Oxford Inscriptions: Ruskin School of Art, High Street
This inscription is split into five sections in the frieze above the ground-floor windows of this 1887 building on the western corner of Merton Street which now houses the Ruskin School of Art.
THOMAS / GRAHAM / JACKSON / A.M
ARCHITECTUS / COLL. WADH. / NUP. SOC.
A.d / 1887
HAS / AEDES / A
FUNDA / MENTIS / EREXIT.
Thomas Graham Jackson, M.A.,
architect and lately a Fellow of Wadham College,
erected this building from its foundations in A.D. 1887
The two original occupants of this new building in 1888 were:
- The Non-Collegiate Students’ Delegacy. Non-collegiate (formerly known as unattached) students were admitted to the University from 1867, to open it up to “a much larger and poorer class”. In 1931 the Delegacy became known as St Catherine’s Society, and it remained in the building until 1936, when it moved to St Aldate's Street (to the building now occupied by the Faculty of Music). In 1962 its name changed to St Catherine's College, and it moved into purpose-built buildings on its present site
- The Oxford & Cambridge Schools Examination Board, which was founded in 1873 to provide external examinations for pupils at public schools. It was based in this building from 1888 to 1964, when it moved to Elsfield Way in Summertown. In the late 1990s it moved to Cambridge when it joined OCRA (the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations Board)