Part 14

The memory of George Augustus Selwyn, the great Bishop, first of Melanesia, afterwards of Lichfield, is honoured in Cambridge by the latest of all the colleges. Selwyn, one of a famous Cambridge family, died in 1877; and in 1882, Selwyn College was opened. The object of the college is that which had, some time before, prompted the foundation of Keble—the provision of University education at a more moderate rate than had hitherto been the case. It is conducted on what is known as the hostel system; that is to say, its members, while enjoying all University privileges, have all their meals in common, and are supplied with most necessaries at fixed rates from the college buttery. This is, we may believe, the simple system out of which great foundations like Trinity grew; and, since Selwyn began it, one or two other colleges have pursued it with some success on a voluntary principle. At Selwyn, however, the hostel life is compulsory; and the college is known officially as Selwyn Hostel. It has not lived long enough to produce any great sons as yet, but its record is honourable, and we may expect much from it in the future.[8] Its buildings, forming two sides of a quadrangle, are of red brick, and were designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, who also built the Master’s Lodge at the east corner of the enclosure. As the essence of the college’s existence is to provide accommodation for students, the buildings are devoted to rooms, and the Hall and Chapel were left to the last. For the first thirteen years of the history of the college, these necessities of college life were supplied by the low range of temporary buildings just inside the entrance gate. There, too, for some time to come the Hall will have to remain, a very simple room, whose only ornament is the portrait of Mr Arthur Lyttelton, late master and now vicar of Eccles. This, by Mr C. W. Furse, is a striking example of the New English school. In 1895, however, one of the wishes of the college was fulfilled, and the present noble Chapel was erected from Sir Arthur Blomfield’s design. It stands north of the Master’s Lodge, and is a very large and lofty building of red brick, with freestone dressings. The style is a free adaptation of English Perpendicular, the admirable window tracery being a remarkable feature. The interior is very good, and the very complete set of stalls, with their grotesque carvings and modern misereres, would do honour to a medieval collegiate church. Its consecration by the Bishop of Ely in October, 1895, was one of the most imposing ceremonies which have been seen of late years in Cambridge. The late Archbishop of Canterbury and several other prelates assisted at the function, and the sermon at mid-day was preached by the Archbishop. If the pious founders of the older colleges had been able to be present, and had seen the whole college walk in procession round the quadrangle in the early morning, singing the sixty-eighth psalm, and had assisted at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist which followed, they would assuredly have thanked God that the traditions of their Church and of the University which was its daughter were preserved and cherished by more modern foundations.

Ridley Hall represents a school of thought somewhat different from that to which Selwyn owes its being, and is altogether a modern development in University life. Like Selwyn, it has an Oxford counterpart in Wycliffe Hall. It was founded in 1879 as a training college for those who, having already graduated from some college, wish to proceed to Holy Orders. Under the headship of Doctor Moule, it has already sent out several distinguished members of the Evangelical party, and has also been of great service to missionary societies. It has certainly proved itself a power in modern Cambridge, chiefly through the influence of its eminent principal; and has encouraged other religious bodies to attempt what is an accomplished fact in Oxford. The Presbyterian body are now building themselves a large theological college at the corner of the Madingley Road. The buildings of Ridley are not unlike those of Selwyn, and the Renaissance chapel with its picturesque iron turret is a pleasing object from most points of view. The architect of the older portion was Mr Charles Luck; the chapel and southern range were designed by Mr W. Wallace.

After many vicissitudes, Ayerst Hall has at length disappeared. Some years ago the Rev. W. Ayerst of Caius College established a small college on the hostel principle, which occupied the buildings now known as Queen Anne’s Terrace, between Parker’s Piece and the University Cricket Ground. In 1894 his students vacated these buildings for a new range between the Huntingdon and Madingley Roads, and their original home is now the offices of the University Correspondence College. Rather less than three years later, the venture was abandoned, and the new buildings were purchased for a colony of Benedictines. Since the building of the great church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, which is so conspicuous a feature from the railway, the influx of Roman Catholic students has been much greater. In 1896 a Roman Catholic chaplaincy was founded in both Universities. The direct result of this measure was the purchase of Ayerst Hall and the establishment of a theological school for Roman Catholic undergraduates. This scheme is in its infancy, and its future remains to be seen. The new hostel is known as Edmund House.

