CHAPTER III
NEWNHAM COLLEGE IN PROGRESS
The time between the recognition of Newnham College by the University of Cambridge, in 1881, and the deeply mourned death of its chief founder and first Principal, in February 1892, is one of expansion and progress, both as regards the actual College buildings and the various activities of past and present students, especially in educational and social work.
The building of the North Hall has been mentioned, and also the increase in size of the South Hall, with the building of a library, not adequate to the subsequent needs of the College, but sufficient for the number of students then in residence, and afterwards very useful as a reading room and a supplementary library for duplicate books. In 1885 a fives court was erected on the north side of the College buildings. Meantime, a third Hall was projected, and, owing to the munificence of various benefactors, constructed on a liberal scale, and was ready for opening in 1888. It may be mentioned that one benefactor, Mr. Stephen Winkworth, earned the gratitude of subsequent students by granting a special sum to provide for the building of students' rooms of somewhat larger dimensions than the smaller ones in the other two Halls. Mr. and Mrs. Winkworth, old friends of Miss Clough, had taken interest in Newnham from the beginning, and their only daughter had been a student there.
As we are thus brought to the consideration of students' rooms, I might mention a line of progress initiated by the students themselves, and afterwards followed up by the authorities. In early days a separate study for each student had not been contemplated. This is another difference between Newnham and Girton, since, in the latter College, the collegiate idea had been more prominent from the first, and each Girton student had her bedroom and sitting-room, however small. In the first abode of Miss Clough and her five students all slept in bona fide bedrooms and worked sitting round a common table. In the early Newnham Hall more arrangement was made for privacy in study. Each student had her little writing table and sufficient book-shelves in her room. But the common sitting-rooms were used for most of the day, and not many rooms occupied by individual students were suitable for receiving company. Even little tea-parties among the students were of a very picnicky character. But when the ambition of the students was set on making a study-bedroom into a study first and a bedroom in a very secondary place, ingenuity provided facilities. Although the matter may seem infiniment petit, I consider that among Newnham pioneers the two students who accomplished this revolution should hold a place. One of them bought a large piece of chintz, and undisturbed by the jests of some of her comrades and the amused criticism of Miss Clough, devised a covering for bedstead, chest of drawers and other pieces of bedroom furniture. The other, of more definitely artistic taste (it was in the days of "Patience" and of the so-called aesthetic movement for soft colours and flowing lines) procured a piece of sage-green cloth or cretonne, and effected a similar revolution. Already in the large corner rooms something like a cubicle arrangement had been devised. The evident preference of the students for harmoniously, if simply, furnished rooms and for the preponderance of the idea of study over that of mere rest was followed out in furnishing new rooms as they were required. Old oak hutches, bureaux, the drawers of which might hold clothes, bed-coverings of a character suitable to that of the room, also pretty wall-papers of the kind Morris had lately invented, were procured for the students generally. Thus students came to take more pleasure in their rooms, into which they could invite one another, and sometimes friends from outside, though the common sitting-rooms were still the usual place for receiving guests. I think I am not wrong in saying that Newnham here started a practice subsequently followed in almost all houses of residence for women students. Certainly the first head of Somerville, when visiting Miss Clough, showed interest in the study-bedroom system. The desire to make the one room assert its diurnal rather than its nocturnal character was not new. Dickens had already ridiculed it in describing the "rooms" of Dick Swiveller. But the solution of the problem on principles of both convenience and beauty was, perhaps, first found in Newnham Hall during the early days.
I would pass to another—far more important—subject touching the relation of the students to the building in which they resided: it has puzzled some people how it has come about that with all the building, a chapel has never formed part of Newnham College. The subject is a delicate one, and I only take it up here because of the very erroneous and sometimes damaging explanations that have been assigned for the omission. Worst of all to those familiar with the leaders of the movement is the supposition that to them religion was a matter of indifference. For those who really knew Miss Clough, and others whom, while they still live, it seems indecent to mention—any such accusation is not only false but absurd. Miss Clough's religion was one that illuminated all her work and gave her strength and patience to carry it on. She was, besides, sincerely attached to the Church of England. At the same time, having lived in America, and mixed with persons of very varied religious opinions, she had early become very widely tolerant of the manifold ways in which a religious spirit manifests itself in different circles and different types of character. She had also seen the bad results of any attempt to force young people into religious observances which had become for them unmeaning or distasteful. Again: she had known vicariously, if not personally, the ferment of the Tractarian movement at Oxford, and the wave of scepticism that seemed to follow or even to accompany it. Also any disposition in her to avoid whatever might suggest the taking up of a distinctly denominational or even interdenominational attitude in the government of the College was strengthened by the distinctly anti-sectarian principles of vigorous and powerful supporters. Possibly at that time, more than at the present, any definite recognition of religion or provision of religious services seemed impossible apart from some denominational bias. The well-meant attempt of one founder of another women's college to provide chapel services on undenominational lines had foundered on the quicksands of theological controversy, and well-nigh wrecked the College—till it was saved by the singular tact and sympathetic insight of its new Principal. When Miss Clough first came to Cambridge, she began, as we have seen, not with a College, but with a moderate-sized household, and her arrangements were those of an ordinary Christian house, including family prayers. There was no need in Cambridge, as in a country district, to provide Sunday services. A rule was laid down, at first, that students were expected to inform the Principal of the place of worship they chose to attend, but this proviso was intended rather to give the Principal the right to make such inquiry than to impose any restrictions on the students. Miss Clough always regarded religious teaching and observance as belonging to the family rather than to any educational establishment, and she thought it essential to allow students to keep up their ties with any church to which they or their parents might belong.
