It is sad to think that so unique a
building was almost destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth
century, by the zeal of "reformers"; it was actually condemned to be
pulled down, to make way for modern buildings, but, fortunately,
there was an irregularity in the voting. Mr. G. C. Brodrick, then a
young fellow, later the Warden of the college, insisted on the matter
being discussed again at a later meeting, and at this the Mob Quad
was saved by a narrow majority. "He will go to Heaven for it," as
Corporal Trim said of the English Guards, who saved his broken
regiment at Steinkirk.
The "reformers" of Merton had to be content with cutting down their
beautiful "Grove" and spoiling the finest view in Oxford by erecting
the ugliest building which Mid-Victorian taste inflicted on the
University.
In the old buildings which so narrowly escaped destruction may have
lived John Wycliffe, who is claimed as a fellow of Merton in an
almost contemporary list; his activity in Oxford belongs rather to
the later time, when he was Master of Balliol. His is one of the
outstanding names in English history; the success of Merton in
producing great men of a more ordinary kind can be judged from the
fact that between 1294 and 1366 six out of the seven Archbishops of
Canterbury were Merton men.
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