Another abortive attempt was Cavendish College, founded in 1882, which took its name and coat-of-arms from the late Duke of Devonshire. By an irony of fate, it is the only collegiate building which the passer-by sees from the train—that is, unless he keeps a sharp lookout for King’s Chapel. It was, however, a mile from the nearest college, on the furthest outskirts of the town, and, after a precarious existence, it failed and was closed in 1891. Between 1891 and 1895 the curious might roam through its halls unchecked, inspect the deserted library and the singularly comfortable buildings, and muse on the names of departed occupants inscribed on the staircases. Some of its students went down; others joined other colleges. In 1895 it was bought by Mr J. C. Horobin of Homerton, who transferred to it his training-college for schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. Its part in University life is not over yet, but its proud title has been exchanged for the more suburban name of Homerton, and now only old-fashioned people call it Cavendish.

Lastly, there is Fitzwilliam Hall. The same desire which led to the foundation of Selwyn and Keble led to the passing of a grace by the Senate of both Universities, by which students were allowed to become members of the University without joining any particular college. Unattached students now form a considerable element at both Oxford and Cambridge. The necessity for a certain amount of combination goes, nevertheless, without saying; and its result is Fitzwilliam Hall. A house opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum has been purchased, and has been turned into a club for non-collegiate students. There are a reading-room, lecture rooms, and rooms for the tutors, who are, for the most part, distinguished members of the older foundations. The non-collegiates have their own gown, their boat on the river, and their own clubs and societies; and, although some of their most promising members in time join other colleges, they have a distinct corporate life and status of their own. Thus, although Cambridge has in none of these respects been in front of her traditionally conservative sister, she has at all events followed not very far behind her in any.

XXI

GIRTON AND NEWNHAM

A few words must be devoted to these foundations, which, it cannot be doubted, are destined to play so important a part in the future life of the University. In the last chapter, I said that some of the founders would have rejoiced to see a ceremony so much in keeping with traditional usage as the consecration of Selwyn Chapel. It is at least doubtful whether Henry VI. would have looked with approval on the lady students who are so assiduous worshippers at his chapel; and even his imperious consort, the foundress of Queens’, and the Lady Margaret herself, with her rooms in Christ’s, would have probably hesitated to admit their own sex to the privileges of University life. But “the old order changeth,” and colleges for women are not only accomplished facts, but facts which are very lively indeed. Till within the last half century, the University’s estimate of the rights of women was very oriental: unmarried fellows were the rule, and masters’ wives formed a very distinct social clique. But the breaking-down of these barriers came in time, and, with the ensuing civilisation, came the project for giving women the privileges of University education. “You know what women’s minds are,” wrote Erasmus scornfully of his patroness to a friend. The Professors who to-day occupy Erasmus’ numerous chairs have plenty of opportunity of seeing that women’s minds are not to be dismissed in a phrase. At any rate, woman has stormed Cambridge, and made a considerable breach in the fortifications, and the most doctrinaire of conservatives cannot keep her from the closely guarded citadel of the degree.

Girton is the earlier of the two colleges. It was started at Hitchin in 1869, and was removed to Cambridge in 1873. Even then it planted itself outside the hallowed precinct, on the brow of a hill, beside the straightest of all straight roads. Every Girton student knows, to her cost, the long avenue of telegraph posts which separates her from Cambridge; and although this approach, in fine weather, provides excellent landscapes in Hobbéma’s best manner, in wet weather it is exceptionally dismal. She has her compensation, however, in the beautiful view which her college commands; and the buildings, although externally of rather various merit, are inside as comfortable as any in modern Cambridge. The style of the building is a mixed Gothic, and the older parts have a very mellow, aged look, but the entrance tower and its wings are built of a singularly disagreeable brick, which, one may hope, will in time be concealed by ivy or some other creeper. The college takes its name from the village of Girton, about half a mile to the north. The church of Girton is worth seeing.

