CAM BR 
 UNiVtl<5i 
 
 COLLEGE HISTORii 
 
 DUWMINO 
 

 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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COLLEGE 
 
 HISTORIES 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
2aniberi5itB of 0am6rit»ge 
 
 COLLEGE HISTORIES 
 
 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. H. W. PETTIT STEVENS, M.A., LL.M. 
 
 FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 RECTOR OF EAST HATLEY AND VICAR 
 
 OF TADLOW, CAMBRIDGESHIRE 
 
 LONDON 
 F. E. ROBINSON 
 
 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 
 1899 
 
• SI- 
 
 UlRkl 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson 6r» Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Downing, the youngest of the Cambridge 
 Colleges, is not yet a century old. The very 
 brevity of its historian's task constitutes his 
 difficulty. Unlike his collaborators in the 
 present series, he has at his disposal no mass 
 of material from whose abundance it is easy 
 to furnish his readers with a mingled feast 
 of solid antiquarianism and quaint gossip. 
 And yet the story which he has to tell is 
 fraught with more associations of general and 
 even national interest than might have been 
 expected from so short a period as a single 
 century. Through the foresight of the 
 younger Pitt, who inspired the Charter, 
 Downing College led the way, in Oxford and 
 Cambridge, both by releasing the great mass 
 of the fellowships from all restrictions that 
 
 jL/siUU i O 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 imposed celibacy, or residence, or entrance 
 into ecclesiastical Orders ; and also by appro- 
 priating part of its revenues to the support 
 of exceptionally eminent teachers with 
 Professorial duties and dignity. Hence it 
 came about that the College attracted to 
 itself a remarkable number of members 
 whose careers became a portion of the public 
 history of their country. In the first half- 
 century of its existence it possessed a Fellow 
 who rose to the exceptional honour of being 
 twice made Lord Chancellor — Lord Cran- 
 worth ; in its second half-century it pos- 
 sessed another Fellow — Mr. Henn Collins 
 — who has already become a Lord Justice of 
 Appeal. Still more recently, its list of 
 Fellows included the name of the present 
 Premier of the Cape Colony, Mr. Schreiner. 
 And even before the College took concrete 
 shape, the circumstances which paved the 
 way for its foundation are of some national 
 importance. The first Sir George Downing 
 was directly and indirectly a maker of 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 British history. He inspired the Navigation 
 Act — the foundation of our mercantile 
 marine, and consequently of our Navy, and 
 consequently of our colonies and spheres of 
 influence. He was also the direct cause of 
 the Appropriation Act, an Act indispensable, 
 in every session, for government at home and 
 one which has been adopted by all our self- 
 governing colonies. We may perhaps be able 
 to surmise on substantial grounds a some- 
 what kindred influence for good on British 
 history in the fact that Queen Victoria was 
 instructed in Constitutional Law by an old 
 Downing man. Professor Amos, and that the 
 Prince of Wales learned law and history 
 within the very walls of Downing from the 
 teaching of Professor Birkbeck. 
 
 It will be seen that the remorselessness of 
 contemporary documents exhibits both our 
 Founder and his father in a somewhat 
 unattractive light. But it must be remem- 
 bered that, under the later Stuarts and the 
 earlier Georges, the general tone in religion 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and morals was deplorable alike in the 
 highest and in the lowest classes. Examples 
 from the memoirs of those who lived in that 
 period prove this but too evidently ; the evil 
 ways of life of the very Princes of the blood- 
 royal being notorious even to their own 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The advance of University Reform has 
 gone far to assimilate the constitution of 
 other Colleges to that of Downing. But, if 
 it has lost the peculiarities of organisation 
 which were its original attraction, the lapse 
 of time is steadily laying the foundations of 
 a new attractiveness by developing the 
 unique character of its local situation as a 
 Park in the heart of a busy town. Its 
 undergraduates, with their own cricket and 
 football field within the very precincts of 
 the College, as well as with a boathouse of 
 their own and a reading and debating room 
 of their own, and with the exceptional size 
 and loftiness of their College rooms, have 
 much that adds to the pleasantness of a 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 University course. The bygone generations 
 of Downing men certainly look back on the 
 enjoyment of the "Longs" they spent in 
 this unique rus in iirhe, when they were 
 made free of the Fellows' gardens at the 
 most enjoyable time of the year, as amongst 
 the pleasantest of life's memories. 
 
 The compiler of these pages would, in 
 concluding his pleasant task, express his 
 gi-ateful thanks to the Master for kindly 
 allowing him to peruse the early Minute 
 Books of the College ; and also to Professor 
 Birkbeck's literary executor for allowing him 
 to make extracts from the Professor's un- 
 published narrative of a memorable political 
 conversation which the late Prince Consort 
 held with him, and from the MS. legal Remi- 
 niscences of the late Mr. R. D. Craig, Q.C, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE DOWNINGS I 
 
 II. EARLY HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE TO THE 
 
 LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION-STONE . . 37 
 
 III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY ... 64 
 
 IV. MASTERS 78 
 
 V. PROFESSORS 128 
 
 VI. FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS . . . 150 
 
 VII. FELLOW COMMONERS 209 
 
 VIII. MISCELLANEOUS 232 
 
 INDEX 275 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 bird's-eye view of downing 
 lady downing 
 
 THE master's lodge . 
 INTERIOR OF THE HALL 
 THE BOAT-HOUSE . 
 
 SOME OF THE COLLEGE PLATE 
 THE END OF THE AVENUE . 
 THE COLLEGE SEAL 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 
 Facingpage 
 
 22 
 
 " 
 
 70 
 
 r' 
 
 84 
 
 >» 
 
 242 
 
 " 
 
 246 
 
 It 
 
 254 
 
 >» 
 
 276 
 

 CHAPTER L ^^^l^^^^^ 
 
 THE DOWNINGS 
 
 Downing College is due to a curious chapter 
 in family history. A brief glance at the lives 
 of some of the members of the Downing family 
 will explain this. 
 
 The first Sir George Downing, Baronet, by 
 a not too overscrupulous masterfulness has 
 obtained for himself a place among the 
 makers of English history. He, the most 
 noteworthy member of the family (which 
 became extinct in the third generation), was 
 born in Dublin about the year 1624, and was 
 a grandson of a George Downing, a graduate 
 of Queens' College, Cambridge, who became 
 Headmaster of the Ipswich Grammar School 
 in the days of Queen Elizabeth. This Head- 
 master was in his day a man of some repute ; 
 
a DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 we find that he was paid by the municipality 
 twenty shillings for making a speech on 
 Coronation Day. To a son Joseph he 
 bequeaths books at Ipswich and Cambridge ; 
 to his daughters he leaves money as well as 
 books. His son Emanuel, the father of Sir 
 George, seems to have been provided for 
 during his father's lifetime, as he was sent 
 to Queens' College, Cambridge, and after- 
 wards became a barrister of the Middle 
 Temple. Emanuel Downing was one of the 
 most active spirits in the foundation of the 
 colony of Massachusetts. With respect to 
 this settlement we are told, perhaps with 
 insufficient historical evidence, by Judge 
 Haliburton that '' History can scarcely 
 furnish a parallel to the consummate hypo- 
 crisy of the founders of this Eepublic." In 
 this statement may be found some explana- 
 tion of the lack of moral backbone which 
 appears to be almost inbred in the first Sir 
 George Downing — a lack of principle to 
 which those who lived in his day have borne 
 
THE DOWNINGS 3 
 
 ample witness. Emanuel Downing's first 
 wife was Anne, daughter of Sir James Ware 
 of Dublin, father of Sir James Ware, " the 
 Camden of Ireland." By her he had several 
 children. 
 
 One of Sir George Downing s sisters was 
 second wife of Governor Simon Bradstreet ; 
 another, Mary, married Thomas Barnardiston 
 of Kedington, Suffolk. 
 
 Lucy Winthrop, the mother of Sir George 
 Downing and the second wife of Emanuel 
 Downing, was married at Groton, Suffolk, on 
 the 10th of April 1622. She was the sister 
 of Adam Winthrop, the first Governor of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Emanuel and his wife Lucy, as their 
 characters may be read between the lines of 
 their domestic correspondence, do not suggest 
 parents actuated by strict Puritan motives, 
 but rather convey the impression of an over- 
 grasping worldly couple. It is interesting to 
 note the thrifty managing woman in the 
 mother of the first Sir George. Now she 
 
4 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 rates a step -daughter, the child of her 
 husband s Irish wife, for being idle about 
 housework, for being " neglectful of her 
 brother's bands " ; the young girl was not 
 careful to iron out those broad white collars 
 which are to be seen on portraits of this 
 period. More unpardonable still, this young 
 lady was ** prodigal of her father's purse." 
 This thrifty stewardship of another's money 
 which Lucy Downing grieved to find lacking 
 in her Celtic step-daughter was a marked 
 feature in the character of her son George. 
 It was this maternal business capacity, cooled 
 and hardened in a masculine mould, that 
 inspired the son — when one of the Tellers of 
 the Exchequer in the Session of 1665, at the 
 time a " Supply " of £1,250,000 was voted for 
 the Dutch War, after more than two million 
 pounds for the same purpose had been voted 
 the year before — to introduce into the Subsidy 
 Bill a proviso, that the money raised by virtue 
 of that Act was to be applied only to those 
 ends for which it was given — the carrying on 
 
THE DOWNINGS 5 
 
 of the Dutch War — and to no other purpose 
 whatsoever, or by what authority whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 This reasonable arrangement was the 
 origin of estimates being laid before the 
 House, and meant the appropriation of 
 supplies. 
 
 In advocating this measure Downing knew 
 the full meaning of his action, for from his 
 official position he knew how the public 
 service was being ruined by the squandering 
 of money on the Court pleasures of Charles 
 the Second, instead of on national defence, 
 that being the object for which the money 
 had been voted. In this line of action 
 Downing was violently opposed by Lord 
 Clarendon, a minister who knew that the 
 navy had been laid up, that the coasts were 
 defenceless, because supplies had been inter- 
 cepted to pay for the selfish extravagance of 
 royalty, before reaching fresh enrolments of 
 soldiers and sailors. This measure led to the 
 transfer of the work of the treasurer to a 
 
6 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 committee, of which Downing was chosen 
 secretary. 
 
 Pepys observes on this step, "they have 
 done a great thing in it, for he [Downing] is 
 active and a man of business and values 
 himself upon having of things do well under 
 his hand." Pepys was right, for Downing, 
 amongst other enlightened measures, abolished 
 the method of contracting Government loans 
 through the Goldsmiths' Company ; and it was 
 through his advice the Treasury constituted 
 itself a bank. 
 
 Pepys, who was clerk at the Admiralty 
 under Downing, also shows us how Downing 
 did not forget to look after himself In 1659 
 we read in his diary : " Called for some 
 papers at Whitehall for Mr. Downing, one 
 of which was an order of the council for 
 £1800 to be paid monthly, and the other 
 two orders to the Commissioners of Customs 
 to let his goods go free." 
 
 Downing carried his business habits to 
 'excess, and proved too good a manager, as 
 
THE DOWNINGS 7 
 
 we find his poor mother complaining of her 
 son's niggardhness. She Hved at her son's 
 East Hatley manor-house in not too sump- 
 tuous a mansion, seeing that it paid hearth 
 tax on but five hearths. From this house 
 she writes words of expostulation against 
 the meagre starvation pittance allowed her 
 by her prosperous son, who at the time 
 was adding manor to manor and lands to 
 lands. 
 
 The son seems to have been impartial in 
 his meanness. One who lived about this time 
 has set down his wonderment that for reasons 
 of thrift Sir George at Christmas treated 
 his workpeople, on what is now the College 
 estate to the following bill of tare : first, 
 beef, then porridge, then pudding, and last 
 of all, pork. 
 
 It is noteworthy to find Downing's mother 
 taking a keen interest in education, and in 
 writing to her brother. Governor Winthrop, 
 in the autumn of 1636, expressing a trust 
 that her son George might find means of 
 
8 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 higher education in Massachusetts. It is 
 curious to note that in the October of that 
 year the General Court of Massachusetts 
 gives £400 to what later on grew into Harvard 
 College. Domestic papers, did they survive, 
 might show, as seems highly probable, that 
 this letter was the first cause of Harvard 
 College, of which in 1642 Downing was the 
 second graduate, and where for a time we 
 find him on the educational staff. It may, 
 indeed, be that our Founder, the grandson of 
 this junior lecturer, inherited from this educa- 
 tion-fostering ancestor as well as, through 
 him, from the Headmaster of Ipswich Gram- 
 mar School, a trend towards education which 
 made itself felt when, in no charitable frame 
 of mind towards his wife. Lady Downing, 
 he was making his will, and when he would 
 no doubt have been asked by the lawyer, 
 whose training would have made him antici- 
 pate the unexpected, what was to be done 
 with his estates in the case of the extinction 
 of his name. To meet this — at that time 
 
THE DOWNINGS 9 
 
 most unlikely contingency — provision was 
 made for Downing College. 
 
 Downing, after about two years of educa- 
 tional work at Harvard, sailed to the West 
 Indies. We find him preaching at Barbadoes 
 and elsewhere. In a letter of S. Henshaw to 
 Sir Robert Paston, December 16, 1671, we 
 read : " They say the Dutch have already 
 printed a book called the Sermons of his 
 Excellence Sir George Downey, Embassador 
 for the King of Great Britain to the States- 
 General, preached before Sir Arthur Hazel- 
 rig, Colonel O'Key, Colonel Baxter, &c." 
 Portions of a sermon of his preached at 
 Hackney have survived. 
 
 His spiritual work was remembered in the 
 House, for in June 1657 no minister being 
 present in the House of Commons to read 
 prayers when the Speaker took the Chair, 
 when the House had waited some time a 
 little debate arose on the minister's absence, ' 
 in the course of which Major-General Whal- 
 ley told Mr. Downing that he was a minister 
 
10 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 and he would have him perform the work. 
 Mr. Downing acknowledged he was once a 
 minister, but seems to have declined to act 
 as chaplain. 
 
 Later we find he joins Cromwell's army in 
 Scotland, where he holds the rank of Scout- 
 Master- General. In 1554 he was M.P. for 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 In this year he married a lady greatly dis- 
 tinguished for beauty, Frances (she died sud- 
 denly in 1680), sister of the first Earl of Car- 
 lisle. Over the south door of East Hatley 
 Church, above the date 1633, are the Down- 
 ing arms impaling those of the Earl of Car- 
 lisle. A good marriage, such as was to be 
 looked for in the son of a father who is 
 shown by his correspondence to have been 
 not over scrupulous in seeking " to match 
 some of his older children." 
 
 Downing was employed on important diplo- 
 matic work by Cromwell. Now, as special 
 envoy to the French Court, he has inter- 
 views with Mazarin about the Vaudois atroci- 
 
THE DOWNINGS 11 
 
 ties; now, as Resident at the Hague on 
 £1000 a year, he works hard to carry out 
 a plan worthy of a Puritan statesman — a plan 
 having no meaner an object than the con- 
 federation of all the Protestant Powers. 
 
 At the Restoration, by what appears to 
 have been judicious trimming, the different 
 stages of which now are quite untraceable, 
 seeing that at the time they were carried on 
 with all secrecy. Downing made his peace 
 with the Court. His excuse for his want of 
 taste in joining Cromwell's party was that 
 he had been beguiled in the ignorance of 
 youth while in New England. The result of 
 this beguilement had been that Downing was 
 the first to suggest that the " Instrument of 
 Government" should be abolished to make 
 way for a Cromwellian dynasty. It was in 
 Massachusetts "where he was brought up 
 and sucked in principles that since his reason 
 had made him see were erroneous." 
 
 There is also a story which Sir George 
 Lockhart, who was a boy when Downing 
 
12 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 died, the author of the " Memoirs of Scot- 
 land/' and a strong sympathiser with the 
 Stuarts, wrote in his copy of Clarendon s 
 History. Thirty years after the death of Lock- 
 hart it was copied into the Whitehall Evening 
 Post It is to the effect that the first Sir 
 George Downing was made envoy from Crom- 
 well to the States -General, and got a great 
 estate owing to the following incident : — 
 
 " When King Charles the Second was re- 
 siding at Brussels he went to the Hague at 
 night in disguise to pay a secret visit to his 
 sister, the Princess of Orange — another version 
 says it was to visit the Queen-mother — 
 attended only byLord Falkland ; and putting 
 up at an inn, after he had been there some time 
 the landlord came to these strangers and said 
 there was a beggar-man at the door who was 
 very importunate to be admitted to them, on 
 which the King seemed surprised, and after 
 speaking to Lord Falkland, bid the landlord 
 admit the man. As soon as this beggar 
 entered he pulled off his beard" [which he had 
 
THE DOWNINGS 13 
 
 put on for a disguise] " and fell on his knees 
 and said he was Mr. Downing, the Resident 
 for Oliver Cromwell, and that he had received 
 advice of this intended visit of his Majesty 
 to the Queen, and that if he ventured any 
 further he would be assassinated, and begged 
 secrecy of the King, for that his life depended 
 upon it, and departed. The King was amazed 
 at this, and said to Lord Falkland, ' How 
 could this be known ? There were but you 
 and the Queen knew of it, therefore the 
 Queen must have mentioned to somebody,' 
 who gave advice of it to his enemies. How- 
 ever, the King returned back, whereby this 
 design was prevented. Upon this, after the 
 Restoration Sir George Downing was re- 
 warded, made a baronet and farmer of the 
 customs, &c. &c., whereby this large estate" 
 [i.e., of the Downings] " was raised." 
 
 George Lockhart, who tells this story, was 
 nephew of Sir William Lockhart, Cromwell's 
 Ambassador at Paris. An Ambassador so 
 advantageously situated would be very likely 
 
14 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 to have good information as to what was 
 being done by the Royalist exiles in France, 
 and thus to hear of any dealings between 
 them and Cromwell's embassy in Holland. 
 Part of " this large estate'' was a grant from 
 the King of the ground on which Downing 
 Street, Whitehall, now stands. It is interest- 
 ing to note that at the beginning of the 
 present century there was no other official 
 residence in this street of world-wide celebrity 
 than the house which belonged by right of 
 office to the First Lord of the Treasury. 
 
 On the 11th of October 1658, Downing 
 writes as follows from the Hague to the 
 Secretary of State in London : — 
 
 *' My former letters did give you an account 
 of Charles Stuart having been in this country. 
 I knew every place he was at, and what 
 company came with him and to him. But, it 
 being the first time I had complained in that 
 kind, I did not think it necessary to mention 
 all places. He was at Amsterdam, but very 
 privately. He was also at the Old Princess 
 
THE DOWNINGS 15 
 
 Dowager's, and most nobly entertained by her. 
 But I do not find there was much more in all 
 that, than taking his pleasure ; and I can 
 assure you that upon his Highness' death, he 
 repaired forthwith for Don John." 
 
 This remarkably confirms the story ; for it 
 shows, by Downing s own admission, that he 
 had been aware of Charles' visit to Holland, 
 and of all his movements ; and also that he 
 had not thought fit to disclose all those 
 movements to his own employers in London 
 — perhaps suppressing that very part of 
 Charles' journey in which he himself had held 
 secret communication with him. 
 
 Nothing can be said in extenuation of 
 Downing's treacherous dealings with three of 
 the regicides. On March 12, 1662, Pepys 
 tells us, " This morning we had news from 
 Mr. Coventry that Sir George Downing — like 
 a perfidious rogue, though the action is good 
 and of service to the King, yet he cannot 
 with a good conscience do it — hath taken 
 Okey, Corbet and Barkstead " [they were 
 
16 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 executed on the 19th of the following month] 
 "at Delft in Holland, and sent them home 
 in the Blackmore. Sir W. Pen, talking to 
 me this afternoon of what a strange thing it 
 is for Downing to do this, he told me of a 
 speech he made in the Lords States of 
 Holland, telling them to their faces, that he 
 observed that he was not received with the 
 respect and observance now, that he was 
 when he came from that traitor Cromwell ; 
 by whom, I am sure, he hath got all he hath 
 in the world, and they knew it too. He 
 is so stingy a fellow I care not to see him." 
 The Dutch, Pepys adds, were reluctant to 
 permit the regicides to leave Delft. But 
 Downing was persistent. ''All the world 
 takes notice of him as a most ungrateful 
 villain for his pains." Ludlow, describing this 
 transaction, says the three regicides came 
 secretly from Germany to Delft to fetch their 
 wives. Downing obtained a blank warrant, 
 had it filled in, and insisted on their arrest, 
 and had he failed in obtaining the warrant he 
 
THE DOWNINGS 17 
 
 seems to have been prepared to go the length 
 of kidnapping his victims. He had been 
 preacher and chaplain to Okey's regiment, and 
 is stated to have assured a friend of Okey's 
 that he had no order from the King to appre- 
 hend or molest the regicides, and that they 
 might be as safe and free in Delft as he was 
 himself. 
 
 Pepys says Downing frequently boasted 
 that he had De Witt's pockets picked of his 
 keys and read his most important documents. 
 Wood styles Downing a sider with all times 
 and changes, skilled in the common cant, 
 and a preacher occasionally. Charles made 
 Downing a baronet in 1663. Evelyn says 
 Downing " had been a great traitor against 
 his Majesty, but now insinuated into his 
 favour, and from a pedagogue and fanatic 
 preacher not worth a groate had become 
 excessive rich." This view is borne out by a 
 tract of the time, from which we learn that 
 Downing is held to have pocketed £80,000 
 from the Crown and to have been nicknamed 
 
18 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 the " Household bell to call the courtiers to 
 vote.'' 
 
 Sir George died in his sixtieth year in 
 July 1684 ; Lady Downing had died twelve 
 months earlier. He " was buried by the side 
 of his wife in sheep's wooll onely " in a vault 
 under the chancel of Croydon Church, Cam- 
 bridgeshire [affidavit was made of this in 
 accordance with the Act of Parliament of 
 1666, which he must have helped in passing, 
 the object of the Act being to encourage the 
 English woollen trade by lessening the impor- 
 tation of linen from beyond seas]. This vault 
 affords another proof of his masterfulness, 
 for he made it without consulting the proper 
 authorities. There is no memorial of any 
 kind in Croydon Church to any of the 
 Downings. 
 
 Now we come to the parents of the 
 Founder of the College. So far as we can 
 see, the Founder was as unfortunate as any 
 one could be in the matter of his parents. 
 Perhaps this may afford the key to his self- 
 
THE DOWNINGS 19 
 
 willed obstinacy as well as the irregularities 
 of his life. His father, as was stated in the 
 son's divorce proceedings before the House of 
 Lords, was "accounted not of sound judg- 
 ment." The episcopal records at Ely show 
 that he was excommunicated for leading an 
 immoral life, and there is evidence given by 
 a lay contemporary of an illegitimate son. 
 By profession he was one of the Tellers of 
 the Exchequer. He married, in the lifetime 
 of his father, Katharine, eldest daughter of 
 James, third Earl of Salisbury. Her married 
 life was most unhappy, for she died in August 
 1688, "from her husband's unkindness to 
 her," leaving an only child, the Founder, 
 about four years old. The Founder's child- 
 hood thus knew nothing of the kindly 
 shaping of a mother's love. His father, with 
 whom he did not live, for whom he could 
 have had no feelings of respect, he lost when 
 he was about twenty-six. 
 
 His mother's sister, Mary, third daughter 
 of Lord Salisbury, had married Sir W. 
 
20 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Forester, Knight, of Whitehall, Shropshire, 
 one of the " Clerks controller of the Green 
 Cloth," a masterful man, whom we find 
 taking a strong line of action against the 
 Stuarts. He was one of the grand jury of 
 Middlesex in 1680 who drew up a present- 
 ment of the Duke of York as a Papist. Sir 
 W. Forester's father-in-law, the grandfather 
 of the Founder, was a vehement promoter of 
 the Exclusion Bill. The son-in-law was an 
 equally strong member of the same party, for 
 he collected pikes and gunpowder to help in 
 a rising (which did not come to a head) to 
 overthrow Charles II. ; but, in spite of this, 
 he seems to have been able to make his peace 
 with the Government, but at great outlay, as 
 much of the estate timber had to be sacri- 
 ficed. Young Downing was brought up in 
 Sir W. Forester's family until 1700. In that 
 year George Downing, without the knowledge 
 and consent of his father, " was at the age of 
 fifteen, by the Procurement and Persuasion 
 of those in whose keeping he was, marry'd 
 
THE DOWNINGS 21 
 
 according to the Church Form to Mary- 
 Forester of the age of thirteen." This girl 
 was his mother's sister's eldest daughter. 
 These early marriages at this date were usual 
 in this rank of life. The young husband on 
 his wedding-day went on a foreign tour. 
 Before starting he strictly charged his young 
 wife to decline the office of Maid of Honour 
 at the Court of Queen Anne. He anticipated 
 that Lady Downing, on account of her un- 
 common beauty, would receive an invitation 
 to Court, and because Anne, in imitation of 
 Charles II., strove to draw to Court the 
 most beautiful ladies of good family that 
 could be persuaded to come. 
 
 In 1703 the tempting command came from 
 Queen Anne to Downing's wife to become a 
 Maid of Honour. The arguments and reason- 
 ings of the strong-willed parents overcame 
 the young wife's scruples, and she took a step 
 which brought her nothing but regret for the 
 rest of her life. 
 
 In November of 1703, Downing being 
 
22 DOWxNING COLLEGE 
 
 eighteen and somewhere in Italy, had shown 
 to him a letter from Lady Temple to Mistress 
 [i.e., Miss] Martha Blount [Pope's Flamer, as 
 she was called], in which she writes : "I 
 suppose you hear that pretty mistress 
 Foresthur [i.e., Lady Downing] is the new 
 Maid of Honour." The day on which 
 Downing read this he poured out his heart 
 as follows : *' In my retreat here [in Italy], I 
 have just received news from London which 
 has filled me with surprise and pain, and 
 shattered the loveliest image man ever 
 cherished in his heart. Amidst the idle 
 gossip and scandal of the day I find Lady 
 Mary figuring not, as I had fondly pictured 
 her in her home at Dothill taking walks and 
 rides, but as the gay cynosure of all eyes ; 
 blazing as a star of the first rank in the 
 fashionable splendours of Court. This I find 
 confirmed by letters from mutual friends, 
 who think they are pleasing me by their 
 lavish description of the beauty and blandish- 
 ments of my idol. Songs and proverbs have 
 
By kind fcrmissicn] 
 
 {of Lord Forester 
 
 LADY DOWNING 
 FROM THE PORTRAIT AT WILLEY PARK 
 
THE DOWNINGS 23 
 
 all told me of woman's fickleness, but I never 
 believed them ; I said to myself, ' These are 
 written by men who have had the advantage 
 of telling their own tales in their own ways. 
 The pen has been in their hands,' I thought, 
 * and they have written with a bias towards 
 our own sex, and upon such bias build cir- 
 cumstances in their favour/ I have tried 
 not to believe the story told me, and to keep 
 silence till I come home. I find I cannot do 
 so, and that I must speak, for the story Lady 
 Temple tells, has pierced me to the heart ; 
 yet whilst half agony I am half hope. 
 Do write and say it is not true, and 
 I will once more offer myself to you afresh 
 with a heart more full than your own, 
 or than my own could have heretofore 
 known. I have loved none but you ; you 
 might think me unjust from your point 
 of view in extracting the promise, but 
 never have I been inconstant for a moment. 
 I can hardly write ; by every post I hear 
 something which overpowers me. Write 
 
24 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 immediately, and do say that you have 
 been faithful." 
 
 The wife, it seems, had displeased her 
 husband to please her parents, and from no 
 desire of personal aggrandisement. The 
 father, and mother-in-law as well as aunt, 
 answered the letter to that effect, taking the 
 blame on themselves and urging the excuses 
 of the royal command, of their unshaken 
 trust in their daughter, who herself added 
 her womanly protestations. All was of no 
 avail ; with a slight acknowledgment of his 
 wife's letter, so far as Downing was con- 
 cerned, the matter was at an end. He 
 returned to England in 1704, having spent 
 the interval in travelling into parts beyond 
 the seas without letting his address be 
 known. Not a breath of slander sullied the 
 character of Lady Downing. Nothing, it 
 seems, can be alleged in favour of the obstinacy 
 of the husband. Ten years were spent in 
 vain in seeking to overcome this obstinacy. 
 After so long a period, spent in fruitless 
 
THE DOWNINGS «5 
 
 letter-writing, the wife petitioned the House 
 of Lords to bring in a Bill for declaring the 
 marriage and marriage contract between 
 George Downing, Esq., now Sir G. Downing, 
 Bart., and the petitioner, to be void to all 
 intents and purposes. Downing, in his 
 answer to this petition, affirmed that the 
 reasons stated in it were true, and joined 
 with her in soliciting the Upper House for 
 a divorce. 
 
 The only reasons alleged for the divorce 
 were sentimental ones. Downing allowed, in 
 his reply to the petition of Lady Downing, 
 that after three or four years' travel, being 
 solicited to live with his lawful wife, he had 
 refused, that now fourteen years had passed 
 since the marriage ceremony was performed, 
 during that time the parties had not seen 
 each other, and the lady had not taken 
 upon herself the name of Downing, and 
 such disgusts and aversions have arisen 
 and continue between the two that there 
 is no possibility of any mutual agreement, 
 
26 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 and so they are very desirous of being 
 set at liberty. 
 
 The matter was debated in the Upper 
 House on two occasions, the first on the 26th 
 of April, and then on May 5th, 1715. On 
 the latter date, in a House of 108, the Prince 
 of Wales, afterwards George II., being 
 present, as well as the Duke of Schomberg, 
 the Earl of Carlisle (who was grandfather to 
 each petitioner, their mothers being his 
 daughters), after a strenuous debate of nearly 
 three hours, it was decided not to grant the 
 petition. 
 
 The reasons being : 
 
 1. Each party was consenting to the mar- 
 riage, and was old enough to give such 
 consent according to the known laws of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 2. They were actually married according to 
 the form prescribed by the Church of England, 
 and no adultery was alleged; therefore the 
 marriage continues indissoluble. 
 
 Practically, the petition (which is said to 
 
THE DOWNINGS 27 
 
 have been lost by one vote) was thrown out 
 by the Episcopal vote, the Archbishop of York 
 and fifteen prelates voting solid against it. 
 We give the names of their sees: London, 
 Winchester, Lichfield and Coventry, Peter- 
 borough, Bangor, Carlisle, Lincoln, Chichester, 
 Hereford, S. Davids, Rochester, Bristol, 
 Chester, Gloucester and S. Asaph. It may 
 perhaps happen that some historically minded 
 Downing man will place their arms in one of 
 the windows of the Hall. The matter was 
 the occasion of much argument, while much 
 pity was extended to Lady Downing. It was 
 said that at an age when you will not allow 
 children to dispose of 5s., you will allow them 
 to dispose of their persons for ever. It was 
 also hinted that in the debate a judicious use 
 of " eyes, hands, and devout shrugs did more 
 service than sound reasoning." Lady Downing 
 lived for nineteen years after the divorce 
 proceedings, dying in her forty -seventh year 
 at Hampton, Middlesex, where she was buried 
 in 1734. 
 
28 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Hers must have been a life overclouded by 
 sadness. Yet she did not allow herself to be 
 overborne by this; she is praised by those 
 who knew her for her piety and charity. 
 There are also extant copies of prayers which 
 were composed by her. She had also great 
 skill in embroidery. Her portrait (a copy of 
 which, by the kind leave of Lord Forester, 
 forms one of the illustrations of this volume) 
 in the gallery at Willey, Shropshire, shows 
 her in widow's weeds without a wedding-ring. 
 Downing was twenty-four at the time of the 
 divorce proceedings ; he had come into the title 
 three years earlier. Two years after the rejec- 
 tion of the petition for divorce an Act was 
 passed for making more effectual certain 
 articles of agreement between Sir George 
 Downing and Mary, eldest daughter of Sir W. 
 Forester. In December of the same year the 
 will was signed which in the end led to the 
 foundation of Downing College. Downing 
 lived thirty-two years longer — for fifteen of 
 which he was a widower — dying in 1749, at the 
 
THE DOWNINGS 29 
 
 age of fifty-five, He bequeathed £100 for the 
 poor of the parishes of Gamlingay, East 
 Hatley, Tadlow, and Clopton, to be paid 
 within two months of his death. 
 
 After his return from Italy, and before the 
 divorce proceedings, he had built himself an 
 " elegant house " at Gamlingay, using for 
 this purpose some of the materials of the 
 old mansion-house at East Hatley which had 
 been obtained by his grandfather from the 
 Castells, a Roundhead family. Tradition says 
 the Castell Estate was granted to Downing 
 after Castell had forfeited it for his republi- 
 canism. The house at Gamlingay was pulled 
 down in October 1776, and sold by auction in 
 large lots. The sale was over in three or four 
 hours, and the whole of the large extensive 
 house did not sell for more than £800, having 
 probably cost £9000. Lady Downing built 
 herself a house at Putney, and the iron 
 palisades and other materials were sent thither 
 from Gamlingay. The Founder built himself 
 a " very noble pew " over the North Chapel of 
 
30 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Gamlingay Church. In his parish of Tadlow 
 he built a tower for the sake of the extensive 
 view. This now forms part of the Tower Farm. 
 Here, about the year 1744, Sir George was 
 nearly murdered; " as he was looking over the 
 workmen at it, a villainous fellow took an 
 opportunity of knocking Sir George over the 
 head with a hammer, and had a gun ready 
 charged to have shot him, which he attempted 
 two or three times, and ran after Sir George 
 for that purpose. The fellow owned the fact, 
 and alleged he thought he did no harm by 
 killing a person who paid nobody, and was so 
 111 a landlord and paymaster with so great an 
 estate. Ever since that time Sir George has 
 neglected that place." 
 
 Cole, the antiquary, who had " a gossip's 
 ear and a tatler's pen," but who as an old 
 Eton boy and a Fellow Commoner of Kings, 
 was favourably placed for knowing what was 
 going on in the county, makes the following 
 comment on this incident : — 
 
 " Though the fellow is still a prisoner in 
 
THE DOWNINGS 31 
 
 Cambridge Castle, where he is like to end his 
 days, and very deservedly, for however Sir 
 George may be deserving, it is by no means 
 proper to let such fellows be their own 
 Justicers. For the latter part of his life he 
 led a most miserable, covetous, and sordid 
 existence. He has about £1500 a year 
 untenanted about this parish, and has been 
 so these many years, and all his houses are 
 tumbling down." This looks very much as if 
 the son, like the father, was not altogether 
 of sound judgment. The parish of Tadlow, 
 which is owned by Downing College, is of 
 interest ecclesiastically for the following event, 
 which is to be found in the Life of Archbishop 
 Laud : " There happened in the town of 
 Tadlow a very ill incident on Christmas Day, 
 1638, by reason of not having the Com- 
 munion Table railed in. For in sermon time 
 a dog came to the table and took the loaf 
 of bread prepared for the Holy Sacrament in 
 his mouth, and ran away with it. Some of 
 the parishioners took the same from the dog 
 
32 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 and set it upon the table." This bread could 
 not be used, and no more could be obtained, 
 through the lateness of the hour, from the 
 nearest village, two miles away. Most likely 
 the only bread in the place would have been 
 dark coloured from not being made of wheat 
 flour. 
 
 The Founder of the College, until he was 
 crippled by the gout, passed his time between 
 Gamlingay and Dunwich on his estate called 
 Grey Friars. (This seat was sold by the 
 College to redeem the land-tax from the 
 whole property.) His habit was to come to 
 Dunwich with a great retinue for the summer 
 months. Besides owning a magnificent estate 
 at Dunwich, he held office there, being bailiff 
 of that place in 1712. He was also Member 
 of Parliament for that rotten borough from 
 1710, with one break, till his death. 
 
 Dunwich was one of the towns which had 
 been granted by the Sovereign to the inhabi- 
 tants for ever, for a yearly rent in the days 
 of Henry II. This rent amounted to a large 
 
THE DOWNINGS 3^ 
 
 sum, being worth in money of to-day about 
 £1500 and 2400 herrings. Dunwich owed 
 its baiUff and Member of ParUament a fee- 
 farm rent of £5. The College still owns 
 £230 per annum fee-farm rents, which were 
 doubtless granted to or purchased by the 
 first Sir G. Downing. In 1718, owing to the 
 encroachments of the sea and to the disuse 
 of the port, our Founder served processes on 
 several men of Dunwich for arrears of this 
 fee-farm rent, " and upon non-payment ten 
 burgesses were incarcerated in Beccles gaol, 
 and others, to avoid the like confinement, 
 were obliged to abscond." 
 
 In the year 1770 there was some trouble 
 about the payment by the Corporation of 
 Cambridge of the fee-farm rent of £70 to the 
 Downing family. *^Upon investigating this 
 matter it then appeared that £70 was paid 
 unto Katharine, Queen to Charles II., as 
 parcel of her jointure, and that by indenture 
 dated 5 Sept. 1671, the reversion and 
 inheritance of the said fee-farm was sold to 
 
M DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Sir George Downing, Bart., whose descen- 
 dants received the same annual sum regu- 
 larly down to Michaelmas 1763." For six years 
 the Corporation refused payment. Hereupon 
 Lady Downing [then the wife of George 
 Bowyer, Esq.] threatened the Corporation 
 with a suit-at-law ; meanwhile the Court of 
 Exchequer on the 7th November 1770 issued 
 an order, directed to the mayor, bailiffs and 
 burgesses, to show cause why Levari Facias 
 should not be awarded against them for levy- 
 ing the arrears due at Michaelmas then last 
 past, amounting to the sum of £420. 
 
 On this matter the Corporation took coun- 
 sel's opinion, which after mature deliberation 
 was given in these words: ''The uninter- 
 rupted possession and payment of this fee- 
 farm rent for more than sixty years made 
 the Downing right excessively clear." In 
 consequence of this decision the money was 
 paid by the town clerk to Jeremy Fish 
 Palmer [Clerk of the Peace for the County 
 of Bedford], steward to the Downing estate. 
 
THE DOWNINGS 35 
 
 and has since been regularly continued. In 
 the University Library there are leases of 
 fee-farms in jointure to Henrietta Maria. 
 
 The Founder made no name for himself 
 while a Member of the House; though he sat 
 there in the stirring times of the risings in 
 favour of the two Pretenders and during the 
 South Sea Scheme. In 1732 he was made a 
 Knight of the Bath by Sir Robert Walpole. 
 The "true inwardness" of this appointment 
 is now lost, although the Gentleman's 
 Magazine of that day tells us that his fees 
 for the installation of a Knight of the Bath 
 were nearly £600, besides a dinner. 
 
