Student Life in Nineteenth-Century Cambridge

Description

John Wright's Alma Mater was the first book-length student memoir to be published in Britain. Yet this trailblazing and revealing work has never been reprinted since its appearance in 1827. Full of fascinating detail about college life, it discusses teaching, examinations and student socialising, including sport, hunting and recourse to prostitutes. A remarkable story of success and failure, it often resembles a picaresque novel: after an eventful undergraduate career, Wright became a hack writer and tutor in London. His marriage failed, his wife left him, his children went to the workhouse, and ultimately he was transported for theft to Tasmania, where he died a premature death.

This autobiographical memoir has often been referred to or quoted by studies of Cambridge University and the history of mathematics, but the life of its author has never been satisfactorily explored. This new edition makes an important source and a vivid historical document available for the first time. It includes an in-depth exploration of university and college archives, while Wright’s life is also investigated through outside sources, such as the records of the Royal Literary Fund and those of court, prison and transportation authorities.

Wright's account, along with the commentary and notes presented here, offers extraordinary reading for anyone interested in the history of the University of Cambridge, the teaching of mathematics in the nineteenth century and the life of Grub Street, the London literary underworld in the 1820s and 1830s. The more general reader will also be surprised and entertained by this topsy-turvy tale recounted with candour and verve.

List of Figures

Editorial Preface

Editorial Introduction

ALMA MATER; OR, SEVEN YEARS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Preface

Introduction

1 First year

2 Chapel scenes

3 A tour of Trinity

4 A tour of Cambridge

5 Lectures

6 Christmas vacation 1814–15

7 Lent term 1815

8 Easter vacation 1815

9 Easter term 1815 105

10 Michaelmas term 1815: the second year

11 Christmas 1815 and Lent Term 1816

12 Easter vacation 1816

13 Long vacation 1816; fellowship examination, September 1816

14 Michaelmas term 1816

15 Christmas vacation 1816–17

16 Lent term 1817

17 Easter term 1817

18 Long vacation 1817

19 Michaelmas term 1818, Lent term 1819

20 After the Tripos

21 Return to Trinity, March 1820

22 Advice to parents

23 The autobiography resumed [1820?]

24 A visit to London

25 Back to Cambridge

26 Debtors’ prison

27 Grub Street

Index

Sujets

• Social History
• HISTORY
• EDUCATION
• Histoire
• Alma Mater
• 19th century
• University
• Higher
• History of the British Isles
• Level
• General officer
• School
• Higher education
• General
• John Wright
• Trinity College
• Cambridge

