On 10 October 2022, Lizzy Rowe gave a talk: Keble College and ‘The Light of the World’ by Holman Hunt. She began by recounting how Keble came to be founded. John Keble was the author of ‘The Christian Year’, published in 1827, a best-selling collection of religious poems. He was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford and, together with Pusey and Newman, was a central figure in the Oxford Movement. Following his death in 1866, his friends decided to found a college in his memory. Thirty-five thousand pounds were raised by public subscription and Keble College opened in 1870. The design, by William Butterfield, is in the high Victorian Gothic style, and uses brick rather than the traditional stone. It has long proved controversial. The chapel, also by Butterfield, was added in 1870, following a donation by William Gibbs.
William Holman Hunt’s painting, ‘The Light of the World’, hangs in a side chapel in Keble. Hunt was a leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and the painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854. It was given as a gift to Keble by its original purchasers. The picture shows Christ seeking admission at a door and is laden with religious symbolism. Two later versions believed to be by Holman Hunt exist. The larger, from 1900-1904, was purchased by the social reformer Charles Booth. Booth viewed the painting as a religious rather than artistic artefact and he arranged its exhibition throughout the British Empire where it met with huge interest, sometimes bordering on hysteria. This version now hangs in St. Paul’s Cathedral. ‘The Light of the World’ continues to be a very popular and much reproduced work of art.