When Thomas Graham Jackson was an undergraduate at Wadham College, Oxford, in the 1850s, the system of teaching was as it had been for hundreds of years. There were lectures in the individual colleges, given by college tutors, and lectures given by the University professors, which were, in Jackson's words, mere farce. The latter were held in such University buildings as were then available; Jackson, for example, attended lectures in Bishop Cobham's Library above the old Congregation House, attached to St Mary's Church. Otherwise, the centre of University teaching was the old Schools ranged round the Schools Quadrangle, with the Bodleian Library on the floors above, and it was here that Jackson, in 1858, sat the examinations that brought him his third in literae humaniores. Quite apart from the drawbacks of the educational system, which drove any serious student to a coach rather than rely on what the University or his college could offer him, the situation with regard to physical accommodation was far from satisfactory. The University required proper rooms for lectures and examinations, as well as offices for non-collegiate students and Delegates of local examinations, and the Bodleian required extra space for its collection of over 300,000 volumes, which was growing at the rate of about 7,000 a year. It was clearly out of the question that the Library should move from its existing premises, and with the idea of erecting a new Schools building, the University purchased in 1866, from Oriel and Magdalen Colleges, the Hotel in the High Street. Over the next four or five years, more adjoining property was purchased the total cost of the Angel site approaching ?40,000 but it was not until 1870 that any definite step was taken towards the erection of a new building. In spite of having bought the site, it was not certain that this would be used for the Schools; one alternative, still debated in 1875, was that Hertford College, opposite the main entrance to the Bodleian and in a state of considerable dilapidation, should be taken over. However, in 1870 designs for new Schools were prepared by G.E. Street and T. N. Deane (Fig. 1) the former had already built the Church of St Philip and St James in Oxford, the latter the Meadow Building at Christ Church and Deane's design was selected by the committee appointed; but it was rejected by Convocation, the legislative assembly of the University. In June, 1872, a fresh competition was held, for which Street, Deane, Waterhouse (then engaged on the new buildings for Balliol), John Oldrid Scott and A.W. Blomfield were invited to submit designs. Street and Waterhouse declined to take part, on the grounds that Deane's design had already been accepted, and that the competition was therefore not proper; but it went ahead nonetheless, and this time Scott's design was selected, only to be thrown out, once more, by Convocation.