Hughes invented the microphone, but did not apply for letters patent.
The site was five acres, and the building is described in the letters patent " as a fitting and noble college mansion in honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary and St Bernard in Northgates Street outside the Northgate of Oxford."
A papal bull having also been obtained, on the 28th of August 1425, the archbishop, in the course of a visitation of Lincoln diocese, executed his letters patent founding the college, dedicating it to the Virgin, St Thomas Becket and St Edward the Confessor, and handed over the buildings to its members, the vicar of Higham Ferrers being made the first master or warden.
It has also been conferred during the closing years of the 19th century by letters patent on other cities - Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, Cardiff, Bradford, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Belfast, Cork.
The bishop of London was treated as the diocesan bishop of the colonists in North America; and in order to provide for testamentary and matrimonial jurisdiction it was usual in the letters patent appointing the governor of a colony to name him ordinary.