 The Founder died on the 10th of June 
 1749 at his seat at Gamlingay, where he had 
 been confined for a long time with gout. He 
 was buried in the same vault as his grand- 
 father, under the floor of the chancel of 
 Croydon Church, Cambridgeshire. There is 
 no memorial to any of the Downlngs in the 
 church. The entry of the burial at Croydon 
 is written thus in the parish register : 
 
36 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 " S"^ gorge downing was Buried 
 June the .... 29 . . 1749." 
 
 This interval of nearly three weeks between 
 the death and the burial was a hideous 
 eighteenth-century custom. 
 
 In the Gamlingay Eegister is the following 
 entry : 
 
 "Burials 1749 
 
 " The Honble S'' George Downing Bart dyed 
 
 att Gamlingay 
 
 Park on friday June 9*^ att ten o the clock 
 
 att night 
 
 and was carried to Croydon y® 29 and layd 
 
 in a family 
 
 vault there " 
 
 Barely seven months after his death, his 
 daughter, by his housekeeper, then about 
 twenty-three, married John Bagnall, Esq., 
 bringing him, as was then stated, a dowry of 
 £20,000. 
 
CHAPTER 11 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE TO THE 
 LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION-STONE 
 
 By his will dated 20th December 1717, 
 the Founder devised his property in Cam- 
 bridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Suffolk as 
 follows : First, to his cousin Jacob Garrard, 
 the only son of his uncle Charles Downing. 
 Jacob Garrard Downing died without off- 
 spring in 1764. /S'econc?^!/, to Thomas Barnard- 
 iston, heir of his Aunt Barnardiston, of Bury 
 St. Edmunds. Thomas Barnardiston died in 
 1762 without oflPspring. Thirdly , to his 
 cousin Charles Peters, of the University of 
 Oxford. He died without offspring. Fourthly, 
 to his cousin John Peters, of the University 
 of Oxford. He also died without offspring. 
 In default of all these, the above-mentioned 
 
38 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 property was to form the endowment of a 
 college. For this college, ground within the 
 town of Cambridge was to be purchased, 
 where a college was to be erected, which was 
 to be called " Downings CoUedge." 
 
 To the Founder the College must have 
 seemed a somewhat remote contingency. As 
 a matter of fact, Jacob Garrard Downing sur- 
 vived all the other possible devisees, and they 
 left no issue. He in his turn left no issue. 
 He was M.P. for Dunwich and died on the 
 6th February 1764. It is said that he was 
 possessed of near £100, 000 in cash and stocks. 
 He left a fine estate with a handsome house 
 at Putney to Lady Downing. 
 
 Lady Downing, after becoming a widow, 
 married Sir George Bowyer. The following 
 is a copy of her will, and some comments of 
 Cole, the antiquary, on her family : 
 
 " I Margaret Bowyer, formerly Dame Mar- 
 garet Downing wife of George Bowyer Esq. 
 of Mount Prospect in the parish of Putney 
 in the county of Surrey being in perfect 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 39 
 
 health, do make this my last will and testa- 
 ment in manner following : I give to my 
 dear husband George Bowyer Esquire all 
 my lands manors and tenements in the 
 county of Suffolk and a legacy of £7000 over 
 and above what was settled on him by mar- 
 riage. I give to my niece Diana Say wife of 
 the Eevd. Mr. Say of East Hatley in the 
 county of Cambridgeshire all my houses in 
 Downing Street, and King Street West- 
 minster which I hold by a lease under the 
 Dean and Chapter of Westminster and like- 
 wise a legacy of £10,000. I give to my niece 
 Ann Hirst, wife of the Rev. Mr. Hirst of 
 Boxworth in the county of Cambridgeshire 
 £7000 and my diamond cross. I give to my 
 niece Sarah Whittington daughter of the 
 Rev. Mr. Whittington late of Orford in the 
 county of Suffolk £10,000 and my diamond 
 ear-rings. I give to my niece Mary Whit- 
 tington daughter of the aforesaid Rev. Mr. 
 Whittington £10,000 and my four diamond 
 rings. I give to my old servant William 
 
40 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Matshorn a legacy of £2000. I give to my 
 old servant Elizabeth Krimbs a legacy of 
 £2000. I give to my trustees a legacy of 
 £200 each namely, William Greaves Bow- 
 bury Bell, Thomas Eider, John Rose and 
 William Sandby, for their trouble in seeing 
 my will executed. I give to my own maid that 
 shall be with me at the time of my death ffifty 
 pounds and all my wearing apparel — my watch 
 excepted. I give to my godson Price Say, 
 son of the Rev. Mr. Say, a legacy of £500. I 
 charge all my landed estates in the counties 
 of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire, and not 
 my personal estate, with the payment of an 
 annuity of £400 a year left by Sir Jacob 
 Garrard Downing, Baronet, to my nephew 
 Jacob John Whittington, son of the Rev. Mr. 
 Whittington, late of Orford in the county of 
 Suffolk, for his natural life. I likewise give 
 to my nephew Jacob John Whittington my 
 house and land known by the name of Mount 
 Prospect, in the parish of Putney, in the 
 county of Surrey with all my ffurniture and 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 41 
 
 plate, after my legacies and just debts are 
 paid. I give the remainder of my personal 
 estate to my nephew Jacob John Whitting- 
 ton, and likewise all my landed estates in the 
 counties of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire 
 to him and to his heirs for ever, and I do 
 constitute and appoint my said nephew 
 Jacob John Whittington, sole executor of 
 this my last will and testament, hereby 
 revoking all former and other wills by me 
 at any time heretofore made. In witness 
 whereof I the said Margaret Bowyer have 
 to this my last will and testament contained 
 in one sheet of paper set my hand and 
 seal this twenty-eighth day of December 
 1772. Margaret Bowyer. Signed, sealed, 
 published and declared by the same Margaret 
 Bowyer, in the presence of us, who in 
 the presence of all and at the request of 
 the said Margaret Bowyer, commonly called 
 Dame Margaret Downing, have subscribed 
 our names in witness hereto : Humphrey 
 Edgar Thos. Pugh, W. Jones." 
 
4a DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 This was the will which caused the delay 
 in the foundation of the College, and also 
 much litigation. 
 
 Codicil twenty-eighth of December 1772 : 
 " Whereas I have in and by my said will 
 given to my nephew John Jacob Whitting- 
 ton, son of the Kev. Mr. Whittington, late of 
 Orford in the county of Sujffolk, my house 
 and land known by the name of Mount Pro- 
 spect, with plate and ffurniture. Now I do 
 hereby revoke the said bequest and legacy 
 and do give the said house and land with the 
 said ffurniture and plate unto my dear niece 
 Diana Say, wife of the Rev. Mr. ffrancis Say 
 [Rector] of East Hatley in the county of 
 Cambridge for the term of her life, and at 
 her decease to her said husband for the term 
 of his life, and at and after the decease of 
 the survivor of them I give the same unto 
 Diana Say, the oldest daughter of the said 
 ffrancis and Diana, to and for her own use 
 and benefit, and I give to Ann Say, the 
 youngest daughter of the said ffrancis and 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 43 
 
 Diana Say, £2000. Witnesses : Theodore 
 Forrest, York Buildings ; Wm. Stone of 
 Putney ; John Boon of Putney." 
 
 This will was proved at London with a 
 codicil the fifth of October 1778 before the 
 worshipful George Harris, LL.D., Surrogate 
 of the right worshipful Sir George Hay, 
 Knight, LL.D., Master Keeper or Commissary 
 of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, law- 
 fully constituted by the oath of Jacob John 
 Whittington, Esq., the nephew of the de- 
 ceased and sole executor named in the said 
 will, to whom administration was granted 
 and limited, so far as concerns all the right 
 title and interest of the said deceased in and 
 to the capital sum of £83,000 part of the 
 capital sum of £93,000 three per cent, re- 
 duced bank annuities, and all dividends due 
 and to grow out thereon and all benefit and 
 advantage to be had, received and taken 
 therefrom, and also in and to all and singular 
 the manors, messuages, lands, tenements, 
 hereditaments and real estate whatsoever 
 
44 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 by the will of Sir Jacob Garrard Downing 
 devised or given to the said deceased and her 
 heirs, and all other manors, messuages, lands 
 and hereditaments whereof and wherein 
 she the said deceased or any other person 
 or persons in trust for her now, or was seized 
 of any estate of ffreehold or inheritance in 
 possession, reversion, remainder or expect- 
 ancy, situate in the counties of Cambridge- 
 shire and Bedfordshire and Suffolk, or either 
 of them or elsewhere in the kingdom of Great 
 Britain, with their appurtenances and all the 
 estate and interest of her the said deceased 
 of, in, to, or out of the said premises or any 
 part or parcel thereof, and so in and to all 
 that capital messuage or tenement called 
 Mount Prospect, situate in the parish of 
 Putney in the county of Surrey, with all 
 the lands, meadows, pastures and heredita- 
 ments thereto belonging and therewith held, 
 and the remainders of the terms and interest 
 to come and unexpired therein, and also in 
 and to all those several messuages or dwelling- 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 45 
 
 houses situate in the parish of St. Margaret, 
 Westminster in the county of Middlesex and 
 in the two streets there called Downing Street 
 and King Street, formerly in the respective 
 tenures or occupations of John Atkinson, 
 David Low, Mr. Barnard, Mrs. Huckerby, 
 the Rev. Dr. flFrancis, Wm. Kelynge, Esq., 
 John Richardson, Esq., Mr. Morris, Hen. 
 Hill, Esq., Mr. Strecchy [qu ?], Mr. Somers, 
 Mr. Waddington, Wm. Greaves, Esq., Thos. 
 Maude, Esq., Mrs. Bodenham, Mr. Russell, 
 Mr. Casterdon [qu?] Mr. Garrett, the Commis- 
 sioners of the Treasury and Mr. Dyer, their 
 undertenants or assigns, and the remainder 
 of the terms and interest to come and unex- 
 pired therein, and also in and to all those 
 several pieces or parcels of ffen or marsh 
 ground lying in the parish of Swaffham Prior 
 in the county of Cambridgeshire, and the re- 
 mainder of the term and interest to come and 
 unexpired therein, and also in and to all other 
 the messuages, lands and tenements of the 
 said deceased, or whereof or wherein she or 
 
46 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 any other person or persons in trust for her 
 were or was possessed or any ways entitled 
 to for any term or number of years whatso- 
 ever, and sundry policies of insurance in the 
 Hand-in-Hand Insurance on furniture &c. 
 in her houses at Mount Prospect, Queen Anne 
 Street, and Dunwich. 
 
 The Cambridge Chronicle of Saturday, 
 September 26, 1778, published the following: 
 
 " On Wednesday se'nnight died suddenly, 
 in an apoplectic fit, at her house at Putney 
 Common, Lady Downing, relict of the late 
 Sir Jacob Downing, Bart., of Gamlingay in 
 this county, and wife to Capt. Bowyer, 
 of the Albion, of 74 guns, one of Byron's 
 squadron, which it is feared is lost." 
 
 When Lady Downing was buried at Croy- 
 don, Cambs, Captain John Jacob Whitting- 
 ton was the chief mourner. Captain Whitting- 
 ton was of Yoxford and Theberton, Suffolk, 
 and a son of a sister of Lady Downing. 
 
 Later on he had to refund about £10,000 
 of rents. 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 47 
 
 We wonder if the above-named legatees 
 lived to marry and have children. 
 
 Cole tells us that Lady Downing's father 
 was a Mr. Price, a Welshman, of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and Curate of Barrington, 
 Cambs. He recounts some scandal about 
 the lady, and adds that she was a very 
 fine woman and made Sir Jacob Downing so 
 good a wife that he left her all at his death. 
 Her two nieces Morgan were married, Cole 
 proceeds to tell us, *'the one to a Mr. Say, 
 whom I remember a chorister in King's 
 College Chapel, rather stupid, but sober and 
 honest, son as I take it to Mr. Wm. Say, Vicar 
 of Tadlow and Eector of East Hatley, in 
 which he succeeded his father ; the other to 
 Mr. Hurst, Rector of Boxworth. Mr. Say, 
 about 1776, was removed to London with his 
 family by the desire of her ladyship, when 
 she settled £10,000 upon him, and at her 
 death left him to the amount as I am told in 
 the whole near £2000 per annum, among 
 which is Downing Street; so that Lord 
 
48 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 North the Prime Minister is his tenant, so 
 that had he any address or ambition he 
 might be in a good train for preferment, but 
 is the merest country parson I ever saw. 
 His wife was in a way to be married to an 
 officer much against her ladyship's incHna- 
 tion. She therefore sent for this Mr. Say, 
 knowing him to be an honest man, and 
 married her to him, and it may turn his head, 
 and would probably had he been of a more 
 volatile and lively cast than he is moulded of. 
 The other clergyman is provided not so 
 amply, for her ladyship however left him, as 
 I am told, about £7000. I think he has no 
 children, and that might be the reason of 
 the distinction. Her ladyship and Mr. 
 Bowyer could not agree. He [i.e. Mr. Bow- 
 yer], however, now and then, besides his first 
 large settlement on him of £10,000, got 
 £1000 of her from her passions by striking 
 him. As they could not live easy he went 
 aboard the Albion man-of-war, 74 guns, as 
 captain with Admiral Byron — which at this 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 49 
 
 time [October 4, 1778] is said to have perished 
 and the crew with her. He was left 
 handsomely by her ladyship, as is said about 
 £10,000." 
 
 In 1764, in the Court of Chancery, was 
 commenced the suit of the Chancellor 
 Masters and Scholars of the University v. 
 Dame Margaret Downing, widow of Sir 
 Jacob Garret Downing, and the heirs-at- 
 law of Sir Jacob Garret Downing. On 
 July 3, 1769, the Lord Chancellor gave 
 judgment in favour of the University. In 
 spite of this the estates were wrongfully 
 held by Dame Margaret and her nephew 
 Captain Whittington for over thirty years 
 longer; and in 1776 they pulled down the 
 mansionhouse at Gamlingay. 
 
 On September 22—40 George III.— 1800, 
 the Great Seal was affixed to the Charter by 
 which Downing College became part and 
 parcel of the University of Cambridge, and 
 enjoyed all the privileges of the said Uni- 
 versity. By the Charter the Crown nomi- 
 
50 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 nated Francis Annesley "first and modern 
 Master"; Edward Christian, M.A., Professor 
 of the Laws of England ; Busick Harwood, 
 Doctor in Physic, Professor of Medicine ; 
 John Lens, Serjeant-at-Law, M.A., WiUiam 
 Meek, M.A., Barrister, and Wm. Frere, 
 Fellows. 
 
 The new-born society was homeless, with- 
 out statutes, and composed of men from 
 different Colleges — an excellent opportunity 
 for a fresh educational departure. 
 
 By the Founder's will the plan of the new 
 College had to be approved by the two 
 Archbishops and the Masters of St. John's 
 and Clare. In consequence of this arrange- 
 ment powers were given them by the 
 original statutes of prescribing the useful 
 learning which should be taught as well as 
 of election of the first members of the new 
 society. 
 
 In 1796 the Corporation had ofiered 
 two sites to the heirs-at-law for the new 
 College : 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 51 
 
 (i) Proud Hill, at the north end of the 
 town near the castle. 
 
 (ii) That extensive piece of ground consist- 
 ing of fifteen acres on south-east of the town 
 named Parker's Piece, just beyond Emmanuel 
 College. 
 
 The Charter of 1800 states that the 
 heirs-at-law of the Founder had purchased a 
 site of about an acre, called DolFs Close. 
 This is now New Square; in those days it 
 was described as out of the town of 
 Cambridge on the Barnwell side beyond 
 Christ's Pieces. 
 
 In 1801, Capt. Whittington, by decree 
 of the Court of Chancery, had to pay into 
 Court six years' rents of the estates up 
 to March 5, 1800. In 1802, a bill which 
 the same gentleman had filed was dismissed 
 with costs; thus defeating the attempt 
 he had thereby made to set aside the 
 purchase of Doll's Close with a view to 
 invalidate the Charter, on the plea that the 
 site was not within the description, required 
 
52 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 by the will, of a piece of ground situate 
 ** within the town of Cambridge proper." 
 
 The Doll's Close site, nevertheless, soon was 
 abandoned and the present site purchased. 
 On part of it at one time was the orchard of 
 the Master of Pembroke Hall. It was known 
 as Pembroke Leys, and it was described as 
 near the road into the town from Linton and 
 Colchester. At an earlier date it had been 
 known as St. Thomas's Leys, and still earlier 
 as Swinecroft. It had formed a part of one 
 of the great open and commonable fields by 
 which the town of Cambridge was surrounded. 
 The various strips of which these Leys were 
 composed belonged to many different owners. 
 The CoUege purchased its site from some 
 ten owners, including the University, Jesus 
 College, Corpus, Peterhouse, and Caius. An 
 Act of Parliament was procured for the 
 extinction of the rights of common to which 
 the land was subject; and by an award dated 
 January 8, 1808, a money compensation was 
 allotted to the owners of more than two 
 
^ or THE X 
 
 Ut^WERSITY j 
 
 OF 
 
 HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 53 
 
 hundred houses in respect of these pasture 
 rights. 
 
 As was pointed out at the time, a grand 
 opportunity of municipal improvement was 
 missed. It was proposed that the town 
 should be pierced through its centre, in one 
 straight regular line from the end of Jesus 
 Lane along the Market Place and continued 
 on to Hog Hill, where the University Bicycle 
 Depot now stands. The magnificent front of 
 the College, in a court more spacious than 
 Trinity Great Court — i.e,^ the proposed por- 
 tion, which was to consist of three Grecian 
 porticos, combining the Ionic and Doric 
 orders, between the Master's Lodge and the 
 Hall — would have afforded a noble termina- 
 tion to this long vista, and this grand street 
 would have accommodated the College with 
 a suitable avenue to the principal parts of the 
 University. 
 
 The Cambridge of those days presented a 
 sharp contrast from the Cambridge of to-day. 
 Then the coach from London was five and a 
 
54 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 half hours on the road. Midsummer Common 
 was a mere swamp, and the town was held 
 to have its atmosphere impregnated with 
 malaria from the fens. The entrance to the 
 town from London — i.e., by Scrope Terrace 
 — ^which would otherwise be rather hand- 
 some, was deformed by a dozen hovels 
 which would have disgraced a pauper village. 
 In the town not a single good street was to 
 be found — nothing but a succession of lanes 
 and alleys — the pavement (with the excep- 
 tion of a few yards opposite Corpus) scarcely 
 allowing two persons to walk abreast. 
 
 The architect of all the older parts of the 
 College — i,e.j all except the south extremities 
 of the east and west sides of the court and 
 the enlargements to the Combination Room 
 and Hall — was William Wilkins, junr., of 
 Caius, sixth Wrangler, 1800, author of the 
 " Antiquities of Magna Graecia," and archi- 
 tect of Corpus (where he took down the old 
 chapel and where he is the only layman 
 buried in the new chapel). King's, and the 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 55 
 
 King's Court, Trinity, and of the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 These early Downing buildings cost up- 
 wards of £70,000. This large outlay is due 
 to the costly material. Wilkins's work was 
 highly thought of at the time. Maria Edge- 
 worth, writing about the date when they 
 were finished, states that so poor is her taste 
 that she never will think (as she ought to 
 think) Downing College equal to King's Col- 
 lege Chapel. 
 
 The site intended for the Chapel and 
 Library is between the Master's Lodge and 
 the Hall. On this site a vault for burials was 
 made with the concurrence of the architect. 
 In it, in 1814, Professor Sir Busick Har- 
 wood was buriecj by leave of the Bishop of 
 Ely. 
 
 At one time it was suggested to break 
 the sky-line of the College buildings by a 
 judicious placing of large statues looking 
 into the court from the summit of the walls, 
 which in part mask the roof. The newer 
 
56 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 portions of the College were finished in 1877 
 by Mr. Barry at a cost of about £20,000. 
 
 The foundation-stone of the College was 
 laid on Monday, May 18, 1807. 
 
 It Is interesting to note that the Cam- 
 bridge Chronicle of November 14 of that year 
 records that a young salmon was caught in 
 the Cam near Jesus Green sluice ; corrobora- 
 tive evidence this of the inodorous and harm- 
 less character of the river-water of the Cam- 
 bridge of 10,000 in 1807. In those days the 
 College was near the Botanic Gardens. The 
 Anatomical Museum and other buildings now 
 stand where the botanical flowers and plants 
 used to grow. 
 
 The foundation-stone contained the best 
 collection of coins of the then reign that 
 could be obtained. The first stereotype 
 plate cast at the foundry of the University 
 was also deposited in the foundation-stone 
 by Mr. Watts, the University printer. This 
 plate had been made on the improved prin- 
 ciple of Earl Stanhope. 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 57 
 
 The following inscription, engraved in 
 copper, was sunk in the foundation-stone : 
 
 COLLEGIVM . DOWNINGENSE . 
 
 IN . ACADEMIA . CANTABRIGI^ . 
 
 GEORGIVS . DOWNING . DE . GAMLINGAY • 
 
 IN . EODEM . COMITATV . BARONETTVS . 
 
 TESTAMENT© . DESIGNAVIT . 
 
 OPIBVSQVE . MVNIFICE . INSTRVXIT . 
 
 ANNO . SALVTIS . M . DCC . XVII . 
 
 REGIA . TANDEM . CHARTA . STABILIVIT . 
 
 GEORGIVS . TERTIVS . OPTIMVS . PRINCEPS . 
 
 ANNO . M . DCCC . 
 
 BMC . VERO . iEDIFICII . PRIMORDIA . 
 
 MAGISTER . PROFESSORES . ET . SOCII . 
 
 POSVERVNT . 
 
 QVOD . AD . RELIGIONIS . CVLTUM . 
 
 JVRIS . ANGLICANI . ET . MEDICIN^E . SCIENTIAM . 
 
 ET . AD . RECTAM . JVVENTVTIS . INGENViE . 
 
 DISCIPLINAM . PROMOVENDAM . 
 
 FELICITER . EVENIAT. 
 
 For this ceremony the University first 
 assembled in St. Mary's Church. Bright 
 sunshine, we read, flooded the day's proceed- 
 ings. At church a sermon was preached by 
 
58 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Dr. Outram, the public orator, from the 
 words, " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, 
 and thy tabernacles, Israel!" [Num. xxiv. 5.] 
 There is an interesting passage in this 
 sermon, which in these days of short-tenure 
 fellowships, married fellows, ladies' colleges 
 at Girton and Newnham, University com- 
 missions in the past and looming in the 
 future, seems a very far-off echo of an almost 
 forgotten and hardly realisable state of 
 things. 
 
 The preacher explained how some of our 
 benefactors had to meet the problem of 
 counteracting partiality in the election to 
 fellowships ; how, in their desire to ensure 
 the election of the best men, they had 
 adopted restrictions which were too severe, 
 by enacting that not more than one or two 
 persons born in the same district should at 
 the same time be fellows of the same society ; 
 or else, moved by an attachment to their 
 kindred or to the place which gave them 
 birth, have directed that the electors shall 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 59 
 
 be guided not solely by a regard to learning 
 or moral character, but by a preference to 
 consanguinity or some local claim. 
 
 We know that this state of things was 
 being at this time adversely criticised. The 
 principal point of superiority of the new 
 college consisted in the removal of these old- 
 fashioned bars, and restrictions in the election 
 to fellowships and scholarships — "restric- 
 tions which had checked elevation of spirit 
 and retarded the progress of learning." 
 Room was to be made for a quick succession 
 to fellowships. Moreover, both fellows and 
 professors were to be " effective members." 
 And being all of some profession, they would 
 by a timely prudence be able to find their 
 proper places in the world. The lectures of 
 the Downing Professors would not, like those 
 of the old College Professors — most of whom 
 were at this date described "as mere sine- 
 cures, and scarcely known to exist" — be 
 confined to the College, but were to be 
 thrown open to the University. 
 
60 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, who had been 
 tutor of Trinity a little before this, tells us 
 how a pupil of his who had a right by place 
 of birth to a Furness Fells Fellowship at 
 St. John's, after insisting on this right at his 
 [i.e., Watson's] instigation, succeeded in en- 
 forcing the ejection of a man of greater 
 intellect and learning than himself, who 
 had not been born within the privileged area. 
 St. Johns College was mulcted in £50 for 
 having elected the unprivileged man. Hard 
 cases grew out of this state of things ; 
 and so it came about that, fettered by these 
 restraints, the colleges had in too many 
 instances been compelled with the deepest 
 sorrow to reject the worthiest of their 
 candidates ; these men then had to consign 
 themselves to hopeless indigence and obscu- 
 rity. " All had wished to see the day when 
 some unfortunate children of disappointment 
 could be invited to receive their due reward. 
 That happy day has at length dawned on us. 
 A new luminary of science has arisen, a new 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 61 
 
 source of light and strength has come to our 
 revered establishments. Another college offers 
 herself to our notice, holding in her hands the 
 free rewards of moral and intellectual acquire- 
 ments." 
 
 The sermon ended, the congregation pro- 
 ceeded to the Senate House, and heard a 
 Latin speech from Mr. William Frere, the 
 junior fellow. Then a procession to the site 
 of the future college was formed. The noble- 
 men in their robes two and two, the D.D.s, 
 the LL.D.s, the M.D.s, the Mus.D.s, the 
 assessor to the Vice-Chancellor, the Proctors 
 in their congregation habit, followed by their 
 men with the statutes, the Taxors [M.A.s 
 appointed to regulate the markets, examine 
 the assize of bread, the lawfulness of weights 
 and measures, and to call all the abuses and 
 defects thereof into the commissary's court], 
 the Scrutators [whose office it was to take the 
 votes at congregations], and other officers of 
 the University arrived at the site of the new 
 College. The Master there made a suitable 
 
62 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 address in Latin before depositing the selected 
 objects in the foundation-stone. Then, at four 
 o'clock, the Master entertained at dinner, at 
 the Red Lion, the Heads of Colleges, noble- 
 men, Professors, Doctors, and University 
 officers. 
 
 The Cambridge University Calendar for 
 1811 states about Downing College: "The 
 Master's Lodge and the Lodge for the resi- 
 dence of the Professor of Medicine [Sir 
 Busick Harwood, who seems to have kept his 
 name on the boards of Emmanuel as a Fellow 
 Commoner] are now completed. Sir Busick 
 Harwood is at present the only resident 
 Member." 
 
 The College in its early days possessed its 
 own brewery. Professor Henslow, who lived 
 in a house in Begent Street on the Parker's 
 Piece side, had his stables on the site of the 
 Downing brewery-house [now occupied by 
 shops], and a passage under the street formed 
 a communication from that house to the 
 stables. In the course of building operations 
 
HISTORY TO FOUNDATION-STONE 63 
 
 in 1897 these underground places were visible 
 from the road. 
 
 Dean Kitchin, describing the College in 
 1836, says " Downing has always had an odd 
 existence peculiar to itself and apart from 
 the rest of the University. There it stood 
 aloof, with buildings rather like a rambling 
 country house than a college ; resting placidly 
 in green and level meadows which call to 
 mind some gentleman's park far from towns 
 and noise and intellectual strife. Here it 
 seemed to slumber peacefully, untouched by 
 the grossing turmoil of the town and careless 
 of University excitements and struggles." 
 
 All this has been changed by the proximity 
 of the railway station, which the University 
 insisted in keeping at arm's-length, but 
 which has caused a new town to spring up 
 to the southward of Downing. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY 
 
 A FEW years before the foundation of the 
 College, Dr. Richard Watson * proposed that 
 the endowment for the new college should be 
 used for the encouragement of the study of 
 Eastern Languages. In his Autobiography 
 he writes: "In May 1780, I published a 
 charge to the clergy of the Archdeaconry of 
 Ely at my primary visitation. This charge 
 was principally intended to recommend an 
 establishment at Cambridge for the express 
 
 * Bp. Watson was a man of enterprise, for he himself tells 
 us that "In 1764 unanimously elected, by the Senate 
 assembled in full congregation, Professor of Chemistry, I 
 knew nothing at all of chemistry, had never read a syllable 
 y on the subject, nor seen a single experiment in it ! " He 
 had induced a London physician to withdraw his candida- 
 ture. 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 65 
 
 purpose of translating and publishing Orien- 
 tal manuscripts wherever found. And I 
 hinted that the then litigated estate of 
 Sir Jacob Downing might, when adjudged 
 to the University, be properly employed in 
 supporting an Oriental college. This dis- 
 course was republished, without my consent 
 being asked, at Calcutta In 1785, and made 
 the first article of the first volume of the 
 ' Asiatic Miscellany.' " 
 
 This point met with serious consideration, 
 as in the draft charter for Downing College, 
 preserved in Lambeth Library, is the proposal 
 for a Downing Professorship of Oriental Lan- 
 guages. 
 
 The general outline of the foundation is 
 due to the younger Pitt. It shows the 
 enlightened foresight of that statesman, for 
 the principles alike of married fellows 
 and fellowships tenable for a term of years 
 have been generally adopted, Downing • Col- 
 lege having led the way. When, in 1800, 
 the value of the Downing estates was about 
 
66 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 £5000 a year, the time was ripe for estab- 
 lishing Pitt's plan, which aimed at promoting 
 the study of law and medicine. His desire 
 was to blend university and professional 
 education, to help young lawyers and young 
 physicians in the arduous early years of 
 their careers by fellowships tenable only 
 for a term of years. The fellows of Downing 
 were to be elected with the freest com- 
 petition after a most comprehensive ex- 
 amination. Moreover, the fellows, being 
 practically all laymen, would have the effect 
 of strengthening the lay element in the 
 University. That lay element, it must be 
 remembered, was a very small one at the 
 end of last century. The limited tenure 
 of the Downing fellowships would hold out 
 no temptation to developing the " idle 
 fellow " of the last century. Pitt may have 
 read the playwright's description, drawn 
 from life, of the " idle fellow," who thus 
 describes his class : 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 6T 
 
 What class of life, tho' ne'er so great, 
 "With a good fat Fellowship can compare ? 
 
 We still dream on at our own rate, 
 Without perplexing care. 
 
 We eat, we drink, we smoke, we sleep, 
 
 And then, then, then 
 
 Rise and do the same again. 
 
 The original Charter ordained that the 
 College shall consist of one Master, a Pro- 
 fessor of the Laws of England, a Professor 
 of Medicine, sixteen Fellows, two of whom 
 shall be in Holy Orders, bound to reside, 
 specially selected, and specially qualified to 
 act as Tutors, and holding their Fellowships 
 for life ; the rest, lay fellows, actively pur- 
 suing the study of law or medicine, chosen 
 by examination from both Universities, their 
 fellowships terminating at the end of twelve 
 years. Downing College was thus designed to 
 be a lay foundation in a University where 
 the lay element was confessedly but inade- 
 quately represented. The fellowships for 
 law and medicine bore a considerable pro- 
 
68 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 portion to the whole number of fellowships 
 in the University which could be so appro- 
 priated. There were also to be such a 
 number of scholars as the statutes shall 
 direct, their stipends being of half the 
 value of the fellowships and tenable for four 
 years. 
 
 The first Master, Professors, and three 
 Fellows were nominated by the Crown. In 
 this way a body corporate was constituted to 
 manage the estates and to supervise the 
 erection of the necessary buildings. These 
 original members of the society were drawn 
 from different colleges, Annesley and Christian 
 and Lens were members of St. John's. As 
 there was no Hall, and so no high table, the 
 usual way of informally considering important 
 details was lacking. 
 
 The College thus started on its existence 
 without any nucleus of traditions, with a 
 strong Johnian element in the society, and 
 with the Court of Chancery as a kind of 
 foster-parent. 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 69 
 
 During the first twenty years of its ez- 
 istence this foundation contributed to the 
 cause of education the services of these 
 two professors, who, as a rule, read every 
 year a course of lectures, open to all students 
 of the University, if they could form a class ; 
 it gave temporary help to three young law- 
 yers or physicians ; whilst indirectly, per- 
 haps, it promoted the well-being of the 
 University by adding one layman to the 
 body of Heads who then governed the 
 University. 
 
 Then for nearly thirty years the College, 
 thrjDwn open as a place of education, acted 
 as a kind of unendowed hostel. This step was 
 taken with the sanction of the Court of 
 Chancery when only part of the buildings 
 comprised in the approved plan had been 
 erected, and before the remaining thirteen 
 fellows had been nominated. It was assumed, 
 in the fiftieth year of the history of the 
 College, that all the buildings desirable for a 
 college were constructed, but th,at a chapel, 
 
70 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 antechapel, and library, with its long por- 
 ticos of Doric and Ionic pillars filling up the 
 space between the Hall and the Master's 
 Lodge, could wait. By an oversight in the 
 Charter no arrangement had been made for 
 the accumulation of a fund for the main- 
 tenance and enlargement of the College 
 buildings. 
 
 In 1849 of the plan which had been sanc- 
 tioned by the Court of Chancery — the 
 Court of Chancery being the guardian of 
 the new corporation — the Master's Lodge 
 and lodges for the two professors, the Hall, 
 as well as the offices and about twenty 
 sets of rooms, had been erected. The un- 
 executed portion consisted of about thirty 
 more sets of rooms, with a library and 
 chapel. The two last in the original design 
 are highly decorated and expensive Grecian 
 buildings. The elevations of this range of 
 buildings could not be materially altered 
 without marring the general effect of the only 
 ornamental fagade of the College. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 71 
 
 After the College had been in existence for 
 half a century, it was allowed that its useful- 
 ness had been hampered and also limited by 
 the degree in which all other considerations 
 had been eclipsed and subordinated to the 
 ambitious desire of creating large and costly 
 ornamental buildings, and by an unsuccessful 
 attempt to open the College for educational 
 purposes without having any rewards at its 
 disposal. This course, by forestalling the re- 
 venues, had prolonged the financial difficulties 
 of the College. 
 
 The first act of the Court of Chancery, in 
 establishing the young College, was to direct 
 that £3000 per annum should be earmarked 
 as a building fund, and also, in their wisdom, 
 to approve of a plan for buildings which was 
 to cost over £100,000. It was taken for 
 granted that the Court of Chancery had 
 settled to postpone all collegiate educational 
 action, and more than three-quarters of the 
 proposed aids to young professional men, until 
 all these, as it was thought, necessary build- 
 
72 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 ings had been completed. Now, at the same 
 time, the College threw its own rewards open 
 to all students of Oxford and Cambridge, so 
 that it became in a sense a free trade college, 
 struggling to emerge into existence in the 
 midst of a highly protective system. 
 
 The landed estates of the College were the 
 first to suffer from this large and rigorous 
 appropriation of funds. These estates needed 
 a more liberal treatment. In 1800 the College 
 property had been for more than thirty years 
 under the control of parties who were in 
 adverse possession, and who were upholding 
 their claim against the College by a suit in 
 Chancery. Under their hands the timber 
 was cut down, improvements were suspended, 
 the repairs done were of the scantiest nature, 
 and when new buildings were indispensable, 
 they were put up so as to be removable at 
 will. At that time, too, scarcely a field had 
 been drained, the land being for the most part 
 clay. There was no hard road within over a 
 mile of the verge of the estate. The land was 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 73 
 
 mostly poor pasture, divided into small farms, 
 occupied by tenants little superior to the 
 common labourers in capital and intelligence. 
 The walls of the homesteads were of lath and 
 plaster, and the cottages mere mud hovels, 
 built without leave by the owners on the way- 
 side waste. The repairs to the farm buildings 
 for the most part had been inadequate, and 
 therefore expensive. Good tenants could 
 hardly be found, and bad debts were incurred. 
 Mr. Alfred Power, Fellow of Downing College, 
 reported in 1832 to the Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners : " Downing College has a property 
 of several thousand acres in Cambridgeshire. 
 It is found impossible, notwithstanding lower- 
 ing the rents to an extreme point, to obtain 
 men of substance for tenants. Several farms 
 of considerable extent have changed hands 
 twice within the last five years, from insol- 
 vency or the prospect of it. The amount of 
 arrears at the present time is such as only a 
 collegiate body could support." We may 
 infer something of the condition of the 
 
74 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 labourers on the College estate from the fact 
 that in 1843 the society made a grant of £5 
 for a stove to be placed in the chancel of 
 Tadlow Church, in order to the more commo- 
 dious use of the said chancel as a Sunday 
 School. There was no school on the estate at 
 that time. Five pounds a year was granted to 
 Tadlow as well as to East Hatley towards 
 the salary of a regular teacher. It was, 
 due to the energy and liberality of the 
 Eev. G. M. Sykes that, about 1870, excellent 
 schools were built in each parish. When 
 the entries had been very small for nearly a 
 quarter of a century, the more zealous 
 members of the society grew impatient ; they 
 longed to be useful in their generation. They 
 saw the University nearly exclusively a school 
 of mathematics, and felt that years of exertion 
 to secure even for classics a recognised place 
 in the general system had met with but 
 inadequate success. They thought that even 
 without endowment a college might prosper 
 which would attempt to blend classics, 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 75 
 
 general literature, and the foundations of 
 professional knowledge with the prevailing, 
 studies of the place. But to this end more 
 buildings would be needed, and the authorised 
 plan was an expensive one, therefore, with the 
 co-operation of the Court of Chancery, money 
 was borrowed on the security of the estates 
 to make up the funds for a further portion of 
 the buildings. 
 
 One result which the College was seeking 
 to realise about the year 1851 was the organi- 
 sation of a system of lectures and examinations, 
 which would embrace many of those general 
 views of law in its alliance with history and 
 philosophy, such as might properly be con- 
 sidered an essential part of the preparation 
 not merely of a lawyer but of a well-educated 
 English gentleman. 
 
 Had this aim been successful, it would have 
 only meant doing on a small scale what was 
 being done well by Trinity College, a college 
 whose internal system has always been more 
 liberal than that of the University at large, 
 
76 DOWNING COLLEGE- 
 
 and has moulded itself to the chief require- 
 ments of the times. 
 