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 17 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804130285
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Student Life in Nineteenth-Century Cambridge
Student Life in Nineteenth-Century Cambridge
John Wright’s
ALMA MATER; OR, SEVEN YEARS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Edited and with an introduction by Christopher Stray
First published in 2023 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter EX4 4QR, UK
www.exeterpress.co.uk
Copyright © 2023 Christopher Stray
The right of Christopher Stray to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-80413-027-8 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-80413-028-5 ePub
ISBN 978-1-80413-029-2 PDF
https://doi.org/10.47788/FOGV5378
Cover image: ‘Gown! Gown! Town! Town! or the Battle of Peas Hill’, from Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 1824
Cover design: Christopher Bromley
Contents
List of Figures
Editorial Preface
Editorial Introduction
ALMA MATER; OR, SEVEN YEARS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Preface
Introduction
1 First year
2 Chapel scenes
3 A tour of Trinity
4 A tour of Cambridge
5 Lectures
6 Christmas vacation 1814–15
7 Lent term 1815
8 Easter vacation 1815
9 Easter term 1815
10 Michaelmas term 1815: the second year
11 Christmas 1815 and Lent Term 1816
12 Easter vacation 1816
13 Long vacation 1816; fellowship examination, September 1816
14 Michaelmas term 1816
15 Christmas vacation 1816–17
16 Lent term 1817
17 Easter term 1817
18 Long vacation 1817
19 Michaelmas term 1818, Lent term 1819
20 After the Tripos
21 Return to Trinity, March 1820
22 Advice to parents
23 The autobiography resumed [1820?]
24 A visit to London
25 Back to Cambridge
26 Debtors’ prison
27 Grub Street
Index
Figures
Main text frontispiece: Alma Mater Cantabrigia . This emblem was first used by the university printer John Legate on the title page of William Perkins’s A Golden Chain (1600): see D.J. McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press , Vol. 1: Printing and the Book Trade in Cambridge, 1534–1698 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 133–4.
Figure 1: The Hall of Trinity College. W. Combe, A History of the University of Cambridge: Its Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings (London: R. Ackermann, 1815), facing p. 180.
Figure 2: The Hall, with servers at work. J.L. Roget, A Cambridge Scrap-book: Containing, in a Pictorial Form, a Report of the Manners, Customs, Humours and Pastimes of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1859), p. 6.
Figure 3: Louis-François Roubiliac, statue of Newton (1755), Trinity College Chapel.
Figure 4: A sample page of a Psalm chant from Alma Mater , vol. 1, p. 23.
Figure 5: A service in Trinity College Chapel. V.A. Huber, The English Universities (London: W. Pickering, 1843), vol. 1, p. 316.
Figure 6: ‘The Battle of Peas Hill’ from ‘A Brace of Cantabs’, Gradus ad Cantabrigiam: or, New University Guide to the Academical Customs, and Colloquial or Cant Terms peculiar to the University of Cambridge; Observing Wherein it Differs from Oxford (London: J. Hearne, 1824), p. 65.
Figure 7: Nevile’s Court cloisters in Trinity, a favourite place for strolling and meeting, especially in wet weather. Roget, A Cambridge Scrap-book , p. 5.
Figure 8: An indulgence: Alma Mater , vol. 1, p. 91.
Figure 9: A college lecture, 1835. The lecturer is John Wordsworth, eldest son of the Master of Trinity and nephew of William Wordsworth; the drawing is by one of his pupils. Trinity College Library, Add. MS.a.671.
Figure 10: A Trinity College examination in the Hall, from Huber, The English Universities , vol. 3, p. 532.
Figure 11: A Civil Law Act (oral examination), from Huber, The English Universities , vol. 2, p. 285.
Figure 12: The presentation of the Senior Wrangler to the Vice-Chancellor in the Senate House. From Huber, The English Universities , vol. 2, p. 354. (A coloured version is printed as the frontispiece of vol. 1.)
Figure 13: A tutor’s bill. Alma Mater , vol. 2, p. 112.
Editorial Preface
This book reproduces the text in the only edition of Wright’s book. His notes are keyed to his text thus: ★ ★★ ★★★ . Editorial notes are numbered 1, 2, 3, etc.; those appended to Wright’s own notes are bracketed thus [ ].
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in this book to refer to degree results in the Mathematical Tripos:
W = Wrangler: SW = Senior Wrangler, 2W = 2nd Wrangler, etc (first class)
SO = Senior Optime, 2SO = 2nd Senior Optime (second class)
JO = Junior Optime, 2JO = 2nd Junior Optime (hird class).
Undergraduates are referred to by their date of admission to their college: Trinity 1795, Jesus 1810. Thus John Wright was Trinity 1813.
Annotations in a copy of Alma Mater held by Cambridge University Library (Rom.51.14–15) are marked [R].
Acknowledgements
