The ‘Naturals’ and Victorian Cambridge: Reflections on the anatomy of an elite, 1851-1914

Oxford Review of Education

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 1980, Pages 177-195

  Macleod, Roy ^a   Moseley, Russell ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79959088053     PISSN: 03054985     EISSN: 14653915     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0305498800060205     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Stone, L. (Ed.) (1975) The University in Society, Vol. 1, p. v (Princeton University Press).
2. Macleod, Roy & Moseley, Russell (1980) Breaking the circle of the sciences: the Natural Sciences Tripos and the ‘examination revolution,’ in: Macleod, Roy (Ed.) Days of Judgement (Driffield, Yorkshire).
3. Macleod, Roy & Moseley, Russell Science with Honours: Cambridge and the Natural Sciences Tripos (in preparation). Case studies in this volume will include contributions by Drs R. Porter, G. Roberts, D. Wilson, W. Bynum, W. H. Brock and B. Norton.
4. Those who read the natural sciences for an ‘ordinary’ degree—the ‘poll’ (or ‘pass’) men—would require a separate study. Their numbers were at first comparable: in 1869, there were seven poll men compared with 13 NST men; in 1870,25 compared with seventeen; and in 1878, 22 compared with 23. After 1880, however, the number of poll men reading science fell sharply, while the number of NST men continued to rise. For a discussion of the women who took the NST in the period 1881 to 1916 see Macleod, Roy & Moseley, Russell (1979) Father and daughters: reflections on women, science and Victorian Cambridge, History of Education, 8, pp. 321–333.
5. For a convenient summary of the principal issues, see Green, V. H. H. (1969) The Universities, chapter 4 (Harmondsworth, Penguin), Reaction and reform at Oxford and Cambridge, and chapter 11, The universities and science. See also Macleod & Moseley, op. cit., note [3].
6. See Winstanley, D. A. (1947) Later Victorian Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), and idem, (1940) Early Victorian Cambridge, (Cambridge University Press). For the relationship between the universities and the learned societies, see Macleod, Roy (1980) Whigs and savants: the Royal Society of London and reform, 1830-1848, in: Inkster, I. & Morrell, J. B. (Eds) Metropolis and Province (London).
7. Disraeli, Benjamin, Vivian Grey, quoted in Bibby, C. L. (1959) T. H. Huxley, p. 215 (London).
8. In the early century, there had been 200 graduates per 5 million population; this fell to 65 in the decade 1855-1865 (see Charles Daubeny, Report of the Economic Sciences and Statistics Section of the British Association, Nottingham, 1866). The proportion of Oxbridge matriculants per million men aged 15-25 fell from 732 in 1821 to 541 in 1861 (see Greenwood, M. (1935) University education, its recent history and function, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 98, pp. 1–23).
9. Cf. Rothblatt, Sheldon (1975) The student sub-culture and the examination system in early 19th century Oxbridge, in: Stone, L. (Ed.) op. cit., note [1], pp. 247–303.
10. Cf. comparative statistics for Oxford and Cambridge in Stone, L. (1975) The size and composition of the Oxford student body, 1850-1910, in: Stone, L. (Ed.), op. cit., note [1] p. 6.
11. Ibid. cf. Venn, J. A. (1908) Matriculations at Oxford and Cambridge, 1544-1906, Oxford and Cambridge Review, 3, pp. 48–66.
12. Powell, Baden (1832), The Present State and Future Prospects of Mathematical and Physical Studies in the University of Oxford, p. 27 (Oxford).
13. Engel, A. (1975) From clergyman to don: the rise of the academic profession in nineteenth century Oxford, p. 5 unpublished PhD dissertation, Princeton University. Cf. Engel (1975) The emerging concept of the academic profession at Oxford, 1800-1854, in Stone, op. cit., note [1].
14. Cf. Wilson, Charles(1965) Economy and society in late Victorian Britain, Economic History Review, 18, pp. 194–195, Coleman, D. C. (1973) Gentlemen and Players, Economic History Review, 26, pp. 94–116.