Newnham, which is in Cambridge itself, is a later foundation, but its progress has been astonishing. It also takes its name from a suburban village which has gradually become part of the town. The buildings of Newnham form a very imposing array, and are a remarkable contrast, with their Renaissance gables, to the Gothic buildings of Selwyn, just across the road. Mr Basil Champneys has produced in them one of the best modern imitations of French Renaissance; and their outline, seen at a favourable distance, would not be unworthy of Chambord or Chenonceaux. The oldest part is the Old Hall, forming the south-eastern angle of the college; this belongs to 1875. Then came Clough Hall on the north side. Sidgwick Hall followed it, and completed this side, and, in 1894, two sides of a quadrangle were finished and the Old Hall joined to the rest by the erection of the Pfeiffer Building. In this latest part of the college is the principal gateway, now closed by a double gate of beautiful ironwork, in memory of the first principal, Miss Clough. In the hall are portraits of Miss Clough, Professor and Mrs Sidgwick, and Miss M. G. Kennedy, by Mr J. J. Shannon, and one (by Richmond) of Miss Helen Gladstone, who till lately was one of the leading Newnham dons. Young as they are, both Girton and Newnham have their history, and are able to inspire their students with a patriotism which is the natural result of extraordinary perseverance and hardly-won victories.

XXII

THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS

Fond tradition would compel us to accept the so-called School of Pythagoras as the _fons et origo_ of the medieval University. However, the legend does not go for very much, and we may suppose that, until the foundation of several colleges brought about the necessity of a common centre, education was carried on in the numerous monastic houses or by private teachers at their own lodgings. The present schools, within the limits of the University Library, are probably in part of the fourteenth century, but, for the most part, belong to the latter half of the next century. They are not very conspicuous, and probably ninety-nine out of a hundred Cambridge men have never been inside them, as the majority of public examinations are held in the Senate House and the various large halls of which the town is full. They are, moreover, so incorporated in the Library as to form part of the building, and have no very distinctive mark.

The architectural history of the Library is singularly complex. It occupies two quadrangles north of and running parallel with King’s Chapel. The first of these is the quadrangle of the schools, and is entered from the open space between the Senate House and King’s; the second occupies the site of the original quadrangle of King’s, and is entered from the opposite side. Mr G. G. Scott has restored the old gateway with some success, and it forms a good contrast to the opposite gateway at Clare. Round these courts are grouped the very various Library buildings. The Library itself is entered from the eastern side, to which it presents a very stiff classical front. Somewhere between 1470 and 1480, the great prelate, Thomas Rotherham, then fellow of King’s and Bishop of Lincoln, built a Perpendicular façade on this side; and this was the beginning of the buildings. Hitherto the few books which the Library contained, mostly bequeathed by Dr Richard Holme in 1424, had been placed in the present south gallery on the first floor of the quadrangle. The opposite gallery was then the Senate House. The western gallery, above the school of Canon Law, overlooked the Court of King’s. Rotherham thus completed the first quadrangle, and, until the eighteenth century, the Library was contained in the eastern, southern and western rooms. Mr Clark, in his picturesque notes on Cambridge, assures us that it must have been hopelessly neglected. The days of building prelates were long past when, in 1715, George I., for some unknown reason, purchased the library of Dr John Moore, Bishop in succession of Norwich and Ely, and presented it to the University. Just about the same time, he had sent a regiment to enforce loyalty on Oxford. The epigrams which passed between the Tory and Whig Universities on this occasion have been so often quoted as to need no repetition. The Oxford epigram takes the palm for neatness, but the Cambridge retort was the last word on the subject.

However, although King George’s gift cannot be valued too highly as a benefaction to Cambridge, and was also an incentive to wit of a very felicitous order, it was in one way rather unfortunate. The books were many; accommodation was small. It was proposed to place the addition in what was then the Senate House, and to build a new meeting-place for the University. Mr Burrough of Caius submitted a plan for the new Senate House, of which we can see the result to-day. The quadrangle was thus entirely given over to the Library. It must have formed one of the most beautiful in Cambridge; to-day the western room, running between the two courts, has one of the best interiors in any library. But the age was hostile to medieval buildings. With architects like Burrough and Gibbs—excellent architects, both of them—carrying out their classical designs on either side, the Library was not suffered to remain unmolested. The University decided to harmonise it with these structures. In 1754 Rotherham’s front was destroyed, and the present Georgian façade was put up, which, after all, harmonises very badly with the Senate House. Rotherham’s gateway was bought by the owner of Madingley Hall, and is now the entrance to the stables there. It is much to be regretted, for the present aspect of the Library is singularly ignoble. The interior, however, offers a better contrast. From the classical east room, which, with all its plastered ugliness, is certainly stately and not inappropriate, we pass into the Catalogue Room, once the Senate House. Somebody adorned this room with a plaster ceiling in the last century, but the old timber roof is being restored. In the west room, which contains some valuable woodwork, we go back further into antiquity, and, when we have completed the circuit of the Library, we shall have seen a series of buildings which, in their diversity, are thoroughly characteristic of Cambridge.

