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HIST 301: Historians Craft (Dressler) Fall 2025

Modelled by Sir Christopher Wren

Questions to consider:

  • If we wanted to learn more about the original building constructed around 1699, what other support primary sources might we use?
  • What are some types of Secondary sources we may use in this work? 
  • What are the strengths/weaknesses of this document as a primary source?
    • Context: Jones was a WM professor

Context

  • There is NO other historical evidence of any kind that Wren designed the building.
  • CW published a report decades ago with 21 reasons it is unlikely Wren designed the building.
  • There is no record of the building in Wren's papers.
  • In the same book, Jones provides other dubious claims, the worst of which about the excellent lives of the enslaved in Virginia.
  • Even the college didn't take the claim seriously; it isn't mentioned in a college publication until 1874, and itsn't called the Wren Building until the mid 1920s.

My personal guess:

  • It is possible Jones is purposely lying, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He may have misunderstood:
    • William & Mary was granted a seal by the College of Arms in 1694. It depicts a campus based on Oxford. Central to the seal is a building that looks like the Sheldonian in Oxford, which Wren Did design.  
    • I suspect Jones, who joined the faculty in 1717, heard from an older colleague that the seal was modeled on Wren-designed buildings.
    • It seems impossible that the struggled college & colony wouldn't have immediately cashed in that Wren connection

Why does any of this matter, or relate to this class?