St. John's College, Cambridge

The erection of a new Chapel for the College was contemplated for about 200 years before it was carried out. Dr. Gunning, who was Master from 1661 to 1670, afterwards successively Bishop of Chichester and of Ely, left by his will the sum of £300 "to St. John's College, towards the beginning for the building for themselves a new Chapel." Gunning died in 1684, and in 1687 the College paid to Robert Grumbold the sum of £3 for "a new ground plott modell of the old and new designed Chappell." Nothing, however, came of the proposal at that time, though the idea seems always to have been before the Society.

Preaching on Commemoration Day (May 6), 1861, Dr. William Selwyn, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and a former Fellow, pointing out that the College was celebrating "its seventh jubilee," just 350 years having passed since the charter was granted, pleaded earnestly for the erection of a larger Chapel