 There was another way in which the new 
 college sought a sphere of usefulness. This 
 was by admitting fellow commoners, who 
 were to be young men of fair abilities, who 
 were here to have had their powers exercised. 
 It was felt that such men, when fairly equipped 
 mentally, by their station in society con- 
 stituted an important class from a national 
 point of view. In the case of Sir Harry 
 Verney, as will be seen later on, the College 
 exercised this good influence. Despite all this 
 it was felt the College was not realising the 
 special objects of its foundation. In 1847 the 
 Law Magazine stated : " At Cambridge there 
 is a foundation set apart for legal studies, 
 nobly endowed, but very ill adapted to its 
 object ; so ill adapted or ill administered — 
 it matters not to our argument which — that 
 the men of Downing College are almost all 
 of them fellow commoners, exempted from 
 industry and discipline, and in no college in 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SOCIETY 77 
 
 Cambridge is much less law learnt or less 
 instruction given." But during the last quarter 
 of a century men such as Lawrence, Kenny 
 (formerly M.P. for Barnsley), Schreiner (now, 
 October 1898, Premier at the Cape), Harris, 
 Griffith (M.P. for Anglesey) and Alexander, 
 all seniors in the Law Tripos, have shown 
 what the college can now do in the way of 
 legal education. The fact was that the 
 interests of education had been sacrificed to 
 a monumental and costly class of buildings, 
 the Court of Chancery in London not being 
 by any means an ideal guardian for a new 
 college in a University innocent of the stirring 
 effect of a Eoyal Commission. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MASTERS 
 
 Masters. — Francis Annesley, 1805 ; Wm. Frere, 1812 ; Thos. 
 Worsley, 1836 ; W. H. Birkbeck, 1885-88 ; A. HUl, 1888. 
 
 " The Master shall be a person who is dis- 
 tinguished in Theology, Law, Medicine, 
 Literature, or Science ; who in the judgment 
 of the electors is best qualified by his piety, 
 discretion, and knowledge of afiairs to secure 
 the good government of the college as a 
 place of education, religion, learning, and 
 research." — College Statutes. 
 
 The first Master of Downing College was 
 Francis Annesley, LL.D., F.A.S. His mother 
 was a grand-daughter of Frances, daughter 
 of the first Sir George Downing; his father 
 was the Rev. Martin Annesley, D.D., of 
 St. John's College, Cambridge. Besides 
 
MASTERS 79 
 
 being Master of the College, Dr. Annesley 
 was also hereditary trustee of the British 
 Museum. He died in his seventy-eighth 
 year in Curzon Street, London, on April 17, 
 1812. He is said never to have resented an 
 injury and never to have forgotten a kind- 
 ness. Annesley received his early education 
 under the celebrated Dr. Hiley at Reading 
 Grammar School, where he acquired a taste 
 for literature and art, which was shown later 
 on by his choice collections of books and 
 engravings. Being an heir-at-law to the 
 Founder of Downing College, he was by 
 the Charter nominated the first Master. 
 But so much opposition was made to the 
 carrying out of the will by those in posses- 
 sion of the estate, that Annesley was engaged 
 during the greatest part of his life in anxious 
 and unremitted endeavours to overcome the 
 law's delay. He succeeded at last, and 
 Downing College was founded ; but, although 
 Annesley had been some years Master, it was 
 only a few days before his death that he had 
 
80 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 the consolation of seeing an end made of the 
 obstacles which had been raised against the 
 new foundation. 
 
 In 1774 Annesley was chosen M.P. for 
 Reading ; of this appointment we have the 
 following contemporary comment : 
 
 **As Reading is not commanded or in- 
 fluenced by any great or powerful neighbour 
 it possesses a considerable degree of inde- 
 pendence. Hence the amiable qualities and 
 disinterested conduct of Annesley procured 
 his re-election without expenses until 1806." 
 
 The work of the first Master was to estab- 
 lish the college, as he died before the time of 
 undergraduates, and also before there was 
 much in the way of buildings. We have 
 some light cast on the energy of the first 
 Master in the following letter, given by 
 Mr. J. W. Clark, in his classical work on the 
 architecture of the University, in his account, 
 with plans of the early history of the College, 
 dated Cambridge, 27th October 1784, sixteen 
 years before the birth of the CoUege, by Michael 
 
MASTERS 81 
 
 Lort, Fellow of Trinity College, to the Kev, 
 Mr. Ashby of Barrow, near Newmarket : 
 
 " Mr. Ainsly, the new Master of Downing, 
 has been here to fix on a site for his new 
 college, for, though many has been proposed 
 to him, yet objections are made to all. 
 Mr. Wyat, the architect, wishes much that it 
 should be opposite to some of the colleges on 
 the river, for then he thinks he shall not be 
 crampt for Room, and may make 4 fine 
 fa9ades ; but how will they get an access to, 
 and communication with, the town? The most 
 promising spot seems to be that between 
 Bishop Watson's house and the Tennis Court, 
 but here 'tis said they cannot dig cellars, a 
 material object, I presume, to such a college. 
 The King has recommended two particulars — 
 that it may not be a Gothic building, and 
 that the professors be obliged to publish their 
 lectures." 
 
 It may be a satisfaction that we owe the 
 severe classic style of the Master's Lodge and 
 the Hall to the taste of no less a personao-e 
 
82 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 than King George III. The tennis-court 
 mentioned above is still commemorated in 
 Tennis Court Road. Bishop Watson's house 
 is LlandafF House in Regent Street. A por- 
 tion of the garden in the rear of the house 
 belongs to the College. 
 
 The house is on the site of an inn [that 
 may account for the portico projecting over 
 the pavement], " The Bishop Blaise." This 
 fact inspired Mansel, the Master of Trinity, 
 to write the following epigram : 
 
 Two of a trade can neW agree, 
 
 No proverb can be juster, 
 They've ta'en down Bishop Blaise, you see, 
 
 And put up Bishop Bluster. 
 
 There is a pamphlet written by Thomas 
 Hope in 1804, with the title "Observations 
 on the Plans and Elevations designed by 
 James Wyat, Architect for Downing College, 
 Cambridge, in a Letter to Francis Annesley, 
 Esq., M.P." The pamphlet contains no infor- 
 mation of interest ; the author describes the 
 future college as " a building which, from the 
 
MASTERS S3 
 
 immensity of the sum allotted to the construc- 
 tion, is enabled, as well as intended, to become 
 one of the first ornaments of the country." 
 
 When Frere became Master on October 5, 
 1812, he was the inaugurator of an unusual 
 state of things at a Master's Lodge in that he 
 was a layman, and Mrs. Frere, who came 
 from a county family, was a recognised 
 leader of society. It was said at the time 
 that no great county social function could 
 succeed without the co-operation of Lady 
 Hardwick and her jBriend, Mrs. Frere. The 
 University Registrary, describing the exclu- 
 siveness of University society about 1830, 
 writes on p. 319 of his work on Cambridge : 
 *' So complete was the social severance 
 between the Heads and the rest of the 
 University that considerable curiosity was 
 felt by each half of the academic world as to 
 the sayings and doings of the other. ' What 
 do you talk about in your societj^ ? ' said the 
 wife of a Head to the wife of a Professor in 
 1829 ; 'is it amusing ? ' Just about that 
 
/ 
 
 84 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 time, however, a bold innovation was made, 
 which stirred the University to its depths. 
 Mr. Serjeant Frere had just been made 
 Master of Downing, and being an enlightened 
 person who had passed most of his life in 
 London, saw no reason why the good folks 
 of Cambridge should not amuse themselves 
 according to the fashion of the metropolis. 
 So Mrs. Frere, who sang divinely, gave musi- 
 cal parties in the Lodge itself, and tableaux 
 vivants also, which were much admired ; and 
 at last (I vow my hand shakes so with 
 horror at the very thought of it that I can 
 hardly make my pen write down the awful 
 profanation) she got up ' The Rivals ' and 
 ' The Critic ' in the College Hall ! One of her 
 first evening parties took place after a solemn 
 symposium given to an assemblage of Heads. 
 They had not been made aware of what was 
 about to happen, and it was remarked after- 
 wards, by the wife of one of them, ' Some 
 people came in in the evening — of course we 
 went away.' Frere had been nominated a 
 
MASTERS 85 
 
 fellow before the Charter in 1800 and Pro- 
 fessor Christian challenged his appointment 
 to the Mastership in the Law Courts, basing 
 his objection to the use of proxies by the 
 electors, who at that time were not the pro- 
 fessors and fellows. In September 1814 the 
 Lord Chancellor gave his decision in favour 
 of Serjeant Frere. Frere was Recorder of 
 Bury St. Edmunds in 1810." 
 
 The Master (1775-1836) was the fourth 
 son of John Frere, of Roydon. He entered 
 at Trinity after being educated at Eton. He 
 was also a Serjeant-at-law. In consequence 
 of this, some of the elections to Downing 
 fellowships were held in the Hall of Ser- 
 jeants' Inn, London. He married in 1810. 
 Mrs. Frere was the only daughter of Dil- 
 lingham Brampton Gurdon, of Letton, Nor- 
 folk, and Grundisburgh, Suffolk, by his second 
 wife, Mary, daughter of Samuel Howard, of 
 Brockdish in Norfolk. Mrs. Frere (1781- 
 1864), who was noted for her beautiful voice, 
 probably knew more about music than 
 
86 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 any one in England at the beginning of 
 the century. They had one son, Philip 
 Howard, sometime Fellow of Downing Col- 
 lege, and four daughters : Ellen Mary, who 
 married the Hon. Stephen Spring-E-ice, son 
 of the first and father of the second Lord 
 Monteagle of Brandon; Wilhelmina Frederica 
 married her half-cousin, the Eev. Edward 
 Gurdon. 
 
 Mrs. Frere was said by Madame Catalani * 
 to be the best unprofessional singer in England. 
 
 Edward Fitzgerald (" Letters and Literary 
 Remains of Edward Fitzgerald ") writes to 
 Frederic Tennyson in 1829: "For the last 
 week I have been staying with Spring-Rice's 
 mother-in-law, Mrs. Frere, one of the finest 
 judges of music I know. She was a very 
 fine singer. We used to look over the score 
 of ' Don Giovanni ' together, and many a 
 mystery and mastery of composition did she 
 show me in it." 
 
 * Catalan! the singer, whose English was very funny, used 
 to call a learned lady " a stocking blue." 
 
MASTERS 87 
 
 In his preface to the above work, Wilham 
 Aldis Wright says : 
 
 " I cannot refrain from quoting some 
 recollections of the late Archdeacon Groome. 
 ..." What pleasant talk I have had about 
 the singers of our early years ; never forget- 
 ting to speak of Mrs. Frere of Downing as 
 the most perfect private singer we had ever 
 heard. And so indeed she was. Who that 
 had ever heard her sing Handers songs can 
 forget the purity of her phrasing and the 
 pathos of her voice ? She had no particle 
 of vanity in her, and yet she would say, " Of 
 course I can sing Handel. I was a pupil of 
 John Sail, and he was a pupil of Handel." ' " 
 
 Mrs. Frere's popularity and social influ- 
 ence in Cambridge may be inferred from the 
 following anecdote. When, in 1848, an 
 undergraduate relative accompanied her to 
 rather a grand concert, at which she arrived 
 very late — a usual habit which earned her 
 the title of the " late Mrs. Frere " — to his 
 astonishment, all the men and two-thirds of 
 
88 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 the ladies immediately arose and proffered 
 their seats. 
 
 Mrs. Frere took great interest in agricul- 
 ture and especially in arboriculture; many 
 of the trees in the Downing College grounds 
 and on the Downing Estate were planted 
 under her directions. She is still remem- 
 bered on her father's Suffolk estate as 
 " Madam Frere." Mr. Brampton Gurdon, of 
 Assington, Colchester, once asked an old 
 woman at Grundisburgh, who said she had 
 known her well, whether she had ever heard 
 her sing. " Sing ? " she replied : " No ; but 
 I've seen her take a gun and go a-shooting 
 in Walnut Tree Wood." 
 
 Her father, who was sixty-five when she was 
 born, was Member of Parliament for Norfolk. 
 She had in consequence the privilege of 
 bespeaking her own plays two nights a week 
 at Norwich Theatre ; so it came about that 
 through her the hitherto unheard-of experi- 
 ment of private theatricals took place in 
 Downing College Hall. 
 
MASTERS 89 
 
 In July 1814, Mrs. Siddons was invited 
 to give a Shakespeare reading before the 
 University. Being the guest of Serjeant and 
 Mrs. Frere, she afterwards recited the Dagger 
 Scene from *' Macbeth " in their drawing- 
 room; but marred the climax by producing 
 from her belt at '' this which now I draw " — 
 her spectacle case ! 
 
 Her visit, though in July, was so success- 
 ful that she wrote "Cambridge in vacation 
 is better than Oxford in term time." 
 
 In the Autobiography of Dean Merivale, 
 edited by his daughter (London, 1898), we 
 are told that the Freres inherited the famous 
 Paston Letters from Lady Fenn. They were 
 found in their house at Dungate by their son 
 Howard. Their authenticity has been doubted. 
 
 During Mrs. Frere's time a "salon" was 
 established at the Lodge; she and the 
 Master were friends of Canning, and both 
 were younger and moved in a much wider 
 sphere of social life than the other Heads of 
 Houses and their wives. 
 
90 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 The Cambridge Chronicle of Friday, Nov. 5, 
 1813, has the following announcement : 
 " On Wednesday the Master of Sidney and 
 the Master of Downing (Serjeant Frere) were 
 put in nomination by the Heads of Colleges 
 for the Vice- Chancellorship, being the two 
 senior in degree of those Heads who had not 
 served the office ; and yesterday the Master 
 of Sidney was elected by the Senate. Con- 
 siderable doubt existed whether the rank of 
 the Master of Downing as a Serjeant-at-law 
 ought to give him a priority according to the 
 usage of the University or the superior 
 degree of the Master of Sidney as a Bachelor 
 of Divinity. The prevalent opinion appears 
 to have been in favour of the academical 
 degree." 
 
 Serjeant Frere died in 1836. The next 
 Master, the Rev. Thomas Worsley, D.D., 
 F.G.S., was born in July 1797 ; he presided 
 over the College foi; forty-nine years, dying 
 in February 1885. He came of a good old 
 family, the Worsleys, or De Workesley, who 
 
MASTERS 91 
 
 had long been settled at Hovingham Hall in 
 the North Riding of Yorkshire. Their original 
 seat was in Lancashire, where lands over 
 which they still retain manorial rights were 
 held by them at the time of the compilation 
 of Domesday Book. Dr. Worsley's mother 
 was a daughter of Sir Thomas Cay ley, Bart. 
 The Master could also trace descent in the 
 female line through the Franklands of 
 Thirkleby, to Frances, fourth daughter of 
 Oliver Cromwell. He spent his boyhood at 
 his father's Rectory of Stonegrave, close by 
 Hovingham, on the edge of the North 
 Riding moorlands. Here he became an adept 
 in country sports. A keen and daring rider, 
 a skilful fisherman, a good shot, an active 
 cricketer, and a remarkably graceful skater, 
 he was ever deeply interested in out-of-door 
 life enjoyments. Even when Vice-Chancellor 
 he still enjoyed the reputation of being the 
 best skater and the boldest rider in Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 In 1816 Thomas Worsley entered at 
 
92 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Trinity, where he became a foundation 
 scholar. His studies were mainly classical, 
 and the Classical Tripos had not then been 
 established, but he took his degree in 1820 
 as third Senior Optime. He continued to 
 reside at Trinity as Bachelor Scholar until 
 1822. He competed for a Fellowship; but, 
 in consequence of there being only a single 
 vacancy, he proved unsuccessful. During his 
 Trinity residence he lived on intimate terms 
 with Sedgwick, Whewell, Peacock, Thirlwall 
 and Julius Hare — men whose regard for him 
 terminated only with their lives. Mozley 
 and the two Hares were men of conversation 
 who won their ground by the wonderful life 
 and vivacity of their talk ; and of Worsley, 
 their friend, it may be said that some of his 
 fascination and influence was due to the 
 same cause. 
 
 In 1822 he was appointed one of the 
 Travelling Bachelors. In that capacity he 
 visited Italy, devoting himself to the study 
 of art, especially of the Italian Masters, and 
 
MASTERS 93 
 
 acquiring a practical knowledge which he 
 afterwards turned to excellent account in 
 guiding the management of the Fitzwilliam 
 Collections. His companions in travel were 
 Augustus Hare — who in one of his published 
 letters speaks of him as " the brother of my 
 soul" — Julius Hare, and Walter Savage 
 Landor at Florence. At Rome the friends 
 became intimate with Bunsen and Thor- 
 valdsen. This first visit to Italy left its 
 impression on his whole life, and among all 
 his varied interests the love of art was 
 probably that from which he derived the 
 keenest enjoyment. It was no doubt during 
 this residence amongst the treasures of the 
 Italian galleries that he developed that 
 artistic skill which ultimately rendered him, 
 in the opinion of competent judges, probably 
 the best amateur landscape painter in 
 England. Even when his seventieth year 
 was passed he continued to use the artist's 
 brush. In 1824 Worsley was elected to a 
 Fellowship at Downing, succeeding to the 
 
94 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Fellowship held by Mr. Eolfe,'* afterwards 
 Lord Cranworth. On his election he left 
 Italy. Twelve years later, in 1836, he was 
 appointed Master. Mr. Power, a Fellow, 
 appealed against the appointment. His objec- 
 tion, in part a question whether by the 
 Statutes a clerical Fellow was eligible for the 
 Mastership, had some weight, as the Lord 
 Chancellor ordered the College to pay 
 Mr. Power's costs. Mr. Power's counsel. 
 Sir John Campbell, stated that, while con- 
 tending that Mr. Worsley was not a bonus 
 socius in the technical meaning of the term, 
 he did not mean to throw any aspersion upon 
 his social gifts, which were of the highest 
 order. 
 
 Dr. Whewell, who interested himself in 
 Worsley 's election on that occasion, has given 
 the following account of him : " Worsley is a 
 person of very conciliatory character, very 
 great accomplishments, and very desirous of 
 making the College more effective for the 
 purposes of good education than it has yet 
 
MASTERS 95 
 
 been. There are few persons of whose 
 religious principles and right intentions I 
 think so highly ; and he is a general 
 favourite, both for his literary and conver- 
 sational endowments." 
 
 In 1837 he served the office of Vice- 
 Chancellor. Her Majesty the Queen and the 
 Prince Consort visited Downing College in 
 1847, in Dr. Worsley's year of office. 
 
 Wordsworth wrote the following lines about 
 this final visit of the Queen to Cambridge : 
 
 In our old collegiate bowers, 
 
 Where science, leagued with holier truth. 
 
 Guards the sacred heart of youth, 
 Solemn monitors are ours. 
 
 These reverend aisles, these hallowed bowers. 
 
 Raised by many a hand august. 
 Are haunted by majestic powers, 
 
 The memories of the wise and just. 
 Who, faithful to their pious trust. 
 
 Here in the Founders' spirit sought, 
 
 To mould and stamp the ore of thought 
 Not in vain those sages taught, 
 
 True disciples, good as great. 
 
 Have pondered here their country's weal 
 
96 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Weighed the Future by the Past, 
 Learned how social frames may last, 
 And how a land may rule its fate 
 By constancy inviolate. 
 
 He Is stated to have been remarkable for 
 the graceful manner in which he blended 
 athletic amusements with the dignity of 
 that responsible position. Mi*. G. Ticknor, 
 the American, the historian of Spanish lite- 
 rature, met Worsley at dinner at Peter- 
 house in 1837, and remarked that the Vice- 
 Chancellor Worsley, Master of Downing, " is 
 more of a belles lettres scholar and knows 
 more continental literature than is com- 
 monly found in these cloistered establish- 
 ments." When Worsley was Vice-Chan- 
 cellor, the Professorship of Moral Philo- 
 sophy became vacant. The electors were 
 a small body of whom the Vice-Chancellor 
 was the most important. Worsley 's friends 
 wished him to accept the office, but he 
 put forth all his influence on behalf of 
 Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity. The latter 
 
MASTERS 97 
 
 after his election dedicated the two inau- 
 gural lectures to Worsley in the following 
 terms : 
 
 " To the Eev. Thomas Worsley, M.A., Master 
 of Downing College. 
 
 " My dear Worsley, 
 
 " I think you already know that, in my 
 opinion, one of the greatest pleasures which 
 the writing of books brings is, that we may 
 make them memorials of our most cherished 
 friendships. The few pages now before you 
 I have peculiar and paramount reasons for 
 dedicating to you. It is through your 
 kindness that I hold the Professorship in 
 virtue of which these lectures were delivered ; 
 for the encouragement which you gave me 
 when the vacancy occurred (you being, as 
 Vice-Chancellor, one of the electors) princi- 
 pally induced me to offer myself as a 
 candidate for the office. Yet the sub- 
 ject which the Professorship embraces was 
 one which had occupied your own thoughts 
 
98 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 so much, that the vacancy might readily 
 have suggested other wishes to a person 
 who thought more of himself and less of 
 others. To yourself and the other excellent 
 and valued friends who concurred in my 
 election, my acknowledgments are due, for 
 the good opinion implied in your suffrages. 
 As the present publication may serve to show, 
 I have endeavoured to make the appoint- 
 ment effective towards the furtherance of 
 the study of Moral Philosophy among us. 
 
 '' I reflect with the more pleasure on this 
 act of kindness on your part, because it is 
 only one among many manifestations of a 
 friendship which it has been my happiness 
 to enjoy during almost the whole course of 
 my University life ; which is still a constant 
 source of gratification to me ; and which will, 
 I trust, never be interrupted. 
 
 " With all cordial good wishes, believe me, 
 " My dear Worsley, 
 
 *' Affectionately yours, 
 
 '•W. WHEWELL." 
 
MASTERS 99 
 
 In 1838 his brother William received a 
 baronetcy, the title which had been in an- 
 other branch of the Worsleys having become 
 extinct. 
 
 On July 14, 1840, there was a meeting of 
 the Royal Agricultural Society in Cambridge, 
 and a dinner was given in a large temporary 
 building in the College Court, 2600 being 
 present. Seven years later in Worsley's 
 Mastership, on July 6, on the occasion of the 
 installation of the Prince Consort as Chan- 
 cellor, a Horticultural Show was held in 
 the College grounds, at which the Queen was 
 present. Upwards of 10,000 tickets had 
 been sold, and we read in Professor Babington's 
 Journal that "many people got in without 
 tickets, either over the fences or through the 
 gates, which were forced open by the press." 
 
 On his election to a Fellowship the Master 
 had taken Holy Orders. In 1826 he was 
 presented to Scawton, his fathers rectory, 
 which he held till 1881. In 1844, Dr. Worsley 
 was appointed Christian Advocate of the 
 
 I 
 
100 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 University — an office now abolished, its 
 emoluments being merged in those of the 
 Hulsean Divinity Professorship. One of the 
 conditions of the tenure of the office was that 
 the Christian Advocate should publish in 
 each year a book in defence of the Christian 
 Faith. This office he held for six years ; and 
 the lectures which he delivered while holding it 
 form the substance of his work, " The Province 
 of the Intellect in Religion, deduced from our 
 Lord's Sermon on the Mount." 
 
 With respect to this side of Dr. Worsley's 
 work, it may be said with confidence that 
 the whole leisure of his remaining years 
 of life (interrupted only by the publication 
 of his ' Christian Drift of Cambridge Work ') 
 was devoted to the elaboration of his analysis 
 of the Structure of the Scriptures. But he 
 forbore to publish any further fruits of his 
 inquiry until at last, after thirty more years 
 of unremitting thought, he had convinced 
 himself that the recurrences, throughout the 
 Bible, of that definite and complex arrange- 
 
MASTERS 101 
 
 merit which he had generalised were so 
 numerous and so unvarying that, in his own 
 words, *'the scientific improbability of their 
 taking place by chance differs but imper- 
 ceptibly from a scientific impossibility." In 
 the hope that he had thus obtained a new 
 basis of faith, and a new organon of theo- 
 logical science, he watched with keen but 
 undismayed interest that conflict between 
 the old forms of belief and the speculations 
 of recent criticism and philosophy, which 
 Coleridge, in a farewell interview at High- 
 gate, had warned him that he would live to 
 see, and had charged him to bear a part in. 
 Realising to the full, as he did, the craving 
 of modern minds for clearer and more definite 
 manifestations of the Divine ; for, as he 
 said, "something beyond even outward and 
 historic miracles, something which may be to 
 us as the authentic and articulate voice of 
 God, speaking to each man's own spirit," he 
 nerved himself, at the age of fourscore, to 
 give the world his answer to its craving. 
 
102 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 But to connect and condense the results of 
 more than half a century of continuous 
 inquiry was too protracted a task for failing 
 sight and varying health. This lifelong in- 
 vestigation of the letter of the Bible is the 
 reason why Professor Plumptre, in his sketch 
 of Julius Hare's friends, describes Dr. 
 Worsley as 
 
 " One well skilled to trace 
 The deep thoughts lying hid in homely words, 
 The secret treasure of the word Divine ! " 
 
 A good portrait in oils of him in middle 
 life is owned by Mr. Webster of Begent Street, 
 for many years the College Butler. This 
 portrait conveys a stronger impression of 
 active energy than the later one by Bich- 
 mond in the College Hall. 
 
 On June 20, 1842, Dr. Worsley married 
 Katharine, daughter of Stansfeld Bawson, 
 Esq., of Wastdale Hall, Cumberland. No 
 children survived. The tender devotion of 
 the wife was the brightness of the Master's 
 life, and her sweet and gracious presence lent 
 
MASTERS lOS 
 
 a rare charm to the hospitality of Downing 
 Lodge. She died a few days after the Master, 
 In 1 885. Professor Hort wrote : " Mrs. Worsley 
 had no desire to live after her husband ; and 
 God has mercifully spared her that forlorn 
 misery. She passed away in sleep. You 
 will always remember the beautiful dignity 
 of her face. It is a real possession for life to 
 have had such a vision. She was a most 
 devoted wife." 
 
 WiUiam Lloyd Birkbeck, M.A., Q.C., was 
 born in 1807. In some respects he was a 
 contrast to Dr. Worsley, who had been- a 
 Tory of the Tories; whereas Professor 
 Birkbeck was one of the original members of 
 the Reform Club (and also a member of the 
 Athenaeum). His father's likeness is to be 
 found in the picture of the Great Reform 
 Banquet. Professor Birkbeck was a pro- 
 minent supporter of the Birkbeck Institution 
 in Chancery Lane ; succeeding his father (Dr. 
 George Birkbeck, its founder) as President 
 in 1841. In 1823, when this Institution was 
 
104 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 founded, there was no provision for Evening 
 Education in London. This Institution was 
 the pioneer of a movement which rapidly- 
 extended over the country, was copied in the 
 Colonies, and was the father of the Evening 
 Colleges and Polytechnics, now so well appre- 
 ciated. Dr. Birkbeck's words at the laying 
 of the foundation-stone have proved prophetic. 
 He said : " We are about to erect a temple to 
 the increase of knowledge, to the diffusion of 
 the riches of the mind, to the amelioration of 
 the human intellect ; we are founding an 
 Institution for the improvement of the noblest 
 faculties of man ; one to which the invitation 
 shall be as universal as the dominion of 
 knowledge, to the highest and humblest, 
 alike and equal." The liberal spirit which 
 had been thus stamped by its founder on the 
 Birkbeck Institution was sedulously main- 
 tained. So we are not surprised to learn 
 that here for the first time classes were 
 opened to women ; and that long before the 
 days of the women's degrees question at 
 
MASTERS 105 
 
 Cambridge, at the Birkbeck both sexes 
 attended the same lectures. By an enlight- 
 ened management this Institution has been 
 steadily brought into touch with each new- 
 educational movement, and now has as many 
 students as a small university. Professor 
 Birkbeck's courteous tact is still remembered 
 by some of the senior office-bearers. 
 
 Professor W; L. Birkbeck's mother was 
 Katharine, youngest daughter of Mr. Sampson 
 Lloyd, and he was her eldest son. He became 
 a Scholar of Trinity in 1826, ninth Wrangler 
 in 1830, and Fellow of Trinity in the same 
 year, on the first occasion on which he was 
 eligible. His private tutor Hopkins said that 
 an abler man had never come under his 
 tuition. He was a member of '* The Family," 
 a select company of bon vivants and savants — 
 a still existing club — where his charming 
 manner and great conversational gifts were 
 appreciated to the full. In his later days he 
 often spoke of the changes he had witnessed ; 
 how he had come up by the Times coach and 
 
106 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 had to book his seat at least fourteen days 
 previously, how the Little Go had been an 
 examination of one day, how in his time the 
 Integral Calculus had been in its infancy, 
 how much the high places in the mathe- 
 matical tripos depended on the chance of 
 having obtained a sight of MSS. circulated 
 by the coaches, and how problems were given 
 out from the gallery of the Senate House. 
 
 Professor Birkbeck was called to the Bar 
 by the Society of the Inner Temple in 1834, 
 and practised as a conveyancer and in the 
 Equity Courts. In 1836 he travelled in 
 Turkey and Greece, and ever afterwards he 
 took a keen interest in Eastern politics, 
 especially in those of Poland, as his sister 
 had married a Polish gentleman. In 1841 
 he became Secretary to the " Literary Asso- 
 ciation of the Friends of Poland." His funeral 
 at Kensal Green was consequently attended 
 by a Polish deputation. 
 
 During the Crimean War he suggested a 
 measure for preventing Russia from raising 
 
 I 
 
MASTERS 107 
 
 funds in England during the campaign. To 
 this end a Bill was drawn up by him and 
 moved by his friend Lord Dudley Stuart, 
 another of the Polish sympathisers. This 
 Bill was opposed by Bright, but was strongly 
 supported by Lord Palmerston, and was 
 passed with modifications in 1854. It stands 
 on the statute book as " An Act to render 
 any dealing with securities issued by the 
 Russian Government, during the present 
 war between Russia and England, a mis- 
 demeanour" (17 and 18 Vict. c. 123). It 
 undoubtedly hastened the conclusion of the 
 war. This reminds us of another instance 
 of legislation due to a Downing man, in much 
 more recent days. Ever since the reign of 
 George 11. a policy had prevailed in English 
 Law of forbidding testators to give any landed 
 property to charities by their last wills. Dr. 
 Courtney Kenny's book on "Endowed Chari- 
 ties " (London, 1880) contained an elaborate 
 argument against this prohibition. We have 
 reason to know that the currency which Dr. 
 
108 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Kenny's book had obtained in official circles 
 had a direct influence in bringing about the 
 introduction in 1891, of the Mortmain and 
 Charitable Uses Bill, which was carried 
 through Parliament by Lord Herschell ; 
 under which any land may be given by will 
 to any charitable use (but must be sold 
 within one year after the death of the tes- 
 tator for the benefit of the Charity). This 
 Act accordingly has produced, as has been 
 said by Lord Justice Lindley, " a total revo- 
 lution in the law, a total departure from 
 anterior legislation, and a wholly new direc- 
 tion of thought." 
 
 From 1852, for twenty years. Professor 
 Birkbeck was Beader in Equity at Lincoln's 
 Inn. Snell's " Principles of Equity" is in great 
 part a reproduction of these lectures. A 
 remarkable proof of the value of the Pro- 
 fessor's materials and method is that this 
 work is now in its twelfth edition. In the 
 preface Snell speaks with gratitude of the 
 great help he had received from the '' lectures 
 
MASTERS 109 
 
 of that able and distinguished Master, Mr. 
 Birkbeck." 
 
 In 1860 he was elected to the Downing 
 Professorship, and retained it till his death. 
 For the most part he gave lectures on Real 
 and Personal Property. On Saturday, Jan. 26, 
 1861, Professor Birkbeck began a course 
 of lectures to the Prince of Wales. The 
 Professor describes the Prince as "a very 
 nice-looking, fair-haired boy." The Prince 
 was then a little over nineteen. The legal 
 friend to whom Professor Birkbeck bequeathed 
 his MSS. has permitted the publishing of the 
 following passage describing the first of these 
 lectures : " The Prince shook hands cordially 
 with me. I said, ' I feel much honoured by 
 seeing your Boyal Highness in my house.' 
 We sat down. He and his tutor, Mr. Herbert 
 Fisher, took out their note-books, and I spoke 
 a little lecture on the countries subject to the 
 laws of England. When I was nearly au 
 hout de mon Latin, I asked whether I should 
 proceed to another subject ; but Mr. Fisher 
 
110 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 requested that I should recapitulate. This I 
 did. They then took their leave and are to 
 come again on Tuesday." 
 
 The Professor also mentions having had a 
 lengthy interview with the Prince Consort 
 about the education of the Prince of Wales. 
 He writes : 
 
 " 1861, April 2. — Had a long conversation 
 this afternoon at Windsor Castle with the 
 Prince Consort (at the wish of His Eoyal 
 Highness) on the subject of the studies of 
 the Prince of Wales. The Prince Consort 
 spoke with great animation and freedom. 
 After some general remarks on the study of 
 law — in which he said he found it very 
 interesting — he asked to what branches of 
 law the Prince's studies had been directed. 
 Had he heard about Criminal Law, Trial by 
 Jury and the Law of Evidence ? To this I 
 replied, "Yes; and the general nature oi 
 offences." 
 
 Whereupon the Prince Consort said : " I am 
 desirous that heshould study Constitutional 
 
MASTERS 111 
 
 Law. He should understand his position as 
 [Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales is 
 identified with the Sovereign, and is never a 
 minor; therefore the attainment of twenty- 
 pne may not make so much difierence in his 
 )osition as in that of other young men. He 
 ihould understand he is placed in an excep- 
 tional position, not for his own sake, but for 
 bhe benefit of the nation. There may be 
 many things which other young men may do, 
 and which are quite innocent in themselves, 
 but which would be injurious in him. The 
 clergy are an example of men suddenly placed 
 in an exceptional position. There are many 
 things, innocent in themselves, as dancing, 
 which would be unbecoming in clergymen. 
 This is because of the effect that might be 
 produced on an auditor who remembered that 
 the night before he had observed the preacher 
 dancing." 
 
 I said I thought the observation a very good 
 one. 
 The Prince Consort went on to remark : 
 
112 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 " He should thoroughly understand the posi- 
 tion of the Prince of Wales towards the 
 Sovereign and the other branches of the 
 Royal Family. 
 
 ''He may meet with companions who may 
 tell him that he ought not to be under the 
 control of his mother. 
 
 " Then he should understand the provisions 
 of the Royal Marriage Act, and the reasons 
 on which it is founded. The evils which have 
 resulted from ill-considered alliances of the 
 Royal Family — through private families 
 having pretensions to the Crown — as the 
 Wars of the Roses. 
 
 "He should feel that the Royal Family 
 possess numerous advantages. They receive 
 large sums from the nation. Their marriages 
 are matters of national concern. Portions are 
 given them by laws, not by settlements. The 
 nation is interested in the Royal Family, so 
 that even their households are regulated by 
 Parliament. And the nation is interested in 
 preserving the honour of the Royal Family 
 
 I 
 
MASTERS 113 
 
 unimpaired. In consequence of this, the 
 Sovereign has several times insisted on the 
 dismissal of particular individuals. 
 
 *' The Prince of Wales ought thoroughly to 
 understand his position as a Constitutional 
 Sovereign. In this connection the maxim, 
 *A king can do no wrong,' is practically 
 untrue — Edward II. and Richard II., who 
 were set aside by Parliament, are instances of 
 this. 
 
 " It is generally said," the Prince Consort 
 went on to remark, '* that the House of 
 Commons represents the people, and the 
 House of Lords the landed int^est. This 
 is incorrect. I will tell you," said the 
 Prince Consort, " my opinion (though I do 
 not wish you to tell the Prince anything you 
 do not believe). The landed interest is as 
 much represented by the House of Commons 
 as by the House of Lords. The Sovereign 
 really represents the people. The people 
 desires to see itself reflected in the Sovereign, 
 and loves it by a species of self-worship, as 
 
 H 
 
114 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 if a person should fall in love with his own 
 reflection in a looking-glass. 
 
 " Why did the people testify so much sym- 
 pathy for the loss of the poor Duchess of Kent ? 
 Because they desire to see about the throne 
 the same relations as exist in every cottage in 
 the kingdom. So in matters of religion, it 
 would produce a painful effect if the Royal 
 Family abstained from attending public 
 worship. 
 
 "... The Sovereign is held answerable by 
 the people for the success or failure of Govern- 
 ment. You may watch the fluctuations of 
 loyalty like the movements of the barometer. 
 
 " It is said that the only time at which the 
 Sovereign directly exercises power is during 
 the brief interval between two Ministries. 
 This is not correct. Nothing is less free to 
 the Crown than the choice of Ministers. In 
 fact, it generally can be predicted out of 
 doors who will be Ministers. But at other 
 times the Crown exercises great influence by 
 its use of patronage. 
 
MASTERS 115 
 
 "Foreign sovereigns govern by means of 
 their police; and are constantly deceived. 
 Police agents, in order to give themselves 
 importance, exaggerate. I have maintained 
 the excellence of Constitutional Government 
 against them frequently. The Prince may be 
 brought into contact with foreign sovereigns, 
 and should be able to state the reasons in 
 favour of Constitutional Government. 
 
 " The Emperor Napoleon has to some extent 
 united the two. He cheats the people by 
 telling them that, his power being based on 
 universal suffrage, the Constitution is more 
 liberal than any other. And he tells the 
 sovereigns that, the throne being once estab- 
 lished, the people have nothing more to do in 
 the government. 
 
 " He governs through the police, and does 
 not take very great part in the management 
 of offices. 
 
 " I once compared notes with him on first 
 going to Boulogne. 
 
 "The Queen transacts far more public 
 
116 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 business than he. I do not think that there 
 is any clerk in a public office who works as 
 hard as the Queen. 
 
 " The Prince should be encouraged to dili- 
 gence. In order to be happy he must work. 
 
 ** . . . Then the constitution of the Cabinet 
 Council should be explained to him. The 
 Cabinet Council is too large and too small. 
 It is a disadvantage that the debates are not 
 carried on in the presence of the Sovereign. 
 Only the result of the deliberation is com- 
 municated to the Sovereign; and may be 
 insufficiently expressed. 
 
 " The remedy formerly was that the Sove- 
 reign was informed of all that passed by one 
 or two members of the Cabinet who held 
 briefs for the Sovereign. This was the cause 
 of the frequent breaking up of Cabinets in the 
 reigns of George II. and George III. ; as we 
 now know by the memoirs. 
 
 "During the present reign all communication 
 has taken place through the Prime Minister. 
 Thus the hands of the Prime Minister have 
 
MASTERS 117 
 
 been strengthened in a greater extent than 
 had ever been done previously. This is the 
 meaning of various occurrences, however much 
 they may have been misrepresented by news- 
 papers. The First Lord of the Treasury as 
 Prime Minister is not a recognised constitu- 
 tional officer." 
 
 Professor Birkbeck then asked, " Could the 
 old constitution of the Privy Council be 
 returned to with advantage ? " 
 
 Prince Consort: ** Not the old constitu- 
 tion ; but the constitution might be re- 
 modelled. And this can be done by the 
 Sovereign, as it is mere matter of usage. 
 