In some ways the absence of a religious centre to the College may have been a disadvantage, but if so, the fault was rather in the times than in any persons. In point of fact, there has never been wanting a strong religious element in Newnham life. At the same time the atmosphere has been favourable to interchange of religious ideas among persons of various types and experiences. No student was made unpopular by her religious views unless she asserted them in an aggressive way. Most religious movements in Cambridge (and there have been many) since the beginnings of the College have made their influence felt within its precincts, and a large number of past students have devoted their lives to distinctly religious work, especially in distant lands, and such always look to the staff and students of their College for sympathy and encouragement.
This digression seemed necessary to correct prevalent misconceptions. To return to the general growth of the College in the eighties: attached to the new Hall of residence as its dining-hall was a beautiful College Hall, much larger than either of the other dining-rooms, and suggestions were made that the Staff with the students in all three Halls should dine together. This arrangement was, however, not easily compatible with the plan of division for tutorial purposes into three Halls. One desirable addition was a well-equipped kitchen. For a time the two Halls on the north side were supplied from the new kitchen; but much later, when the new Hall to the west, Peile Hall, was built, a large central kitchen was constructed, and all four Halls were provided from it, the food being wheeled to each in covered trolleys and received on hot tables in the several Halls.
The opening of Clough Hall, as the new and largest Hall was named, was a great occasion for Newnham. It was a pleasant summer day (June 9th, 1888), and many friends came from a distance. On the same day a degree was to be granted to the son of the Prince of Wales (Prince Albert Victor), and the Prince of Wales (Edward VII.) with the Princess and the three young Princesses paid a visit to the College. The students welcomed them with song in the new dining-hall, a ballot having first been taken among them as to who were the best representative students to present bouquets. This is probably the first and last occasion on which, in Newnham, a critical decision had to be made as to beauty, physical vigour and becoming dress. The royal party walked across the garden from the new Hall to the Principal's own rooms. Next followed a delightful ceremony which betokened both the respect and affection felt for one of the most assiduous helpers of the College and the beginnings of a new vista for Newnham in the endowment of Research—the presentation to Miss Marion Kennedy of a sum, which her friends had raised, to found a Studentship bearing her name, as an endowment for post-graduate work. There had been since 1882, by the generosity of the Hon. Selina Bathurst, a fund for encouraging advanced work in Natural Science, and it seemed eminently fitting that the possibility of promoting learning of any kind should be associated with the revered name of Kennedy. But perhaps the most moving event of that day was almost unpremeditated. The old students who had come from a distance, with those in residence, had a social supper in the large new Hall, after which Miss Clough, overcoming the reticence with which she habitually covered her deepest feelings, allowed all present to see more of her ideals and hopes, with her trust in their realization, than some of them had as yet known to be part of her character.
The new buildings necessitated a new nomenclature. The points of the compass were rejected in favour of the names of the founders. North Hall, which had been inaugurated by Mrs. Sidgwick's Vice-Principalship, became Sidgwick Hall, the new Hall was named Clough Hall, the South Hall—not being connected with any founder so intimately as with Miss Clough herself—retained a portion of its prestige in the title of the Old Hall. Other names of founders and benefactors were reserved for later additions to the College. Miss Clough herself took up residence in the Hall which bore her name. Miss Gladstone was still Vice-Principal in Sidgwick Hall; Miss Jane Lee, a very earnest scholar of Italian literature, entirely devoted to the best interests of the College, became head of the Old Hall, also with the title of Vice-Principal. This title for the person presiding over one particular Hall, and giving special attention to the needs of the students in that Hall, became somewhat misleading, and has since been replaced by that of Tutor, to which (in the Cambridge Colleges) it roughly corresponds. The Vice-Principal in each Hall had much more to do with house-keeping arrangements than later on, when more unity in this respect had been achieved and a regular Steward appointed. The Vice-Principals presided at table in their several Halls, corresponded with the parents of students, arranged, within the limits of a few simple laws, rules for the discipline of the students, read prayers in the morning; in fact, were generally responsible for the social, physical and moral requirements of the students. As, when there were only two Halls, Miss Gladstone held the office in Sidgwick Hall for many years, she imparted to it a certain character, and for a long time the V.-P. was a title regarded as almost individual to her. The separation into Halls, inevitable for a time, had, in Miss Clough's estimation and perhaps in reality, a very decided advantage. Students in one Hall naturally saw more of one another than of those in other Halls; Old Hall especially was somewhat cut off from the two others, so long as the public road ran between. And for games, clubs, and other social purposes, it was often a help to have a natural division into the three Halls. The larger societies—such as the Debating Society, the Musical Society, and some others, as well as the more regular of the Games Clubs—belonged to the College as a whole. The teaching arrangements were, of course, always made for the whole College and not separately for each Hall.
From about this time the social activities of the students, both those resident in College and those who had gone back to their own homes or taken up definite work, showed themselves in many ways. In 1880 an effort was made to keep up in those who had gone down the College spirit and College interests. The result was a society called the Newnham College Club, rather an unfortunate name, since it was not a club properly so-called, having no local habitation; it sometimes became confounded with the Ladies' University Club, and students were debarred from entering by the fear of expense. The "Club" prepared students' minds for the official College Roll which superseded it in 1919. The founders and officers of the Club (among whom those especially active in its initiation and development were Miss Julia Sharpe, Miss Olive Macmillan (Mrs. MacLehose), Mrs. Corrie Grant (née Adams), deserve the gratitude of the College for having, by means of an annual Newnham Letter, with information as to College developments, births, marriages, deaths among old students, fresh appointments, etc., and by regular meetings in London, kept alive in a large and growing number of former students the memory of their Alma Mater and her interest in the doings of her children. In after times it was interesting to see how, when a member of the Club who had gone to live in Central Africa or New Zealand visited her old haunts, she was found to be far better informed as to the lines of recent progress than some who had never left England.