Queen's College - Queens' College

Each of the two ancient Universities in England (Oxford and Cambridge) has a College named after a wife, or wives, of kings. *The College in Cambridge is always written nowadays as a plural possessive, Queens', to mark the fact that it was first founded, in 1488 by Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI; and later, in 1465, re-founded by Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV. The College's formal title is ""The Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard, commonly called Queens' College, in the University of Cambridge" (AWE's italics). The change reflects changes in the conventions surrounding the apostrophe which are explained in the page "That Apostrophe" on the College's own website, at [[1]]. (See also apostrophe (possession).)

• The Oxford College has always been in the singular form, Queen's College. It was named in honour of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of Edward III, on its foundation in 1341 by her chaplain Robert de Eglesfield.

• • Many other educational institutions throughout the anglophone world are known as Queen's College, Queens' College or simply Queens College, including Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), named for Queens, the borough of New York in which it sits (the borough was named for Catherine of Braganza, Queen of Charles II; Queen's University (formerly College) Belfast, named for Queen Victoria; Queen's College of the University of Melbourne (named "in honour of the Queen's [Victoria] Jubilee"; Queens University of Charlotte (North Carolina, USA), named after the city, which was named for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, married to George III; schools such as Queen's College, London, a pioneering secondary school for girls and others in Hong Kong, Lagos, Nassau and so on.

If you refer to any of these institutions, check its own preference for the punctuation of its name.

See also Magdalen - Magdalene, for another institutional name shared between Oxford and Cambridge - with subtle orthographical differences.