 " The failure which took place in the last 
 great war — I do not mean the war of the 
 Crimea — was through the want of some one 
 to conduct the operations of war. 
 
 '* Perhaps no one was more unfit to con- 
 duct a war than Mr. Pitt. 
 
 " A number of gentlemen — the ablest men 
 ^ in the country, it is true — meet together and 
 B determine that war shall be made, without 
 
 P 
 
118 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 considering by what means war is to be 
 carried on. 
 
 " The expedition to the Crimea was so 
 decided on. 
 
 " It was not the army which was in fault, 
 but the Horse Guards. 
 
 " Lord Hardinge suggested that there were 
 many things wanting — hospitals, ambulances, 
 means of transport. 
 
 " The same thing will occur again. 
 
 " We have an expensive army and navy, 
 as well as militia and volunteers ; but neither 
 the army nor the navy have any effective 
 reserves. 
 
 " The men are excellent, and will do their 
 best. 
 
 " To man the navy there is only the press- 
 gang ; which cannot be used, and yet must be 
 used in the event of a war breaking out." 
 
 Prof. BiRKBECK : " Is there no remedy for 
 this state of things ? " 
 
 Prince Consort : '' Nothing could be 
 easier — you have a sort of conscription in 
 
MASTERS 119 
 
 the militia, make it the reserve of the 
 army. 
 
 *'The arguments usually addressed 
 aofainst it are that the militia is a constitu- 
 tional force ; and that the loss of many men 
 from one village would produce too deep an 
 impression. 
 
 '* They are of little weight compared with 
 those on the opposite side." 
 
 The Professor received as personal gifts 
 from the Prince of Wales a silver inkstand 
 (with a suitable inscription), and also a por- 
 trait of the Prince. There is a pathetic 
 interest about the following entry in the 
 Professor's diary, happening as it does at the 
 time of the death of the Prince Consort : 
 
 ^'Friday, December 13, 1861. — Dined at 
 Madingley. Bishop of Worcester and others. 
 Sat next to Mrs. Bruce, and opposite Prince 
 of Wales. During dinner General Bruce left 
 the table for some time, then came to the 
 Prince with a piece of paper in his hand, on 
 which he wrote with a pencil. Left about 
 
120 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 the usual hour. Just before we went away, 
 Fisher informed me that the Prince could not 
 come to be lectured at my house next morn- 
 ing, as had been arranged — that a telegram 
 had arrived announcing that the Prince Con- 
 sort was seriously ill, and that the Prince 
 would go up by a special train that night. 
 
 ^^ Sunday, December 15. — A letter from 
 General Bruce stating that the Prince Con- 
 sort had been very ill but was better. 
 
 " A despatch soon arrived in the morning, 
 about eleven o'clock, for the Vice-Chancellor, 
 announcing the death of the Prince Consort 
 on the day before." 
 
 In 1885 he was unanimously elected 
 Master. He continued to hold his Professor- 
 ship along with the Mastership, remaining in 
 his professorial lodge. Soon afterwards he 
 took silk. He was the author of articles on 
 Poland and the Danubian Principalities, and 
 of papers on the Eeform and Codification of 
 the Law of Nations, and of a small work 
 entitled " Historical Sketch of the Distribu- 
 
MASTERS in 
 
 tion of Land in England." A work on 
 political economy, which had long occupied 
 his attention and of which a small portion 
 was already in type, remained unfinished at 
 his death, and has never been published. 
 
 In the Autobiography of Dean Merivale, 
 from which we have already made one quota- 
 tion, there are several references to our 
 Master Birkbeck at the time when he and 
 Dean Merivale were undergraduates. On 
 page 67 of this work we read ''My first 
 evening was spent with the Wordsworths 
 at the Master's Lodge at Trinity. Charles 
 Wordsworth [he became Bishop of St. An- 
 drew's] was my old Harrow friend, and was 
 of Christ Church Oxford, Christopher [he 
 became Bishop of Lincoln], his younger 
 brother, had just entered at Trinity. They 
 had got together a dozen freshmen, John 
 Frere, Birkbeck, and others whom I forget, 
 and we passed together one of those hours 
 of fabulous felicity when young men meet 
 B together, perhaps for the first time, with 
 
im DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 some common friend as a centre of interest, 
 and the common aspirations of a new career 
 before them." We can understand therefore, 
 how rich must have been the experience 
 which directed much of the briUiant conver- 
 sation in the Downing Combination Room 
 when the Master occupied his accustomed 
 chair by the fireside. Another quotation 
 from page 151 of the same work lends sup- 
 port to our view, for we find Dean Merivale 
 writing, "The bachelors have instituted a 
 society, the members being Wordsworth, 
 Birkbeck, Steel [he became Mathematical 
 Master at Harrow], Blakeley [he became 
 Dean of Lincoln], Merivale and others — ^to be 
 called the ' Hermathense.' Do you give it up ? 
 That is which is to combine writing and talking 
 according to the most approved explanation." 
 He died unmarried on May 23, 1888. 
 One who knew him well has described him 
 as " the model of an English gentleman, a 
 man who never made an enemy nor hurt 
 another's feelings." 
 
/ 
 
 MASTERS 123 
 
 Alex Hill, M.A., M.D., present Master 
 of the College, was born at Loughton, Essex, 
 1856. He was a son of John Hill, Esq., 
 of Beech House, Loughton. After obtaining 
 part of his early education at University 
 College School, he studied for a short time at 
 University College, where he was awarded 
 the gold medal for Practical Chemistry. In 
 1874 he obtained an Entrance Scholarship at 
 Downing College. He was prominent in the 
 first class of the Natural Science Tripos in 
 1877, being distinguished in Botany, Zoo- 
 logy, Comparative Anatomy, Human Anatomy 
 and Physiology. As a B.A. he obtained an 
 Exhibition at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 
 devoted himself to the study of medicine and 
 surgery. In 1882 he took the degree of M.B. 
 at Cambridge, and in 1886 that of M.D. He 
 was elected Fellow of his College in 1882; filled 
 the office of Hunterian Professor of the Royal 
 College of Surgeons in 1885 and 1886; and 
 was for eight years chief Demonstrator of 
 Anatomy, first under Professor, afterwards 
 
124 DOAVNING COLLEGE 
 
 Sir George Humphry, and subsequently under 
 Professor Macalister. He is still Univer- 
 sity Lecturer in Advanced Anatomy. On 
 various occasions he has served as examiner 
 for the M.B. degree at Cambridge, and for 
 the Natural Science Tripos ; and for a while 
 the University of Glasgow availed itself of 
 his services to examine its students in 
 Anatomy. Meanwhile he published many 
 papers in the Philosophical Transactions of 
 the Royal Society, the Journal of Anatomy 
 and Physiology, the British Medical Journal, 
 Brain, &c. ; and his " Physiologist's Note- 
 book*' and "Plan of the Central Nervous 
 System " made him known to a large number 
 of students. 
 
 Dr. Hill was therefore no obscure and 
 untried man when chosen as Master of 
 Downing College in June 1888, by the 
 unanimous vote of the electors. Though the 
 youngest Head of a House in Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge, he speedily made his influence felt in 
 every direction. Steps were taken to improve 
 
 A 
 
MASTERS 125 
 
 the condition of the College estates, and the 
 Master was soon as well known to the 
 villagers who lived on the land of the College 
 as to the undergraduates within its walls. 
 Nor was his activity confined to the affairs of 
 the Foundation over whose fortunes he pre- 
 sided. He pursued his work as University 
 Lecturer, published an annotated translation 
 of Obersteiner's " Central Nervous Organs," 
 and continued to examine in Natural Science. 
 In 1897 Dr. Hill was chosen Vice- Chancellor 
 of the University of Cambridge, and in 1898 
 he was re-elected for another year. His 
 tenure of this high ojfice has been marked by 
 great activity in all departments ; and although 
 it is as yet too early to appraise the results 
 of his Vice- Chancellorship, it will be generally 
 admitted that for tact, dignity, energy, and 
 eloquence he will bear comparison with the 
 most distinguished of his predecessors. His 
 influence is felt far beyond the borders of 
 his University. Dr. Hill has interested him- 
 self deeply in the affairs of the National 
 
126 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Home Heading Union. Since its origination 
 in 1889 he has been chairman of its Executive 
 Committee; and has found time to write 
 numerous papers for its magazines, some of 
 which he has edited. The scholarly notes to 
 its edition of Browning are entirely his work. 
 Within the University the interests of science 
 are his first care ; but he takes no narrow 
 view of education, and fosters literary culture 
 by every means in his power. He believes in 
 diffusing its light among all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men, and constantly gives of his 
 own scanty leisure in order that he may open 
 out to others some glimpses of the wonders 
 of science or the beauties of external nature. 
 He broke into entirely new ground in his 
 latest work, " A Run Round the Empire ; " 
 which was the product of a tour taken with 
 his wife and two children not long before his 
 election as yice-Chancellor. It shows the 
 man of science and of affairs in a light new 
 indeed to the readers of his previous books, 
 but by no means new to his friends, who have 
 
MASTERS 127 
 
 long known him to be an ardent patriot and 
 a keen observer of men. It is read by a 
 wider public than the students of science, 
 and may do much to foster devotion and 
 loyalty to the best traditions of civic virtue 
 and just rule. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PROFESSORS 
 
 Law.— Ed. Christian, M.A., John's, 1800 ; T. Starkie, M.A., 
 Cath., 1823; A, Amos, M.A., Trinity, 1849; W. LI. Birk- 
 beck, M.A., Q.C., Trinity, 1860; F. W. Maitland, M.A., 
 LL.D., Trinity, 1888. 
 
 Medicine. — Busick Harwood, M.D., Emm., 1800 ; Cornwallis 
 Hewett, M.A., Downing, 1814 ; Wm. Webster Fisher, M.D., 
 Downing, 1841 ; Peter Wallwork Latham, M.A., M.D., Down- 
 ing, 1874 ; John Buckley Bradbury, M,D., Caius and Downing, 
 1894. 
 
 Professor Edward Christian, the first 
 Downing Professor of the Laws of England, 
 was third Wrangler in 1779, and Fellow of 
 St. John's College, Cambridge. Christian 
 began in 1785 to lecture at Cambridge on 
 English Law ; and in 1788 he received, by a 
 Grace, ''the title of Professor of the Laws 
 of England until Downing College shall be 
 
PROFESSORS 129 
 
 founded." Annesley is, even then, called 
 " Master of Downing College." 
 
 Jeremy Pemberton, afterwards Chief Jus- 
 tice of Nova Scotia, seems to have lectured, 
 or at least been appointed to lecture, before 
 him; as Christian is appointed to succeed 
 him. 
 
 The Cambridge Chronicle of Friday, 
 November 5, 1813, has the following an- 
 nouncement : " Professor Christian will begin 
 his lectures on the Constitution and the 
 Laws of England on Monday next. Inquire 
 at Mr. Deighton's." 
 
 Christian was one of the counsel for the 
 University against the heirs of Sir Jacob 
 Garrard Downing. He held the appoint- 
 ment of Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely, to 
 which a stipend of £155 was attached; he 
 had been nominated by the Bishop, Dr. James 
 Yorke. In 1836 the temporal jurisdiction 
 exercised within the Isle of Ely by the 
 Bishops ceased. On one occasion a decision 
 of the Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely was 
 
130 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 quoted before Lord EUenborough, a relation 
 of Christian's ; whereupon Lord EUenborough 
 asked the counsel, " Who ruled that ? " To 
 this the reply was, " The Chief Justice of the 
 Isle of Ely, my Lord." And this brought 
 forth the comment, " That judge is only fit 
 to rule a copy-book." 
 
 It was through a book written by Pro- 
 fessor Christian, in which the claim of certain 
 libraries to free copies of new publications 
 was considered, that the University Library 
 finally secured its right to obtain copies of 
 new books. For after the appearance of 
 Christian's statement of the case the claim 
 was not contested. Christian mentions in 
 this work that in 1818 sizars and fellow 
 commoners were not admitted to the Uni- 
 versity Library. But every M.A. might 
 take home ten books, which he could lend to 
 B.A.s or undergraduates, as now. 
 
 Another member of the family was con- 
 nected with the mutiny of the Bounty — 
 Fletcher, Professor Christian's brother. He 
 
PROFESSORS 131 
 
 took the lead in that mutiny, and repHed to 
 the boatswain, who remonstrated with him, 
 in these words : " No, 'tis too late, we've 
 been in hell for this fortnight past, and I 
 am determined to bear it no longer. You 
 know, Mr. Colt, that I've been treated like a 
 dog all the voyage." Byron calls him 
 
 " The bold and forward boy, 
 His chief had cherished only to destroy." 
 
 He is commonly said to have died on 
 Pitcairn's Island, but there is a strange and 
 romantic story of his having returned secretly 
 to England in disguise, visited his people in 
 Cumberland secretly, and died undetected by 
 the law. 
 
 Thomas Starkie, of S. John's College, 
 Downing Professor of Law from 1823 to 
 1849, was educated at Clitheroe Grammar 
 School. Senior Wrangler in 1803, he fur- 
 nishes the only example of a Senior Wrangler 
 who was the son of a Senior Wrangler ; his 
 father, the Kev. T. Starkie, Vicar of Black- 
 
132 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 burn, Lancashire, also of S. John s College, 
 having been Senior Wrangler in 1771. Pro- 
 fessor Starkie was Fellow and Tutor of 
 S. Catharine's College, and afterwards Lec- 
 turer to the Inner Temple. He was called 
 to the Bar in 1810, as a member of Lincoln's 
 Inn, and went the Northern Circuit. He 
 was also University Counsel and Judge of 
 the Clerkenwell Court of Eequests. His 
 help on the Criminal Law Commission was 
 of the greatest possible value. He died at 
 Downing College, April 15, 1849. He wrote 
 on Slander and on Special Pleading ; and a 
 work on the Law of Evidence, of which re- 
 vised editions were published in 1833, 1842, 
 and 1853, and the book has been often re- 
 printed in America. 
 
 The third Downing Professor of Law was 
 Andrew Amos ; who was born in India on 
 July 15, 1791, where his father was a 
 Russian merchant. His mother was the 
 daughter of a Swiss general in the Dutch 
 service. Amos went to Eton and to Trinity 
 
PROFESSORS 133 
 
 College, Cambridge, graduating as fifth 
 Wrangler in 1813. He became Fellow and 
 Auditor of his College. After taking his 
 degree, he travelled in Germany, Russia, and 
 Sweden. He joined the Midland Circuit 
 after being called to the Bar by the Middle 
 Temple. At the Bar he had a large arbitra- 
 tion practice, and also held general retainers 
 for most of the public offices; he was also 
 much employed by the Government in draw- 
 ing Acts of Petition. His attention was also 
 devoted at the Bar to matters relating to 
 the University of Cambridge. In conse- 
 quence of this he received a very rare com- 
 pliment from his University — a piece of plate 
 on which was engraved a Latin inscription, 
 composed by Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln. 
 The inscription stated that the present was 
 made ^^ pro labor e in componendis Academice 
 controversiis feliciter collocatoJ' 
 
 Amos became Recorder of Oxford, Notting- 
 ham, and Banbury. He was also a member 
 of the Commission for revising the Criminal 
 
134 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Law. His authority as a jurist was so well 
 established that he was consulted by the 
 Government of Australia on the matter of 
 the extension of trial by jury in that colony. 
 ^Amos was Professor of English Law at Uni- 
 versity College, London, when Austin was 
 Professor of Jurisprudence. He was a very 
 successful lecturer, having as many as one 
 hundred and fifty in his class. He had also 
 many distinguished private pupils, such as 
 Shaw Lefevre, Vernon-Harcourt (son of the 
 Archbishop), and Lord SujBfield. His bust, 
 presented by his students, is at University 
 College. In 1837, as the following letter 
 shows, he took Lord Macaulay's place in 
 India : 
 
 • "India Board, 
 
 " 24 Augmt, 1837. 
 
 "Sir, 
 
 " The office of Legislative Councillor 
 in the Government of India will become 
 vacant by the retirement of Mr. Macaulay in 
 February 1838, and I beg to offer it to you. 
 
PROFESSORS 135 
 
 By accepting this situation you will confer a 
 benefit on the people of India and a favour 
 upon me. 
 
 *' I have the honour to be, 
 
 " Yours obediently, 
 
 "JOHN HOBHOUSE. 
 
 '' A. Amos, Esq." 
 
 Amos had taught Constitutional Law to 
 Queen Victoria about 1830; this may have 
 led to the Indian appointment. 
 
 For five years Amos exercised his ofiice as 
 one of the four members of the Supreme 
 Council of India. These four, together 
 with the Governor- General, constituted the 
 Government of India. An important part of 
 his work was shaping the Indian Code. 
 
 His complaints of his treatment by Lord 
 EUenborough were debated in the House, 
 but his political opponents won the day. He 
 was made one of the County Court judges 
 (for Brompton, Marylebone, and Brentford) 
 in 1843. He was elected Downing Professor 
 
136 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 in 1848. In taking the Professorship he 
 made some sacrifices, which were compen- 
 sated by the amenities of Cambridge society 
 and by the facihties for Hterary pursuits. 
 As Chairman of Petty Sessions for an exten- 
 sive district of magistrates in Herts, Amos 
 obtained a knowledge of the magisterial duties 
 of a country gentleman which was of great 
 utiHty in the instruction of a large class of 
 his students in the University. 
 
 In his work upon some criminal trials in 
 the reign of James I., he published for the 
 first time many interesting facts which he had 
 extracted from the State Papers. His books 
 are full of interesting antiquarian information, 
 such as the legal history of heirlooms, char- 
 ters, crown jewels, deer, fish — ''things annexed 
 to the freehold " ; that the smith's anvil is 
 not liable to be taken for distress ; that arti- 
 chokes, which cannot be taken without 
 breaking the soil, go to the heir, not to the 
 executor. Then he explains much curious 
 church law ; for example, that if a church 
 
PROFESSORS 137 
 
 is hung in mourning, or scaffoldings are 
 put up in a church on public occasions, all 
 these things become the property of the 
 parson, because he possesses the freehold of 
 the church, on the ground that they are a 
 tacit gift to him ; on the other hand, the 
 churchwardens have a special property in 
 the bell-ropes, while the organ belongs not to 
 the parson but to the parishioners. Amos 
 turned his legal training to a thorough in- 
 vestigation of the Reformation Parliament 
 of Henry VIII. His lectures were almost as 
 good as a contemporary account of those 
 stormy times. He showed the temporal peers 
 yielding to the weighty inducements of 
 marriages of wealthy heirs and heiresses, of 
 gifts from the royal domains (then alienable 
 at the monarch's caprice), of annuities carved 
 from the revenues of Episcopal sees ; while, 
 on the other hand, the spiritual peers, then 
 the majority of the Upper House, are tempted 
 piecemeal by commendams, translations, dis- 
 pensations, embassies, rangerships. The 
 
 L 
 
138 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Records of Parliament are made to depict 
 social events of the day such as the following : 
 Amos tells how Eoose, a cook, had cast a 
 certain venom into a vessel replenished with 
 porridge which was standing in the kitchen 
 of the Bishop of Rochester, whereby seven- 
 teen members of the household had suffered 
 and one had died, and what was left had as 
 usual been distributed among the poor, caus- 
 ing another death. King Henry inwardly 
 abhorring all this, made poisoning high treason 
 by Act of Parliament. In this case Parlia- 
 ment, resting satisfied for the facts with 
 the King's blessed remembrance, did not 
 trouble to examine witnesses ; and enacted 
 that Roose, being a cook, should be boiled to 
 death without benefit of clergy. The miser- 
 able Roose was accordingly boiled to death in 
 Smithfield. 
 
 Amos died in 1860. It was a disappoint- 
 ment to his friends that he was not raised 
 to the peerage. 
 
 An account of Mr. Birkbeck, professor 
 
PROFESSORS 139 
 
 from 1860 to 1888, appears in the chapter on 
 the Masters of the College. 
 
 Frederick WiUiam Maitland, LL.D. (Cam- 
 bridge and Glasgow), was elected in 1888 to 
 succeed Professor Birkbeck. He was edu- 
 cated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 and is a Barrister of Lincoln's Inn. He 
 was Reader of English Law at Cambridge, 
 from 1884 to 1888. He has published 
 "Gloucester Pleas," 1884; "Justice and 
 Police," 1885 ; " Bractons Note-Book," 1887 ; 
 "History of English Law" (with Sir F. 
 Pollock), 1895; "Township and Borough," 
 1897 ; **The Canon Law in England," 1898 ; 
 and divers volumes for the Selden Society. 
 He is a member of the Athenaeum Club. 
 
 Sir Busick Harwood, Knight, M.D., F.R.S., 
 F.S.A., &c., Vice-Master of Downing College, 
 died November 10, 1814; was the second 
 son of John Harwood, of Newmarket. The 
 Harwoods are an old Cambridgeshire family, 
 and have resided at Newmarket and its 
 neighbourhood since the time of Charles II. 
 
140 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 The eldest of the three sons held an official 
 appointment in India ; the youngest was a 
 merchant of Lynn, who afterwards removed 
 to Ely. Sir Busick was put apprentice to an 
 apothecary — the custom in those days — but 
 after a few years, disagreeing with his 
 master, he left him, went to London, passed 
 an examination as a surgeon, and got an 
 appointment in the East Indies. Some 
 nabob having been wounded in the eye, 
 Busick Harwood was consulted, "and rendered 
 the Nabob an essential service, for which he 
 received a very considerable sum." After 
 some experience as a military doctor, he 
 returned to England for his health. He 
 entered at Christ's ; and then went to 
 Emmanuel, *' where he had some good 
 apartments and a garden." In 1785, he 
 became University Professor of Anatomy. 
 Sir Busick married Elizabeth Maria, only 
 daughter of Sir John Peshall, Barfc. (of 
 Horsley, Leicestershire), at St. Botolph's, 
 Cambridge, in July 1798. There was no 
 
PROFESSORS 141 
 
 family. This epigram was made on the duets 
 which the Professor and a knightly friend 
 used to play. It ran : 
 
 Sir Busick, Sir Isaac, 
 
 It would make you and I sick ; 
 
 Sir Isaac, Sir Busick, 
 
 To list to your music. 
 
 Sir Busick Harwood wrote a treatise on 
 the " Use and Abuse of Domestic Medicine." 
 
 The following anecdote throws an interest- 
 ing light on the Social Cambridge of this 
 time ; Sir Busick Harwood, and Mansel, the 
 Master of Trinity and Bishop of Bristol, were 
 not on the best of terms. On one occasion 
 Mansel was at a breakfast party at the Pro- 
 fessor's ; the latter, out of kindness of heart, 
 placed an undergraduate of Trinity, a noble- 
 man, at the same table as the Master of 
 Trinity. After the meal had commenced 
 Mansel got up abruptly and left. Next 
 morning, Sir Busick went to Trinity Lodge 
 to make inquiries. He began : "I am come, 
 my lord, on the part of Lady Harwood and 
 
 I 
 
142 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 myself, to ask " Here the Master broke 
 
 in : " Sir Busick, I am a prelate of the church, 
 heaven knows how unworthy " 
 
 " Heaven does know and so do I," said the 
 knight, as he fled. 
 
 Gunning tells us how, when Sir Busick 
 contemplated marriage, he explained to a 
 friend that the future Lady Harwood had 
 not a great deal of money, but that both 
 were great favourites with old Dr. Glynn, 
 who had plenty, and no one to whom to 
 leave it. In consequence of this, the lady 
 wrote to Dr. Glynn to the effect that Pro- 
 fessor Harwood had made her a proposal of 
 marriage ; that she could not but acknow- 
 ledge that she thought more highly of him 
 than of any other man with whom she 
 was acquainted ; but that, in a matter of 
 such great importance to her future happi- 
 ness, she could not think of accepting his 
 offer till she had asked the advice and re- 
 ceived the approbation of so dear and kind 
 a friend. The doctor's answer was of the 
 
PROFESSORS 143 
 
 briefest ; he merely said that she was of an 
 age to decide for herself, and that he hoped 
 she would decide in such a way as to pro- 
 mote her future happiness. The venerable 
 Dr. Glynn performed the office of father at 
 the marriage, and at his death in 1800 he 
 left them £100 each. 
 
 There is another story of how Sir Busick 
 carried out the following plan, to make his 
 influence more widely known. He called on 
 Kaye, one of the tutors of Christ's College, 
 and a very popular man, and told him '^ the 
 men of Peterhouse are resolved to give me a 
 piece of plate ; but as they are not men of 
 business, they would in all probability make 
 a bungling afiair of it ; and you would do me 
 a great favour if you would consent to be 
 one of the Managing Committee." Kaye 
 assented to this. Then Harwood deals in 
 the same way with Caldwell, tutor of Jesus 
 College, also a very popular man. When 
 these two were secured a very powerful 
 committee was easily formed. When the 
 
144 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 committee met they found it would be need- 
 ful to limit the subscriptions to two guineas. 
 Whereupon a letter was addressed to the 
 committee from " A Member of the Univer- 
 sity," begging that in his particular case the 
 restriction need not be enforced, because 
 this was the only way in which he could 
 evince his gratitude to the Professor. A 
 banknote for £50 was enclosed. It was, on 
 good grounds, thought the Professor was the 
 writer. The majority of the committee 
 decided not to devote the £47 185. to some 
 charity. There seems to be little doubt that 
 the donor's wish was carried out. There 
 is also another, a story which we forbear to 
 quote, about the Professor and the spirits of 
 wine in which he preserved his unsavoury 
 anatomical specimens, and the unsatiable 
 thirst of his bibulous bed-maker. 
 
 Professor Harwood was followed by Dr. 
 Cornwallis Hewett, who was a Trinity man, 
 being eighth Junior Optimein 1809, M.A. in 
 1812, M.D. in 1822. He was elected to a 
 
PROFESSORS 145 
 
 Fellowship at Downing in 1811, and lived 
 much in Bolton Street, Piccadilly. He died 
 at Brighton, in his fifty -fifth year, on Sep- 
 tember 13, 1841. 
 
 Dr. William Webster Fisher, Downing 
 Professor of Medicine, graduated M.D. at 
 Montpellier in 1825, where he was first in 
 the Medical School. He entered Trinity in 
 1827, where his brother, the Bev. John 
 Hutton Fisher, was Fellow and Assistant 
 Tutor. Later he migrated to Downing, 
 where he graduated M.B. in 1834. Shortly 
 afterwards he became Fellow. On Novem- 
 ber 3, 1841, he was elected Professor. The 
 Times, when originally announcing the ap- 
 pointment, stated that Dr. Fisher's politics 
 were anything but conservative; and that 
 his professional merits were of the highest 
 order and enjoyed a European reputation. 
 He was Bursar for a period of twelve 
 years, and was also Steward and Librarian 
 up to the time of his death. From the year 
 1868 his lectures were delivered by his 
 
146 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 deputy, Dr. Peter Wallwork Latham, some- 
 time Fellow of Downing College, and his 
 successor in 1874 in the Professorial chair. 
 Professor Fisher had poetical gifts ; and was 
 highly esteemed in the University not only 
 for his medical attainments but also for his 
 conversational powers. 
 
 His professional work during the troublous 
 times in France, after he qualified as a surgeon, 
 led to friendship with Auguste Comte, Thiers, 
 B. Saint Hilaire, Guizot, Cuvier, Victor 
 Cousin, and other celebrated men of this 
 period. In a copy of Littre's " Philosophie 
 Positive," in the College Library, is this 
 note by Professor Fisher, to whom the book 
 belonged : '' Auguste Comte was a personal 
 friend of mine ; I attended to him during a 
 fit of illness." This was probably during the 
 time when both were at Montpellier. Pro- 
 fessor Fisher was consulted by Comte on the 
 unhappy relations, since rendered historical 
 by his biographers, which existed between 
 Modame Comte and himself. And the Pro- 
 
PROFESSORS 147 
 
 fessor has been heard to say that the docu- 
 ments which then came into his possession, 
 and remained permanently in his charge, 
 would, if he or his executors published them, 
 throw upon that matrimonial quarrel a very 
 different light from that in which it is some- 
 times represented. 
 
 In November 1874, Peter Wallwork 
 Latham, M.A., M.D., F.KC.P. Lond., was 
 elected Downing Professor of Medicine by 
 the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and 
 the Masters of St. John's, Clare, and Downing 
 Colleges. The eldest son of John Latham, 
 physician, of Wigan, Lancashire, he was 
 educated in Germany and at Glasgow Univer- 
 sity, and entered at Gonville and Caius 
 College in 1854, where he obtained scholar- 
 ships both in mathematics and natural science 
 He was nineteenth Wrangler and Senior in 
 the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1859, with 
 marks of distinction in Anatomy, Botany, 
 Chemistry, Physiology and Mineralogy. The 
 Times, when announcing his election to the 
 
148 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Professorship, stated that he " obtained the 
 greatest aggregate number of marks reached 
 by any candidate since the institution of the 
 Natural Sciences Tripos." He was elected 
 Fellow of Downing College in 1860. In 1862 
 he was appointed Assistant Physician to 
 the Westminster Hospital, a post which 
 he resigned in 1862 on being elected Physi- 
 cian to Addenbrooke s Hospital, Cambridge. 
 He was Councillor of the Royal College 
 of Physicians, 1886-87; Censor, 1887-89; 
 Senior Censor, 1894-95; Harveian Orator, 
 1888. He resigned the Professorship in 
 1894. The following are some of his pub- 
 lications : "On the Early Symptoms of 
 Phthisis," 1864 ; " On Nervous or Sick Head- 
 ache," 1873; "On the Formation of Uric 
 Acid in Animals," 1884; "On Some Points 
 in the Pathology of E-heumatism, Gout and 
 Diabetes" (Croonian Lectures), 1886; "The 
 Harveian Oration," 1888; "On Blood 
 Changes in Disease " ; articles in Quain's 
 " Dictionary of Medicine." 
 
PROFESSORS 149 
 
 John Buckley Bradbury, M.D. Camb , 
 F.R.C.P. Lond., was elected Downing Pro- 
 fessor of Medicine on March 8, 1894 ; he 
 was educated at King's College, London, and 
 Caius and Downing Colleges, Cambridge, and 
 was a Foundation Scholar of Downing. He 
 took a First Class in the Natural Sciences 
 Tripos, 1864, and has been Physician to 
 Addenbrooke's Hospital since 1869. He was 
 formerly Medical Lecturer at Caius and 
 Downing Colleges, and Linacre Lecturer in 
 Physic at St. John's ; Bradshaw Lecturer at 
 the Royal College of Physicians, London, 
 1895. He has been appointed Croonian 
 Lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians 
 for 1899, and Examiner in Materia Medica 
 in the University of Oxford. He has twice 
 examined for the Natural Sciences Tripos, 
 and on several occasions for medical degrees, 
 and been Assessor to the Regius Professor of 
 Physic. His publications are : " On Vertigo : 
 Its Causes, Importance as a Symptom, and 
 Treatment," 1870; "Inaugural Lecture on 
 Pharmacology," 1894, &c. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 
 
 Charles Skinner Matthews, one of our 
 earliest Fellows, was the third son of John 
 Matthews, Esq., of Belmont, Herefordshire, 
 of which county his father was Member 
 of Parliament from 1800 to 1806. Young 
 Matthews appears to have been one of those 
 rare individuals who, while they command 
 deference, can at the same time win regard ; 
 and who, as it were, relieve the intense 
 feeling of admiration which they excite by 
 blending it with love. 
 
 Byron writes of him in a note to " Childe 
 Harold" : ''I should have ventured a verse 
 to the memory of the late Charles Skinner 
 Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, were 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 151 
 
 he not too much above all praise of mine. 
 His powers of mind shown in the attainment, 
 against the ablest candidates, of greater 
 honours than those of any graduate on 
 record at Cambridge, have sufficiently estab- 
 lished his fame on the spot where it was 
 acquired ; while his softer qualities live in the 
 recollection of friends who loved him too well 
 to envy his superiority." 
 
 Matthews was drowned in his twenty- 
 seventh year (on August 2, 1811), while 
 bathing in the Cam, a little above the town. 
 There he got entangled in the weeds ; and, 
 though an excellent swimmer, he perished in 
 the presence of three gentlemen, "who had 
 it not in their power to assist him, owing to 
 the danger of the place." After twenty 
 minutes' immersion the body was got out 
 but all efforts to restore animation failed. 
 
 Byron tells us that Matthews had an un- 
 commonly handsome head, and that it was 
 very like that of Pope in his youth. He 
 seems to have made an impression on the 
 
152 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 undergraduates of his day, as a leader of social 
 life and of speculative thought, similar to that 
 left by Charles Austin on those of a later 
 generation. 
 
 Byron writes of Matthews in 1820 : 
 "He was a very extraordinary man, and 
 would have been a great one. No one ever 
 succeeded in a more surpassing degree than 
 he did as far as he went. He was indolent 
 too ; but whenever he stripped he overthrew 
 all antagonists. His conquests will be found 
 registered at Cambridge ; particularly his 
 Downing one, which was hotly and highly 
 contested and yet easily won. ... I myself 
 recollect more of his oddities than of his aca- 
 demical qualities, for we lived most together 
 at a very idle period of my life. . . . 
 Matthews and I, meeting in London and 
 elsewhere, became great cronies (1807-8). 
 He was not good-tempered — nor am I — but 
 with a little tact his temper was manageable, 
 and I thought him so superior a man that I 
 was willing to sacrifice something to his 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 153 
 
 humours, which were often at the time 
 amusing and provoking. 
 
 ** . . . Matthews had occupied during my 
 year's absence from Cambridge my rooms in 
 Trinity with the furniture ; and Jones, the 
 tutor, in his odd way, had said, in putting 
 him in, * Mr. Matthews, I recommend to your 
 attention not to damage any of the movables, 
 for Lord Byron, sir, is a young man of tumul- 
 tuous passions.' Matthews was dehghted 
 with this, and whenever anybody came to 
 visit him, begged them to handle the very 
 door with caution, and used to repeat Jones's 
 admonition in his tone and manner. There 
 was a large mirror in the room. At first he 
 remarked that he thought his friends were 
 uncommonly often coming to see him, but 
 he soon discovered that they only came 
 to see themselves. Jones's phrase of tumul- 
 tuous passions, and the whole scene, had put 
 him into such good humour that I verily 
 believe that I owed to it a portion of his 
 good graces. 
 
 L 
 
154 
 
 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 "When at Newstead, somebody by acci- 
 dent rubbed against one of his white silk 
 stockings one day before dinner. Of course 
 the gentleman apologised. * Sir/ answered 
 Matthews, ^ it may be all very well for you, 
 who have a great many silk stockings, to 
 dirty them quickly ; but to one who has only 
 this one pair, which I have put on in honour 
 of the Abbot [i.e., Byron] here, no apology 
 can compensate for such carelessness ; besides 
 the expense of washing ! ' . . . When the 
 
 Newstead party broke up for London, H 
 
 and Matthews, who were the greatest friends 
 possible, agreed for a whim to walk together 
 to town. They quarrelled by the way ; and 
 actually walked the latter half of their 
 journey without speaking, occasionally pass- 
 ing and repassing each other. When 
 Matthews had got to Highgate he had spent 
 all his money but threepence halfpenny, and 
 determined to spend that also on a pint of 
 beer, which I believe he was drinking before 
 a public-house as H passed him [still 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 155 
 
 without speaking] for the last time on their 
 route. They were reconciled in London 
 again." 
 
 When Sir Henry Smith was expelled from 
 Cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 
 Hiron, Matthews solaced himself by making 
 a travesty of Butler's couplet in Hudibras : 
 
 " Ay me ! what perils do environ 
 The man that meddles with cold iron" 
 
 and with shouting under Hiron's window 
 every evening : 
 
 " Ah me ! what perils do environ 
 The man who meddles with hot Hiron" 
 
 Matthews, in 1809, described in a letter to 
 a young lady the kind of life led at Newstead 
 Abbey : "As for our way of living, the order 
 of the day was generally this— for breakfast 
 we had no set hour, but each suited his own 
 convenience, everything remaining on the 
 table till the whole party had done ; though, 
 had one wished to breakfast at the early hour 
 of ten, one would have been rather lucky to 
 
156 DOW^TNG COLLEGE 
 
 find any one of the servants up. Our average 
 hour of rising was one. I, who generally got 
 up between eleven and twelve, was generally 
 — even when an invalid — the first of the 
 party, and was esteemed a prodigy of early 
 rising. It was frequently past two before 
 the breakfast party broke up. Then for the 
 amusements of the morning ; there was 
 reading, fencing, single-stick or shuttle-cock 
 in the great room, practising with pistols in 
 the hall ; walking, riding, cricket, sailing on 
 the lake, playing with the bear or teasing the 
 wol£ Between seven and eight we dined, 
 and our evening lasted from that time till 
 two or three in the morning. 
 
 " I must not omit the custom of handing 
 roimd after dinner, on the removal of the 
 cloth, a human skull filled with burgundy." 
 Since then this odd drinking vessel has 
 been buried. 
 
 There is a marble tablet above the South 
 Nave Arch in St. Benet's Church, Cambridge, 
 to the memory of Matthews. The College 
 
FELLOWS, TLTTORS AND LECTURERS 157 
 
 wished to have him buried in the vault in 
 the court, but the parish register of St. Benet*s 
 does not show that this was carried out. 
 
 John Lens was bom in Norwich, where his 
 father was an eminent land steward. He 
 entered at John's, and was Fourth Wrangler 
 in 1779, when he was twenty-three; the 
 Third Wrangler being Christian, afterwards 
 Downing Professor of Law. Lens was the 
 senior of the three Fellows appointed in the 
 Charter. He was for many years leader of 
 the Western Circuit ; he was also Counsel to 
 the University. In 1799, after he had been 
 eighteen years at the Bar, he received the 
 dignity of the coif; and in 1806 was made 
 King's Serjeant. He defended Lord Rivers 
 in the Cranbome Chase case in 1816. Ser- 
 jeant Best, for the numerous occupiers inter- 
 ested in a reasonable enjoyment of the Chase, 
 pleaded that " Lord Rivers claims to feed his 
 beasts over 500,000 acres in three counties, 
 an extent of country more than one hundred 
 miles in circumference. He insists that in 
 
158 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 that wide range no man shall plough to the 
 detriment of the deer ; no man shall raise a 
 fence to the exclusion of the deer ; the growth 
 of wood shall be protected only for the benefit 
 of the deer ; no man shall turn his sheep into 
 his own woods — if he do, the keeper shall im- 
 pound them; no man's timber shall be 
 allowed to grow, for the deer must browse on 
 it. . . . " Lens in reply kept close to the 
 original point — the boundary. At two in the 
 morning the jury gave their verdict for the 
 defendant. In another case Lens had thirty 
 witnesses to say a stream was not navigable ; 
 one of the thirty was so strong in his opinion 
 that he spoke of the water in the ditch as not 
 capable of floating a hutcher's tray. On the 
 other side were fifty witnesses who main- 
 tained that at spring tides harges commonly 
 navigated the ditch. The verdict was for 
 Lens's client. 
 
