A history of the University of Oxford

by George C. Brodrick

FOOTNOTES:

[15] No description is here given of the origin and progress of Methodism in Oxford, since the history of the Methodist Revival is reserved for a separate volume in the present series.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE UNIVERSITY DURING THE REIGNS OF GEORGE III. AND GEORGE IV.

Stagnation of University legislation in the eighteenth century

We may pass lightly over the history of the University during the latter part of the eighteenth century, when its external and internal life were equally barren of memorable events. Only eight statutes had been enacted by Convocation between 1636 and 1759; nor was the succeeding period more prolific of reforms. The legislative energy of the University was confined for the most part to amendments of mere administrative details, and it was even suggested that such trifling measures were beyond its powers. In the year 1759, the right of the University to abrogate any of the Laudian statutes without the consent of the Crown was challenged by the proctors. The objection, however, was overruled, and the principle was established that, whereas it was not competent for the University to make any statutes as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, it could not delegate any such power to the King himself, so that any statute made under royal sanction was subject to repeal, like ordinary bye-laws. In 1770, a new statute was passed for the regulation of academical habits, which provoked a long controversy, and incidentally established the principle, applicable to more important subjects, that no individual Head of a college, nor even all the Heads of colleges together, could dispense with statutable rules, independently of Convocation.

Statutes affecting the University

Meanwhile, a considerable number of Acts were passed by Parliament confirming or enlarging the privileges of the University. For instance, in 1774, the Universities of England and Scotland were empowered by special enactment to hold in perpetuity their exclusive right of printing books, the copyright of which should have been vested in them by the authors. Other Acts granted colleges special exemptions from the land tax in respect of their buildings, and from legacy duty in respect of collections and other specific articles bequeathed to them. Resident members of the University were further exempted from service in the Militia, and the stringent Act of 1799, ‘for better preventing treasonable and seditious practices,’ was expressly limited so as not to curtail the freedom of University lectures or the University press.

Political sympathies of the University after the outbreak of the French Revolution

In 1793, the installation of the Duke of Portland as successor to Lord North in the chancellorship was signalised by festivities on an unprecedented scale, and a tumultuous struggle for admission to the Sheldonian Theatre led to a fray which reflected little credit on academical manners. The hero of the day, and favourite of the gownsmen, was Edmund Burke, whose son received an honorary D.C.L. degree, but who is said to have declined it for himself on the ground that, in 1790, the Heads of Houses had negatived a requisition from forty-nine Masters of Arts proposing that a D.C.L. degree should be conferred on him ‘by diploma.’ The political sympathies of the University were, in fact, strongly called forth on behalf of the Royalist cause in France, and a large subscription was raised in 1792 for the relief of the French refugees, especially Catholic priests, three of whom settled at Oxford. Tn 1794 nearly 2,500l. was contributed for purposes of national defence by the resident body of graduates, including a grant of 200l. from the University chest. In 1798, a further contribution of 4,000l. ‘in aid of the revenue of the country’ was sent to the government from the University and colleges of Oxford, while an University volunteer corps, mustering about five hundred men, was formed and drilled, as in the days of the Civil War. This martial ardour, and the drain of students into the army, doubtless contributed to increase the depression of academical studies which preceded and rendered necessary the ‘new examination statutes’ of 1800. But academical studies must also have suffered from the prevailing distress which marked the winter of 1799, when bread-riots took place in Oxford, and large subscriptions were raised in the University for the relief of the poor townspeople.

Accessions to professoriate in the eighteenth century

Notwithstanding the decline of academical vigour during the eighteenth century, both the professorial staff and the public buildings of the University received a considerable extension. In 1708 the Professorship of Poetry was founded out of funds bequeathed for the purpose by Henry Birkhead. In 1724 the Regius Professorship of Modern History was established by George I. In 1728 the Professorship of Botany, then in a state of suspended animation, was re-endowed out of the munificent bequest of William Sherard. In 1749 the first Professor of Experimental Philosophy was appointed, with a salary of 30l., out of the Crewe benefaction. In 1758 the bequest of Charles Viner took effect by the election of William Blackstone to the new Vinerian Professorship of Common Law. In 1780 the Clinical Professorship was founded in connection with the Radcliffe Infirmary. In 1795 the Professorship of Anglo-Saxon was constituted, forty years after the death of its founder, Dr. Rawlinson, the famous antiquary, and in 1798 George Aldrich, formerly of Merton College, bequeathed property for the endowment of Professorships in Anatomy, Medicine, and Chemistry.

Architectural improvements

Meanwhile the mediæval aspect of Oxford was modified by many new architectural features. Early in the century additional buildings sprang up in Magdalen, Corpus, Queen’s, and Oriel. To the same age belong the Codrington Library at All Souls’, with the new Library and Peckwater Quadrangle at Christchurch, and other college buildings. In 1713 the Clarendon Building was opened to receive the University Press. Books had been printed in Oxford since 1468, when Caxton’s invention was still on its trial, but Delegates of the Press were not appointed until 1586, and the University privilege of printing dates from the patent granted in 1633, at the instance of Archbishop Laud. After 1669 the University Press was set up and worked in the Sheldonian Theatre, but the copyright of Clarendon’s ‘History of the Rebellion’ having been presented to the University, the profits were applied towards the cost of erecting the fine edifice known as the ‘Clarendon Press’ for 118 years. A still more important benefaction was that of the celebrated Dr. Radcliffe, who died in 1714, leaving a large sum of money to be accumulated for the foundation of a Medical Library, an Infirmary, and an Observatory. The first stone of the library was laid in 1737, all the houses in ‘Cat Street,’ north of St. Mary’s Church, having been demolished to make room for it. It was opened for the use of students on April 13, 1749, after a ‘two days’ solemnity,’ including a Public Act, and a concert managed by Handel, whose oratorios had been received with great applause at Oxford six years earlier, and whose ‘Sampson’ was performed in the Sheldonian Theatre on the following day. The Infirmary and Observatory were completed in 1770 and 1795 respectively, but are not under University control, though closely associated with University studies. In 1788 Sir Robert Taylor, an architect of some eminence, bequeathed a large sum to found a building for the cultivation of ‘the European languages,’ but this bequest did not take full effect until 1848, when the present ‘Taylor Institution’ was opened. Meanwhile, in 1771, an Act of Parliament had been passed enabling the City to rebuild Magdalen Bridge, and take down the east and north gates, the south and west gates having been already demolished. By these alterations the conversion of Oxford into an University town was finally consummated, and few of its inhabitants now realise that it was once a fortified city sheltering a cluster of poor schools and halls not yet aspiring to the dignity of colleges.

