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Servant to Lady Margaret, working as a scribe and illuminator.

Treasurer to Lady Margaret Beaufort.

Fellow of God's House, Cambridge, (re-established as Christ's College in 1505) and Junior Proctor from 1510 to 1511.

John Fisher was an English bishop, theologian and humanist academic, who was instrumental in the founding of St John's College. He is venerated as a martyr and saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Born in the town of Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1469, Fisher was a student at Cambridge in the 1480s, gaining his BA in 1488. He was subsequently elected Fellow of Michaelhouse, one of the two Colleges later refounded as Trinity College by Henry VIII. He became chaplain and confessor to Lady Margaret Beaufort, and in 1504, was appointed as Bishop of Rochester. At Cambridge, Fisher was made Vice-Chancellor of the University in 1501 and served as President of Queens’ College from 1505 to 1508. He also encouraged the creation of the University’s oldest professorship, the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity, in 1502, and was elected as its first occupant.

It was through Fisher’s influence that Lady Margaret was moved to support the foundation of Christ's College (1505) and St John's College, and it was Fisher who was to secure the establishment of St. John’s in 1511, after Lady Margaret’s death in 1509. Fisher fiercely opposed the dissolution of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a position which brought him into grave conflict with the King. Fisher’s refusal to take an oath supporting Henry's right to act as Supreme Head of the Church in England led ultimately to his imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1534. Since such a refusal was considered a treasonable offence, Fisher was tried and sentenced to death, despite his late appointment to the office of cardinal by Pope Paul III. He was executed on Tower Hill on 22 June 1535.

Brother of Dr. Nicholas Metcalfe, Master of St. John's College from 1518 to 1537.

Roger Ormeston was High Steward of Cambridge University, 1504. He graduated bachelor of civil law from Cambridge in 1489/90 and was a servant to Lady Margaret Beaufort. In the mid-1490s, Ormeston married Elizabeth, the widow of Sir Robert Chamberlain (who was executed in 1491). Ormeston was elected as K.B. in 1501. He died in 1504.

John Clement Mead was an architect and designer based in London. Mead was the son of the London surveyor and designer Clement Mead. Mead trained at his father’s office and was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1815. Between 1822 and 1824 he designed and built the Cambridge Observatory on Madingley Road. Mead submitted designs that were not adopted for new buildings at King’s College in 1823 and St John’s College in 1824. He died on 15 January 1839 after a long illness.

Arthur Browne was an architect and designer based in Norwich. Browne was a founding member of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1805 and was its president in 1807. In the same year, he was commissioned by Joseph Salusbury Muskett to rebuild Intwood Hall in Norfolk. In 1823 he designed and built the cast iron Magdalene Bridge, also known as the Great Bridge, in Cambridge. In 1825 he was invited to submit plans for New Court at St John’s College, Cambridge, but his designs were not implemented. He died in 1840.

Edward Lapidge was an architect, designer and surveyor based in London. He was the eldest son of Samuel Lapidge, a former assistant to Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and the Chief Gardener at Hampton Court Palace. In 1824 Edward was appointed Surveyor to the County of Surrey. Between 1825 and 1828 he designed and built Kingston Bridge in London. Lapidge submitted designs that were not adopted for new buildings at King’s College in 1823 and the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1835. In October 1830, Lapidge produced a plan for the new Cambridge Botanical Gardens, but legal issues meant that the work was delayed and his designs were never carried out in full. Two years later, he submitted plans for the landscaping of the grounds around New Court at St John’s College, Cambridge. Lapidge was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1838. He died in February 1860.

Tenant in the bishopric of Ely at Bishop's Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

Agnes Metcalfe was the mother of Nicholas Metcalfe, Master of St John's College. She lived in the parish of Askrigg, near Aysgarth in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Chris Paley Johnson was the Senior Bursar from 1970-1991. He oversaw the development of a number of College building projects, including the Innovation Centre.

William Bolton was a canon of the Augustinian order, prior of St. Bartholomew’s in West Smithfield, London, and master of the king’s works. While little information survives concerning the early years of his life, Bolton is known to have attended St. Mary’s College, Oxford, between 1501 and 1503, with his election at St. Bartholomew’s confirmed by the bishop of London in 1505. As a royal adminstrator, Bolton oversaw a number of important building projects, including the chapel of Henry VII and the monument to Lady Margaret Beaufort in Westminster Abbey, and from 1517, the reconstruction of New Hall in Boreham, Essex. He is cited as master of the king’s works in the will of Henry VII (1509), but is likely to have occupied this position from around 1504 onwards. In addition to his royal engagements, Bolton also oversaw important reconstruction of the priory church at St. Bartholomew’s between 1513 and 1517. In 1522, he received preferment as rector of Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex. He died in London in 1532 and was buried at St. Bartholomew’s.