 In 1813 Lens, a consistent Constitutional 
 Whig, refused the appointment of Solicitor- 
 General, when offered to him by the Tory 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 159 
 
 Cabinet, although the Prince Regent had let 
 his personal wish be known that Lens should 
 accept the office. Hence it became a common 
 toast at public dinners : " Serjeant Lens and 
 the independence of the Bar." 
 
 His kindness towards his brethren in the 
 Common Pleas is shown by the following 
 occurrence in the cause of " Thurtell against 
 Beames." Taddy, examining a witness, asked 
 a question respecting the disappearance of 
 the plaintiff; whereupon Mr. Justice Parke, 
 " That's a very improper question, and ought 
 not to have been asked." Taddy : "That is 
 an imputation to which I will not submit. I 
 am incapable of putting an improper question 
 to a witness ." Parke : ' ' What imputation, sir ? 
 I say the question was not properly put, for 
 the expression * disappears,' means to leave 
 clandestinely." Taddy: " I say that it means 
 no such thing." After more heated ex- 
 pressions, Parke : "I protest, sir, you will 
 compel nie to do what is disagreeable to me." 
 Taddy: " Do what you like, my lord." Lens 
 
160 DOAVNING COLLEGE 
 
 rose to interfere. Taddy : *'No, brother 
 Lens, I must protest against any inter- 
 ference." Lens : " My brother Taddy, my 
 lord, has been betrayed into some warmth." 
 Taddy pulled him back, exclaiming: "I again 
 protest against any interference on my 
 account." Parke : " My brother Lens, sir, has 
 a right to be heard." Taddy : *' Not on my 
 account." The Judge threw himself back 
 into his chair and said nothing — a very un- 
 comfortable movement for counsel. 
 
 In 1817 Lens, whilst in full vigour, retired 
 from circuit, " for the sole reason that I 
 ought to make an opening for younger men." 
 During the last illness of Lord Ellenborough 
 he undertook the labours of the Home Circuit 
 for him ; and Ellenborough strongly recom- 
 mended the Cabinet to make Lens his 
 successor as the Lord Chief Justice. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, in his " Dissertation 
 on Ethical Philosophy," speaks of Lens as " an 
 inflexible and incorruptible friend of civil and 
 religious liberties, one who knew how to 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 161 
 
 reconcile the warmest zeal for that sacred cause 
 with a charity towards his opponents which 
 partisans more violent than steady treated as 
 lukewarm." The same writer in his Memoirs 
 bears witness to other traits in his friend's 
 character. He writes : "I found Lens one 
 evening seeing Kean in * Sir Giles Over- 
 reach/ " and on another occasion, " Went 
 with Lord Holland to the Fox Club, where 
 I sat between the Duke [Devonshire] and 
 Lens." Lord Campbell sums him up as ** a 
 most honourable man, an accomplished scholar, 
 and a very pretty lawyer." 
 
 The Lensfield Road, one side of which is 
 formed by the grounds of Downing, derives 
 its name from Serjeant Lens. 
 
 In October 1836 the Rev. F. D. Maurice 
 was offered a lecturership at Downing. In 
 November Maurice resolved to decline this 
 offer. In a letter about the offer we read ; 
 " A new Master has just been appointed to 
 Downing [Worsley], who purposes estab- 
 lishing a new order of things, making 
 
162 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 theology and Christian philosophy the centre 
 of all studies, and discouraging the reading 
 for honours. Of course, to Maurice to 
 assist in carrying into effect such a scheme, 
 so exactly according to what he considers the 
 right principle of University education, must 
 have been very tempting. But, as far as 
 I can judge, it is much better that he should 
 remain here [at Guy's Hospital] ; for a person 
 of his desponding temperament would, I 
 think, hardly be equal to the difficulties 
 of reforming a college and establishing a new 
 order of things ; and there would be circum- 
 stances of peculiar difficulty, since the 
 appointment of the Master himself is ques- 
 tioned and likely to be brought into a Court 
 of Chancery." 
 
 The lecturership was accepted by Harold 
 Browne of Emmanuel — afterwards Bishop of 
 Ely and, later, of Winchester. Browne took 
 Holy Orders, and became lecturer and chaplain 
 when he was twenty-four. He found those 
 to whom he lectured his seniors. But his 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 163 
 
 accurate knowledge, his beautiful courtesy 
 and instinctive power of bearing himself so as 
 to command attention and respect, at once 
 won the esteem of the Downing men. When, 
 after twelve months, he gave up the work, 
 the men presented him with a piece of plate. 
 Another lecturer in 1841 was the Eev. J. M. 
 Neale, D.D. He was the only son of the 
 Rev. Cornelius Neale, Senior Wrangler and 
 first Smith's Prizeman, 1812, a well-known 
 Evangelical clergyman of that day. Neale's 
 mother's father was a great linguist ; in 
 order to study parallel passages for a trans- 
 lation of Lucretius, this grandfather read 
 Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian; 
 he had, along with [a. striking power of 
 acquiring knowledge, great skill in arranging 
 it as well in an orderly fashion. Neale had 
 so great a distaste for mathematics that he 
 would not qualify for the Classical Tripos 
 by passing the Mathematical Tripos ; so he 
 took an ordinary degree in 1840. In 1841 
 the regulation enforcing the passing of the 
 
164 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Mathematical Tripos was abolished. In 1846 
 he was appointed Warden of Sackville College, 
 East Grinstead, a position which could be 
 held by a layman. The remuneration was 
 £20 per annum. The inmates of the hospital 
 were thirty poor and aged householders. 
 This was the only appointment approaching 
 preferment ever held by him. Neale 
 possessed an iron inflexibility allied to a 
 most gentle manner. For sixteen years he 
 had a battle with the Bishop, who would not 
 license him. When his work was recognised, 
 he said : " I have neither withdrawn a single 
 word nor altered a single practice, except in 
 a few instances, by going farther." He was 
 the translator and compiler of many of the 
 most favourite hymns in " Hymns Ancient and 
 Modern," such as, " Art thou weary," " Brief 
 life is here our portion," " Jerusalem the 
 golden," "0 happy band of pilgrims," "The 
 day is past and over." 
 
 Neale, in days when Bishops were attended 
 within the Holy Communion rails at a Con- 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 165 
 
 firmation by two liveried and powdered foot- 
 men — when the Northern Archbishop always 
 drove from his palace at Bishopsthorpe to the 
 Minster in a coach and six, while his wife 
 travelled separately in a carriage and pair — 
 was a pioneer of a type of worship which 
 shrank back instinctively from such pomp and 
 ceremony. He was the founder in 1854 of 
 the St. Margaret's Sisterhood at East Grin- 
 stead, an Order of women ministering to the 
 souls of the destitute poor in a manner till 
 then untried in the English Church. This 
 has developed into twenty-eight branches ; 
 the last, in 1898, being at Johannesburg. 
 
 Sir Alfred Power was born at Market 
 Bosworth in 1805, being the youngest son 
 of Dr. John Power, by Mary, daughter of 
 Mr. John Knowles, of Nailstone, in the 
 same county. He was educated at Repton 
 and at Clare, taking his degree in 1826 as 
 Second Classic and a Junior Optime. He 
 was elected in the same year to a Fellowship 
 at Downing. He held his Fellowship till his 
 
166 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 marriage in 1846 with Lucy Anne, daughter 
 of T. Starkie, Esq., Q.C. He was made an 
 Honorary Fellow in 1885. He was called to 
 the Bar from the Middle Temple in 1829. 
 For nearly fifty years he was in the Public 
 Service ; a Factory Commissioner in 1833, an 
 Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in 1834, 
 Chief Commissioner of the Irish Poor Law 
 in 1849. Earl Eussell, in his " EecoUections," 
 p. 148, says: "In Ireland the Poor Law is 
 more carefully framed and better adminis- 
 tered than in England. If the Poor Law of 
 England were assimilated to that of Ireland, 
 and a man of equ^l aptitude to Mr. Power 
 were placed at the head of it, we might see 
 a solution of that problem." As Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Local Government Board for 
 Ireland (1872-79), he was made a K.C.B.^in 
 1873, and died on June 7, 1888, at his 
 residence, Eaglan Eoad, Dublin. Holding 
 strongly the view that " Life is a holy thing," 
 he did his best to popularise the golden 
 views of sanitary science. To this end he 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 167 
 
 published a pamphlet of Sanitary Rhymes 
 in 1871. In this work we find such homely 
 counsels as these : 
 
 " Good people all ! have a care of your skin, 
 Both that without and that within ; 
 To the first you'll give plenty of water and soap, 
 To the last little else beside water, we'll hope. 
 
 And :— 
 
 They say smoke soothes the nerves, and that punch plays 
 
 its part 
 In reviving the force of the puls^ of the heart ; 
 And if moderately used before going to rest, 
 They give time for the last of one's meals to digest. 
 
 Yet all must remember — yet all must confess. 
 Such things are rank poison, and, us'd in excess, 
 Travel quick to the brain, and when once they are there, 
 That pilot, the Will, is unable to steer. 
 
 Worst of all is the habit of some foolish folk. 
 
 Who begin the day's business with tippling and smoke ; 
 
 Still soaking or smoking the man goes about. 
 
 And seldom seems perfectly easy without. 
 
 This craving once caught up can ne'er be appeas'd, 
 So his nerves become palsied, his brain gets diseased ; 
 Tobacco and spirits pervade his whole trunk, 
 And he's never quite sober and never quite drunk. 
 
168 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 The Eev. Richard Dawes, D.D., born in 
 1793, was the son of James Dawes of Hawes 
 in the North Eiding of Yorkshire. He 
 received his early education along with 
 Whewell, who became Master of Trinity, at 
 Mr. Gough's School near Kendal. He entered 
 Trinity in 1813 and read mathematics with 
 his old schoolfellow Whewell, he being one 
 year his junior. He was Fourth Wrangler 
 in 1817, and was made Fellow and Bursar of 
 Downing in 1818 ; and Tutor in 1822. 
 
 In Dawes' time the Downing Combination 
 Room acquired a social and convivial cele- 
 brity second to that of no other college in 
 the University. Here it was the delight of 
 such men as Whewell, Romilly, Peacock, 
 and Sedgwick (the admirable raconteu?' and 
 the man of marvellous memory), to gather 
 round the hospitable board of their old 
 Trinity associate. We get a sidelight on 
 the character of this set from the fact that 
 Peacock, Herschel and Babbage used to 
 breakfast together on Sunday mornings, and 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 169 
 
 in 1812 they agreed to found an Analytical 
 Society, so as " to leave the world better than 
 they found it." To such men, and to men 
 of less note, though not less welcome guests 
 at Downing, such as Evans and Cape of 
 Clare, Ramsey of Jesus, Power (late Librarian 
 of the University), it was a high pleasure to 
 share the genial humour and exuberant 
 spirits of Dawes in his own Combination 
 Room. 
 
 Dawes was imbued with the enlighten- 
 ment of a later generation, for he voted with 
 Sedgwick and Henslow for the admission of 
 Nonconformists to the University. This cost 
 him the Mastership ; for the office fell vacant 
 whilst party feelings still ran high on this 
 question, and it was then in the gift — not of 
 the College itself, which idolised Dawes — but 
 of a small external body of high -placed 
 ecclesiastics. The bitter feeling with which 
 the College viewed the appointment of Dr. 
 Worsley as Master led, as we have seen, to an 
 attempt to displace him by a lawsuit ; and 
 
170 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 impeded his usefulness for many years 
 afterwards. 
 
 Dawes married and took the College living 
 of Tadlow with East Hatley in 1836. He had 
 previously prevailed on the College to build 
 a vicarage, the old vicarage (still in existence) 
 being a four-roomed thatched cottage. In 
 1837 Sir John MiU, his old pupil at Down- 
 ing, gave him the valuable rectory of King's 
 Somborne, Hants. Here Dawes, in the midst 
 of a purely agricultural population, where 
 the labourers' wages varied from six shillings 
 to nine shillings a week, began his great 
 work in the education of the poor. The 
 mission of his life was to extend and improve 
 the education of the humbler classes. Thring, 
 Head Master of Uppingham, in his work on 
 Teaching, says : " Dean Dawes, of Here- 
 ford, drew attention to the value of calling 
 out observation of common things in an 
 original and striking way. Unhappily the 
 clue he gave towards education in the 
 National Schools has not been followed up — 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 171 
 
 in fact, it was entirely broken off by a dif- 
 ferent demand on the part of the authorities." 
 He conceived the idea of working out within 
 the walls of his school a moral reformation 
 of his parish. He secured the affection of 
 his people by his unselfish zeal on their 
 behalf; he was able to draw children to his 
 school from great distances, and showed his 
 zeal in this work by himself teaching the 
 higher branches of education. He had also 
 a " great hand in the arrangement of allot- 
 ments for the cultivation of fruit and vege- 
 tables by the cottagers." Mrs. Dawes aided 
 her husband in the schools and took an 
 especial interest in the little ones. Dawes 
 did all he could for the children when they 
 left school. In consequence of his educa- 
 tional labours, Lord John Eussell, in 1850, 
 made him Dean of Hereford. The restoring 
 of Hereford Cathedral is a monument to the 
 financial skill, perseverance, and courage of 
 the Dean. He did great work in setting up 
 the schools at Hereford and also at Ledbury, 
 
172 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 where he was Master of St. Katharine's 
 Hospital. In 1856 the Queen wished to 
 have Dawes made Bishop of Carhsle. 
 
 The following incident shows the fearless 
 character of Dean Dawes. He was seated 
 as Vice-President of the British Association, 
 at one of its great evening meetings, on the 
 stage of Bath Theatre, when Bishop Colenso 
 (who had just then thrilled the theological 
 world by his attack upon the Pentateuch) 
 entered, and was received with hisses by 
 some. Dawes instantly rose from his chair, 
 crossed the stage, and shook the Bishop's 
 hand warmly. A thunder of applause greeted 
 the chivalrous act. 
 
 George Eliot had a great respect for 
 Dawes, for in 1853 she wrote thus about 
 him : " Last night I saw the first true speci- 
 men of a man in the shape of a clergyman 
 that I ever met with — Dawes, Dean of Here- 
 ford. He has been making the experiment 
 of mingling the middle and lower classes in 
 schools. He has a face so intelligent and 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 173 
 
 benignant that children might grow good by 
 looking at it." 
 
 The Rev. Godfrey Milnes Sykes, M.A., one 
 of the tutors, was a Trinity man ; he gradu- 
 ated twenty -sixth Wrangler, and fifth in the 
 Second Class of the Classical Tripos of 1837. 
 Dr. Worsley, the Master, bore evidence of his 
 energy before the University Commission, so 
 we are not surprised that during his twenty- 
 four years incumbency of the parishes, which 
 make up the greatest part of the College 
 Estate, his liberality and self-devotion worked 
 great improvements. The college, which was 
 to be a centre of light and leading in Cam- 
 bridge, seems in the early days of its history 
 to have thought exceedingly little about the 
 spiritual and material welfare of the labourers 
 without whose monotonous lives of badly 
 paid labour there could have been no cor- 
 porate income. When Mr. Sykes came to 
 Tadlow but three or four of the men could 
 read. The cottages of one storey had walls of 
 daub placed between roughly shaped branches 
 
174 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 of trees. For the most part these had been 
 built by squatters on the waste ; during the 
 long years of the litigation to secure the 
 estate for the college. As a rule sheets and 
 blankets were unknown. The two churches 
 were very dilapidated, one hopelessly so, and 
 there were no schools. To-day the schools 
 and school-houses, the resident teachers, the 
 continuation schools, the free libraries, the 
 beautifully restored village churches, testify 
 to Mr. Sykes's unselfish solicitude for those 
 entrusted to his spiritual oversight. 
 
 The Eev. William Bennett Pike, M.A., 
 who succeeded Mr. Sykes, was also a Trinity 
 man. He was a Wrangler and in the Second 
 Class of the Classical Tripos, 1853. He was 
 Fellow Tutor and Chaplain in 1853. While 
 Fellow he was the youngest member of the 
 club called the " Family." 
 
 The following have been Tutors of Down- 
 ing : 1820, Cornwallis Hewett ; 1822, F. C, 
 Willats and Rev. R Dawes; 1824, Eev. R. 
 Dawes and Rev. T. Worsley ; 1837, Rev. T. 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 175 
 
 Worsley and P. H. Frere ; 1844, Rev. G. M. 
 Sykes and P. H. Frere; 1855, Rev. W. B. 
 Pike ; 1862, Rev. W. B. Pike and J. Perkins ; 
 1872, J. Perkins; 1876, J. Perkins and Rev. 
 T. J. Lawrence; 1877, J. Perkins and Rev. 
 J. C. Saunders; 1888, Rev. J. C. Saunders. 
 
 Robert Monsey Rolfe, who became Lord 
 Cranworth, was born in 1790. His father — 
 like his grandfather and his great grand- 
 father — was a plain country clergyman, 
 holding the livings of Cockley Cley and of 
 Cranworth, in Norfolk; his mother, Jemima, 
 fourth daughter of William Alexander, Esq., 
 and granddaughter of the eccentric Dr. 
 Monsey, the physician of Chelsea Hospital. 
 
 Dr. Messenger Mounsey (as the name is 
 sometimes spelt), widely known as " the 
 Chelsea Doctor," who died in 1788, was born 
 
 I in 1693 at a village in Norfolk, of which his 
 father was rector. He was fond of con- 
 fessing, in ridicule of family pride, that the 
 first of his ancestors of any note was a dealer 
 in hops, who could scarcely support his family 
 
176 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 by his trade. In a moment of poverty this 
 ancestor emptied all his feather beds of their 
 feathers and filled them up with the hops which 
 he could not sell. In a few years afterwards a 
 blight destroyed the harvest of hops, which 
 thus became enormously dear. Then the 
 beds were ripped up again, and the hoarded 
 treasure sold for a round sum : — " And thus," 
 the Doctor used to say, " our family hopped 
 from obscurity." 
 
 He bequeathed his body to be dissected, as 
 he had reason to believe from the nature of 
 his infirmities some important truths would 
 be illustrated by it. 
 
 He was the elder of their two sons, and 
 received his second Christian name in memory 
 of this ancestor. The Rev. Robert Rolfe, 
 rector of Hillborough, and grandfather of 
 Downing s Lord Chancellor, by his marriage 
 with the Nelson family became connected 
 with the gallant admiral, who was first cousin 
 of the Rev. Edmund Rolfe, Lord Cranworth's 
 father. He was educated at Bury and Win- 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 177 
 
 Chester Schools and then at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, graduating as Seventeenth 
 Wrangler in 1812. He showed his classical 
 attainments by obtaining the Members* 
 Prize as Senior Bachelor in 1814. He was 
 elected Fellow of Downing in 1815. His 
 Fellowship offered him a provision while 
 studying for one of the learned professions, 
 and it had the additional advantage — much 
 rarer in those days than now — of being 
 tenable without the necessity of taking Holy 
 Orders. Like most successful lawyers he had 
 great confidence in his own powers. Just as 
 his legal reputation was beginning to con- 
 solidate itself he had the satisfaction of being 
 appointed to the Recordership of Bury St. 
 Edmunds, a town of which he more than once 
 contested the representation in the Liberal 
 interest against the strong and all-prevailing 
 interest of the Marquis of Bristol. 
 
 In 1832 he took silk, when he became 
 Member for Penryn. This was just after the 
 passing of the Reform Bill, and a Tory, Mr. 
 
178 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 J. W. Freshfield, was ejected. When he had 
 been Member barely two years, Lord Mel- 
 bourne, on the look-out for a Solicitor-General, 
 wished for a sound and safe man, a Liberal 
 but not a Radical, and above all things a man 
 of high personal character and standing both 
 with the profession and the public. These 
 conditions, it was felt, were amply united in 
 Mr. Rolfe ; who therefore was knighted and 
 was made Solicitor-General in 1834. 
 
 In some unpublished reminiscences, written 
 by the late eminent Queen's Counsel, Mr. R. 
 D. Craig, which we have been permitted to 
 peruse, he says : '' One of my earliest recollec- 
 tions of Rolfe is seeing him in the Lord 
 Chancellor's Court, appearing for Dr. Wors- 
 ley, on the argument of the question as to 
 the validity of his election to the Mastership 
 of Downing College, in the year 1836. The 
 Lord Chancellor called in the Master of the 
 Rolls (Lord Langdale) and the Vice-Chan- 
 cellor (Sir Lancelot Shadwell) to sit with him 
 to hear the case. They did so ; and I think 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 179 
 
 it was the only occasion on which those three 
 Chancery Judges ever sat together. They all 
 happened to be Cambridge men ; and I 
 remember that Rolfe addressed them as 
 such." 
 
 In November 1839 he accepted a puisne 
 judgeship as one of the Barons of the Ex- 
 chequer. As a Judge he gave great satisfac- 
 tion. Honest, painstaking, conscientious, 
 upright, and gifted with that quiet practical 
 ability for the discharge of work which is 
 often of greater value than the most brilliant 
 talents, he certainly more than justified his 
 appointment. It must not be forgotten 
 that, though as a barrister he had only 
 practised in the Court of Chancery, he had 
 acquired experience of juries and witnesses 
 through holding for many years the oflSce of 
 Recorder of Ipswich. 
 
 He was raised to the Peerage in 1850. 
 When the Great Seal was placed in commis- 
 sion it was entrusted to him conjointly with 
 Lord Langdale and with Vice-Chancellor 
 
180 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Sir Lancelot Shadwell, on whose death, a few 
 weeks afterwards, he was nominated one of 
 the Vice-Chancellors of the kingdom, being 
 the first instance of a Vice- Chancellor being 
 made a Peer. At the same time he was 
 sworn a member of the Privy Council. 
 
 Mr. Craig's manuscript states : " We who 
 practised before him found that he did not 
 always do himself justice. For he was apt 
 to decide hastily, and on the first impression ; 
 and he had forgotten some parts of his Chan- 
 cery law. ... To this same aptness for hasty 
 action on first impressions, may be attributed 
 his eventful advice that a life peerage might 
 be created which would carry the same right 
 to sit and vote in the House of Lords as is 
 possessed by hereditary peerages. The ad- 
 vice was acted on by the Crown in the case 
 of a great friend of Cran worth's, Lord Wen- 
 sleydale. . . . But the Law Lords came to the 
 conviction that, although the Crown could 
 well grant peerages for life, yet a life-peer 
 ought not to sit in Parliament under such a 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 181 
 
 grant. The real author of the opposition to 
 hfe peerages was understood at the time to 
 be Lord Derby. And the real reason of his 
 objection was taken to be a fear that the 
 Prince Consort had a design of bringing 
 savants into the House of Lords as life peers. 
 Hence Lord Cranworth was much vilipended 
 at the time, both by the Law Lords and by 
 the Tory peers." But modern legislation has 
 gone far to justify Lord Cran worth's foresight. 
 In 1851 Cranworth was made one of the 
 Lords Justices of Appeal in Chancery. He 
 held the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor for 
 five years from 1852. Again he accepted 
 the Seal in 1865 for two years. He has left 
 his mark on the Statute Book, as a statute 
 to simplify the practice of conveyancers bears 
 his name, and the Endowed Schools Act 1860 
 was introduced by him in the Lords and 
 carried without a division in either House. 
 It was also through Lord Cranworth that 
 the sittings of the Equity Courts were trans- 
 ferred from Westminster to Lincoln's Inn, 
 
182 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 where they remained until the erection of 
 the great Palace of Justice at Temple Bar. 
 
 The following diverging opinions on Lord 
 Cranworth are interesting. A Judge asked 
 a cynical brother Judge, " Why is Lord Chan- 
 cellor Cranworth so fond of calling in the 
 Lords Justices to sit with him ? " The 
 explanation given was : " The fact is, the 
 poor little boy does not like being in the 
 dark by himself" But Lord Selborne (Eoun- 
 dell Palmer) writes : " Take him for all in 
 all, he was one of the best Chancellors I have 
 known. Others had more splendid gifts ; but 
 in him there was nothing erratic, nothing 
 unequal. In steady good sense, judicial 
 patience, impartiality, and freedom from 
 prejudice, he was surpassed by none." 
 
 Lord Chancellor Campbell, a shrewd and 
 stern observer of men, says of Lord Cran- 
 worth : " He turned out to be a very good 
 Judge, and he is respected by the pubhc as 
 much as he is beloved by his friends in private 
 life. There never lived a better man than he. 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 183 
 
 . . . He is not only the most amiable of man- 
 kind, but no one can be more sincerely desirous 
 to do what is right." Lord Cran worth's 
 amiability, however, stood somewhat in his 
 way amidst the roughness of Parliamentary 
 conflict ; and Lord Campbell himself came to 
 deplore the " very cruel manner in which 
 Cranworth is badgered by some of the 
 hostile Law Lords." 
 
 Roundell Palmer tells us that " I obtained 
 from Lord Cranworth in 1868 for Sir WilUam 
 Vernon Harcourt the rank of Queen's Coun- 
 sel, on the strength of his attainments as 
 an international jurist, though he had no 
 business at the Bar, and was only of twelve 
 years' standing." 
 
 Lord Cranworth died early in 1868. 
 His death was accelerated by the death of 
 Lady Cranworth, who predeceased her hus- 
 band by a few months. Mr. Craig's MS. says : 
 " The marriage had been a very happy one, 
 and its story is a bit of romance. His wife, 
 Miss Laura Carr, was more than fifteen years 
 
184 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 his junior. In her early days, he had pro- 
 posed marriage to her, and had been refused. 
 Then, for many years, he became the merest 
 old bachelor possible. However, when he 
 (now become Baron Rolfe) was in his fifty- 
 fifth year, and she in her fortieth, his great 
 friend. Lord Monteagle, whom he had first 
 known when an undergraduate as Mr. Spring- 
 Rice, and who was in the Ministry when 
 Rolfe was made the Solicitor-General, hap- 
 pened to stay in the same house with her. 
 The result was that he wrote to the Judge : 
 ' Laura Carr is just as charming as ever ; in 
 music and appearance and everything else. 
 I ventured to have a little talk with her 
 about you; and I really think that if you 
 were to repeat your offer of former days, it 
 would not be refused again.' The offer was 
 repeated and was not refused. No lady ever 
 adorned the high station to which Lady 
 Rolfe eventually attained more than she." 
 If we may trust another tradition which has 
 come down to us orally, the second offer was 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 185 
 
 made to Miss Carr whilst she was a guest of 
 the High Sheriff of Cumberland at a time 
 when Baron Rolfe was Judge of Assize on the 
 Northern Circuit, and by a happy, and perhaps 
 not accidental, coincidence he came to the 
 Sheriffs country house to pass the Sunday. 
 
 Both are buried in the churchyard near 
 his seat of Holm wood, near Bromley. 
 
 The following are the Fellows who help to 
 constitute the present society : 
 
 The Senior Fellow is John Perkins, M.A., 
 LL.D., who was born in 1837 at Sawston, 
 Cambridgeshire, his father being a clergy- 
 man. 
 
 He began his education at a school at 
 Clare in Suffolk. Its master, safe and ac- 
 curate in his scholarship, was very thorough 
 in all his work. " Fuller's boys are well 
 grounded ; you can't catch them out in 
 syntax or grammar," was the constant testi- 
 mony of many a public schoolmaster when 
 placing a new-comer from this school. From 
 Clare Dr. Perkins was sent to Bury St. 
 
186 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Edmunds Grammar School, under the famous 
 scholar Dr. Donaldson, the author of the 
 "Theatre of the Greeks" and the "New 
 Cratylus." He left school with an exhibi- 
 tion to enter at Christ's College in 1855 at 
 the same time as Sir Walter Besant and 
 Professor Hales. Calverley, Seeley, and 
 Wolstenholme were also his contemporaries 
 and friends in college. He took his degree 
 in 1859, being Eighth Junior Optime, and 
 Eighth Classic; and he was also in the 
 Second Class of the Theological Examination 
 of Middle Bachelors in 1860. A short time 
 Master at Bury and Uppingham, he returned 
 to Cambridge and became Classical Lecturer 
 at St. Catharine's College in 1861 ; and in 
 1863 lectured on Classics for Corpus Chris ti 
 College. He was elected Fellow of Downing 
 in November 1861. Here Dr. Perkins filled 
 the office of Tutor for twenty-six years. He 
 also served as Steward, Dean, Prselector, and 
 Librarian. He still holds the Bursarship, as 
 he has now done for the last twenty-six 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 187 
 
 years— a post particularly enjoyable to one 
 who has been from childhood familiar with 
 all the details of rural life not far from the 
 College estates, and an adept in all forms 
 of manly sport. In 1886, in recognition of 
 his having been for thirteen 3^ears secretary 
 of the Cambridgeshire Hunt, Vanity Fair, 
 when publishing his portrait under the title 
 of *' Downing," duly arrayed him in " pink." 
 Over the fireplace in the undergraduates' 
 Reading Room at Downing this picture 
 holds a place of honour, having as its only 
 companion a cartoon of Lord Justice Collins 
 from the same paper. 
 
 Dr. Perkins has translated and edited the 
 *' Prometheus Vinctus " ; Isocrates "Ad De- 
 monicum " and the '' Panegyricus " ; Lucan's 
 " Pharsalia," Book I. ; Virgil's " ^neid," 
 Books HI. and IV. ; '^ Herodotus," Book IX. ; 
 "Pliny's Letters," Book VII. ; "Csesar de Bello 
 Gallico," Book V. He has also compiled a 
 "Latin and Greek Accidence" for the Previous 
 Examination, and an epitome of Paley's "Evi- 
 
188 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 dences." These books have done much to help 
 many a backward student over the paths and 
 perils of a Poll course ; but still more was 
 done by that graphic colloquial lecturing, the 
 uncompromising directness of which is still 
 gratefully remembered by many (academical) 
 generations of Dr. Perkins's pupils. 
 
 Courtney Stanhope Kenny, LL.D., was 
 born in 1847 at Halifax in Yorkshire; and 
 was educated at Heath Grammar School, and 
 afterwards at Hipperholme Grammar School, 
 in the same county. In 1862, he was placed 
 fifth in the first class in the Oxford Local 
 Examination. He entered the legal profes- 
 sion ; and on admission as a solicitor, in 1869, 
 won the Broderip gold medal, the Clifford's 
 Inn prize, and a special prize from the Incor- 
 porated Law Society " as a mark of peculiar 
 distinction " in consequence of his having 
 attained the highest total of marks that had 
 ever been given at any examination held by 
 the Society. After practising for some time 
 as fourth partner in a conveyancing firm in 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 189 
 
 Yorkshire, he joined Downing College in 
 1871, obtaining an Entrance Scholarship for 
 Modern Languages and Law ; and in the same 
 year was a proxime accessit for the Whewell 
 Scholarship in International Law. He after- 
 wards won the University's Winchester 
 Reading Prize. In 1874 he was Senior in the 
 Law and History Tripos, and in the follow- 
 ing year obtained the Chancellor's Legal 
 Medal. On three occasions — 1877, 1878, 
 1879 — he received the Yorke Prize for Legal 
 Essays. Downing College appointed him in 
 1875 to a Lectureship on Law and Moral 
 Science, which he still holds. In 1882 he 
 was appointed as the Law Lecturer at Trinity 
 College, and retained this office until he 
 entered Parliament. In 1885 he was elected 
 as M.P. for the Barnsley Division of York- 
 shire by the substantial majority of 3983 ; 
 and on the dissolution of Parliament in the 
 following year was again returned by the 
 same constituency. He introduced, on more 
 than one occasion. Bills for the reform of the 
 
190 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 law of Primogeniture and for the repeal of 
 the laws restricting the expression of reli- 
 gious opinion. He resigned his seat in 
 1889 ; in consequence of having been ap- 
 pointed by the University to the Eeader- 
 ship of English Law, in succession to Prof 
 Maitland. He has published works on 
 *' Primogeniture," on the ''Law of Married 
 Women's Property," and on " Charitable En- 
 dowments." Of the last-named of these we 
 have spoken above (p. 107). It led to his 
 being placed on the Parliamentary Committee 
 which sat in 1886 and 1887 to inquire into 
 the operation of the Endowed Schools Acts. 
 
 Dr. Kenny is a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, 
 and a member of the South- Eastern Circuit 
 and the Surrey Sessions. He is an Alderman 
 of the Cambridge Town Council, having sat 
 there as one of the representatives of the 
 University from the time of their first admis- 
 sion to the Council of the borough. 
 
 The Rev. John Charles Saunders, M.A., 
 graduated B.A. in 1872 as a Junior Optime, 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 191 
 
 and in the First Class of the Natural Sciences 
 Tripos. He took his M.A. in 1875, and was 
 elected Fellow and Tutor in the following 
 year. He was ordained to the priesthood at 
 Ely in 1881, and has been Junior Proctor 
 1883-84, Curate of St. Botolph's 1880-82, 
 Curate of St. Barnabas 1882-85, and Vicar 
 of St. Andrew the Great 1885-90, all in 
 Cambridge. He was also sometime Lecturer 
 in Botany at the Charing Cross Hospital. 
 
 David Lewis Harris, M.A., was a Founda- 
 tion Scholar of Downing College. In 1882 
 he was placed Senior in the Law Tripos, and 
 won the Chancellor's Medal for Legal Studies 
 for that year. He obtained the Second 
 Whewell Scholarship for International Law 
 in 1884, and was elected to a Fellowship in 
 1888. He is Steward, and Lecturer on 
 Law at Downing, and also Lecturer on the 
 same subject at Christ's College. He has 
 attained distinguished success as a private 
 tutor in legal studies. 
 
 James Henry Widdicombe, M.A,, the last 
 
192 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 elected Fellow, was born at Berry Pomeroy, 
 Devonshire, in 1871. He obtained a Minor 
 Scholarship in 1888, and took a First Class 
 in the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part L, 1891, 
 and in Part IL, 1892. From 1893-97 he 
 was Science Master at the Perse School, and 
 President of the University Natural Sciences 
 Club in 1894. He was elected in 1896 to 
 his Fellowship, and at present he is Assistant 
 Demonstrator in Physiology, and Lecturer on 
 the same subject under the scheme for the 
 Agricultural Diploma. 
 
 The following are late Fellows : 
 
 Thomas William Danby, M.A., was born 
 in London 1840, being the only son of 
 Thomas Danby, Esq. , and Elizabeth Stephen- 
 son ; he married the only daughter of 
 W. Tyler Smith,^ M.D., J. P., &c., of Upper 
 Grosvenor Street, W., and Blatchington 
 Court, Seaford. He was educated at the 
 Royal School of Mines, where he gained the 
 Government Prize 1858, Duke of Cornwall's 
 Scholarship 1858-9, the Edward Forbes and 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 193 
 
 the de la Beche Medal and Prize of Books 
 1860, becoming Associate of the Royal School 
 of Mines 1860. After being at Caius and 
 Queen's, he became a Scholar of Downing in 
 1863. He was placed among the Senior 
 Op times, and Senior in the Natural Sciences 
 Tripos of 1864, and was made a Fellow in 
 1867. He was Lecturer in Natural Sciences 
 at Trinity College from 1867-69. For some 
 time Mr. Danby was Demonstrator in Che- 
 mistry in the University Laboratory. He has 
 been an examiner for the " Special," the M.B., 
 and the Natural Sciences Tripos. He is an 
 F.G.S. and H.M.'s Chief Inspector of Schools 
 for the S.E. Division of England. He is a 
 member of the Savile and AthensGum. He has 
 published an English edition of Dr. Fuchs's 
 " Determination of Minerals by the Blowpipe." 
 The Right Honourable Sir Richard Henn 
 Collins was born in 1842. He is the son of 
 Mr. Stephen Collins, Q.C., of Dublin, who 
 acquired a large reputation in Ireland as an 
 advocate, and who would probably have 
 
 N 
 
194 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 obtained a still higher professional eminence 
 had he not died at the early age of forty, 
 shortly after the death of his dearly loved 
 wife, who had died in giving birth to Lord 
 Justice Collins. She was a daughter of 
 Master Henn, and her brother was Jonathan 
 Henn, Q.C., who defended O'Connell in the 
 State trials ; and her mother was the sister 
 of Sir Jonathan Lovett, Bart., of Liscombe, 
 Bucks. In the reign of Charles 11. a Henry 
 Henn was Lord Chief Baron, and another of 
 Lord Justice Henn CoUins's ancestors was 
 created a Judge of the Irish Court of King's 
 Bench in 1760. Lord Justice Collins began 
 his education at the Boyal School, Dun- 
 gannon, from whence he proceeded to Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where he was distinguished 
 in Classics and Moral Science ; afterwards he 
 entered Downing College, where he soon be- 
 came a Foundation Scholar. In 1865 he was 
 bracketed Fourth Classic. Three years later 
 he became Fellow and took his M.A. degree. 
 About the same time he married a daughter 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 195 
 
 of the late Dean of Clogher. He was called 
 to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1867, 
 and went the Northern Circuit. For eleven 
 years he was Revising Barrister for Liver- 
 pool, and in the whole of that time not one 
 of his decisions was reversed. He was made 
 Queen's Counsel in 1883. In 1885 he was 
 elected an Honorary Fellow of Downing. In 
 1891 Lord Halsbury made him a Judge of 
 the Queen's Bench Division — an event duly 
 celebrated by his College, which entertained 
 him at a commemorative dinner in the Hall 
 of Downing. He had been well known as an 
 editor of " Smith's Leading Cases ; " so when 
 Vanity Fair, in 1893, published a cartoon of 
 him it was entitled " Smith's Leading Cases." 
 On his appointment no fewer than twenty- 
 four large briefs were returned. He was 
 appointed one of the Lords Justices of the 
 Court of Appeal in 1898. In 1897 he re- 
 ceived the distinguished honour of being 
 selected by Lord Salisbury to act as one of 
 (the Arbitrators between this country and the 
 
196 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 United States for the decision of the Vene- 
 zuela Boundary Question. 
 
 Norman MaccoU, M.A., was born in 1843. 
 He was made a Scholar of Downing College 
 in 1864. He was placed Fifth in the Second 
 Class of the Classical Tripos of 1866, and 
 won the Hare Prize in 1868. In 1870 he 
 was elected as a Fellow of Downing. He 
 was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 
 1875. He has for nearly thirty years been 
 prominent in literary life as the editor of 
 the AihencBum ; and he has published " The 
 Greek Skeptics from Pyrrho to Sextus," and 
 also an edition of the principal plays of 
 Calderon. 
 