15. Cf. Crowther, J. G. (1974) The Cavendish Laboratory 1874-1974 (London), and Geison, G. (1978) Sir Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of English Physiology (Princeton University Press).
16. See HosKiN, Keith (1980) in Macleod, R. op. cit., note [2].
17. Cf. Shapin, S. & Thackray, A. (1974) Prosopography as a research tool in history of science: the British scientific community, 1700 to 1900, History of Science, 12, pp. 1–28; and Pyenson, L. (1977) Who the guys were, History of Science, 15, pp. 155–188. Of 93 men serving in British Cabinets between 1868 and 1955, 26 had been t0 Cambridge, 49 to Oxford, and 18 to no university. Of the Cambridge men, only one (Moulton) took the NST.
18. Jenkins, Hester & Jones, D. Caradog (1950) Social class of Cambridge University alumni of the 18th and 19th centuries, British Journal of Sociology, pp. 93–116. The shortcomings of this study have been ably criticised in Honey, J. R. de. S (1977), Tom Brown’s Universe: The Development of the Victorian Public School, pp. 280–1 (London).
19. Anderson, C. Arnold & Schnaper, Miriam (1952) School and Society in England. Social Backgrounds of Oxford and Cambridge Students (Washington).
20. Stone, L. op. cit., note [1].
21. Cf. Snow, C. P. (1961) The New Men (London).
22. Stone, L. op. cit., note [1] p. vi.
23. The standard account of the Mathematical Tripos is that of Ball, W. W. R. (1918) The Mathematical Tripos, reprinted in his Cambridge Papers, pp. 252–316 (London). The first new Tripos was the Classical, established in 1827.
24. Whewell’s views are outlined in his On the Principles of English Liberal Education (London, 1837), and expanded (with a description of his proposed relationship between the Moral and Progressive Sciences) in his Of a Liberal Education in General, and with Particular Reference to the Leading Studies of the University of Cambridge (London, 1845, 2nd edn., 1850).
25. For administrative details concerning the NST, see Holmes, R. F. (1965) An historical note on the Natural Sciences Tripos, Cambridge Review, pp. 199–241, 23 January.
26. Cf. Rothblatt, op. cit., note [9], p. 296.
27. The scientific subjects were chemistry, geology, zoology and comparative anatomy, mineralogy and botany, to which were added, physiology, physics and human anatomy.
28. Hill, Alex (1919) Aspects of science and the universities, Nature, 104, p. 256.
29. Todhunter, Isaac (1873) The Conflict of Studies and Other Essays, p. 17 (London).
30. Macleod, Roy & Moseley, Russell (1973) Breadth, depth and excellence: sources and problems in the history of university science education in England, 1850-1914, Studies in Science Education, 5, pp. 85–106.
31. Between 1851 and 1916, fully one-quarter of Cambridge men failed to take a degree at all, and of the remainder, one-half took the Ordinary (or ‘poll’) degree. Thus, the proportion of ‘naturals’ among those leaving Cambridge with an honours degree was, by 1910, particularly notable.
32. Following the Natural Sciences and Moral Sciences Triposes, came Triposes in Theology, Law and History, History, Semitic Languages, Medieval and Modern Languages, Indian Languages, Oriental Languages, Mechanical Sciences and Economics. (We use, arbitrarily, the Latin rather than the Greek plural of Tripos.) Cf. Maclachlan, J. O. (1947-49) The origin and early development of the Cambridge Historical Tripos, Cambridge Historical Journal 9; Stoddart, D. R. (1975) The RGS and the foundation of geography at Cambridge, The Geographical Journal 141, pp. 1–24.
33. In fact, the number of men (and, after 1874, women) who read for the Natural Sciences Tripos does not exhaust the full extent of scientific instruction in the university. Until the 1880s, the Mathematical Tripos continued to attract most men reading physics, and there were considerable numbers who took the Special Examination in natural sciences for the Ordinary Degree. Finally, there were many who read for the MB, and later for honours in mechanical sciences, all of whom swelled the proportion of Cambridge ‘scientists’.
