In 1842, alumni of the college formed the Society of the Alumni which is now the sixth oldest alum organization in the United States.
At the outset of the American Civil War (1861–1865), enlistments in the Confederate States Army depleted the student body. On May 10, 1861, the faculty voted to close the college for the duration of the conflict. General Charles A. Whittier reported that "thirty-two out of thirty-five professors and instructors abandoned the college work and joined the army in the field". The College Building was used as a Confederate barracks and later as a hospital, first by Confederate, and later Union forces. The Battle of Williamsburg was fought nearby during the Peninsula Campaign on May 5, 1862. The following day, on May 6, 1862, Williamsburg was captured by the Union army. The Brafferton building of the college was used for a time as quarters for the commanding officer of the Union garrison occupying the town. On September 9, 1862, drunken soldiers of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry set fire to the College Building, purportedly in an attempt to prevent Confederate snipers from using it for cover.
Following the restoration of the Union, Virginia was destitute. The college's 16th president, Benjamin Stoddert Ewell, finally reopened the school in 1869 using his funds, but the college closed again in 1882 due to insufficient funding. In 1888, William & Mary resumed operations under an amended charter when the Commonwealth of Virginia passed an act appropriating $10,000 to support the college as a teacher-training institution. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, son of US President and alumnus John Tyler, became the 17th president of the college following Ewell's retirement. Tyler and his successor J. A. C. Chandler expanded the college. In 1896, Minnie Braithwaite Jenkins was the first woman to attempt to take classes at William & Mary, although her petition was denied.
In March 1906, the Virginia General Assembly passed an act taking over the college grounds, and the college has remained publicly supported ever since. In 1918, it was one of the first universities in Virginia to admit women. Enrollment increased from 104 in 1889 to 1269 students by 1932. W. A. R. Goodwin, rector at Bruton Parish Church and professor of biblical literature and religious education at the college, pursued benefactors who could support the restoration of Williamsburg. Goodwin considered Williamsburg "as the original training and testing ground" of the United States. Goodwin persuaded John D. Rockefeller Jr. to initiate the restoration of Williamsburg in 1926, leading to the establishment of Colonial Williamsburg. Goodwin had initially only pursued Rockefeller to help fund the construction of Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall, but had convinced Rockefeller to participate in a broader restoration effort when he visited William & Mary for the hall's dedication. While the college's administration was less supportive of the restoration efforts than many others in Williamsburg–before the Colonial Williamsburg project, the William & Mary campus was Williamsburg's primary tourist attraction–the college's cooperation was secured. Restoration paid for by Rockefeller's program extended to the college, with the Wren Building restored in 1928–1931, President's House in 1931, and Brafferton in 1931–1932.
In 1930, William & Mary established a branch in Norfolk, Virginia called The Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary; it eventually became the independent state-supported institution known as Old Dominion University. President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an honorary degree from the college on October 20, 1934. In 1935, the Sunken Garden was constructed just west of the Wren Building. The sunken design is from a similar landscape feature at Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. In 1945, the editor-in-chief of The Flat Hat, Marilyn Kaemmerle, wrote an editorial, "Lincoln's Job Half-Done..." that supported the end of racial segregation, anti-miscegenation laws and white supremacy; the university administration removed her from the newspaper and nearly expelled her. According to Time magazine, in response, over one-thousand William & Mary students held "a spirited mass meeting protesting infringement of the sacred principles of freedom of the press bequeathed by Alumnus Thomas Jefferson." She was allowed to graduate, but future editors had to discuss "controversial writings" with faculty before printing. The college Board of Visitors apologized to her in the 1980s. The college admitted Hulon Willis into a graduate program in 1951 because the program was unavailable at Virginia State. However, the college did not open all programs to African-American students until around 1970.
In 1960, The Colleges of William & Mary, a short-lived five-campus university system, was founded. It included the College of William & Mary, the Richmond Professional Institute, the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary, Christopher Newport College, and Richard Bland College. It was dissolved in 1962, with only Richard Bland College remaining officially associated with the College of William & Mary at the present day. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, William & Mary has retained its historic ties to the United Kingdom and that state's royal family. In 1954, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother visited William & Mary as part of her tour of the United States, becoming the first member of the royal family to visit the college. In 1957, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited the college to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown. Queen Elizabeth gave a speech from the balcony of the Wren Building that drew over 20,000 people, the largest crowd ever seen in the city. In 1974, Jay Winston Johns willed Highland, the 535-acre (2.17 km2) historic Albemarle County, Virginia estate of alumnus and U.S. President James Monroe, to the college. The institution restored the historic presidential home near Charlottesville and opened it publicly. In 1981, Charles, Prince of Wales, visited to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown.
In 1988, the United States Congress selected William & Mary to send a delegation to the United Kingdom for the 300th anniversary of the ascension of King William III and Queen Mary II. Prince Charles would return to the college in 1993 for the 300th anniversary of William & Mary. William & Mary sent a delegation to meet with Queen Elizabeth II that same year. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would be made the Chancellor of the College of William & Mary that same year. In 2007, Elizabeth II and Prince Philip would visit the college for a second time to recognize the 400th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown. In 2022, a beacon was lit in front of the Wren Building to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
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