 William Arthur Brailey, M.D., entered the 
 College as a Minor Scholar in October 1864. 
 He was elected Scholar in the following year, 
 and obtained a First Class in the Natural 
 Science Tripos in December 1867, after which 
 he became a well-known Natural Science 
 coach. In 1869 he became College Lecturer. 
 In 1871, on being appointed the first House 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 197 
 
 Physician to Addenbrooke's Hospital, he 
 gave up science teaching. In 1872 Dr. 
 Brailey was elected Fellow, and held his 
 fellowship for the full term. In 1874 Dr. 
 Brailey was Curator to Moorfields Hospital, 
 in 1876 Lecturer in Zoology at St. George's 
 Hospital, and in 1879 at Guy's Hospital 
 (where he had been a student). Since 1880 
 he has been on the staff of Guy's Hospital, 
 where he is still Ophthalmic Surgeon. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Joseph Lawrence, M.A., 
 LL.D., who was Tutor, Chaplain, and Dean 
 in 1876-77, is the only man in the history of 
 the University who has been Senior in two 
 Triposes. *He was Senior in the Moral 
 Sciences Tripos, 1871, and in the Law and 
 History Tripos, 1872. As the Triposes become 
 more specialised this feat will become more 
 arduous, hence it probably will never be re- 
 peated. Dr. Lawrence was educated at the 
 Perse School, Cambridge, under Mr. Heppen- 
 stal. He became Whewell Scholar in 1868, 
 Scholar of Downing in 1869, and proceeded 
 
 I 
 
198 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 M.A. 1875, LL.M. 1876, and LL.D. 1892. 
 He was Fellow of Downing from 1873 to 
 1876 ; and in 1873 was appointed to a Lec- 
 tureship on Law and History there, which he 
 still holds. He was ordained by the Bishop 
 of Ely in 1874. Immediately after obtaining 
 his Fellowship he took an active part in 
 promoting the then nascent University 
 Extension Movement, and has ever since 
 been one of its most earnest and active 
 supporters. He became Warden of Caven- 
 dish College in 1876-77 ; then Yicar of 
 Tadlow and Rector of East Hatley 1877-88, 
 and Deputy Professor of International Law 
 at Cambridge 1883-85. In 1892 he visited 
 America, where he held for a time the impor- 
 tant office of Professor of History and Inter- 
 national Law in the University of Chicago, 
 and rendered great services in the establish- 
 ment of the American movement for Univer- 
 sity Extension. He has published "Essays 
 on Some Disputed Questions in Modern 
 International Law," in one of which he 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 199 
 
 appeared as one of the earliest advocates of 
 the neutrahsation of the Suez Canal ; *' A 
 Hand Book of Public International Law" 
 (4th edition, 1898), and the "Principles of 
 International Law " (2nd edition, 1897). The 
 impression produced by these works upon 
 the leading jurists of Europe secured him the 
 honour of election as an Associate of the 
 Institute of International Law. He holds 
 also the office of Lecturer on Maritime Law 
 at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. He 
 became Rector of Nailstone with Barton-in- 
 the-Beans, Leicestershire, in 1894, and in the 
 same year the Lord Chancellor presented 
 him to the Rectory of Girton. He is also 
 one of the Assistant Chaplains of the Savoy, 
 and has been on three occasions Select 
 Preacher before the University of Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 Charles Crawley, M.A., born in 1846, is the 
 third son of the late Venerable William Craw- 
 ley, Archdeacon of Monmouth, and Rector of 
 Bryngwyn, Raglan, by his wife Mary Ger- 
 
200 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 trude, daughter of Major-General Sir L. Jones 
 Parry, of Madyn, Carnarvonshire. He was 
 at Marlborough College from 1857 to 1866, 
 when he became a Minor Scholar of Trinity. 
 He migrated to Downing in October 1868, 
 and was elected to a Scholarship in 1869. 
 He was Tenth Classic in 1870, and was 
 elected Fellow of Downing College in 1874, 
 and retained his Fellowship till 1886. He 
 entered Lincoln's Inn in 1870, and was called 
 to the Bar in 1874. He was Examiner for 
 the Law Tripos from 1892 to 1894. He was 
 a member of the Oxford Circuit, and also 
 used to attend Sessions, but has now for 
 many years past devoted himself to Equity 
 practice in London. He has written well- 
 known books on the law of " Life Insurance," 
 and also on that of " Husband and Wife." 
 
 The Honourable William Philip Schreiner, 
 M.A., LL.M., Q.C., C.M.G., the present 
 [December 1898] Prime Minister of the 
 Cape, came to Downing with a great reputa- 
 tion already won at the South African 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 201 
 
 College of Capetown. As its Senior Exhibi- 
 tioner he brought to England an allowance 
 of two hundred pounds a year. He obtained 
 a Minor Scholarship at Downing, and then 
 a Foundation Scholarship for Law. As an 
 undergraduate he kept his terms at the 
 Middle Temple, where he won the Two 
 Hundred Guinea Studentship. He rowed 
 seven in the College boat ; whose upward 
 career on the river in his days is still proudly 
 remembered in the College, and the oar with 
 which he rowed now occupies a prominent 
 place in his study at the Cape. He was 
 Senior in the Law Tripos in 1881, won the 
 Chancellor's Medal for Legal Studies, and was 
 soon elected Fellow of the College. We have 
 mentioned in another part of this work the 
 Downing men who, like him, have been Senior 
 Jurists; and we may here add that in 1885 a 
 Downing man, who was a brother Afrikander 
 of Mr. Schreiner's, Mr. Wessels, came next 
 to the two men who were bracketed as Senior 
 Jurists, and has since then played, like Mr. 
 
202 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Schreiner, a prominent part in South African 
 politics. He is resident in the Transvaal, 
 and he defended the Eeform prisoners at 
 Pretoria. 
 
 Mr. Schreiner, on leaving the University, 
 studied law in the Temple in the chambers 
 of the once famous special pleader, Mr. 
 Frederick Knight. On his return to Cape- 
 town he began to practise as a barrister. 
 He had not to pass through the ordinary 
 delays and trials of the Bar, but obtained at 
 once a high place and an assured income. 
 Hence when in course of time he became 
 Attorney- General in Mr. Rhodes's Adminis- 
 tration, he incurred a considerable financial 
 loss by having to surrender his practice at 
 the Bar for a salary of £1500 a year. He 
 was on terms of intimate friendship with 
 Mr. Rhodes. They lived next door to one 
 another, and the boundary fence was cut 
 down so that they might the more easily 
 visit each other's houses. In fact, Mr. 
 Rhodes and Mr. Schreiner formed an inner 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 203 
 
 circle which was the real Cabinet of the 
 Cape in the days when the " apple-cart " was 
 trundling along smoothly. Hence Mr. 
 Schreiner was one of the most important 
 witnesses before the South African Com- 
 mittee when the Jameson Raid came to be a 
 matter of investigation at Westminster. He 
 described then his interview with Mr. Rhodes 
 on the day in which the first news of the 
 Raid reached Capetown, and Mr. Rhodes 
 made more than once the famous exclamation 
 — " Jameson has upset my apple-cart." He 
 was subjected at the South African Com- 
 mittee to a very searching examination by 
 the present Mr. Justice Bigham, who was a 
 Uitlander partisan, and the forensic wrestling 
 between him and Mr. Schreiner — in which 
 honours were divided — was looked upon as 
 among the most brilliant displays of intellec- 
 tual rivalry ever witnessed in a Parliamen- 
 tary Committee. 
 
 On the same occasion the bitter animosity of 
 Mr. Chamberlain's cross-examination failed 
 
204 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 to ruffle the characteristic calmness and 
 courtesy of the witness. Mr. Schreiner 
 maintained throughout the need of cordial 
 fellowship and hearty co-operation between 
 the British and the Dutch in South Africa. 
 That was then, as it is now, the cardinal 
 point of his policy, and he has begun his 
 term of power by a denunciation of Mr. 
 Rhodes's electoral appeals to race hatred — 
 a denunciation which, however, moved Mr. 
 Rhodes only to the point of a few encourag- 
 ing exclamations of " Go on, go on ! " 
 
 Mr. Schreiner is, except in complexion, 
 very much like his sister, Olive Schreiner, 
 the writer of "Peter Halkett" and other 
 works. Mr. Schreiner's father was a German 
 missionary, who laboured at a remote station 
 far up the country ; and his mother an 
 English lady of the name of Tindell. She 
 has since become a Roman Catholic, and now 
 lives in a convent at Graham stown. 
 
 Mr. Schreiner has a great hold on the 
 sympathy and affection of the Dutch- 
 
I 
 
 FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 205 
 
 Afrikanders from the fact that Mrs. 
 Schreiner is a daughter of Mr. Retz, for 
 many years President of the Orange Free 
 State. Another cause of his wide popularity 
 and social influence is the fact that " Sweet 
 Repose," Mr. Schreiner's home near Capetown, 
 is well known as a rendezvous for the 
 cultured intellects of South Africa. Mr. 
 Schreiner combines in his temperament all 
 that is most sturdy and resolute in the 
 Dutch and English national characters. 
 
 Sydney John Hickson, M.A. Cambridge, 
 D.Sc. London, and Honorary M.A. of 
 Oxford, was born in 1859. He entered 
 University College, London, in 1876. In 
 the following year he gained the Gold Medal 
 for Zoology, and in the summer of the same 
 year he passed the First B.Sc. and Prelimin- 
 ary Scientific Examination of the University 
 of London, gaining also its Exhibition of 
 £40 for two years for Zoology. In the 
 autumn of that year he entered St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Hospital as a medical student, 
 
206 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 and during the session of 1877-78 he acted 
 as Demonstrator of Zoology at University 
 College under Professor Ray Lankester (an 
 old Downing man) . In 1 8 7 9 Dr. Hickson was 
 elected to an open Foundation Scholarship 
 at Downing, and in the autumn of the same 
 year he passed the Second B.Sc. Examination 
 of the University of London with Honours in 
 Zoology. In 1881 he took his B.A. degree 
 on his First Class in the Natural Sciences 
 Tripos. In this year also he acted for a 
 few months as Assistant Demonstrator of 
 Morphology under Professor Balfour. In the 
 following year Professor Moseley, of Oxford, 
 appointed him as his Demonstrator of 
 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. He 
 took the degree of D.Sc. of the University of 
 London in 1884 ; and in the following year he 
 left England for the Malay Archipelago, and 
 took up his quarters on the Coast of North 
 Celebes for the purpose of investigating the 
 fauna of coral reefs. In 1887 his old 
 College elected him a Fellow, and in the 
 
FELLOWS, TUTORS AND LECTURERS 207 
 
 following year Oxford again availed itself 
 of his scientific attainments by appointing 
 him Deputy for Professor Ray Lankester, the 
 Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy, 
 the University also conferring on him an 
 honorary M.A. In 1889 a third University 
 availed itself of Dr. Hickson's service, for we 
 find him acting as Examiner in Zoology for 
 the University of London. In 1891 he was 
 appointed Lecturer in Advanced Morphology 
 at Cambridge, and in the same year he 
 became a Lecturer in Natural Sciences at 
 Downing, and College Librarian. In 1891 
 and 1892 he was an Examiner in the Final 
 Honours Schools of Natural Sciences at 
 Oxford. In 1894 Dr. Hickson was appointed 
 Beyer Professor of Zoology in the Owens 
 College, Manchester, and in the following 
 year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
 Society. Professor Hickson has contributed 
 papers to the Transactions of the Royal 
 Society and of other English scientific so- 
 cieties, as well as to the Tijdschrift van het 
 
 fe 
 
208 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Nederland Aardrijhskundig Genootschap. 
 He is an Honorary Foreign Member of the 
 Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taalland en 
 Volkenkunde Van Nederlandsh-Indie of the 
 Hague. He has also written ''A Naturalist 
 in North Celebes" (Murray, 1889), "The 
 Fauna of the Deep Sea" (Modern Science 
 Series, KeganPaul, 1894) and " The Story of 
 Life in the Seas " (Newnes, 1894). 
 
 Ellis Jones Griffith, M.A., is the son of 
 T. M. Griffith, of Anglesey, and was born in 
 1860. He was educated at the University 
 College of Wales at Aberystwith. From 
 there he proceeded to Downing, where he 
 was elected a Law Scholar. He was Senior 
 in the Law Tripos of 1883. He was called 
 to the Bar in 1887, and became a Fellow 
 of Downing in 1888. He has been Member 
 of Parliament for Anglesey as a Gladstonian 
 Liberal since 1895. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FELLOW COMMONERS 
 
 The Fellow Commoner is an almost forgotten 
 type of undergraduate. Yet in 1811 the 
 Calendar gives the names of forty Fellow 
 Commoners at Trinity College. The follow- 
 ing table of fines in 1798 throws some light 
 on this class of man : 
 
 8. d. 
 A Fellow Commoner pays each time for neglect- 
 ing Matins and Vespers . .02 
 „ for coming in after gates are closed . 3 
 „ missing a lecture . . . .04 
 „ a meal in Hall . . .10 
 „ St. Mary's on Sunday, if 
 
 detected . .10 
 
 They sat at the high table, wearing gowns 
 richly trimmed with gold or silver lace. Their 
 
 i 
 
210 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 caps were covered with velvet, and had 
 tassels of gold or silver. 
 
 The feeling which led to their improvement 
 and extinction made itself felt even at this 
 time in caustic comments such as these : 
 " The example of these silken votaries of plea- 
 sure spreads a contagion through the whole 
 atmosphere. The future deputy of clerical 
 indolence gazes with envy at luxuries which 
 are strangers to his garret, and sighs at the 
 malice of the Fates which have doomed him 
 to a curacy and £20 a year "; and " A Fellow 
 Commoner is of no use to any one but the 
 Bed-maker, Tutor, and Shoe-black. The 
 expenses of the men are Fees, Fines, and 
 Filchings." 
 
 Fellow Commoners were the majority of the 
 members of the College in statu pupillari 
 for some years from May 1821. Several of 
 these earliest members of the College had 
 been at Eton under Dr. Keate. Some of 
 them may have been participators in the 
 following escapade, an event which shows 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 211 
 
 the school life of the future undergraduate in 
 the early part of the century. A whole 
 division, numbering seventy boys, agreed to 
 "cut" a punishment absence. Dr. Keate 
 put the whole seventy down for a flogging 
 on the day following. They held a meeting 
 and agreed that they would not submit to 
 being flogged — the alternative being expul- 
 sion ; but they argued that the Head Master 
 never would expel seventy. But Dr. Keate 
 attacked the enemy in detail. All went to 
 bed. At ten o'clock each master brought his 
 special contingent. On the following morning 
 the seventy found that they had all sufiered 
 alike. 
 
 Among our Fellow Commoners were mem- 
 bers of many county families. There were, 
 for example, in 1821, the Hon. William 
 White, son of Lord Bantry, aged nineteen ; 
 Philip Gurdon, school Eton, aged twenty- 
 one ; W. J. St. Aubyn, son of J. St. Aubyn, 
 i Baronet, school Westminster, and others. 
 In 1841 eighteen Fellow Commoners 
 I 
 
212 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 matriculated, divided among ten colleges, 
 Magdalen having the largest entry, four ; and 
 Downing two. 
 
 Dr. Worsley aimed at sociability without 
 luxury among the Fellow Commoners of 
 Downing. He felt that, from a national 
 point of view, the College had a mission in 
 educating as Fellow Commoners young men 
 who from their station in society com- 
 bined with their fair abilities constituted an 
 important class in the community. He 
 thought that Downing College was a place 
 where they might have their powers exer- 
 cised, that it might be a home for those who, 
 while desiring to pass through the University, 
 neither covet a European reputation for 
 scholarship, nor are anxious to develop an 
 extraordinary capacity for hard study, but 
 are content with trying to be English gentle- 
 men in touch with most of the contemporary 
 intellectual movements. 
 
 Some Downing Fellow Commoners have 
 been men of mark. 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 213 
 
 A Fellow Commoner in 1822-3, whose life 
 was stranger than a romance, was Baron 
 Charles Philip de Thierry. In 1820 he met, 
 at Cambridge, the great Maori chief Hongi, 
 who was helping Professor Lee in his Maori 
 Grammar. From Hongi, de Thierry heard 
 much of the attractiveness of New Zealand. 
 From this he conceived the idea of setting 
 up a kingdom of his own and of becoming 
 King of New Zealand. In 1838 Langlois, 
 a captain of a French trading vessel, bought 
 four hundred acres of land from the natives 
 at Akaroa. Then he sold his claim in France 
 to the Nanto-Bordelaise Company — a com- 
 pany whose shareholders had the design of 
 acquiring the whole of New Zealand. At 
 the instigation of de Thierry, then living at 
 Hokianga and calling himself " King of New 
 Zealand," the French Government made 
 terms with this company, which later became 
 La Compagnie Fran^aise de la Nouvelle 
 Z^lande. Then the Aube, a French vessel of 
 war (Captain Lavaud), was despatched to 
 
214 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 the Bay of Islands, with orders to take pos- 
 session of the North Island, and afterwards 
 to make for Akaroa to take possession of the 
 South Island. The English were in posses- 
 sion under treaty rights, and, on the strength 
 of Cook's discovery, laid claim to the South 
 Island. When the Aube, in July 1840, 
 reached the Bay of Islands, Hobson, the 
 Governor, surmising the object of the visit 
 of the French, sent off H.M.S. Britomart, 
 under Stanley, brother of the Dean of West- 
 minster. He got to Akaroa on August 10. 
 On the next day the British flag was hoisted 
 and a Court of Petty Sessions established. 
 The Auhe only arrived on the 15th and the 
 Comte de Paris on the 16th. 
 
 The Baron never succeeded in obtaining 
 recognition of his regal throne, from which 
 he stepped down into private life. He died 
 peaceably in Auckland in 1861. 
 
 Another Fellow Commoner of quite a dif- 
 ferent character was Sir Harry Verney. He 
 was born in December 1801 ; and died in 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 215 
 
 February 1894. He was the eldest son of 
 General Sir Harry Calvert, Bart., G.C.B., to 
 whose title he succeeded in 1826. He took 
 the name of Verney by royal licence in 
 1827, on inheriting the Buckinghamshire 
 and other estates of Mary Verney, in her 
 own right Baroness Fermanagh, a daughter 
 of Ralph, Earl Verney and Viscount Fer- 
 managh. Sir Harry was educated at Harrow 
 and Downing when Serjeant Frere was 
 Master and Dawes and Worsley were Tutors. 
 At this time several of the Downing Fellow 
 Commoners had been in different professions. 
 One of them, Stapleton, had been in the 
 Prussian service ; and afterwards he took 
 Holy Orders, and received preferment in 
 Ireland. 
 
 In 1832 Sir Harry, at the first general 
 election after the Reform Bill, was elected 
 Whig Member for Buckingham. The Verneys 
 were always a very parliamentary family. 
 Sir Ralph Verney was Member for London 
 in 1472, and from that time almost up to 
 
216 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Sir Harry's day there was seldom wanting a 
 representative of the name for the county of 
 Bucks or for one of its five boroughs. So 
 when in 1882 Vanity Fair published a car- 
 toon of Sir Harry, the title sufficient to 
 describe it was " Bucks/' at the same time 
 the reader was told that although the subject 
 of the cartoon was a landed proprietor with 
 an income of over £20,000 a year, still he was 
 a Liberal. Sir Harry carried on the parlia- 
 mentary tradition of his family and took his 
 seat in the legislative chamber, in which a 
 predecessor, Sir Ralph, had scribbled notes, 
 which are still preserved at Claydon, of the 
 proceedings when Charles I. attempted to 
 arrest the Five Members. With a few 
 breaks he was an M.P. till 1885, when he 
 was made a Privy Councillor on his retire- 
 ment. Among his first acts in Parliament 
 was to give a cordial support to the move- 
 ment for the abolition of slavery. He sup- 
 ported measures for the improvement of the 
 Poor Law system, the introduction of the 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 217 
 
 Penny Post, the commutation of tithe, the 
 reform of the Civil Service, of municipaUties, 
 and of the Criminal Law. For some years he 
 was Father of the House of Commons. 
 
 His first recorded speech supported a 
 petition for the Better Observance of the 
 Sabbath. It is grounded on principles which 
 he kept before him all through his life — a 
 strong sense of the need of a national con- 
 science and a deep sympathy with those who 
 work hard for daily bread. He lived to see 
 the realisation of some of his desires, such as 
 the abolition of flogging in the army, the 
 repeal of the Corn Laws (in his neighbour- 
 hood, he told the House, the current poor- 
 rate was 155. in the £), the extension of 
 railways (which he was assured were only a 
 branch of the Birmingham Political Union), 
 the ''separate cell" system in prisons, the 
 Committee of Council on Education. The 
 influence of Dawes, his College Tutor, came 
 in when he told the House that the best 
 form of national security rested on a better 
 
218 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 and higher state of national education. This 
 produced a retort from Hume, the great 
 democratic leader, that what the people 
 demanded was not more education, but more 
 democratic legislation. We now have the 
 County Councils, which were practically pro- 
 posed by Hume in 1837. 
 
 His second wife was a sister of the cele- 
 brated Miss Florence Nightingale. At each 
 of his two weddings use was made of the 
 family ring, an ordinary wedding ring being 
 substituted after the ceremony. The following 
 is the reason for this curious custom : After 
 the battle of Edgehill, a Verney, an ancestor 
 of the present family, was missing, but one 
 trace of him was found — his gloved hand 
 still clutching the Royal Standard, with the 
 wedding ring which he always wore en- 
 circling his finger ; this ring is always used 
 by his descendants when they take the most 
 serious step of their lives. 
 
 The Verneys' home at Claydon was entirely 
 rebuilt in the reign of George II., with the 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 219 
 
 intention of rivalling Stowe, the princely 
 home of the Duke of Buckingham, in 
 splendour and magnificence. Its grand stair- 
 case, inlaid with ebony and ivory, has a 
 quaint wrought-iron balustrade representing 
 standing corn, which bends and rustles as 
 the ascent is made. 
 
 Sir Harry was held universally to be an 
 admirable specimen of the best and highest 
 type of the English county gentleman — 
 faultless in courtesy and stately geniality of 
 manner. The following anecdote gives a 
 better conception of his character than any 
 description. When he lost the Buckingham 
 election in 1874, which meant his deliberate 
 and ungrateful dismissal after forty years of 
 faithful service, his agent told him that it was 
 useless to wait for the result as the relative 
 size of the two heaps of voting papers left 
 it in no doubt. He only answered : "I will 
 go across to the Town Hall and shake hands 
 with Hubbard and congratulate him." And 
 he went. 
 
m> DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 The following lines were written for him 
 on his twenty-second birthday : — 
 
 There is a clock to each life's period wound, 
 
 Whose steady hands, with silent progress, keep 
 
 O'er hours and days and weeks their ceaseless sweep, 
 
 Too oft unmarked ; but when a year comes round 
 
 That clock is heard to strike with solemn sound ; 
 
 And, if this world's vain pleasures do not steep 
 
 The heart's best feelings in oblivious sleep 
 
 As by a spell of magic torpor bound, 
 
 'Tis roused by that impressive sound to ask : 
 
 " What part is done of my allotted task ? 
 
 What has this year produced of wholesome fruit ? 
 
 What noxious plant extracted by the root ? 
 
 What record do my hours, as swift they fly. 
 
 Bear to the volumes of eternity ? " 
 
 They exercised a great influence on his cha- 
 racter. With respect to these lines he wrote, 
 in old age, to Dr. Stubbs, Dean of Ely, saying 
 he could not answer these questions with 
 satisfaction to himself: "Life prolonged to 
 old age is a great responsibility, but when 
 old age is blessed with comparative good 
 health it is indeed a greater responsibility." 
 Frederick Lyndon Attwood, for some time 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 221 
 
 Fellow Commoner of Downing, who died in 
 April 1879, was a modest and chivalrous 
 spirit whose life was devoted to the good of 
 his fellow beings. At Belgrade in 1876 he 
 was one of the gallant little band of young 
 English surgeons sent out by the National 
 Aid Society to assist the sick and wounded 
 in the Servo-Turkish War. In company with 
 his comrades Attwood went to the front, and 
 did noble service on the battlefields of 
 Alexinatz and Deligrad, until they were 
 recalled to Belgrade to take charge of the 
 English hospital there. On December 1 
 the National Aid Society decided to close its 
 hospital. There were then about seventy 
 patients under the charge of Attwood and 
 his two assistants. Doctors Hume and Battie. 
 Attwood declared it was cruel to turn these 
 poor fellows over to the crude care of the 
 native surgeons, and notified the Servian 
 Government and the National Aid Society 
 that he would individually assume the burden 
 of carrying on the hospital until the patients 
 
222 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 could be discharged. The brave- hearted young 
 fellow procured native nurses, and fed them, 
 together with his assistants, at his own table ; 
 he drew on his own bankers for the funds to 
 keep up the hospital, and it was maintained 
 until about April 1, when the patients were 
 all cured or convalescent. Some subscriptions 
 were received from various sources towards 
 the hospital expenses, but there was a heavy 
 balance met by his private purse. 
 
 Dr. Attwood was of very delicate physique, 
 yet when the Russo-Turkish War broke out, 
 he was one of the first to leave for Constanti- 
 nople. He knew that the Russian ambulance 
 was very rich in supplies and had a numerous 
 staff of surgeons, while the Turks had nothing. 
 His place was always on the side of the un- 
 fortunate, and therefore he accompanied the 
 Moslem hosts in the campaign. He was at 
 Shipka in the summer of 1877, and when 
 Gourko swarmed over the Balkans and poured 
 his gallant Guardsmen down the valley 
 towards Adrianople, Attwood was in the 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 223 
 
 neighbourhood of Pangurishte with his 
 ambulance. One of his assistants, Dr. 
 Sandwith, went to Tatar Bazardjik with 
 their hospital supplies, but the Russian 
 cavalry cut him off from returning to 
 Attwood. Hume and Sandwith retreated to 
 the -^gean Sea with the troops of Suleiman 
 Pasha, and from there took steamer to Con- 
 stantinople. Attwood had not been heard of 
 since Sandwith left him on the road to Tatar 
 Bazardjik ; nearly a month had then passed, 
 and his comrades concluded that their gallant 
 friend had been murdered by the Bashi- 
 Bazouks or by the Bulgarians. Sandwith 
 went to all the Russian headquarters, but 
 could find no trace of him ; no one knew of 
 the capture of any English physician in that 
 part of the country. At last, as they were 
 almost despairing of ever hearing of Attwood 
 again, they ascertained that he had been 
 captured by Russian cavalry, and, singularly 
 enough, the squadron was commanded by an 
 oflficer he had known as a volunteer in the 
 
224 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Servian army at Alexinatz. The Russian 
 general told Attwood that he was free to go 
 where he pleased, but at the same time said 
 there were one hundred and twenty Turkish 
 wounded lying at Pangurishte without medical 
 attendance, and that the Russian troops had 
 scarcely any stores with them on account of 
 their rapid march and the difficulty of getting 
 supplies over the Balkans in the dead of 
 winter. So that, under the circumstances, 
 they could do nothing for these poor suffering 
 Turks. A letter was written by Attwood 
 to this general, saying that he would stay at 
 Pangurishte and do all he could for the 
 wounded men. In this letter he made a 
 request for medical stores. Dr. Hume went 
 up to Tatar Bazardjik with the necessary 
 supplies. He found Attwood insensible from 
 fever and scarcely breathing. Hume attended 
 him like a brother, and after some weeks' 
 delay he was able to bring him to Pera, still 
 so low that he was generally unconscious. "I 
 know of many noble deeds of charity per- 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 225 
 
 formed by the man whose useful career has 
 now untimely ended, but I knew of them 
 (wrote his friend the Times' Correspondent at 
 Bucharest) only because I was the means of 
 conveying his gifts to their recipients, so that 
 they should never know who their benefactor 
 was. What he did through others, I can only 
 imagine, as he never spoke of those things to 
 any one. Attwood was a great student, and 
 had a deep knowledge of his profession, which 
 he exercised chiefly to relieve the sufferings 
 of those who could not afford to pay for 
 regular medical attendance. After his return 
 from the Turkish Ambulance Service he was 
 a constant sufferer from the sad effects of 
 the campaign. He will be mourned sincerely 
 by all who knew and understood him; but 
 the greater part of those who would grieve 
 over his early death belong to the humblest 
 classes, who are beyond the reach of the 
 Press, and who will never know that their 
 benefactor is no more." 
 
 Downing's most noted Fellow Commoner 
 
226 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 was described by the Times as a man whose 
 " exertions entitle him to be regarded as one 
 of the greatest benefactors of the University 
 in modern times." This was Sir George 
 Murray Humphry, Professor of Surgery. 
 Sir George, who died in his seventy-sixth 
 year in 1896, was an F.E.S., an F.RC.S., a 
 Professorial Fellow of King's, and an hon- 
 orary Fellow of Downing. His father, who 
 was a barrister-at-law, lived at Sudbury. 
 After spending some time in the Grammar 
 Schools of Sudbury and Dedham — for in days 
 of difficult communication local grammar 
 schools gave a sound classical education to 
 the sons of the gentry — he began his medical 
 career, when sixteen, with J. G. Crosse, the 
 well-known Norwich surgeon. Next door to 
 his surgery Crosse had fitted up a large room 
 as a library and museum. In this room the 
 young Humphry acquired a love of human 
 anatomy which never left him. When nine- 
 teen, he came up to St. Bartholomew's, 
 and won, in 1840, the London University 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 227 
 
 Gold Medal for anatomy and physiology. In 
 1842, he was appointed surgeon to Adden- 
 brooke's, being, as he was wont to say, " the 
 youngest hospital surgeon in England." Here 
 he, not without opposition, inaugurated 
 surgical lectures ; here, as an enthusiastic 
 teacher, his life-work was done in imparting 
 to successive generations of medical students 
 the gift of independent and accurate thought. 
 One of them describes how, in the operating 
 theatre at Addenbrooke's, on three mornings 
 in the week, the procession of poor and needy 
 came for treatment, and how the pupils 
 before and behind the Professor drank up his 
 words with greedy ears. There would be a 
 few directions as to treatment, and for the 
 men : *' Remember ; eyes much, fingers little, 
 tongue least." The men learned something 
 more than could be culled from any text- 
 book ; they learned " philosophy saturated 
 with the influence of a permeating person- 
 ality. Those who imbibed it will not only 
 be the better surgeons, they will be the 
 
228 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 better men. . . . Verily, you can make dry 
 bones live ! It is only when we see you sink 
 back in your carriage that we realise how 
 much of your very self you have sacrificed 
 to us." 
 
 Humphry did great work as an examiner 
 for the Natural Sciences Tripos ; and intro- 
 duced examiners who were unconnected with 
 the University. He was a Fellow and a 
 Member of the Council, a Lecturer and 
 Examiner, at the College of Surgeons, an 
 Examiner for the College of Physicians and 
 the University of Oxford. It was said that 
 no man was ever rejected by him who would 
 not admit that the rejection was deserved. 
 
 Humphry became a Fellow Commoner of 
 Downing in 1847, being, we fancy, a unique 
 case of a fully qualified medical man so 
 entering the University. He proceeded 
 Bachelor of Medicine in 1852 and M.D. in 
 1859. During this period the greater part 
 of the work was done on Humphry's great 
 work on the Human Skeleton. A large 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 229 
 
 part of its merit is due to the illustrations. 
 These were drawn from the specimens, by 
 Lady Humphry. He published also other 
 books on Human and Comparative Anatomy. 
 In the midst of this work he was in 1859 
 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 
 1860, in order to help medical students of 
 small means to come to the University as his 
 pupils, he established Dr. Humphry's Hostel. 
 In 1866, on the resignation of Dr. Clark, a 
 new Professorship of Human Anatomy was 
 founded to which Humphry was elected. 
 At first the emoluments of the new chair 
 were inconsiderable. When in 1883 they 
 had reached a substantial sum, Humphry 
 voluntarily made way for a successor who 
 could devote all his time and energies to the 
 Professorship of Anatomy, whilst he himself 
 undertook without remuneration the work of 
 the newly founded Professorship of Surgery. 
 Thus, step by step, by Humphry's unselfish- 
 ness, skill, and tact, was the Cambridge 
 Medical School enlarged. The character of 
 
230 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Professor Humphry's work is shown by 
 the offices he held and by the honours 
 accorded to him. He was President of the 
 Cambridge Medical Society, President of the 
 Cambridge Graduates' Club, President of the 
 Pathological Society of London, first President 
 of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain 
 and Ireland; Rede Lecturer, Cambridge, 1880, 
 the subject being **Man, past, present, and 
 future " ; Honorary Fellow of Downing 
 College, Professorial Fellow of King's College, 
 LL.D. of the University of Edinburgh 
 Honorary Doctor of Science of the University 
 of Dublin; knighted in 1891. In 1893 he 
 received the honorary freedom of the borough 
 of Sudbury, where he was born ; "as a 
 recognition by his fellow townsmen of his 
 distinguished career, and lengthened and 
 eminent public services in the great pro- 
 fession to which he belongs, and also of his 
 kindly interest in all matters affecting the 
 town of his birth." 
 
 His bust by Willes was presented to 
 
FELLOW COMMONERS 231 
 
 Addenbrooke's, and his portrait by Ouless to 
 the University. The latter is in the Fitz- 
 wilHam Museum. 
 
 A noteworthy nobleman-member of the 
 College may be mentioned in this place : he 
 was Frederick North, LL.D., fifth Earl of 
 Guildford. He was at Eton and graduated 
 from Christ Church, Oxford; afterwards in 
 1821 he became a member of the College. 
 Lord Guildford had a good knowledge of five 
 modern languages. Including modern Greek. 
 In the days of the Protectorate over the 
 Ionian Islands he was an enthusiast for the 
 restoration of the ancient Greek prestige ; 
 to this end he expended large sums in es- 
 tablishing an Ionian University at Corfu, 
 of which he was appointed Chancellor. So 
 earnest was he in the furtherance of his 
 project that he was received into the Greek 
 Church. He adopted the classic costume as 
 the academic dress, and wore it all the year 
 round, even while in England. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 Library. 
 Had the College been founded earlier than it 
 was, the collection of books belonging to 
 Anthony Morris Storer — " the Admirable 
 Crichton of the eighteenth century" — who 
 died in 1799, would have come to it instead 
 of to Eton College. This library was rich 
 in old bindings, old plays, and Caxtons. 
 
 In 1849, the College began to lay the 
 foundation of its stock of books for a Library. 
 In that year it assigned for their purchase a 
 fund of about £100 per annum derived from 
 fees paid by its members. Before this a 
 bequest of £50 from Dr. Peacock, Dean of 
 Ely, and books from William Gurdon, formed 
 the working Library. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 233 
 
 The most interesting part of the College 
 Library is the Bowtell Collection. John 
 Bowtell, who died in 1813, left his antiquarian 
 books to the College. 
 
 The Cambridge Chronicle of December 24, 
 1813, states : ' ' The late Mr. Bowtell bequeathed 
 to Downing College all his books and a 
 mahogany bookcase containing several manu- 
 scripts and curiosities, chiefly fossils and 
 antiquarian remains. Among the manu- 
 scripts is a topographical history of the town 
 of considerable extent, compiled by the 
 testator with a view to publication and ready 
 for the press. Mr. Bowtell expressed in his 
 will a desire that his donation should be 
 deposited in the College Library. In the 
 meantime, until this building is erected, it 
 will be deposited in one of the new-built 
 apartments." 
 
 One of the Bowtell MSS. is an elaborate 
 treatise on bell-ringing. He was an enthusi- 
 astic ringer, being a member of the " London 
 College Youths." It is recorded of him that 
 
234 DOAVNING COLLEGE 
 
 in 1788, at Great St. Mary's, he rang on the 
 thirty hundredweight tenor bell 6609 changes 
 " in the method of Bob maximus^ generally 
 termed * twelve in.' " 
 
 The most valuable part of the bequest 
 consists of ten volumes of accounts of the 
 borough of Cambridge from 1510-1787. The 
 testator tells us : *' Hearing that a parcel of 
 loose writings were offered for to be sold to 
 a shopkeeper as waste paper, and presuming 
 from the station of their late possessor that 
 some of them might be worth preserving, I 
 stepped forward and superseded a sale, 
 which no doubt would have consigned them 
 to oblivion." 
 
 Much of the characteristic town life from 
 the sixteenth century onwards is shown 
 by the entries in these account-books. In 
 the second year of Henry VIII. rents were 
 paid in money, wheat, or meslin — a mixture 
 of different kinds of grain ; a Dawber {i.e., a 
 plasterer) was paid fourpence a day. There 
 was much spurious coin in circulation, as we 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 235 
 
 find that sevenpence is allowed to one Robert 
 Smith when he came home from London, for 
 " evill money." 
 
 There are constant entries of presents to 
 her Majesty's Judges. But at length the 
 corporation became weary of this forced 
 benevolence, for in 1755 we find that it 
 was agreed "that the Judges' presents at 
 the assizes be for the future reduced to a 
 dish of Jisli only." Not Judges only had a 
 share in this generosity, but bishops too, for in 
 1515, two "galouns wyne" were given to my 
 Lorde of Ely — Nicholas West — ** beyng atte 
 Bernewelle, searching for enclosure of londes." 
 For this wine one shilling and fourpence was 
 paid. 
 
 There are entries about cleansing the 
 King's Ditch and payments for leave to place 
 in St. Andrew's Churchyard what was taken 
 out. In 1517 we can follow the stages of a 
 journey of the Mayor and others to London 
 on corporation business. On the first day 
 they got to Ware, where the bill for food for 
 
236 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 man and beast was five shillings and a penny. 
 When they got to town they put up at the 
 Green Dragon, Bishopsgate, and had " ale in 
 their chambres " and sowse, a kind of brawn, 
 for breakfast. Then there are payments for 
 one of the company in the Fleet. 
 
 The father of Thirlby, Bishop of Ely (1554), 
 is sent in 1522 on horseback to Windsor to 
 " get release " of some of the twenty archers 
 whom Henry YIII. wished to obtain from 
 the town, to use " in his service beyond the 
 see." The accounts for the sixteenth century 
 show us how some of the corporation income 
 came from the rents of "saffron grounds." 
 The entries give abundant evidence of the 
 insanitary condition of the town. In 1531 
 five shillings is paid to a yeoman of the 
 King's guard who had been sent to the town 
 to inquire whether the " plage is reyninge or 
 no," a needful precaution, for ten years before, 
 " At the assize kept at the castle of Cambridge 
 in Lent, the Justices, and al the gentlemen, 
 Bailiffes and other, resorting thether, toke 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 237 
 
 such an infecion, whether it were of the 
 savor of the prisoners, or of the filthe of the 
 house, that manye gentlemen, as Sir Jhon 
 Cut, Sir Giles Alington, knightes, and many 
 other honest yomen thereof dyed, and all 
 most all whiche were there present were sore 
 sicke and narrowly escaped with their lives." 
 The Bowtell MSS. show us that in the six- 
 teenth century those who died of the plague 
 were buried on Midsummer Green and Cold- 
 ham Green ; on the latter a " pest house " 
 was built for the ''visited persons." 
 