The present century has added enormously to the Library. King’s transferred itself finally to the other side of the chapel when Wilkins finished his range of buildings—that is, approximately in 1830. Soon after this the important _annexe_ which now constitutes the whole north side of the Library was added. Its architect was Mr C. R. Cockerell. It is a colossal building, and its external ugliness may be fully appreciated from the old King’s quadrangle, where all the buildings in front of it have been cleared away. Its interior, almost entirely devoted to theology, is as fine and imposing as its exterior is hideous, and is, moreover, a very agreeable room for students. Here the more remarkable manuscripts are exhibited, among which the famous Codex Bezae has the place of honour. Theodore Béza, whose name is in the first rank of Biblical critics, saved it from the sack of the monastery of St Irénée at Lyons in 1562, and presented it to the University—a gift worthy of the academy in which Erasmus had laid the foundations of Scriptural study. At the west end of the same building are the statues of George I. (by Rysbrack) and George II. (by Wilton) which used to stand in the Senate House. Cockerell’s work finds its antithesis in the opposite side of the court, which was rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott on a thoroughly medieval plan. Scott also added a second storey to this side, which, like Cockerell’s building, was continued into the eastern court. He also entirely refaced the front opposite King’s Chapel. The effect is uniform, but gloomy. His son completed the existing Library by restoring the western façade. The rooms on the ground floor are also appropriated to books, principally modern and lighter literature, but contain nothing worth seeing. Cockerell’s building is an exception, for its ground floor is occupied by the Woodwardian Museum of Geology.

In spite of the misfortunes which it brought about, the Senate House is one of those buildings which gave Cambridge its greatest dignity. One may hesitate to compare it with the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, which was finished about twenty-five years later, but it is largely due to the same architect and is certainly an addition to his credit. Gibbs had, however, only a small share in the work, for Burrough is its real designer. It is an oblong building, with entrances on the east and on the middle of the south sides. It has a double range of windows throughout, save on the west side, where they are blank. Those in the upper storey are round-headed, those in the lower are square-headed and are surmounted by plain architraves, alternately round and pointed. The whole building is surrounded by an order of composite pilasters, cut square save near the doors, where they are round and fluted. Above the cornice is a balustrade, broken judiciously by the pediments of the entrances, which give the building its distinctive feature. The whole is one of the best specimens of early Georgian architecture in England, and the interior is perfectly consonant with the simple grandeur of the outside. The oak galleries suit the building admirably. At the east end, near the door, are the statues of the Duke of Somerset, Chancellor at the Revolution, and of William Pitt: the first by Rysbrack, the second by Nollekens.

After the Senate House, geographically and in point of time, comes the Pitt Press in Trumpington Street, a very glorious achievement of the early Gothic revivalists. Mr Bowes’ list, published a year or two ago, is the monumental record of Cambridge printing, but, when the Pitt Press was founded, the traditions of John Siborch, who had set up a press in the University about 1521, had been almost forgotten. Even since then, the Pitt Press, although the parent of Professor Jebb’s edition of Sophocles and other masterpieces of erudition, has scarcely proved itself the rival of the Clarendon. Its origin is curious. After the Great Commoner’s death, a subscription fund was started to commemorate him, the immediate results of which were the statues in Westminster Abbey and Hanover Square. The rest of the money was employed in building the Pitt Press. In the chronological order of works of the date, it stands just after Wilkins’ screen at King’s, and just before Rickman’s court at St John’s. Its architect was Edward Blore, and it was finished in 1833. It is not uglier than most buildings of the period, and the gateway tower looks well at a sufficient distance. This tower, by the way, has often given rise to the impression that it is an ecclesiastical building of some kind, and it is known generally as the “freshman’s church.” The hoax used at one time to be practised on unsuspecting young gentlemen during their early days of residence, but the epithet is now too well known to be misleading.