Originally founded as Hart Hall by Elias de Hertford in 1282. Many of the great minds of the English Renaissance studied at what would eventually become Hertford College including the metaphysical poet John Donne, the political theorist Thomas Hobbes, and the first translator of the Bible into English, William Tyndale. Hertford was one of the first five co-educational colleges at Oxford and has always been seen as a progressive institution within the university, having a slightly larger female to male ratio and one of the largest proportions of state school scholars.