Cambridge University Its History from 1209 AD

As the University at Cambridge is known Worldwide and is such a symbol of England and its education system I thought I would write about its famous alumni and history. The University at Cambridge owes much to “town and gown” troubles at Oxford university. In 1209 scholars and masters escaping troubles between the university and townsfolk in Oxford began arriving in Cambridge.

By 1226 the scholars had organized themselves, offered regular courses of study, and named a Chancellor to lead them. The first great boost to the formation of a university came from Henry III, who gave the scholars his support as early as 1231. Henry decreed that only students studying under a recognised Master were allowed to remain in Cambridge.

A standard course of study consisted of grammar, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, music, geometry, and astronomy. Examinations were conducted as oral disputations or debates. Most, but not all, of the university Masters were also in holy orders of some sort. (For more on medieval universities.) Rules and regulations governing behaviour and awarding of degrees were not codified until the mid 13th century. These clergy were originally under the authority of the local ecclesiastical authority, represented by the Bishop of Ely. By the mid 15th century, however, the Chancellor of the University had taken over much of this authority, and heard cases involving discipline and morals. The Chancellor also set up a secular court for scholars, to hear cases involving minor crimes.

Like Oxford, Cambridge experienced a fair share of trouble between townsfolk and scholars. Both sides were protective of their unique rights and privileges. The university had the right to enforce laws regulating the quality of bread and ale sold in the town, and to monitor rates charged for food, fuel, and candles.

In 1381 tension between the town and university exploded into violence, with attacks on university property throughout Cambridge. The result was that even more civil authority was awarded to the University Chancellor, including the right to prosecute lawsuits arising from trade and market disputes. The university retained many of these legal rights until the 19th century.

From the 13th century private teaching institutions, the forerunners of today’s colleges, were established, most with only a few Masters and students. Peterhouse (1284) was the first college, but others soon followed. These colleges were founded by individual benefactors, not by the university as a whole. Under the influence of Chancellor John Fisher (1509-35) the university attracted scholars from the European mainland, including Erasmus, who helped foster a climate of classical studies, religious debate, and reform that characterized the upheavals of the English Reformation.

Several prominent colleges were founded in the years following the Dissolution of The Monastries, taking over former religious foundations. Emmanuel College, for one, took over the buildings used by a Dominican friary. This change from a religious to a secular focus was emphasized when Henry VIII took measures to forbid the study of Canon Law. Henry also established professorships in Greek, divinity, Hebrew, physic, and civil law.

Over the centuries that followed, successive monarchs and governments sought to influence which courses were taught, and the university was even compelled to award degrees to candidates put forward by the royal court.

A royal charter in 1534 gave the university the right to print books, though this right was only infrequently exercised until the late 17th century. From the 1690s Cambridge University Press enjoyed prominent status as an academic press, encouraged by the monopoly in Bible printing it shared with Oxford.

The university continued to expand, both physically and in focus of studies. The foundation of the Fitzwilliam Museum (created after the Bequests of my Antecedent the Earl Fitzwillum) the University Botanical Gardens, to name just two, opened the way for study of art, architecture, and botany at Cambridge.

Perhaps to balance this scholarly emphasis, the university encouraged student activities, notably in sporting endeavors. A boat race against Oxford University (“The Boat Race”) became an annual event in 1839, as did a cricket match between the two schools. A regular intramural program of inter-college athletics began at the same time.

In the devastation following World War I, when many students and teachers died, Cambridge received regular state funding for the first time.

The 1950s and 60s saw a great expansion of facilities, with many new college buildings added or old ones expanded. Due to space problems in central Cambridge many new buildings were established much further away from the university core. Much of the teaching emphasis was on the sciences, and as a consequence the Cambridge area became a centre for scientific industry, fueled by research at university laboratories.

Cambridge University today boasts 31 colleges and over 13,000 students.

Cambridge University Trivia

• Peterhouse, founded in 1284, is the oldest college at Cambridge.

• Students began university at the tender age of 14 or 15, and it took 7 years to graduate.

• University courses of study are known as “tripos” after the three legged stools used by BA candidates in the Middle Ages.

• Until 1869 Cambridge was only open to men. Girton College was founded for women in that year, to be followed two years later by Newnham. There are now no men-only colleges.

• A huge wooden spoon was awarded to students coming last in the class in mathematics. According to reports the wooden spoon was deemed a great honour by the students themselves!

• Cambridge has a tradition of each college maintaining a chapel choir. Students can receive scholarships for musical skills, and most college chapel choirs maintain a regular program of choral concerts.

List of famous Alumni from Cambridge University:

Christ’s College (1505)

Richard Clerke, John Milton, Charles Darwin, Jan Smuts, CP Snow, David Mellor, Richard Whiteley, Lord Mountbatten, Colin Dexter, Sacha Baron-Cohen (Ali G), Simon Schama, Rowan Williams

Clare College (1326)

Nicholas Ferrer, Hugh Latimer, Charles Cornwallis, David Attenborough, Peter Lilley, Siegfried Sassoon, Richard Stilgoe, James Watson, Andrew Wiles, Peter Ackroyd, Roger Norrington.