Effects of the French war upon the University. Opposition to reforms

The general history of the University in the present century may be divided into two periods: the first terminated by the Reform Act of 1832, and the great ecclesiastical reaction which followed upon it; the second embracing the last two or three years of William IV.’s reign, and the whole reign of Queen Victoria. The new Examination Statute of 1800, and the subsequent introduction of the class system,[16] were the only events of any academical importance in the earlier of these periods, and nothing occurred to disturb the repose of the University during the last twenty years of George III.’s reign, or the ten years’ reign of George IV. The domestic records of this interval are meagre and trivial in the extreme. When the Peace of Amiens was proclaimed in 1802, there seems to have been a short-lived revival of educational vigour at Oxford; when the war broke out afresh in 1803 volunteers were again enrolled from the University, and Oxford studies again began to languish. In 1805 these were vigorously attacked by Sydney Smith in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and vigorously defended by Mr. Copleston, afterwards Provost of Oriel, himself among the foremost of University reformers. While the country was engaged in its desperate struggle with Napoleon, the ‘class system’ was being quietly introduced, and supplying a new incentive to industry. The political animosities which had agitated the University in the last century had completely died out, but it is certain that Oxford was profoundly affected by the anti-Jacobin panic which set in after the French Revolution and lasted for a whole generation. It is, however, some proof of a latent inclination to moderate Liberalism among Oxford graduates that in 1809 Lord Grenville was elected Chancellor after a contest with Lord Eldon. On the other hand, the sympathies of the University on all ‘Church and State’ questions were identical with those of George III. So far back as 1810 a petition was presented against Catholic Emancipation, and when Robert Peel was elected member for the University in 1817, it was fully understood that he was to oppose the Catholic Claims. In 1829, the University Convocation reaffirmed its reprobation of these claims by a solemn vote. Peel resigned his seat, and upon a new election was defeated by Sir Robert Inglis. In a like spirit the University petitioned in 1831 against Parliamentary Reform, in 1833 against the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, and in 1834, with only one dissentient, against the grant of a charter to the new London University. No doubt, in this last case the instinctive hostility of Churchmen to a non-religious academical body was quickened by a less honourable jealousy of a rival institution to be invested with the power of granting degrees. In spite of the Oxford protest, the charter was granted at the close of 1836, and in the following year a similar privilege was conferred upon Durham University.

Reception of the Allied Sovereigns. Abolition of the Mayor’s Oath

Two other incidents in University life during this somewhat obscure period deserve a passing notice. In 1814 Oxford was enlivened by the famous visit of the Allied Sovereigns, when Blucher was received with enthusiastic plaudits in the Sheldonian Theatre. Had the loyalty of the University been doubtful, the Prince Regent must have been reassured by the fervent display of it on this occasion; but these royal visits had lost their significance when the adhesion of Oxford ceased to be a factor in Imperial politics, and the subsequent receptions of Queen Adelaide and Queen Victoria, though almost as hearty as that of Queen Elizabeth, were tributes of respectful homage and not of political devotion. In 1825 the mayor and bailiffs of Oxford were released by a document under the University seal from the penance laid upon them after the great riot on Scholastica’s Day in 1354, when they were required, as we have seen, to attend St. Mary’s Church yearly with sixty leading citizens, to celebrate a mass for the souls of the murdered scholars, and to offer one penny each at the altar. No sooner was the Sacrifice of the Mass forbidden in the reign of Elizabeth than the citizens hastened to give up this annual appearance, but were compelled to resume it by an Order of Council, a litany being substituted for the mass. The whole ceremony was now abolished; but another grievance of earlier origin still remained, and was not finally removed until the year 1859. By the letters patent of Henry III., already mentioned, dated 1248, the mayor and bailiffs, on taking office, were directed to swear that they would keep ‘the liberties and customs of the University,’ the Chancellor having been previously informed, in order that he might witness the oath personally or by a deputy. This obligation, though it may have been sometimes evaded, does not seem to have been disputed for more than six centuries. In 1855, however, the mayor and corporation requested the University to dispense with the oath. The University at first demurred, but after friendly conferences gave its sanction to a Bill for abolishing the oath, upon condition, however, of its being once more taken by the mayor and sheriff for the last time. In 1859 this Bill, introduced at the instance of the City, but with the concurrence of the University, was passed into law, and the standing feud so long maintained between these ancient corporations was thus brought to an amicable conclusion. The harmony which has since prevailed between the authorities of the University and the City may have been partly due to other causes, but it has certainly been promoted by the disuse of a humiliating formality, well calculated to revive the memory of barbarous violence on one side and invidious pretensions on the other.