 In 1666 the few who remained in the town 
 "kept charcoal, pitch and brimstone constantly 
 burning in their several colleges. . . . The 
 acme of this loathsome distemper was in the 
 midst of summer, during which time a dismal 
 kind of procession was daily made through all 
 the streets by two or three carts, in sable 
 attire .... many of the dead were imme- 
 diately conveyed to a field called Coldhams 
 and there promiscuously interred." These 
 are somewhat gruesome antecedents for the 
 
238 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 University Golf Links. The entries are of 
 manifold variety and interest : In 1535 20d. 
 is paid to the king's " blakke garde " (kitchen 
 staff), 6s. Sd. is paid to Henry VIII.'s juggler. 
 In 1537 there was an insurrection; certain 
 "harnys" had to be repaired. In 1646, 
 £5 8s. 8d. are received as fine and fees for 
 the freedom of the borough from Sir John 
 Cotton. He, it would seem, married an aunt 
 of the Founder, and thus may have been an 
 indirect cause of Sir George Downing taking 
 an interest in the University. 
 
 This collection has preserved many names 
 of booths and streets in Stourbridge Fair — 
 the originals of " the several rows and streets, 
 under their proper names, where such and 
 such wares are vended," which Bunyan places 
 in Vanity Fair. That writer himself may 
 have listened to the open-air services which 
 these accounts show were held twice on Sun- 
 day in the centre of the Duddery. 
 
 There is a folio volume of leases, some 
 being on parchment, others on paper. Inside 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 239 
 
 the cover of this volume the following 
 explanation is given : "The motive for pre- 
 serving this volume of Deeds was to ascertain 
 the exact situations of many buildings in 
 Cambridge long since forgotten. Number 59 
 mentions the Butchery Row — the Pillory — 
 the Shraggery [a street]. Number 66 the 
 Scalding House and the old Pinfold. 
 Number 70 the Physic Garden. Number 100 
 Houses between the east end of great 
 S. Mary's Church and Poulter s [now Pump 
 Lane]." 
 
 There are several volumes in MS. on the 
 history of the town and county. The follow- 
 ing are examples of the kind of information 
 gathered by Bowtell : 
 
 " 1615. — King James and Prince Charles 
 hear a Latin sermon 1^ hours long on 
 Monday morning at seven. 
 
 " 4:ih June, 1666. — Sir Isaac Newton, going 
 to dine at Trinity, told the fellows he had heard 
 the reports of great firing, which grew louder 
 towards the end^ so the English had been 
 
240 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 forced nearer to shore and defeated." This 
 was the great sea fight, ofi" the Essex coast, 
 between Monk and De Ruyter. 
 
 There is a manuscript copy of a letter 
 dated May 18, 1736, written by Thomas 
 Purne, Fellow, to Dr. Bentley, Master of 
 Trinity. Purne writes : '' Whilst you securely 
 sultan it in the Lodge with none but 
 mutes and slaves about you," pleading for 
 a friend — he goes on, " should you and 
 I and the major part of the electors who 
 have rose from such beginnings ourselves, 
 think of giving a general exclusion to the 
 Sizars?" 
 
 Another MS. bearing on the town is 
 Alderman Newton's Diary. This has been 
 published by the Cambridge Antiquarian 
 Society. In it there are entries of all kinds ; 
 for example, there is an account of a prisoner 
 being pressed to death, of Charles II. receiving 
 a present of one hundred twenty-shilling pieces 
 of broad gold on his visit to Cambridge, of a 
 sturgeon being caught near Queens', "near 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 241 
 
 two yards long, measured by my Japan 
 cane." 
 
 In the Library is a microscope presented in 
 1888 in memory of Arthur Noel Gamble, B.A., 
 by his father. ^ 
 
 Boat Club. 
 The Downing boathouse, which is in great 
 part due to the unselfish patriotism of the 
 Rev. J. C. Saunders, tutor of Downing and 
 president of the club, was opened by Mrs. 
 Hill in 1895. It is a neat and attractive 
 building, standing between the river and the 
 boathouse and shed, formerly belonging to 
 Mr. Waites, a boatbuilder well known to 
 generations of Downing men. The cost of 
 the new boathouse was £650. On the 
 ground floor is a bath-room, and upstairs is a 
 large and airy dressing-room. This room 
 looks out on to a balcony, and has a door 
 opening into the clubroom, a room with 
 panelled walls and an oriel bay window 
 looking down the river, and also with French 
 
242 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 windows opening on to a wide covered 
 balcony. The principal approach to the club- 
 room is by an outside staircase leading to 
 this balcony, and the whole building has been 
 given a very pretty facing of red brick, 
 vertical tiling, and plaster rough cast sur- 
 mounted by the College arms. 
 
 A considerable number of undergraduates 
 and their friends were present at the opening 
 ceremony in the May Term, 1895, when the 
 Rev. J. C. Saunders made a suitable speech 
 from the balcony. After this he presented 
 Mrs. Hill with a key, with which she opened 
 the door of the clubroom. Afterwards, in 
 the large room, Mrs. Hill moved a vote of 
 thanks to Mr. Saunders and the architect. 
 
 The architect of the boathouse is a brother 
 of Dr. N. Capper Hardcastle who died from 
 the results of a horse accident; and in whose 
 memory there is in the Combination Room a 
 clock striking the quarters on four sweet- 
 toned bells. 
 
 There is also a clock in the men's Reading 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 243 
 
 Room ill memory of David Jenkins, Scholar, 
 who died September 27, 1888. 
 
 The original colours of the boating club 
 were violet with black Maltese crosses ; the 
 present colours, black and magenta, were 
 adopted in 1866. They were due to the 
 persuasive eloquence of Mr. Edwin Ray 
 Lankester, then a scholar of the College. 
 Mr. Lankester left us for Oxford to become 
 FeUow of Merton, honorary Fellow of Exeter, 
 and also Linacre Professor of Comparative 
 Anatomy. He is also an F.R.S. 
 
 In May 1882 the boat reached her highest 
 place on the river, when she rose from 
 fifteenth to tenth in the first division. Then 
 bumps were made over the following boats : 
 Emmanuel I., 3 ; Trinity, 2 ; Lady Mar- 
 garet, 2 ; Clare, 1 ; and Caius, 2. 
 
 The Brickwood Sculls were founded in 
 1864, the winner in that year being Mr., 
 now Lord Justice, Henn Collins. 
 
 No account of the Downing Boat Club 
 would be complete without mention of Mac- 
 
244 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Michael. The Eev. W. F. MacMichael, 
 M.A., Vicar of Lee, Ilfracombe, was Secretary 
 of the Cambridge University Boat Club, 
 President of the Union, and Captain of 
 the Cambridge University Volunteers. He 
 rowed 6 in 1868 (12st. IJlbs.), and 4 in 1869 
 (12st. 4lbs.). In the latter year " it was 
 thought advisable to keep guard over the 
 boats the night previous to the race, conse- 
 quently three policemen kept watch over 
 both the Oxford and Cambridge boathouses 
 throughout the night." 
 
 MacMichael has written a book on the 
 Oxford and Cambridge boat races from 1829 
 to 1869 (Deighton and Bell, 1870). Some 
 man has made this comment at the begin- 
 ning of the Union copy of this work : " A 
 very clever and interesting book." The 
 medical definitions in this work are by 
 W. A. Brailey, now a well-known oculist. 
 The most interesting parts of MacMichael's 
 book to non-rowing, and perhaps as well to 
 rowing men, are the biographical notices of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 245 
 
 the crews. These notices bear out the 
 author's contention that ''for calling into 
 action and cherishing the higher qualities of 
 our nature few sports can vie with rowing, 
 and rowing requires and educates that 
 spirit which animates the patriot, and leads 
 him to subordinate private advantage to 
 public good." 
 
 Plate. 
 
 On the left hand of the picture next to 
 the candlestick is a piece of a set of Lowes- 
 toft china, showing the Founder's arms and 
 crest. The set belonged to the Founder, and 
 is now in the Master's Lodge. Then comes 
 a wine cooler presented by eight Fellow 
 Commoners — S. J. Scott, T. M. Sherwood, 
 H. Burrard, R. P. Carew, M. Dashwood, 
 S. Johnson, G. S. Granville and L. Vigurs. 
 In front of the wine cooler is a silver waiter, 
 presented by R. Richardson and T. A. 
 Compton. To the right of the wine cooler 
 is a lawn-tennis cup, presented by Buck- 
 
246 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 master and Attwood. To the right of this is 
 a boat club cup, presented by E. B. Barnard 
 in 1879. To the right of this is a cup pre- 
 sented in memory of the Rev. W. B. Pike, 
 Fellow and Tutor 1855-73, by his widow. 
 In front of this is a rose-water dish and ewer 
 presented by J. Blyth, B. T. Featherston, 
 G. 0. Wray, A. E. Jacobson, C. E. Cuthell, 
 H. E. Chapman, C. F. Faber, G. H. Gibb, 
 W. P. Pearce, R. Creyke, R. Gardner, 
 C. Tooth, W. Y. Foot, A. Salwey, J. B. 
 Bradbury, L. S. Winslow, R. B. Miers, J. A. 
 Fawns, J. W. C. Warren, C. H. Miers. To 
 the right of this is a bread basket presented 
 by P. St. John, G. Acklam, E. Kater, J. 
 Parker. The cup behind the bread basket 
 has no date and no names. The waiter was 
 presented by S. Bruce and H. White. To 
 the right of the waiter is the Brogden cup, 
 for coxswainless fours. Brogden was a Fellow 
 Commoner. Then comes a wine cooler pre- 
 sented by T. A. Barker, C. Humfrey, J. 0. 
 Deakin, St. John W. Lucas, W. W. Fisher, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 247 
 
 A. J. Nash, T. Dawson, Professor Starkie. 
 Then a sauce boat presented by T. L. Roy 
 and T. L. Rosher. 
 
 Downing has produced a very fair number 
 of Union speakers. Some of these have held 
 office. J. E. Symes, now Principal of Uni- 
 versity College, Nottingham, was the first 
 Union President from Downing. In 1872 
 W. F. MacMichael, President; 1873, T. J. 
 Lawrence, Vice-President; 1874, Courtney 
 S. Kenny, President; 1875, J. E. C. Munro, 
 President; 1876, J. F. Little, President, and 
 in 1886, EUis J. Griffith, now (1898) M.P. 
 for Anglesey. 
 
 While Mr. Griffith was President, Prince 
 Albert Victor opened the new buildings, con- 
 sisting of a library capable of holding fifty 
 thousand volumes, a tea-room and a smoking- 
 room. With respect to the latter, the Presi- 
 dent mentioned that when, in 1849, the pro- 
 posal for a smoking-room was thrown out, 
 the Vice-President of that day "had con- 
 
MS DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 gratulated the Society upon its preservation 
 from a measure so detrimental to its morals 
 and constitution." 
 
 In the evening there was a dinner in 
 the Debating Eoom, Mr. Ellis J. Griffith, 
 President, in the chair. In his speech he 
 mentioned how from 1817-21 all debates 
 had been prohibited by the University 
 authorities, but now "no high University 
 functionary, flaunting and fluttering the 
 white bands of his stern authority, may cross 
 the threshold " ; he also touched on the other 
 University clubs known as the *' Magpie and 
 Stump," "Bubble and Squeak," "Grave- 
 diggers," "Footlights," and "Owls." Pro- 
 fessor Humphry proposed the toast of the 
 Houses of Parliament, to which Mr. Courtney 
 Kenny, M.P. for Barnsley, responded. 
 
 About the sixties some of the Previous 
 Examination work was undertaken by dons 
 of Downing. Sir George Otto Trevelyan has 
 a reference to it in the following lines from 
 his Horace at the University of Athens ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 249 
 
 My senses with a strange emotion swim, 
 And a cold shudder runs through every limb. 
 My eyes are dazzled, and my features glow, 
 As when a student in the Little Go 
 Draws from his breast a surreptitious Paley, 
 Notes the contents and floors the paper gaily, 
 Then sees with horror in the gallery frowning 
 Some dread examiner from Cats or Downing. 
 
 In America, the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society have pubhshed the armorial seals 
 of Sir George Downing. These are : Barry 
 of ten argent and vert, over all a griffon 
 segreant volant or. The arms of the 
 first Sir George Downing over the south 
 door of East Hatley Church, with the date 
 1673, are: Barry of eight argent and vert, 
 over all a gryphon rampant or. These are 
 the arms granted to the College by the 
 College of Arms. 
 
 The Downing arms can be seen elsewhere : 
 
 (l) In the church of Whitchurch, near 
 
 Tavistock, Devonshire, there is a monument 
 
 to Ann, fifth daughter of the first Sir George 
 
 Downing of East Hatley, Cambridgeshire. 
 
250 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 She died November 23, 1702. Her husband 
 was Francis Pengelley. The arms of Pen- 
 gelley impale those of Downing. 
 
 (2) In Whaddon Church, Cambridgeshire, 
 on a tombstone, the Pickering arms impale 
 the Downing arms. Philadelphia, second 
 daughter of the above Sir George Downing, 
 married Sir Henry Pickering, Bart., of 
 Whaddon. She died March 8, 1676. 
 
 Frances, the eldest daughter, married Sir 
 John Cotton, Bart., of Stratton Park, Bed- 
 fordshire. She died 1681, leaving issue. 
 Some tablet may exist in her memory. 
 
 James Muskett, Esq., in part 3, vol. i. 
 of his very accurate and elaborate " Suffolk 
 Manorial Families" (privately printed), p. 99, 
 has traced the pedigree of our Founder from 
 probate and parish records, Le Neve's Down- 
 ing pedigree in the College of Arms, and 
 very numerous Downing letters. 
 
 The portraits of the Founder and Lady 
 Downing in the Hall were purchased by the 
 College in 1885. They had belonged to the 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 251 
 
 Rev. K Cory of Stanground, Hants. He 
 had obtained them from Dr. Cory, Master of 
 Emmanuel, 1797-1835. They are thought to 
 have reached Emmanuel Lodge through Sir 
 Busick Harwood, who was a member of that 
 College. In 1825, Dr. Frere, Master, wished 
 to make a statue of the Founder. He heard 
 that portraits of the Founder, of Lady 
 Downing, and of Sir Jacob Downing had been 
 in the possession of Mr. Nixon, The Grove, 
 Highgate. Another portrait of the Founder 
 had been at Mount Pleasant, Putney. These 
 portraits had been left with a Mr. Atherton, 
 carver and gilder, Cambridge. It would be 
 of great interest to know the fate of these 
 portraits. Francis Say, related by marriage 
 to the last Lady Downing, wrote in 1825 that 
 a portrait of the Founder was in one of the 
 colleges. The portrait of Lady Downing 
 in the Hall shows no wedding-ring. There 
 are also other pictures in the Hall : — William 
 Frere, LL.D., by Clint; then Alex Hill, 
 M.D., the present Master, by Miss Emily 
 
252 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Humphry ; and Thomas Worsley, D.D., by 
 Richmond. 
 
 In the Combination Room are the portraits 
 of Rev. Godfrey M. Sykes, tutor, 1842-54; 
 W. W. Fisher; W. L. Birkbeck, by Miss 
 Bond. 
 
 Sir George Downing s Diary. — Part of 
 Sir George Downing s Diary, that for 1658, 
 was in Sir T. PhilHps's collection at Chel- 
 tenham. 
 
 Downing Street. — The share of the first 
 Sir George in building up England's maritime 
 greatness by inspiring the Navigation Act 
 may be forgotten, but the historic street 
 named after him keeps his name constantly 
 alive. The following extract from the will of 
 Sir George Downing of East Hatley, county 
 of Cambridge, Knight and Baronet, August 
 24, 1683, has reference to this street. After 
 stating that his body was to be buried in the 
 chancel of Croydon Church, Cambridgeshire, 
 by the side of his wife Frances Downing, he 
 leaves to his sons, George Downing, Esq., 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 253 
 
 and William Downing, " a house in or near 
 King Street in the city of Westminster, 
 lately called Hampden House, which I hold 
 by lease from the Crown, and Peacock Court 
 which I hold of the collegiate Church of 
 St. Peter, Westminster; all which are now 
 demolished and rebuilt or rebuilding, and 
 called Downing Street, to Edward Viscount 
 Morpeth and Sir Henry Pickering, Baronet, 
 my son-in-law, in trust as also my houses in 
 St. James's Park." 
 
 The illustration of the great iron gates and 
 the end of the avenue has a pathetic interest, 
 as it is a " bit of Cambridge" which has been 
 lost through agricultural depression, this 
 part of the grounds having been sold to the 
 University by the College. The view from 
 Downing Place, near the Presbyterian Church 
 across Downing meadow, with its charming 
 glimpses of the sunlight breaking through 
 the trees down on the fresh green beneath, 
 a perfect Cambridge picture in the May- 
 time, is to become a memory. The scene has 
 
254 DOWNLNG COLLEGE 
 
 witnessed changes, for in the seventeenth it 
 was at one time the Campus Martins of the 
 scholars, who sometimes exercised themselves 
 too violently ; then it went out of fashion 
 either because the undergraduates had less 
 valour or more civility. In the following 
 century sportsmen found it to be a favourite 
 haunt for snipe. 
 
 A new cricket and football ground has 
 been laid out in the Master's paddock ; the 
 College authorities decided to sacrifice some 
 trees and level the field adjoining the court 
 towards Lensfield Road. As the work has 
 been carried out this year at the College 
 expense, the men ought to be grateful at 
 having football and cricket within a few feet 
 of their rooms. 
 
 On November 11, 1897, the day on which 
 honorary degrees were conferred on the 
 Primate and the Lord Chief Justice, there 
 was a notable dinner in the Hall, which was 
 quite full. Fourteen Judges had accepted 
 the invitation of the Master, Dr. Hill, who 
 
^ 
 
MISCELLANEOUS ^55 
 
 was Vice-Chancellor that year. When the 
 Vice-Chancellor was conferring the degree 
 on the Lord Chief Justice, there came the 
 query from the gallery, " Have you ever been 
 before a beak before?" After the dinner 
 the speaking was what one would have 
 expected on such an occasion. The Vice- 
 Chancellor, in proposing the health of the 
 Lord Chief Justice, drew a picture of the 
 great powers of work of the guest of the 
 evening ; he drew a delightful inference from 
 the fact that many of the Judges present 
 had been distinguished on the river; that, 
 besides being a Senior Wrangler, a con- 
 scientious use of "a slider " was needed ; 
 and very happily quoted in English from 
 the " Wasps " : 
 
 'Twas not then our manhood's test, 
 
 Who can make a fine oration ? 
 
 Who is shrewd in litigation ? 
 It was, Who can row the best ? 
 
 Lord Justice Henn Collins told with 
 feeling of the friendship from of old between 
 
256 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Lord E-ussell and himself, of his kindness 
 to him when as yet he had his way to 
 make, and proposed the Vice -Chancellor's 
 health. 
 
 At Somerset House is a copy of the will 
 by which the College was founded. We give 
 a copy of this ; from this it will be seen that 
 the Founder intended the college to be 
 named " Downings Colledge." 
 
 This is the last Will and Testament of me Sir 
 George Downing of Gamlingay Park in the parish of 
 Gamlingay in the county of Cambridge Baronet made 
 the twentieth Day of December in the fourth Year of 
 the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George by the Grace 
 of God of Great Britain ffrance and Ireland King 
 Defender of the fFaith and so forth Anno que Dni 1717. 
 In the first place I do revoke and make void all former 
 Wills and Codicills of Wills by me made ; and I give 
 devise and dispose my Estate Lands Tenements and 
 Hereditaments and Goods and Chattels in manner and 
 form following (that is to say) : Imprimis I give and 
 devise all and singular my Mannors Lands Tenements 
 and Hereditaments both freehold and copyhold as well 
 as leasehold for years situate lying and being in the 
 several counties of Cambridge Bedford and Sufiblk and 
 elsewhere together with all and singular their Rights 
 
 i 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 257 
 
 Members and Appurtenances unto the Right Honourable 
 James Earl of Salisbury the Right Honourable Charles 
 Earl of Carlisle the Honourable Nicholas Lechmere 
 Esquire Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster, John 
 Pedley of Tetworth in the county of Huntington 
 Esquire and Robert PuUyn of St. Neotts in the said 
 coy of Huntington Esquire, to have and to hold all 
 such of the said Mannors Lands Tenements Hereditaments 
 and Premisses whereof or wherein I am seized of any 
 Estate of Inheritance or ffreehold unto them the said 
 James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl of Carlisle 
 Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and Robert PuUyn and 
 their Heirs to for and upon the Uses Trusts Intents and 
 Purposes hereinafter declared limitted and appointed 
 touching and concerning the same. And to have and to 
 hold all such of the Mannors Lands Tenements Heredita- 
 ments and Premises whereof or wherein I have or am 
 possessed of any Estate for any Term or Terms of Years 
 unto the said James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl of 
 Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and Robert 
 PuUyn their Executors and Administrators nevertheless 
 to for and upon such Uses Trusts Intents and Purposes 
 as are herein likewise after Declared limitted and 
 appointed of touching and concerning the same. And 
 I do hereby limmitt and appoint the uses and Trusts of 
 the said premisses respectively in manner following (that 
 is to say) as for touching and concerning all such of the 
 said Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments 
 whereof I am seized of any Estate of Inheritance or 
 
 E 
 
258 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 ffreehold to the use of my Couzin Jacob Garret Downing 
 Son and Heir apparent of my Uncle Charles 
 
 Devise to Downing of the Parish of St. Andrew Hol- 
 
 Jacob , . - 
 
 Garret ^°^^ ^^ *^® county of Middlesex Esquire 
 
 Downing for the term of his natural life without 
 
 inpeachment of Waste and Immediate 
 from and after the determination of that Estate to the use 
 of the said James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl of 
 Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and Robert 
 PuUyn and their Heirs in Trust to preserve the 
 contingent remainders thereof hereinafter limitted from 
 being barred defeated or destroyed and for that purpose 
 to make entries and bring actions as the case shall 
 require but nevertheless to permitt and suffer the said 
 Jacob Garret Downing and his Assigns to have receive 
 and take the Rents Issues and Profits thereof to his and 
 their own use during his Life. And immediately from 
 and after the Death or Decease of him the said Jacob 
 Garret Downing to the use and behoof of the first Son of 
 the Body of the said Jacob Garret Downing lawfully 
 begotten and to the Heirs Male of the Body of such Son 
 lawfully Issuing and for default of such Issue to the use 
 and behoof of second third fourth fifth and all and every 
 other the Son and Sons of the Body of the said Jacob 
 Garret Downing lawfully begotten severally and succes- 
 sively in remainder one after another in order and course 
 as they and every of them shall be in priority of Birth 
 and Seniority of Age and of the Heirs Male of the 
 respective Body and Bodys of All and every such Son 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 259 
 
 and Sons lawfully Issuing, the Elder of such Son and 
 Sons of the Heirs Male of his and their Body and 
 Bodys lawfully Issuing being always to take and be pre- 
 ferred before the Younger of such Son and Sons and the 
 Heirs Male of his and their Body and Bodys issuing and 
 for default of such Issue to the use and behoof of the 
 second third fourth fifth and all and every other Son and 
 Sons of the Body of the said Charles Downing lawfully 
 begotten severally and successively in remainder one 
 after another in order and course as they and every of 
 them shall be in priority of Birth and Seniority of Age 
 and of the Heirs Male of the Kespective Body and 
 Bodys of all and every such Son and Sons lawfully 
 issuing the elder of such Son and Sons and the Heirs 
 Male of his and their Body and Bodys lawfully Issuing 
 being always to take and be preferred before the 
 younger of such Son and Sons and the Heirs Males of 
 his and their Body and Bodys Issuing and for default of 
 such Issue to the use and behoof of Thomas 
 Remainder Bamardiston Son and Heir Apparent of 
 my Aunt Bamardiston [wife of Thomas 
 diston Bamardiston of Bury St. Edmund in the 
 
 county of Suflfolk Esquire] during the 
 Term of his natural Life without impeachment of waste 
 and from and after the determination of that Estate to the 
 use and behoof of the said James Earl of Salisbury Charles 
 Earl of Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and 
 Robert Pullyn the said Trustees and their Heirs in trust to 
 preserve the Contingent Remainders thereof from being 
 
 I 
 
260 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 barred defeated or destroyed and for that purpose to 
 make entries or bring Actions as the case shall require 
 but nevertheless to permit and suffer the said Thomas 
 Barnardiston and his Assigns to receive and take the 
 Rents Issues and Profits thereof to his and their own 
 use during his Life and immediately from and after the 
 decease of the said Barnardiston the Son to the use and 
 behoof of the first Son of the Body of the said Thomas 
 Barnardiston the Son lawfully begotten and to the 
 Heirs Male of such Son lawfully issuing and for default 
 of such Issue to the use and behoof of the second third 
 fourth fifth and all and every other the Son and Sons of 
 the Body of the said Thomas Barnardiston the Son law- 
 fully begotten severally and successively in remainder one 
 after another in order and course as they and every of 
 them shall be in priority of Birth and Seniority of Age and 
 of the Heirs Male of the respective Body and Bodys and 
 all and every such Son and Sons lawfully Issuing the Elder 
 of suclf Son and Sons and the Heirs Male of his and 
 their Body and Bodys lawfully Issuing being always to 
 take and be preferred before the younger of such Son and 
 Sons and the Heirs Male of his and their Body and 
 Bodys issuing. And for Default of such issue to the use 
 and behoof of the second third fourth fifth and all and 
 every the Son and Sons of the Body of my said Aunt 
 Barnardiston lawfuUy begotten severally and succes- 
 sively in remainder the one after another in order and 
 course as they and every of them shall be in priority of 
 Birth and Seniority of Age and the Heirs Male of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS S61 
 
 Respective Body and Bodys of all and every such Son 
 and Sons lawfully Issuing the Elder of such Son and 
 Sons and the Heirs Male of his and their Body and 
 Bodys lawfully Issuing being always to take and be pre- 
 ferred before the younger of such Son and Sons and the 
 Heirs Male of his and their Body and Bodys issuing and 
 for default of such Issue to the use and behoof of my 
 Couzin Charles Peters now or late of the 
 Remainder University of Oxford for and during the 
 Peters term of his natural life without impeach- 
 
 ment of waste. And immediately after the 
 Determination of that Estate to the use of the said 
 James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl of Carlisle Nicholas 
 Lechmere John Pedley and Robert Pullyn and their 
 Heirs in Trust to preserve the contingent Remainders and 
 thereof hereinafter left from being barred defeated or 
 destroyed and for that purpose to make Entries or bring 
 Actions as the case shall require but nevertheless to per- 
 mitt and suffer the said Charles Peters and his Assigns 
 to receive and take the Rents Issues and profits thereof 
 to his and their own use during his life and immediately 
 for and after the Decease or Death of him the said 
 Charles Peters to the use and behoof of the first Son of 
 the Body of the said Charles Peters lawfully begotten and 
 of the Heirs Male of the Body of such Son lawfully 
 issuing. And for default of such Issue to the use and 
 behoof of the second third fourth fifth and all and every 
 other the Son and Sons of the Body of the said Charles 
 Petei-s lawfully begotten severally and successively in 
 
262 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 remainder one after another in order and course as they 
 and every of them shall be in priority of Birth and 
 Seniority of Age and of the Heirs Male of the respective 
 Body and Bodys of all and every such Son and Sons 
 lawfully issuing the Elder of such Son and Sons and the 
 Heirs Male of his and their Body and Bodys lawfully 
 Issuing being always to take and be preferred before the 
 Younger of such Son and Sons and the Heirs Male of 
 his and their Body and Bodys Issuing. And for default 
 
 of such Issue to the use and behoof of my 
 Remainder Couzin John Peters now or late of the same 
 ^4.^^^ Cniversity Brother of the said Charles 
 
 Peters during the Term of his Natural Life 
 without impeachment of waste and immediately from and 
 after the Determination of that Estate to the use and 
 behoof of the said James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl 
 of Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and Robert 
 PuUyn and their Heirs in Trust to preserve the con- 
 tingent remainders thereof hereinafter limitted from being 
 barred defeated or destroyed and for that purpose to 
 make Entries or bring Actions as the case shall require 
 but nevertheless to permitt and suffer the said John 
 Peters and his Assigns to have receive and take the 
 Bents Issues and Profits thereof to his and their own 
 Use during his Life And immediately from and after 
 his death to the use and behoof of the first Son of the 
 Body of the said John Peters lawfully begotten and to the 
 Heirs Male of the Body of such Son lawfully Issuing 
 And for Default of such Issue to the Use and Behoofe 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 263 
 
 of the second third fourth fifth and all and every other 
 the Son and Sons of the Body of the said John Peters 
 lawfully begotten severally and successively in remainder 
 one after another in Order and Course as they and every 
 of them shall be in Priority of Birth and Seniority of 
 Age and of the Heirs Male of the respective Body and 
 Bodys of All and every such Son and Sons lawfully 
 Issuing the Elder of such Son and Sons and the Heirs 
 Male of his and their Body and Bodys lawfully issuing 
 being always to take and be preferred before the younger 
 of such Son and Sons and the Heirs Male of his and 
 their Body and Bodys issuing and for Default of such 
 Issue to the use and behoof of the said James Earl of 
 Salisbury Charles Earl of Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere 
 John Pedley and Robert PuUyn and their Heirs In 
 Trust nevertheless 
 
 that they do and shall so soon as may be by 
 and both and out of the Rents Issues and 
 Profits of the Premisses buy and purchase the 
 Inheritance and fee simple of some piece 
 of ground lying and being within the town 
 of Cambridge proper, and convenient for 
 the erecting and Building a CoUedge and 
 thereon shall erect and build all such Houses, 
 Edifices and Buildings as shall be fib and re- 
 quisite for that purpose which colledge shall 
 
S64 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 be called by the name of Downings Col- 
 ledge. And my Will is that a Charter Eoyal 
 be sued for and obtained for the founding- 
 such College and incorporating a Body Col- 
 legiate by that name in and within the 
 University of Cambridge ; which College or 
 Collegiate Body shall consist of such Head or 
 Governors and of such ffellowes schollars 
 Members and other persons for the time 
 being, and shall be maintained governed and 
 ordered by such Laws Bules and Orders 
 and in such manner, and therein shall be 
 professed and taught such useful Learning, as 
 my said Trustees or their Heirs by and with 
 the Consent and Approbation of the most 
 Reverend the Archbishops of Canterbury and 
 York and the Masters of Saint John's College 
 and Clare Hall in the said University of 
 Cambridge in being at the time of the 
 ffounding of the said College shall direct 
 prescribe and appoint. And immediately from 
 and after the founding and incorporating such 
 College or Body Corporate as aforesaid, the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS ^66 
 
 said James Earl of Salisbury Charles Earl of 
 Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley, 
 and Robert PuUyn and their Heirs shall 
 stand and be seized of all and singular the 
 said Manors Lands Tenements and Here- 
 ditaments In trust for the said Collegiate 
 Body and their successors for ever. And as 
 for touching and concerning such of the said 
 Mannors Lands Tenements Hereditaments 
 and Premisses, whereof or wherein I have or 
 am possessed of any Estate for any Term or 
 Terms of Years I do hereby declare and 
 appoint that they the said James Earl 
 of Salisbury Charles Earl of Carlisle 
 Nicholas Lechmere John Pedley and Robert 
 PuUyn and their Executors and Adminis- 
 trators shall stand possessed thereof in tenor 
 that they the said John Earl of Salisbury 
 Charles Earl of Carlisle Nicholas Lechmere 
 John Pedley and Robert Pullyn and their 
 Executors and Administrators shall from 
 time to time Assign and Convey the same 
 unto such person or persons who shall be 
 
266 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 intituled to the actual possession of my said 
 Lands and Inheritance by virtue of the 
 Limittations thereof herein before men- 
 tioned 
 
 Provided allways and it is my "Will and I do hereby 
 appoint that if it shall so happen any of the said Lands 
 and premisses shall by virtue of this my Will come to or 
 be vested in any Male person or persons whose Sirname 
 shall not be Downing that then and in such case such 
 person or persons shall Henceforth alter and Change his 
 or their Sirname or Sirnames and shall take on himself 
 or themselves the sirname of Downing only and in all 
 Deeds and Writings shall be called stiled and written 
 and write and subscribe their Names by the Sirname of 
 Downing only and in Case any such person or persons 
 shall refuse or neglect to alter or Change his or their 
 Name or Names and to take upon himself or themselves 
 the Sirname of Downing in manner aforesaid by the 
 space of twelve Months next after the said Premisses 
 shall so come unto him or them as aforesaid then the 
 uses and limitations herein limitted to such person or 
 persons so refusing or neglecting to take upon himself or 
 themselves the said Sirname of Downing shall cease 
 determine and be utterly void and the Premisses shall 
 go over remain and be to such person and persons and to 
 such uses as the same would or should do by virtue of 
 any the said limittations herein before mentioned in case 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 267 
 
 the person or persons so refusing or neglecting to alter 
 and change his or their Name or Names and to take to 
 himself or themselves the said Sirname of Downing were 
 naturally Dead. And as for my Personal Estate I give 
 and bequeath all and singular my Goods and Chattels unto 
 my said Cousin Jacob Garret Downing whom I do here- 
 by ordain and constitute sole Executor of this my Will. 
 In Witness whereof I the said Sir George Downing have 
 hereunto set my Hand and Seal and published and 
 declared this to be my last Will and Testament the day 
 and year above mentioned — George Downing. Signed 
 and sealed published and declared by the above mentioned 
 Testator for and as his last Will and Testament in the 
 presence of us who have hereunto subscribed our Names 
 as Witnesses in the presence of the said Testator — 
 D. Whitaker of Lyons Inn, John Shipston, John Ofgood 
 Clerk to the said Mr. Whitaker, John Say. 
 
 Codicil to my Will made the twenty-third day of 
 December one thousand seven hundred and twenty- 
 seven. I give to Mrs. Mary Townsend my Housekeeper 
 for her Life two hundred pounds a Year and all the 
 furniture in her Koom and also one hundred pounds the 
 hundred Pounds to be paid her within two months after 
 my Decease ; I give to Mrs. Mary Townsend's daughter 
 five hundred Pounds yearly during her life ; and I do 
 charge all my Lands with the payment of these two 
 annual payments to the said Mrs. Townsend my House- 
 keeper and to her daughter.* I promised Mrs. Pedley 
 
 ^ Barely seven months after her father's death, this 
 
268 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 some Books which I never gave her, I therefore give her 
 one hundred Pounds to be paid within two months after 
 my Decease. I give to all my Servants Mourning, and one 
 years wages. I give to the poor of Gamlingay Hatley 
 Ludlow {sic) [Tadlow] Clapton one hundred pounds to 
 be paid within two months of my Decease. In witness 
 whereof I have set my Hand and Seal the Day and Year 
 above written — George Downing. Signed sealed pub- 
 lished and declared as a Codicil to the last Will and 
 Testament of the Testator in the presence of us who in 
 the presence of the said Testator subscribed our Names 
 as Witnesses — John Shipston, John Say, David Lewis. 
 
 13th June 1749 which Day appeared personally Sir 
 Jacob Garret Downing of Gamlingay Park in the parish 
 of Gamlingay in the County of Cambridgeshire Baronet ; 
 who being sworn upon the Holy Evangelists to depose 
 the truth did depose and say as follows : to wit that he is 
 sole Executor and Residuary Legatee named in the last 
 Will and Testament of Sir George Downing late of 
 Gamlingay Park in the parish of Gamlingay in the 
 county of Cambridgeshire aforesaid Baronet deceased ; 
 that on the Death of the said Sir George Downing, 
 which happened on the tenth day of this Instant June 
 as he was informed, this Deponent was sent for and went 
 down to Gamlingay aforesaid and when this Deponent 
 came thither the Will and Codicil of Sir George 
 -Downing Baronet deceased hereunto annexed was 
 
 daughter, then about twenty-three, married John Bagnall, 
 Esq., bringing him, as was then stated, a dowry of £20,000. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 269 
 
 delivered to this deponent by Mrs. Mary Townsend the 
 deceased's Housekeeper on his coming to Gamhngay 
 aforesaid ; the Will beginning thus " This is the last Will 
 and Testament of me Sir George Downing " and ending 
 thus " whereof above mentioned " and subscribed thus 
 "George Downing" and the Codicil beginning thus 
 " Codicil " and ending thus " In witness whereof I have 
 set my Hand and Seal the Day and Year above 
 written " and subscribed thus " George Downing," 
 in the very same Hght and condition they now 
 appear to wit " two hundred in the fourth line from the 
 top of the said Codicill altered and the word five 
 altered in the ninth line from the top and two lines 
 obliterated within three lines of the bottom of the said 
 Codicill and this Deponent saith that the said Will and 
 Codicil are in the same plight and condition as when 
 they were delivered to this Deponent by the said Mrs. 
 Mary Townsend and have received no manner of altera- 
 tion since the Death of the said Sir George Downing 
 Baronet either by obliteration Interlineation Erase- 
 ment or otherwise as he knows or believes — Jacob Garret 
 Downing. Same Day the said Sir Jacob Garret Downing 
 Baronet was sworn to the Truth of this Attestation 
 before Charles Pinfold Surrogate present Richard 
 Cheslyn Notary Publick. This Will was proved in 
 London [with a Codicil annexed] the thirteenth Day of 
 June in the Year 'of Our Lord one thousand seven 
 hundred and forty-nine before the worshipfull Charles 
 Pinfold Doctor of Laws and Surrogate of the Right 
 
270 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Worshipfull John Bettesworth also Doctor of Laws 
 Master Keeper or Commissary of the Prerogative Court 
 of Canterbury lawfully constituted by the oath of Sir 
 Jacob Garret Downing Baronet the sole Executor 
 named in the said Will to whom Administration was 
 granted of all and singular the Goods Chattels and 
 Credits of the Deceased being first sworn duly to 
 administer. 
 
 On the 13th July 1792 original Will and 
 Codicil transmitted to the Court of Delegates 
 by virtue of a Monition dated 5th July 1792. 
 