34. Between 1850 and 1899, 38% of Cambridge graduates (including ‘poll men’) became clergymen; but only 12% of NST graduates. In the same period, 10% of all Cambridge graduates, but 14% of NST graduates, were sons of medical men; 12% of all Cambridge undergraduates, but 14% of NST graduates, were from manufacturing or business families. As these comparisons are between the large pool of both honours and non-honours graduates, and the much smaller pool of NST graduates, the relative importance of the NST vis-à-vis other honours graduates is much increased. See note [31], supra. See also Macleod, R. M. & Moseley, Russell (1976) The Natural Sciences Tripos: Data and Commentary (Brighton, typescript).
35. Regional origins do not feature in the studies of Anderson & Schnaper or Jenkins & Jones, op. cit., notes [18] and [19]. We were therefore unable to make comparisons within the Cambridge undergraduate body.
36. Each group accounted for 14% of NST men between 1881 and 1904.
37. Livening, G. D. (1897) The University of Cambridge, British Medical Journal, 19 June, 8.
38. Armytage W. H. O. (1955) Civic Universities: Aspects of a British Tradition, p. 225 (London); Macleod, R. (1972) The resources of science in Victorian England, in: Mathias, P. (Ed.) Science and Society, 1600-1900, pp. 111–166 (Cambridge University Press).
39. Special Report from the Select Committee on the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Education Bill; together with the Proceedings of the Committee, 1867, pp. 15–16.
40. Ibid., p. 38.
41. Grove, William (1843) Physical sciences in England, Blackwood’s Magazine, 54, p. 516.
42. Latham, Henry (1877) On the action of examination considered as a means of selection, p. 142 (London).
43. Quoted in Sanderson, Michael (1972) The universities and British Industry, p. 84 (London).
44. Select Committee, op. cit., note [39], p. 120.
45. Select Committee on Scientific Instruction 1868, (432), Appendix 20, p. 475. See also Third Report of the Devonshire Commission 1873, (c. 868) Q. 4636.
46. See Skeats, H. S. and Miall, C. S. (1891), History of the Free Churches of England, p. 625n (London); Fawcett, H. (1861) On the Exclusion of those who are not members of the Established Church from Fellowships and other Privileges of the English Universities, MacMillan’s Magazine, 3, pp. 411–16.
47. Cambridge University Reporter, 24 November 1885, p. 189.
48. Namely, Charterhouse, Cheltenham, Clifton, Eton, Fettes, Haileybury, Harrow, Loretto, Malvern, Marlborough, Merchant Taylors, Oundle, Radley, Repton, Rossall, Rugby, St Paul’s, Sedburgh, Sherborne, Shrewsbury, Uppingham, Westminster and Winchester. For some analytical limitations of this listing, see Honey, op. cit., note [18]
49. See, for example, Meadows, A. J. & Brock, W. H. (1975) Topics fit for gentlemen: the problem of science in the public school curriculum, in: Simon, Brian & Bradley, Ian (Eds) The Victorian Public School, pp. 95–114 (London); cf. Thomas, Bernard (Ed.) (1957) Repton, 1557-1957, pp. 63–64 (London). Cf. Ward, David (1967) The public schools and industry in Britain after 1870, Contemporary History, 2, 37–52.
50. Between 1851-1881 less than 5% of NST graduates had been educated at grammar schools; 46.2% educated at ‘lesser’ public or private schools; 25.9% at one of the ‘greater’ public schools; and 4.9% at a grammar school. The education of the remainder is not known.
51. Cf. Jenkins & Jones, op. at., note [18]. Of the entire undergraduate population between 1851 and 1881,7% had attended a grammar school compared with 10% of NST men; and 42% had been to a lesser public or private school compared with one-half of NST men.
52. See Report of the Committee on the Position of Natural Science in the Educational System of Great Britain, pp. 86–89 (HMSO, 1918). Indeed, by 1914 the majority of science graduates in Great Britain found employment in the schools.
53. See Cannon, W. (1964) History in depth: the early Victorian period, History of Science, 3, p. 25.
54. 153 Part I and 78 Part II graduates between 1881 and 1904 became school teachers.
