Gonville, Edmund

▪ British priest

Gonville also spelled  Gonvile 

      (d. 1351), parish priest who founded Gonville Hall (1349), since 1557 Gonville and Caius College, at the University of Cambridge. He was the son of William de Gonvile and the brother of Sir Nicholas Gonvile. He served as rector of Thelnetham in Suffolk (1320–26), of Rushford (1326–42), and of Terrington St. Clement in Norfolk (1343–51).

      Gonville founded Gonville Hall under a charter granted by Edward III in 1348. Its original site was in Free-School Lane, where Corpus Christi College now stands. He apparently wished it to be devoted to training for theological study, but the executor of his estate, William Bateman, bishop of Norwich and a founder of Trinity Hall, changed the statutes to emphasize the study of canon and civil law.

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