 January the 1 6th 1 740 This is to satisfy my Executors 
 and all other Persons that what money Mrs. Townsend 
 my Housekeeper has, that was mine, I gave it her for 
 the Use of her Daughter besides what I have given her 
 Daughter by the Codicil and my Will. G. Downing 
 Witness John Paine, David Lewis, Richard Lett. 
 
 This Codicil was proved at London before the 
 Worshipfful Arthur Collier Doctor of Laws Surrogate of 
 the Bight Honourable Sir George Lee Knight also 
 Doctor of Laws Master Keeper or Commissioner of the 
 Prerogative Court of Canterbury lawfully constituted on 
 the twenty-first day of November in the year of Our 
 Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four by the 
 oath of Sir Jacob Garret Downing Baronet sole Executor 
 named in the will of the deceased to whom administra- 
 tion was granted of all and singular the Goods Chattels 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 271 
 
 and Credits of the said deceased having been first sworn 
 duly to administer. An interlocutory decree being first 
 interposed for the validity of the said Codicil as by Acts 
 of Court more fully appears. 
 
 In spite of the gifts of this will Sir Jacob 
 Garret Downing made his will in the follow- 
 ing terms : — 
 
 This is the last Will and Testament of me Sir Jacob 
 
 Garrard Downing of Hill Street in the parish of Saint 
 
 George Hanover Square in the County of Middlesex 
 
 Baronet. I give to Jacob Whittington, Son of the 
 
 Reverend Mr. Whittington by Ann his late wife Sister 
 
 of my dearly beloved wife Dame Magaret Downing, the 
 
 yearly Sum of one hundred Pounds to be paid or applied 
 
 to or for his use during such time and so long only as he 
 
 shall continue at School, and from the time the said 
 
 Jacob Whittington shall leave School untill he shall 
 
 attain his age of twenty one years I give him the yearly 
 
 sum of two hundred Pounds for his Support and 
 
 Maintenance during that period of time and no longer. 
 
 And my Will is that the said several Annuities during 
 
 their continuance shall be paid or applied to or for the 
 
 use of the said Jacob Whittington by four quarterly 
 
 payments on the four usual ffeast days or days of 
 
 payment after mentioned and that the ffirst payment of 
 
 the said annuity of one hundred pounds shall be made 
 
 on such of the said fieast days or days of payment which 
 
272 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 shall first happen next after my decease. I give to the 
 said Jacob Whittington one annuity or yearly Sum of 
 ffour hundred pounds for and during his Life to com- 
 mence from the time he shall attain the said age of 
 twenty one years and be paid and payable quarterly on 
 the flfour usual fFeasts or days of payment in the year 
 that is to say Lady day Midsummer Michaelmas and 
 Christmas in every year during his life without any 
 deduction the first payment of the said annuity of fibur 
 hundred Pounds to be made on such of the said quarter 
 days which shall first happen next after the said Jacob 
 Whittington shall attain his said Age of twenty one 
 years. I also direct that the sum of One Thousand 
 Pounds be paid and laid out for the benefit of the said 
 Jacob Whittington in the purchase of an Insigns 
 Commission in one of His Majestys regiments of ffoot 
 Guards And I give to the two daughters of the said 
 Mr. Whittington by the said Ann his last wife the sum 
 of One Thousand Pounds to be paid to and equally 
 divided between them at their respective ages of twenty 
 one years or days of marriage which shall first happen. 
 And my Will is that if either of them shall happen to 
 die before that said age or marriage that the part or 
 share of her so dying shall go and be paid to the survivor 
 of them. And I give to my Old Servant William 
 Mat ham (?) one annuity or yearly Sum of ffifty pounds 
 for his Life, and to my Servant John Collins one 
 annuity or yearly Sum of fibrty Pounds during his 
 Life ; which said several annuities or yearly Sums by me 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 273 
 
 given to the said William Matham and John Collins I 
 will shall be paid to them severally yearly by four 
 quarterly payments on the ffeast days or days of payment 
 before mentioned without any deduction, and that the 
 first payment thereof shall begin and be made on such 
 of the said four quarter days which shall first happen 
 next after my decease. I also give to the said John 
 Collins all my wearing apparel watches swords and rings 
 excepted; and I do give to all my other menial Servants 
 who shall have lived with me one whole year next before 
 and shall continue to live with me at the time of my 
 decease [except my firench Cook] one years wages over 
 and above what shall be then respectively due to them 
 and I do hereby subject and make lyable all my real and 
 personal Estate with the payment of the said several 
 legacies and annuities and subject thereto and chargeable 
 therewith. I give devise and bequeath all my Manners 
 Lands Tenements Hereditaments Goods Chattels personal 
 Estate and Efiects whatsoever and wheresoever unto my 
 said dearly beloved wife Dame Margaret Downing her 
 Heirs Executors Administrators and Assigns for evee. 
 And I do constitute and appoint my said wife sole 
 Executrix of this my last Will and Testament, hereby 
 revoking all former and other Wills by me at any time 
 heretofore made. In witness whereof I the said Sir 
 Jacob Garrard Downing have to this my last Will and 
 Testament contained in one skin of parchment set my 
 hand and Seal this twelfth day of August in the year of 
 Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty three. 
 
274 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 Jacob Garrard Downing. Signed Sealed published and 
 declared by the said Testator Sir Jacob Garrard 
 Downing as and for his last Will and Testament in the 
 presence of us who in the presence and at the Request of 
 the said Sir Jacob Garrard Downing in the presence of 
 each other have subscribed our names as witnesses 
 hereto ; Alexius Elcock, Thomas Ryder, William Miles. 
 This Will was proved at London on the tenth day of 
 ffebruary in the year of Our Lord one thousand seven 
 hundred and sixty four before the worshipful Thomas 
 Booer (?) LL.D. and Surrogate of the Right Worshipful 
 Sir Edward Simpson Knight LL.D. Master Keeper or 
 Commissary of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 
 lawfully constituted, by the oath of Dame Margaret 
 Downing widow, the Relict of the deceased and Sole 
 Executrix named in the said Will. To whom administra- 
 tion of all and singular the Goods Chattels and Credits 
 of the said deceased was granted, she having been first 
 sworn duly to administer. 
 
 13 July 1792. The original transmitted 
 
 to the Court of Delegates by virtue of a 
 
 monition dated July 5, 1792. 
 
 The reason for the selection of the Masters 
 of St. John's and Clare Colleges to assist in 
 carrying out the will seems to have been 
 that the father of the Founder was a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 275 
 
 member of Clare College, and his uncle Charles 
 a member of St. John s. In the admission 
 book of Clare, we read : 
 
 "Anno 1668. 
 
 " Feb. George Downing, Esq., of West- 
 minster, Fellow Comm'." 
 
 To this a note has been added by Dr. 
 Goddard, the Master : " George Downing 
 (afterwards Bart.) of Hatley in Cambridge- 
 shire. He gave £200 to the Rebuilding 
 of the College, and was the Father 
 of S"" George, the Founder of Downing 
 CoUege." 
 
 In the admissions at St. John's College in 
 1683, we find "Charles Downeing, born in 
 Middlesex, son of George Downeing, Kt. : 
 school, Eaton, admitted fellow commoner, 
 10 April, set. 15." 
 
 We give an illustration of Flaxman's 
 design for the College seal. The designer 
 declined to receive any remuneration for 
 his work. In consequence of this the 
 College passed a resolution that they would 
 
276 DOWNING COLLEGE 
 
 entrust him with all their engraving com- 
 missions. 
 
 An interleaved copy of the present volume, 
 for corrections and additions, is preserved 
 in the College Library. 
 
> 1 
 
 / 
 
 From a photograph by] [J. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge 
 
 THE COLLEGE SEAL 
 
 DESIGNED BY FLAXMAN 
 
INDEX 
 
 AckIjVM, G., 246 
 
 Addenbrooke's Hospital, 148, 149 
 
 Admiralty, 6 
 
 Adrianople, 222 
 
 Agricultural Society, Koyal, 99 
 
 Akeroa, 213, 214 
 
 Alderman of Cambridge, 190 
 
 Albert Victor, Prince, 247 
 
 Alexander, W., 77, 175 
 
 Alexinatz, 221 
 
 Alington, Sir G., 237 
 
 Amsterdam, 14 
 
 Amos, vii, li2 et seq. 
 
 Analytical Society, 169 
 
 Anglesey, 77, 208 
 
 Anne, Queen, 21 
 
 Annesley, 50, 79 e< seq., 82, 129 
 
 Appropriation Act, vii 
 
 Archbishops, The, 2, 49 
 
 Arms of Downing, 249 
 
 Ashby, 81 
 
 Asiatic Miscellany, 65 
 
 Assington, 88 
 
 Athenaeum Club, 103, 196 
 
 Atherton, 251 
 
 Attwood, F. K, 221-224, 246 
 
 Aube, 213 
 
 Auckland, 214 
 
 Austin, C, 152 
 
 Austin, Prof., 134 
 
 Babbage, 168 
 Babington, Prof., 99 
 Bag-nail, J., 268 
 Balfour, Prof., 206 
 Banbury, 13a 
 Bantry, Lord, 211 
 Barbadoes, 9 
 
 Barker, T. A., 246 
 
 Barkstead, 15 
 
 Barnard, E. B., 246 
 
 Barnardiston, T., 3, 37, 259 
 
 Bamsley, 77, 189 
 
 Barrington, 46 
 
 Barrow, 81 
 
 Barry, 65 
 
 Barton-in-the-Beans, 199 
 
 Bath, 172 
 
 Battle, 221 
 
 Baxter, Colonel, 9 
 
 Bay of Islands, 214 
 
 Beccles, 33 
 
 Belgrade, 221 
 
 BeU, W. G. B., 40 
 
 Belmont, 150 
 
 Bentley, 240 
 
 Berry, Pomeroy, 192 
 
 Besant, Sir W., 186 
 
 Best, Serjeant, 157 
 
 Bettesworth, 270 
 
 Beyer Professorship, 239 
 
 Bible, The, 100, 102 
 
 Bigham, Judge, 203 
 
 Birkbeck, W. LL., Master, vii, ix, 
 
 103, 252 
 Bishops voting against Divorce of 
 
 Founder, 27 
 Blackburn, 131 
 Blaise, Bishop, 83 
 Blakeley, Dean, 122 
 Blount, Martha, 22 
 Blyth, J., 246 
 Boat Club, 241 
 Bond, Miss, 252 
 Booer, T., 274 
 Botanic Gardens, 58 
 
278 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jiounty, mutiny of, 130 
 
 Box worth, 39 
 
 Boulogne, 115 
 
 Bowtell, 333 
 
 Bowyer, 34, 38, 48 
 
 Bradbury, J. B,, Prof., 149, 246 
 
 Bradshaw Lecturer, 149 
 
 Bradstreet, Simon, 3 
 
 Brailey, W. A., 196, 197, 244 
 
 Brandon, 85 
 
 Brentford, 185 
 
 Brewery College, 62 
 
 Brickwood Sculls, 243 
 
 Brighton, 145 
 
 Bristol, Marquis of, 177 
 
 British Association, The, 172 
 
 Britomart, 214 
 
 Brockdish, 85 
 
 Brogdeu, 246 
 
 Bromley, 185 
 
 Brompton, 136 
 
 Browne, Harold, Bishop, 163 
 
 Browning, 126 
 
 Bruce, General, 119, 120 
 
 Bruce, Mrs., 119 
 
 Bruce, S., 246 
 
 Brussels, 12 
 
 Bryngwyn, 199 
 
 *' Bubble and Squeak," 248 
 
 Buckharest, 225 
 
 Buckingham, 219 
 
 Buckmaster, 246 
 
 Bunsen, 93 
 
 Bunyan, 238 
 
 Burrard,H., 245 
 
 Bury St. Edmunds, 37, 85, 177,259 
 
 Bury St. Edmunds School, 176, 186 
 
 Butchery Row, 239 
 
 Butler, 155 
 
 Byron, Admiral, 46 
 
 Byron, Lord, 131, 150 
 
 Cabinet Council, 116 
 
 Caius, 62 
 
 Calcutta, 66 
 
 Calderon, 196 
 
 Caldwell, 143 
 
 Calverley, 186 
 
 Calvert, Sir H., 215 
 
 Cambridge Castle, 31 
 
 Cambridge Chronicle, 66, 90, 129, 233 
 
 Cambridge Corporation, 33 
 
 Campbell, Lord, 161 
 
 Campbell, Chancellor, 182 
 
 Campbell, Sir J., 94 
 
 Canning, 8, 9 
 
 Cape, 169 
 
 Cape Town College, 201 
 
 Carlisle, Bishop of, 172 
 
 Carlisle, Earl of, 10, 26, 267 
 
 Carr, Laura, Miss, 183, 184, 185 
 
 Castell, 29 
 
 Catalini, 86 
 
 Cavendish College, 198 
 
 Cayley, Sir Thomas, 91 
 
 Celebes, 206 
 
 Chamberlain, J., M.P., 203 
 
 Cheslyn, R., 269 
 
 Chance of improving town of Cam- 
 bridge, 52 
 
 Chancellor's Legal Medal, 189, 201 
 
 Chapman, H. E,, 246 
 
 Charles II., 12, 14, 20, 21, 139, 240 
 
 Chelsea Hospital, 175 
 
 Cheltenham, 252 
 
 Chicago, 198 
 
 Christian Advocate, 99 
 
 Christian Fletcher, 130 
 
 Christian Prof essor, 50, 85, 128, 157 
 
 Christ's College, 140, 143 
 
 Clapton, 268 
 
 Clare, 49, 186 
 
 Clare College, 49 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, 5 
 
 Clark, J. W., University Reglstrary, 
 80 
 
 Clark, Dr., 229 
 
 Claydon, 216, 218 
 
 Clerkenwell Court of Requests, 132 
 
 Clint, 251 
 
 Clitheroe Grammar School, 131 
 
 Cloger, Dean of, 195 
 
 Clopton, 29 
 
 Coaching to Cambridge, 53 
 
 Cockley Cley, 176 
 
 Colchester, 61 
 
 Coldham Green, 237 
 
 Cole, 30 
 
 Colenso, Bishop, 172 
 
 Coleridge, 101 
 
 Collier, A., 270 
 Collins, J., 272 
 
 Collins, Lord Justice Henn,vi, 198- 
 196, 243, 255 
 
INDEX 
 
 279 
 
 Collins, Stephen, 198 
 
 Colt, Mr., 131 
 
 Commissioners' University, 173 
 
 Compton, T.A., 245 
 
 Comte, A., 146, 147 
 
 Comte de Paris, 214 
 
 Consort, Prince, ix, 95, 119, 180 
 
 Constantinople, 222 
 
 Cook, 214 
 
 Corbet, 16 
 
 Corfu, 23 
 
 Corpus College, 62, 54 
 
 Cory, Dr., 251 
 
 Cory, R., 251 
 
 Cotton, Sir J., 238, 260 
 
 Court, Great, of Trinity College, 63 
 
 Cousin, v., 146 
 
 Coventi-y, Mr., 15 
 
 Craig, R. D., ix, 179 
 
 Cranborne Chase, 157 
 
 Cranworth, Lord, vi, 94, 175-185 
 
 Crawley, Archdeacon, 199 
 
 Crawley, C, 199, 200 
 
 Creyke, R., 246 
 
 Crimean War, 106 
 
 Cromwell, 10, 91 
 
 Croonian Lectures, 148, 149 
 
 Crosse, J. G., 226 
 
 Croydon, Cambs, 18, 35, 262 
 
 Cut, Sir J., 237 
 
 Cuthell, C. E., 246 
 
 Cuvler, 146 
 
 Danby, T. W., 192, 193 
 
 Dawes, J., 168 
 
 Dawes, R. W. R., 168-172, 174, 217 
 
 Dawson, T., 247 
 
 Deakin, J. O., 246 
 
 Dedham, 226 
 
 Delft, 16, 17 
 
 Deighton's, 129 
 
 Deligrad, 221 
 
 Derby, Lord, 180 
 
 De Ruyter, 240 
 
 De Thierry, C. P., 213, 214 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 161 
 
 Domesday Book, 91 
 
 Donaldson, Dr., 186 
 
 Doll's Close, 51, 52 
 
 Dothill, 22 
 
 Downinjf. C.,258, 275 
 
 Downing, Dame M., 49, 273 
 
 Downing Emmanuel, 2, 8 
 Downing, Sir George (the First), vi, 
 
 1,2,13,15, 17,18, 249, 252 
 Downing, George, 1, 276 
 Downing, George, Founder, 20, 30, 
 
 268 
 Downing, Jacob G., 36, 37, 49, 
 
 129, 258, 268 
 Downing, Lady, 18 
 Downing Street, 14, 39, 47, 252 
 Downing, William, 6, 253 
 Dublin, 166 
 Duddery, 238 
 Dungannon, 194 
 Dungate, 89 
 Dunwich, 32, 33 
 
 Edgehill, 218 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria, 54 
 
 Edinburgh, 10 
 
 Edward XL, 113 
 
 Elcock, A., 274 
 
 Eliot, G., 172 
 
 Ellenborough, Lord, 130, 136 
 
 Ely, 19 
 
 Ely, Bishop of, 55 
 
 Ely, Chief Justice of, 129 
 
 Emmanuel College, 140, 251 
 
 Endowed Schools Act, 181, 190 
 
 Eton, 85, 210, 211, 232 
 
 Evans, 169 
 
 Evelyn, 17 
 
 Evening Colleges, 104 
 
 Exeter, 243 
 
 Faber, C. F., 246 
 
 Falkland, Lord, 12, 13 
 
 "Family," The, 105, 174 
 
 Fawns, J. A., 246 
 
 Featherstone, B. T., 246 
 
 Fee Farm Rent, 33 
 
 Fellow Commoners, 130 
 
 Fenn, Lady, 89 
 
 Fermanagh, Baroness, 215 
 
 Fisher, Mr., 120 
 
 Fisher, Herbert, 109 
 
 Fisher, J. H., 145 
 
 Fisher, W. W., Prof., 146-147, 246, 
 
 262 
 Fitzgerald, E., 86 
 Fitzvvilliam Museum, 93 
 " Five Members," 216 
 
280 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Flaxman, 27 
 
 Foot, W. Y., 246 
 
 " Footlights," 248 
 
 Forester, Lord, 28 
 
 Forester, Mary [Lady Downing], 21 
 
 Forester, Sir W., 20 
 
 Foundation stone, laying, 55 
 
 Fox Club, 161 
 
 Frankland, 91 
 
 Frere, John, 85, 121 
 
 Frere, P. H.,86, 89,176 
 
 Frere, W., 50, 60, 83, 251 
 
 Freshfield, J. W., 178 
 
 Fuller, 185 
 
 Furness Fells, 59 
 
 Gamble, A. W., 241 
 
 Gamlingay, 29, 35, 36, 49, 268 
 
 Gamlingay Park, 266 
 
 Gardner, R., 246 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 35 
 
 GeorgelL, 26, 116 
 
 George III., 82, 116 
 
 Gibb, G. H., 246 
 
 Girton, 199 
 
 Glasgow, 147 
 
 Glasgow University, 124 
 
 Glynn, Dr., 142 
 
 Goddard, 275 
 
 Goldsmith's Company, 6 
 
 Gough, 168 
 
 Gourko, 222 
 
 Grahamstown, 204 
 
 Granville, G. S., 245 
 
 " Gravediggers," 248 
 
 Greenwich, 199 
 
 Griffith, E. J., 77, 208, 247, 248 
 
 Griffith, T. M., 208 
 
 Grinstead, East, 164 
 
 Groome, Archdeacon, 87 
 
 Groton, 3 
 
 Grundisburgh, 85, 88 
 
 Guizot, 146 
 
 Gunning, 142 
 
 Gurdon, D. B., 85, 88 
 
 Gurdon, E., 86 
 
 Gurdon, P., 2, 111 
 
 Gurdon, W., 232 
 
 Guy's Hospital, 162 
 
 Hackney, 9 
 Hag^ue, 11, 12, 14 
 
 Hales, Prol, 186 
 
 Haliburton, Judge, 2 
 
 Halifax, 188 
 
 Halsbury, Lord, 196 
 
 Hampton, 27 
 
 Handel, 87 
 
 Harcourt, Sir W. V., 183 
 
 Hardcastle, N. C, 242 
 
 Hardinge, Lord, 118 
 
 Hardwick, Lady, 83 
 
 Hare, Augustus, 93 
 
 Hare, Julius, 92, 93, 102 
 
 Hare Prize, 196 
 
 Harris, D. L., 77, 191 
 
 Harrow, 215 
 
 Harvard College, 8, 9 
 
 Harveian Orator, 148 
 
 Harwood, Sir B., Prof., 50, 139, 
 
 151 
 Hatley East, 7, 10, 29, 74, 170, 249, 
 
 252, 268, 275 
 Hawes, 168 
 Hazelrig, Sir A., 9 
 Heath Grammar School, 188 
 Henn, J., 194 
 Henu, Master, 194 
 Henrietta Maria, 36 
 Henry II., 32 
 Henry VIIL, 137, 234, 236 
 Henshaw, S., 9 
 Henslow, 169 
 Heppenstall, 197 
 Hereford, Dawes, Dean of, 171 
 " Hermathenae," 122 
 Herschell, 108, 168 
 Hewett, Prof., 144, 174 
 Hickson, S. J., 205-208 
 Highgate, 101, 154 
 Hilaire, Saint, 146 
 Hiley, Dr., 79 
 Hill, Alex., Dr., Master, 123-127, 
 
 251, 254 
 Hill, Mrs., 241, 242 
 Hillborough, 176 
 
 Hipperholme Grammar School, 188 
 Hiron, 155 
 Hobhouse, J., 136 
 Hobson, 214 
 Hog Hill, 52 
 Hokianga,E213 
 Holland, Lord, 161 
 Hongi, 213 
 
INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 Hope, T., 82 
 
 Hopttns, 105 
 
 " Horace at Athens," 248 
 
 Horsley, 140 
 
 Hort, l*rof., 103 
 
 Hovingham, 91 
 
 Howard, S., 85 
 
 Hubbard, 219 
 
 Hudibras, 165 
 
 Hulsean Professor, 100 
 
 Hume, 221 
 
 Humphry, Sir George, 124, 225-230, 
 
 248 
 Humphry, C, 246 
 Humphry, Emily, 251 
 Humphry, Lady, 229 
 Hunterian Professor, 123 
 Hurst, 47 
 Hymns, 164 
 
 Idle Tellow, 67 
 
 Inner Temple, 106 
 
 Inscription on Foundation Stone, 
 
 66,57 
 Ionian Islands, 231 
 Ipswich, 179 
 
 Ipswich Grammar School, 1, 8 
 Italy, 22, 93 
 
 JACOBSON, a. E., 246 
 James I., 136 
 Jameson Raid, 203 
 Jenkins, D., 243 
 Jesus College, 52, 143 
 Jesus Lane, 52 
 Johannesburg-, 165 
 Jones, 153 ^ 
 
 Jones, Parry, 200 
 
 Kater, E., 246 
 
 Katherine, Queen of Charles II., 33 
 
 Kaye, Bishop. 133 
 
 Kaye, Tutor of Christs, 143 
 
 Kean, 161 
 
 Keate, Dr., 210 
 
 Kendal, 168 
 
 Kenny, Dr. Courtney, 77, 188-190, 
 
 247, 248 
 Kensal Green, 106 
 Kent, Duchess of, 113 
 King's College, 54, 226 
 King's College Chapel, 54 
 
 King's College, London, 149 
 King's Somborne, 170 
 King's Ditch, 235 
 Kitchin Dean, 62 
 Knight, F., 202 
 Knowles, J., 165 
 Krimbs, Eliz., 40 
 
 Lambeth Librai-y, 65 
 
 Landor, W. S., 93 
 
 Langdale, Lord, 179, 181 
 
 Langlois, 213 
 
 Lankester, Kay, Prof., 206, 213 
 
 Latham, J., 147 
 
 Latham, P. W., Prof., 146-148 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 31 
 
 Lavand, 213 
 
 Lawrence, Rev. T. J., LL.D., 77, 
 
 176, 197-199, 247 
 Lechmere, N., 257 
 Ledbury, 171 
 Lee, 213, 244, 270 
 Lefevre, Shaw, 13 4' 
 Le Neve, 250 
 Lens, 50, 157 
 Lensfield Road, 161, 254 
 Lett, R., 270 
 Letton, 85 
 Lewis, D., 268, 270 
 Library, Cambridge University, 130 
 Life Peerages, 180 
 Linacre, Lecturer, 149 
 Linacre, Prof., 243 
 Lincoln's Inn, 108 
 Lindley, Lord Justice, 108 
 Linton, 51 
 Little, J. F., 247 
 Liverpool, 195 
 LlandafE House, 82 
 Lloyd, S., 105 
 Lockhart, G., 11, 13 
 Lockhart, W., 13 
 London College Youths, 233 
 Lort, M., 81 
 Loughton, 123 
 Lovett, Sir J., 194 
 Lucas, St. J. W., 246 
 Ludlow, 16 
 Lynn, 140 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 134 
 Macbeth, 89 
 
^m 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Maccoll, 196 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., 160 
 MacMichael, W. F., 244, 247 
 Madingley, 119 
 Magdalen College, 212 
 "Magpie and Stump," 248 
 Maitland, Trot, 139 
 Mansel, 82, 141 
 Market Bosworth, 165 
 Market Place, 58 
 Marlborough College, 206 
 Married Fellows, 65 
 Marylebone, 135 
 Massachusetts, 2, 8 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 
 249 
 Matham, W., 272 
 Matthews, C. S., 160-6 
 Matshorn, 39 
 Maurice, Rev. F. D., 161 
 Mazartn, 10 
 Meek, W., 50 
 Melbourne, Lord, 178 
 Merivale, Dean, 122 
 Merton College, 243 
 Midsummer Common, 53 
 Midsummer Green, 237 
 Miers, C. H., 246 
 Miers, J. A„ 246 
 Miers, R. B., 246 
 Miles, W., 274 
 Militia, 119 
 Mill, Sir J., 170 
 Monk, 240 
 
 Monteagle, Lord, 86, 184 
 Montpellier, 145 
 Morgan, 47 
 
 Morpeth, Viscount, 253 
 Mosley, Trot, 206 
 Mounsey, 175 
 
 Mount Pleasant, Putney, 251 
 Mozley, 92 
 Munro, J. E. C, 247 
 Museum, British, 79 
 Muskett, J.,250 
 
 Nailstone, 165, 199 
 
 Napoleon, 115 
 
 Nash, A. J., 247 
 
 National Gallery, 54 
 
 National Home Reading Union, 126 
 
 NavigaMon AcU vU* 252 
 
 Neale, C, 163 
 
 Neale, J. M., 163 
 
 Nelson, 176 
 
 Newmarket, 139 
 
 Newstead, 154 
 
 Newstead Abbey, 155 
 
 Newton, Alderman, 240 
 
 Newton, Sir I., 239 
 
 New Square, 51 
 
 New Zealand, 218 
 
 Nightingale, Miss F., 218 
 
 Nixon, 251 
 
 North, Fred., Earl of Guilford, 231 
 
 North Celebes, 206 
 
 Nottingham, 133, 247 
 
 Norwich, 88, 157 
 
 Nova Scotia, 129 
 
 Obersteiner, 125 
 O'Connell, 194 
 Ofgood, J., 267 
 Okey, ColQuel, 15, 17 
 O'Key, 9 
 
 Orange Free State, 205 
 Orange, Princess of, 12 
 Ouless, 231 
 Outram, Dr., 57 
 Overreach, Sir Giles, 161 
 Owens College, 207 
 " Owls," 248 
 Oxford, 133 
 
 Paine, J., 270 
 Pahner, J. F., 34 
 Palmer, Roundell, 183 
 Palmerston, Lord, 107 
 Pangurishte, 223 
 Parke. Justice, 159 
 Parker, J., 246 
 Parker's Piece, 246 
 Paston Letters, 89 
 Paston, Sir R., 9 
 Peacock, 92, 168, 232 
 Pearce, W. P., 246 
 Pedley, J., 257 
 Pedley, Mrs., 267 
 Pemberton, J., 129 
 Pembroke Hall, 51 
 Pembroke Leys, 61 
 Pen, Sir W., 16 
 Pengelley, 250 
 Penryn, 177 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^m 
 
 Pepys, 6, 15, 16, 17 
 
 Perkins, J., Dr„ 175, 188-188 
 
 Perse School, 197 
 
 Peshall, Sir J., 140 
 
 Peterhouse, 52, 96, 143 
 
 Peters, C, 37, 261 
 
 Peters, J., 37, 262 
 
 Phillips, Sir T., 252 
 
 Physic Garden, 239 
 
 Pickering-, 250, 263 
 
 Pike, Rev. W. B., 174, 175, 246 
 
 Pillory, 239 
 
 Pinfold, 239, 269 
 
 Pitcairn's Island, 131 
 
 Pitt,i, 65, 117 
 
 Plumptre, Prof., 102 
 
 Poland, 106, 120 
 
 Polytechnics, 104 
 
 Pope, 151 
 
 Poulter's Lane, 239 
 
 Power, A., Sir, 73, 94, 165-167 
 
 Power, J., 165 
 
 Power — University Librarian, 169 
 
 Press-gang, 118 
 
 Pretoria, 202 
 
 Prime Minister, 117 
 
 Prince Consort, 119 
 
 Prince Regent, 159 
 
 Privy Council, 117 
 
 Proud Hill, 61 
 
 PuUyn, R., 257 
 
 Pume, T., 240 
 
 Putney, 29, 38 
 
 Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, 
 
 148 
 Queen's, H.M., visit, 95 
 Queens' College, 2 
 
 Radley, 48 
 
 Ramsey, 169 
 
 Rawson, S., 102 
 
 Reading, 80 
 
 Red Lion, 61 
 
 Rede Lecture, 230 
 
 Reform Club, 103 
 
 Registrary, The University, quoted, 
 
 83 
 Repton, 165 
 Retz, 205 
 
 Rhodes, 202, 203, 204 
 Richard II., 118 
 
 Richardson, R., 246 
 
 Rider, T., 40 
 
 "Rivals" acted in Downing Hall, 
 
 84 
 Rivers, Lord, 157 
 Rochester, Bishop of, 188 
 Rolfe, 94, 176, 178-185 
 Rolfe, E., 176 
 Romilly, 168 
 
 Roose boiled to death, 138 
 Rose, J., 40 
 Rosher, T. L., 247 
 Roy, T. L., 247 
 Royal Marriage Act, 112 
 Roydon, 85 
 
 Russell, Lord, 171, 256 
 Ryder, T., 274 
 
 SACKviiiiiE College, 164 
 
 Saffron Grounds, 236 
 
 St. Andrew, Holborn, 238 
 
 St. Aubyn, 211 
 
 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 123, 
 
 205 
 St. Benet's Church, 156 
 St. Botolph's, 140 
 St. Catharine's College, 132 
 St. Hilaire, 146 
 St. John P., 245 
 St. John's College, 49, 69 
 St. Margaret's Sisterhood, 164 
 St. Neotts, 257 
 St. Peter's, Westminster, 263 
 St. Thomas's Leys, 57 
 Sail, J., 87 
 
 Salisbury, Earl of, 19,257 
 Salisbury, Lord, 195 
 Salwey, A., 246 
 Sandby, 40 
 Sand with, 223 
 Sanitary Rhymes, 167 
 Saunders, Rev. J. C, 175, 190,191 
 
 241, 242 
 Savoy, 199 
 Sawston, 185 
 Say, Rev., 39, 40 
 Say, Diana, 39 
 Say, Francis, 251 
 Say, John, 267,268 
 Say, Price, 40 
 Scalding House, 239 
 Scawton, 99 
 
284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Schombei^, Dake of, 26 
 
 Schreiner, Olive, 204 
 
 Schreiner, W. P., vl, 77, 200-205 
 
 Scott, S. J., 245 
 
 Scrope Terrace, 53 
 
 Scrutators, 61 
 
 Selbomo Lord, 182 
 
 Sedgwick, 92, 168, 169 
 
 Seeley, Prof., 186 
 
 Senate House, problems given out 
 
 from gallery of, 106 
 Senior in Two Triposes, only case 
 
 of, 197 
 Senior Wrangler son of Senior 
 
 Wrangler, only case of, 131 
 Shadwell, Sir L., 179, 181 
 Sherwood, T. M., 245 
 Shipka, 222 
 Shipston, J., 267, 268 
 Shraggery, 239 
 Siddons, Mrs., 89 
 Sidney, Master of, 96 
 Simpson, E., 274 
 Sizars, 130 
 Smithfield, 138 
 Snell's Equity, 108 
 Solicitor-Generalship refused, 158 
 South Sea Scheme, 35 
 Spring-Kice, Mr., 86, 184 
 Stanley, 214 
 Stapleton, 215 
 Starkie, Prof., 131-132, 247 
 Starkie, T., 166 
 Steel, 122 
 Stonegrave, 91 
 Storer,A. M., 232 
 Stourbridge Fair, 238 
 Stowe, 219 
 Stanhope, Earl, 56 
 Stratton Park, Beds, 250 
 Stuart, Lord Dudley, 107 
 Stubbs, Dr., 220 
 Sudbury, 226 
 Suffield, Lord, 134 
 Suleiman Pasha, 228 
 Swinecroft, 52 
 
 Sykes, Kev. G. M., 74, 173, 252 
 Symes, J. E , 247 
 
 Taddy, 159 
 
 Tadlow, 29, 30, 31, 74, 170, 198, 268 
 
 Tatar Bazardjik, 223 
 
 Temple, Lady, 22 
 
 Tennyson, F., 86 
 
 Tet worth, 257 
 
 Thiers, 146 
 
 Thirkleby, 91 
 
 Thirlby, 236 
 
 Thirlwall, 92 
 
 Thorwaldsen, 93 
 
 Thring, 170 
 
 Thurtell v. Beames, 169 
 
 Ticknor, G., 96 
 
 Tindell, 204 
 
 Tooth, C, 246 
 
 Townshend, Mary, 267, 269, 270 
 
 Treasury, 6 
 
 Trevelyan, Sir G. O.. 248 
 
 Trinity, 85, 92, 105 
 
 Union, the Cambridge University, 
 
 247,248 
 University College, 123, 134 
 University College School, 123 
 Uppingham, 170 
 Uppingham School, 186 
 
 Vanity Fair, 238 
 
 Vanity Fair, 187, 195, 216 
 
 Vaudois, 10 
 
 Venezuela, 196 
 
 Verney, Sir H., 76, 214-220 
 
 Verney, Mary, 215 
 
 Vernon, Harcourt, 134 
 
 Victoria, H.M, Queen, vii, 135 
 
 Vigurs, L.,245 
 
 Waites, 241 
 
 Wales, Prince of, vii, 109 et seq. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Kobert, 35 
 
 Ware, 235 
 
 Ware, Sir J., 3 
 
 Warren, J. W. C, 246 
 
 Wastdale Hall, 102 
 
 Watson, Bishop, 69, 64, 65, 81 
 
 Watts, 56 
 
 Webster, 102 
 
 Wensleydale, Lord, 180 
 
 Wessels, 201 
 
 Westminster Hospital, 148 
 
 Westminster School, 211 
 
 Whaddon, 250 
 
 Whalley, 9 
 
 Whewell,|92, 94, 96, 168 
 
INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 Wliewell Scholarship, 189, 191, 
 
 197 
 Whitaker, D,, 267 
 "Whitchurch, 249 
 White, H., 246 
 White, W., 211 
 Whitehall, 6 
 Whitehall (Salop), 20 
 WliitehnU Evening Post, 12 
 Whittington, Captain, 49, 51 
 Whittington, Jacob, 271, 272 
 Whittington, J. J., 40, 46 
 Whittington, Mary, 39 
 Whittington, Rev., a 9 
 Widdicombe, J. H., 191, 192 
 Wigan, 147 
 Wilkins, W., 54 
 Will, Lady Downing's, 88 
 Will of Founder, 256 
 Will of Sir J. G. Downing, 271 
 Willats, F. C, 174 
 Willes, 230 
 Willey, 28 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of, 162 
 
 Winchester Reading Prize, 189 
 
 Winchester School, 1 76 
 
 Windsor, 236 
 
 Windsor Castle, 110 
 
 Winslow, L. S., 246 
 
 Winthrop, Adam, 3, 7 
 
 Winthrop, Lucy, 3 
 
 Witt, D. E., 17 
 
 Wood, 17 
 
 Worcester, Bishop of, 119 
 
 Wordsworth, 95, 121 
 
 Worsley, Dr., 90, 99, 159, 173, 174, 
 
 179, 212, 252 
 Wolstenholme, 186 
 Women's Degrees, 104 
 Wray, G. O., 246 
 Wright, W. A., 87 
 Wyat, 8 1, 82 
 
 YORKE, Bishop of Ely, 129 
 Yorke Prize, 189 
 Yoxford, 46 
 
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 educational maxims are really worth reading by the side of Locke's short 
 treatise."— Times. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM THE 
 BRITISH SATIRISTS 
 
 With an Introductory Essay by Cecil Headlam, late Demy of Magdalen 
 
 College, Oxford 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. 
 
 • ' His book was a decidedly good idea, which has been well carried out. 
 The Introductory Essay is a scholarly performance." — Athenaum. 
 
 " The introduction is long and elaborate ; it proves that the writer is a 
 sound student of our literature." — Times. 
 
 "... is a book to be welcomed and commended— one specially to 
 place in the hands of the young people who show a taste for literature. 
 ... In his introductory essay Mr. Headlam supplies a readable and 
 useful sketch of the history of English satire." — Globe. 
 
 A HANDSOME GIFT- BOOK 
 
 Fcap. 8vo, in gilt morocco cover specially designed 
 
 by E. B. Hoare. 6s. net. 
 
 PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS 
 
 BEING A MANUAL OF DEVOTIONS COMPILED FROM THE 
 
 SUPPLICATIONS OF THE HOLY SAINTS AND 
 
 BLESSED MARTYRS AND FAMOUS MEN 
 
 BY 
 
 CECIL HEADLAM, B.A. 
 
 " His book is a welcome addition to our devotional literature." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 "The volume contains many of the finest extant examples of the 
 petitions of the great and the good of all d,ge,s."—Dtindee Advertiser. 
 
 SCORES OF THE 
 
 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE CRICKET 
 
 MATCHES FROM 1827 
 
 Compiled, with Index and occasional Notes, by 
 HENRY PERKINS, 
 
 LATE SECRETARY OF THE M.C.C, 
 
 f 
 
 Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, Is. net. 
 
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