My investigation of John Wright has been much helped by Frank Bowles, Jacky Cox, Rosalind Crone, Theo Dunkelgrün, Rosalind Eyben, Rebekah Higgitt, Richard Ireland, Kathryn McKee, John Pickles, Sara Slinn and Benjamin Wardhaugh.
The staff of Trinity College Library, including the librarian Nicolas Bell and the archivist Adam Green, have been helpful throughout, from the preparation of a readable text to the supply of illustrations. At the University of Exeter Press, Nigel Massen (Publisher) and David Hawkins (Production Manager) have been supportive and professional in turning Wright’s text and my own into a book. I am very glad to have it published by the press which in 2008 published my edition of the other outstanding British undergraduate memoir, Charles Bristed’s Five Years in an English University (1852).
Christopher Stray
Swansea, November 2022
Editorial Introduction
John Martin Frederick Wright’s account of his undergraduate career at Cambridge, Alma Mater; or, Seven Years at the University of Cambridge , was published in 1827. Wright entered Trinity College in 1813, matriculated at the University in 1814 and graduated BA in 1819; his memoir is largely devoted to a detailed account of his experience as an undergraduate in college and university, ending with his entry into the volatile metropolitan world of Grub Street in 1821. My concern in this introduction is to identify the author of Alma Mater , to outline his colourful life and chequered career, and to explore his fascinating and at times infuriating book.
Wright’s Alma Mater is the earliest detailed first-hand account of undergraduate life published in Britain. Its nearest and better-known rival is a later account of Cambridge undergraduate life, Charles Astor Bristed’s Five Years in an English University (1852). 1 On 20 December 1910, George Otto Trevelyan, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote in his copy of Bristed’s memoir, ‘I think this book, as I always thought it, with all its faults incomparably the best account of an English university in existence.’ 2 Wright’s memoir is similarly detailed, but differs both in being set thirty years earlier and in its style, which might be called picaresque. Bristed and Wright came from very different backgrounds: Bristed was the grandson of one of the richest men in the world, John Jacob Astor II, Wright was a poor boy from Lincolnshire whose father had lost his money in a bank failure. Yet the two books have several things in common, most obviously that their authors were Trinity undergraduates who set out to provide narratives of their undergraduate career: Wright’s from 1814 to 1819, Bristed’s from 1840 to 1845.
The reception histories of the two books were very different. Bristed’s went into three editions, and several heavily annotated copies survive, which have been drawn on for a new edition. 3 Wright’s Alma Mater was never revised or reissued, and so far no annotated copies have been located. The book was never reprinted in Wright’s lifetime; digital reprints have been issued by Chadwyck-Healey (1996) and by Cambridge University Press (2010), and the complete text, digitized by the Internet Archive, is available at the HathiTrust Digital Library ( https://www.hathitrust.org/ ). None of these, however, has the introductory and explanatory matter contained in the present volume.
Alma Mater as a historical document
Wright’s memoir is a valuable source for the history of the University of Cambridge in the early nineteenth century; yet it has not been drawn on, let alone evaluated, until quite recently. The modern historiography of the University began with the work of Denys Winstanley, whose four books on the subject appeared between 1922 and 1947. 4 In his Early Victorian Cambridge , Winstanley refers to Alma Mater in two footnotes without mentioning its author, and in a third giving his name; in each case the reference is to minor details. 5 Winstanley’s earlier work had dealt with eighteenth-century constitutional and political history, and this approach was continued in his work on the history of the University. In the next major contribution to the historiography of nineteenth-century Cambridge, Sheldon Rothblatt’s The Revolution of the Dons: Cambridge and Society in Victorian England , Winstanley’s style of history was described as Whiggish, though Rothblatt acknowledged that this had been modified by incorporating Namierite perspectives. 6 Winstanley had welcomed the publication of Lewis Namier’s first book in 1929, declaring: ‘No previous writer has made so thorough and gallant attempt to expose the actual workings of the political system of the eighteenth century.’ 7 Rothblatt’s own book did not provide a straightforward narrative; as he put it in a preface to a later edition, he intended the central chapters of his book ‘to be read as if they were vertical or stacked rather than sequential or linear as is the customary way’. 8 More recently he has referred to the influence of ‘cinematography, where forward and backward are instantly portrayed’ (pe