Berkeley College is named in honor of the Reverend George Berkeley (1685-1753), Dean of Derry and later Bishop of Cloyne, who endowed Yale with a gift of land and books in the 18th century. Berkeley presently occupies the site on which a group of buildings known as the Berkeley Oval stood from the 1890s until 1933, when construction of the college began with a gift of money from Edward S. Harkness. It was completed in 1934. Our Coat of Arms, comprising “gules, a chevron, and ten crosses, paty silver,” is the crest of the Berkeley family. Patterned on the drawing of architect James Gamble Rogers, a stone engraving of the coat of arms now hangs over the Elm Street Gate alongside the crests of the See of Derry and the See of Cloyne. The arms of the Harkness and Seymour families appear just inside the gate. (This brief history is adapted from The Residential Colleges at Yale University, 1967, Office of the Secretary).
There have been nine masters of Berkeley College. The first, Charles Seymour, was an advisor to President Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, a Professor of History, and President of Yale. The second, Samuel Hemingway, was a Professor of English. The third, Thomas Mendenhall, another Professor of History, left Berkeley to become the President of Smith College. The fourth, Charles Walker, Raymond Wean Professor of Engineering, was master from 1959 until 1969. The fifth master, Robert Triffin, former Beinecke Professor of Economics and a distinguished international authority on monetary systems, served as master from 1969 until 1977. The sixth master, Robin W. Winks, the Randolph W. Townsend Professor of History, was a leading authority on British history, and served the college from 1977 to 1990. The seventh master, Harry S. Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity, served as master from 1990 to 2001; he is a highly decorated author who also serves as the General Editor of the Works of Jonathan Edwards (Yale Press) and Co-Director of the Center for Religion and American Society at Yale. John Rogers is an award-winning Milton scholar and a Professor in the English Department, having served as the eighth master from 2001 to 2007.
(photo by Volkan Doda '11)