William Longforth was Fellow and President of St. John’s College, and Vicar of Ospringe in Kent from September 1527. He also appears to have held positions as Vicar of St. James’s Church, Isle of Grain, Kent, between 1528 and 1530, and Vicar of St. Mary’s Church in Gillingham, Kent, from 1530. Prior to his ordination, Longforth was a student at Cambridge, graduating B.A. 1514-15; MA 1518. He died sometime in or during the years soon after 1530.

John Hussey was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and was the son of Sir William Hussey (1443-1495), Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. He was first knighted in 1497 at the Battle of Blackheath and was subsequently promoted to Knight Banneret by Henry VIII at Tournai on 16 August 1513, following a string of other appointments, including Sheriff of Lincolnshire (1493); Comptroller of the Household (1509); and custos rotulorum (1513).

Hussey served as Chief Butler of England from 1521 until his death in 1536/7. He was also Chamberlain to King Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary I of England, and a member of the House of Lords. He was elected as a knight of the shire for Lincolnshire and as Member of Parliament on 6 July 1523. In 1529, he was created Lord Hussey of Sleaford by King Henry VIII.

Hussey was implicated in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace and accused of conspiracy against the king. Tried on the charge of treason, he was found guilty by the House of Lords and executed at Lincoln in 1536.

Sir Robert Southwell was a lawyer and a royal administrator during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. A descendant of a wealthy Norfolk family, Southwell was a member of Lincoln’s Inn and rose to prominence during the 1490s, when he worked in the crown lands administration on various appointments, receiverships and special commissions. By 1503, he occupied the role of general surveyor of all the royal lands. From 1504, he served as chief butler of England and in 1510, he was appointed chief auditor of the exchequer. He died in 1514.

Alan Percy was the second Master of the College. He was Prebendary of Dunnington in York Cathedral to which he was admitted 1 May 1513. He was admitted Master of St John's 29 July 1516, at the formal opening of the College, though he seems to have been perfoming the duties for about a month before that date. He vacated his Prebend at York in 1517 and Robert Shorton, his predecessor as Master of St John's, succeeded him there, 1 November 1517.
Percy had been appointed Rector of St Anne with St Agnes in the City of London by the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, and was instituted 6 May 1515. He resigned both his Rectory and his Mastership in 1518. The pension assigned to him by the College (£10/year) was a liberal one at the time, for the stipend of the Master was only £12. However, Percy did not claim the pension long as King Henry VIII in 1520 gave him an estate in Middlesex, whereupon, he surrendered his claim upon College revenues.

George Day was the third son of Richard Day of Newport, Shropshire and Agnes Osborne. In 1521, he graduated BA from St John's and in 1522 he was elected to the Fellowship. He became first Linacre professor of medicine in 1525, and then college praelector in Greek. In 1528 he became public orator of the university.
He was ordained deacon at Lincoln on 7 March 1528 and became John Fisher's chaplain. As orator he wrote the university's decree in support of the royal supremacy and despite his connections with Fisher as appointed royal chaplain. He was appointed master of the College 27 July 1537 (with some royal support) and 5 June 1538 he was made provost of King's College, Cambridge.
On 15 April 1543 he was nominated as bishop of Chichester, Day resigned all his benefices, but kept the provostship of King's by royal dispensation.
Day survived Henry VIII's reign, with a spell in prison during Edward VI's and was released from prison with Mary's accession on 4 August 1553. He was popular with the Queen and preached at the funeral of Edward VI. He became Mary's almoner and preached at her coronoation.
He died in London 2 August 1556 and was buried in Chichester Cathedral.

Taylor served as bursar then proctor of Queens' College, Cambridge from 1523 to 1537, and master of St John's College, Cambridge from 1538 to 1546. He was rector of St Peter upon Cornhill, London, of Tatenhill, Staffordshire, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral, a Reformer and Commissioner for the first Prayer Book.
His government of SJC was not felicitous and he was involved in continual disputes with the fellows. These occasioned a visitation by the bishop of Ely in May 1543, and subsequently the formation of a new code of statutes for the government of the College. In 1546, Taylor resigned his mastership of the College.
He died at the home of his friend in Buckinghamshire in 1554.