But for the time the voice of "sweet reasonableness" was drowned in angry clamour. Some opponents of the College used their influence with the undergraduates, and especially the athletic element. Ridiculous stories were set about that the women intended to press on to admission into the Colleges. Aged and often very worthy men who had long been out of touch with the University but retained the right to vote in its proceedings flocked up to "save the University" from the dreaded feminine invasion. Friends of Newnham and Girton mustered likewise, but the result was obvious from the beginning. The motion was defeated by 1713 to 662.
The set-back was felt severely, not so much by reason of the weight of the adverse vote, as because of the hostility that had unexpectedly come to the surface, and the unmannerly way in which, led by undergraduates' love of a "rag," it was manifested. Happily, the feelings described by Miss Kennedy were still characteristic of Cambridge, except in its worse moments. Next term, when the Newnham authorities came to discuss the wisdom of asking lecturers who had taken the opposite part to continue their permission to women pupils, it was found that some at least would have been indignant if not asked to do so.
One good result of the unfortunate conflict was that it brought the two women's Colleges, Newnham and Girton, nearer together. There was generosity in the yielding by Miss Davies, Dr. Cunningham, and other notable supporters of Girton, of points which their Colleges had generally held with some tenacity. Newnham and Girton worked hand-in-hand during the conflict and in the steps by which the mischief done was gradually repaired.
Happily, since the generations of undergraduates and women students are short-lived, the episode became to many as if it had never been. This, however, was impossible in the case of the members of the resident staffs. It made, or should have made, each of them "a sadder and a wiser man" in future dealings with the University.
Before long Newnham had to suffer a greater loss, by the death of its protagonist in this and many other conflicts, as well as its ever-generous benefactor and friend: Professor Henry Sidgwick. Something has already been said both as to what he did and what he resigned for the good of the College, and yet more might be dwelt on as to the importance to students and staff of having him amongst them. Even those who were unable to appreciate the character of his mind, felt that he possessed a distinction they had known, if at all, in very few others. To those who attended his lectures, read his books, or listened to his talk, he was felt to excel all others in absolute devotion to truth and duty, in breadth of view, in moral and intellectual patience and forbearance, while this lofty character was always consistent with a keen sense of humour, and a human interest in all his surroundings. He had led an active life, though always liable to be troubled with insomnia. In May 1900, his doctor discovered an internal complaint which required an early operation. The operation was supposed to be successful, and after a short time he was able to go for drives and to enjoy the society of friends. But he was never deceived as to the nearness of the end, which came when he was staying with his brother-in-law, Lord Rayleigh, on August 28th, 1900. As it was mid vacation there was no funeral service in Trinity or elsewhere in Cambridge, but one attended by the family and a few friends in the church at Terling, in which churchyard he was buried.
It is, as already said, possible for all students to realize at once the benefits which the College owes to Sidgwick, and the greatness of his mind and character, by reading the life written by his wife and his brother Arthur. Very soon after the funeral Mrs. Sidgwick returned to Newnham, and the members of the Staff still in residence realized that this terrible loss to her did not involve the loss of her to the College, but that she would be to it at least all that she had been before.
A meeting was held soon after to decide how Professor Sidgwick should be commemorated in Cambridge. A University lectureship was founded with the proceeds of a general appeal, and a contribution to this was made from a special fund contributed by former students of Newnham; this fund also provided for an annual Sidgwick Memorial Lecture at the College. The lecturer has in each case been appointed by Mrs. Sidgwick, and has generally so far been some man personally known to Dr. Sidgwick or interested in some of his own lines of thought. The first lecture was given by Professor (now Lord) Bryce in November 1902. His subject was "Philosophic Life among the Ancients," and many hearers felt—as did the lecturer himself—that the kind of life he was portraying had in no person been better exemplified than in Sidgwick himself. A visitor to Newnham afterwards, standing in the middle of the garden, quoted as appropriate to him the epitaph of Wren in St Paul's: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. But even that monument would be insufficient for those who had known something of his mind and profited by his labours.