St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979. Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to provide a source of educated Roman Catholic clerics to support the Counter-Reformation under Queen Mary.
St John's is the wealthiest college in Oxford, with a financial endowment of £573 million as of 2019, largely due to nineteenth century suburban development of land in the city of Oxford of which it is the ground landlord.The college occupies a central location on St Giles' and has a student body of approximately 390 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates. As well as over 100 academic staff, the college is supported by a similar number of other staff. It is amongst the most academic of all Oxford colleges; in 2018 St John's topped the Norrington Table, the annual ranking of Oxford colleges' final results.
