A new exhibition has opened in the Old Library that celebrates the important role staff have played at Magdalen.
Like all Oxford colleges, Magdalen’s story is one in which the President, Fellows, and students loom largest. But the men and women who have made this college their academic home since 1458 have been supported across the centuries by an equally important group of servants and staff, without whom life at this place would be markedly different.
Today, Magdalen is home to over 170 members of administrative and support staff, who are responsible for everything from preparing its food and finances to looking after its archives and architecture. The story of their predecessors can sometimes seem remote, from the world of sixteenth-century ‘servitor-scholars’ to the all-male staircase servants (‘scouts’) of more recent times.
But there is both continuity and change across the generations, with the college’s staff historically playing an important role not just in supporting their academic colleagues but also in developing and maintaining Magdalen’s sense of self. Remembering his own time at college just before the war, Charles Arnold-Baker (1937, History) remarked how the staff he knew ‘made the spirit of a college’.
This exhibition looks to celebrate this spirit and the contributions made by staff, both individually and collectively, to Magdalen’s past and present. In doing so, it sheds light on a part of our history that has not always received the attention it deserves and showcases otherwise marginalised but important voices within the college’s historic archive.
The exhibition is open every Wednesday between 2:00-4:30pm from 19 November until 29 April 2026.