The origins of St Edmund’s College lay in the repeal of the Test Act in 1871, permitting Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Non-Conformist scholars to return to the University of Cambridge for the first time since the religious revolution of the 16th century. In 1890s the impetus for the foundation of a College with a Roman Catholic tradition came from the 15th Duke of Norfolk, the President of St Edmund’s College, Ware, and Baron Anatole von Hügel, the first curator of the Unversity’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In 1896 four students moved into St Edmund’s House and exactly a century later, the University recognised St Edmund’s as a full College. The college collection is graced by portraits of the founders and former Masters that act as a constant, gentle reminder of the past. It is also privileged to include the fine collection of Huddleston family portraits, which came from Sawston Hall, and are on long-term loan from the Reverend Canon Timothy Russ. St Edmund’s is delighted to share its paintings online with the general public. It is stressed that the paintings at St Edmund's College are not in public ownership. In accordance with the charitable aims of the College, which is a private institution, we are including our paintings on this website to widen public awareness and for the benefit of scholarship.