Exeter College Chapel, Oxford

Sir George Gilbert Scott had entered the lucrative and prestigious world of the old English universities through Oxford. It was not until 1860 that he was first employed on a Cambridge college. Thereafter, both universities provided him with a steady flow of work throughout the rest of his life. Scott was deeply upset that of all the male members of his family, he was the one who had not been to university and could not boast any academic qualifications. But there is little doubt about his own scholarship and while Exeter College was still in its early stages, the opportunity occurred to apply this towards a purpose, which could eventually lead to a professorship in a respected academic institution. Compared with the somewhat spasmodic offerings from his family's university of Cambridge, Oxford provided Scott with an almost continuous flow of work throughout his life, but again he is amazingly coy about this work. There is no mention in the Recollections of anything that he did at Oxford after Exeter College, although he was busier in the city when he was writing the later parts of his Recollections than he had ever been before.