55. Nature, 5, p. 429,1872. At the turn of the century, the ‘allied’ colleges of Pembroke, Caius, King’s, Jesus, Christ’s, St. John’s and Emmanuel awarded each year 59 scholarships and exhibitions with a value of £3040 but of these, only nine, worth £390, were for natural science. Trinity awarded five of its 21 scholarships and exhibitions for natural science (worth £235 of a total £1030) and Clare two out of ten (£120 out of £450). The last two colleges were held by Nature to have treated natural science ‘quite fairly’. But for the rest: “£3,040 in literature and mathematics, and only £390 for science is a very unsatisfactory distribution of prizes, and does not encourage education in our schools and colleges” (Nature, 59, p. 116, 1898-99).
56. Quoted in The Cambridge Chronicle, 9 November 1867.
57. Foster, M. et al. (1888) Coutts Trotter: in Memoriam, p. II (Cambridge University Press).
58. Christ’s commitment to the sciences was primarily in medicine. Of 237 who read natural sciences between 1851 and 1904,119 became medical men and five became physiologists. See also Quiggen, A. H. (1942) Haddon the Head Hunter, p. 34 (Cambridge University Press).
59. Newman, Charles (1957) The Evolution of Medical Education in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 284–91 (London).
60. No fewer than 81 (16.5% of those who took Part II between 1881 and 1904) became Fellows of the Royal Society. This compares with only 1% of those who read Part I alone. The former figure strongly suggests that the Royal Society’s close association with Cambridge must be seen as much in terms of the development of the NST as the Mathematical Tripos. Although Part II was the main path to later eminence in the scientific world, failure in Part I was not an insurmountable barrier: among the failures there is one distinguished FRS—Sir Alfred Moritz Mond (Bart), “A Captain of Industry, an Apostle of Rationalism, a Leader of Zion, and an Imperialist.”
61. Venn, J. A. op. cit., note [11], p. 65.
62. Sanderson, M. op. cit., note [43].
63. University Papers (Cambridge University Library), UP 57. “A Brief Statement of the History and Work of the Cambridge University Appointments Board” (1902).
64. Graduates of the Mechanical Sciences Tripos found industrial employment easier to come by. A survey of graduates between 1894 and 1906 found that 81 were employed in some commercial or industrial capacity; 40 were in some government service at home or abroad; 23 taught in various educational institutions; and 31 had ‘miscellaneous’ occupations. The Times Engineering Supplement, 23 February 1910.
65. Cf. Jenkins & Jones, op. cit., note [18], pp. 100–102.
66. Over 160 NST graduates lost their lives between 1914 and 1918.
67. Cf. MacLeod, Roy & Kay (1979) The contradictions of professionalism: scientists, trade unionists and the First World War, Social Studies of Science, 9, pp. 1–32.
68. Obituary Notices of the Royal Society, 1, p. 331,1934.
69. Stone. L. op. cit., note [1], p. vi.
70. For criticisms of the ‘aggressive’ behavior of natural scientists, who were monopolising the university’s public discussions, see The Cambridge Chronicle, 12 November 1886.
71. Roach, John (1959) Victorian universities and the national intelligentsia, Victorian Studies, 3, p. 144.
72. Foster, M. (1888) The science work of the late Rev. Coutts Trotter, in Coutts Trotter: in Memoriam (Cambridge University Press).
73. Crowther, J. G. (1952) British scientists of the twentieth century, p. 21 (London).
74. Crowther, J. G. (1952) British Scientists of the Twentieth Century, p. 21 (London).
75. Flexner, A. (1968) Universities: American, English, German, p. 263 (Oxford University Press, 1930).
76. Rothblatt, Sheldon (1968) The Revolution of the dons (London).
77. Bateson, W. (1917) The place of science in education, in: Benson, A. C. (Ed.) Cambridge Essays in Education, pp. 121–146 (Cambridge University Press).
78. Wilde, Oscar (1891) The Picture of Dorian Gray, p. 246 (London).
79. Cf. Campbell, L. (1901) The Nationalisation of the Old English Universities (London).