Corpus Christi College (1352)

Christopher Marlowe, John Fletcher, Matthew Parker

Darwin College (1976)

Jane Goodall

Downing College (1800)

John Cleese, Michael Winner, Mike Atherton, Brian Redhead, Quentin Blake, Trevor Nunn, Michael Apted, Thandie Newton

Emmanuel College (1584)

John Harvard, FR Leavis, Fred Hoyle, Griff Rhys Jones, Graeme Garden, Cecil Parkinson, John Wallis, Michael Frayn, Graham Chapman

Fitzwilliam College (1896)

Lord Fawsley, Norman Lamont, Derek Pringle, Phil Edmonds, Lee Kuan Yew, David Starkey, Nick Drake

Girton College (1869)

Sandi Toksvig, Queen Margarethe of Denmark, Raquel Cassidy, Delia Derbyshire

Gonville and Claus College (1348)

William Harvey, Thomas Shadwell, George Green, David Frost, Kenneth Clarke, Harold Abrahams, John Venn, Keith Vaz, Alastair Campbell

Homerton College (1894)

Julie Covington, Nick Hancock, Cherie Lunghi, Sandi Toksvig, Graham Wynne

Jesus College (1496)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Cranmer, Laurence Sterne, Alastair Cooke, Prince Edward, Lord Snowdon, Ted Dexter, Thomas Malthus, Nick Hornby, Tony Wilson

King’s College (1441)

Francis Walsingham, Rupert Brooke, JM Keynes, EM Forster, Robert Walpole, Martin Bell, Salman Rushdie, Alan Turing, David Baddiel, John Graham, Charles Clarke, Lily Cole

Magdalene College (1542)

Samuel Pepys, Charles Kingsley, CS Lewis, Michael Ramsey, Lord Tedder, Bamber Gascoigne, John Simpson, Michael Redgrave, Gavin Hastings, Charles Parnell, George Mallory, Katie Derham, Rob Wainwright, Mike Newell, Alan Rusbridger, Lloyd Grossman

New Hall College (1954)

Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, Sue Perkins

Newnham College (1871)

Eleanor Bron, Emma Thompson, Germaine Greer, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Drabble, AS Byatt, Rosalind Franklin, Anne Campbell, Dorothy Hodgkin, Shirley Williams, Claire Balding, Jane Goodall, Diane Abbott

Pembroke College (1347)

William Pitt, Edmund Spenser, Thomas Gray, Peter Cook, Ted Hughes, Clive James, Peter May, Eric Idle, Bishop Nicholas Ridley, George Stokes, Rab Butler, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Tom Sharpe, Arthur Bliss, Jonathan Lynn

Porterhouse College (1284)

Thomas Gray, Henry Cavendish, Lord Kelvin, Charles Babbage, Frank Whittle, Christopher Cockerell, Michael Howard, Michael Portillo, Richard Baker, John Whitgift, James Dewar, Sam Mendes, Stephanie Cook, David Mitchell

Queen’s College (1448)

Desiderius Erasmus, Isaac Milner, Stephen Fry, Mike Foale, Charles Stanford, Richard Hickox, Osborne Reynolds

Robinson College (1977)

Adrian Davies, Charles Hart, Konnie Huq, Robert Webb

St Catharine’s College (1473)

John Addenbrooke, James Shirley, Ian McKellen, Jeremy Paxman, Steve Punt, Peter Hall, Richard Ayoade, Joanne Harris

St John’s College (1511)

William Wordsworth, Paul Dirac, William Wilberforce, Jonathan Miller, Douglas Adams, Viscount Goderich, Lord Aberdeen, Viscount Palmerston, Trevor Bailey, Mike Brearley, Hugh Dennis, Rob Andrew, Sid Waddell

Selwyn College (1882)

Hugh Laurie, Rob Newman, Clive Anderson, John Selwyn Gummer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Simon Hughes, Robert Harris

Sidney Sussex College (1596)

Oliver Cromwell, David Owen, John Patten, Carol Vorderman, Ian Lang, Tom Kilburn

Trinity College(1546)

(living alumni only) Freeman Dyson, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, John Nott, John Tusa, Douglas Hurd, Edward Stourton, Peter Bottomley, Leon Brittan, Prince Charles, Raymond Keene, Jonathan Mestel, Antony Gormley, Vanessa Feltz, John Crawley, Peter Shaffer, Mel Giedroyc, Stephen Frears, Alex Comfort, Edward Atterton, Thomas Gold, John Stott, Chris Weitz, Charles Moore

Trinity Hall College (1350)

Admiral Howard, Robert Herrick, JB Priestley, Terry Waite, Norman Fowler, Tony Slattery, Geoffrey Howe, Donald Maclean, David Sheppard, Rachel Weisz, Stephen Hawking, Hans Blix.,

Please visit my Funny Animal Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com

My other website is called Directory of British Icons: http://fabprints.webs.com

Please visit my many Articles at http://bloggs.resourcez.com

The Chinese call Britain ‘The Island of Hero’s’ which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.

Copyright © 2010 – 2011 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

I have recently decided to write articles on my favourite subjects: English Sports, English History, English Icons, English Discoveries and English Inventions.

At present I have written many articles which I call “An Englishman’s Favourite Bits Of England” as various chapters.

Please visit my Blogs page http://Bloggs.Resourcez.Com where I have listed my most recent articles to date.

Copyright © 2010 – 2011 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

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a woman’s love

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