A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge

by Alice Gardner

From some provisions in the Charter, and from the general progress which has been traced, it must appear that the body of residents of graduate standing in Newnham, including administrative officials, lecturers, and Research Students and Fellows, had for years been growing in importance and developing a corporate life. Junior to the Staff and Research Fellows, but of post-graduate standing, are those who hold the two or three research studentships which have been mentioned, and of late years others who have completed the degree courses have been enabled to stay on in Cambridge and carry on work in the laboratories by grants from the Medical Research Council and the Industrial Research Board. Of late, too, students with degrees from overseas and from other British Universities have come to Cambridge in increasing numbers to work for the recently established Research Certificates of the University. These students, with their wider interests and experience doing specialized advanced work in various subjects literary and scientific, some of them resident in the College, others living outside but connected with it, add a valuable element and form a link between the generations.

Old students are encouraged to come up to read in the Long Vacation, and thus keep up their old friendships and renew their old interests. Sometimes, it is true, Newnham is almost too full, with visitors from outside, to afford the peaceful time for uninterrupted and independent work characteristic of the "Longs" of former days. Yet the visits of distant friends is often stimulating as well as pleasant. Almost every other year, since the University Extension Summer Meetings began—we may almost say at Newnham's initiative[15]—some of the students have been accommodated in Newnham. This is true, too, of the Vacation Terms for Biblical Study; since those were inaugurated by Mrs. Sidgwick's niece, Miss Margaret Benson, and intended chiefly as a help to school teachers, the promoters naturally looked to Newnham for hospitality, and many old students attend the courses. Learned societies of mathematicians, historians and others have often come to England from all over the world, and Newnham has been glad to entertain both learned ladies and the wives of learned men staying in the Colleges. Another kind of gathering may be mentioned, as somewhat original in idea and very useful in practice. Several of the students of Natural Science who, after taking their Tripos, had gone to teach in schools, complained of the scarcity and inferiority of the apparatus at their disposal. The lecturer in Chemical Science, Miss Ida Freund, arranged that a company of them should come to Cambridge for a part of the Long Vacation to learn how to construct the simpler kind of instruments for themselves. The result was very satisfactory, and the teachers learned not only how to make the best of the conditions under which they might have to teach, but also how to keep abreast of the progress of the Natural Sciences and of the methods of teaching them. It seemed natural that on Miss Freund's lamented death in 1914 the Memorial to her should take the form of a brief course of lectures by an experienced teacher on the teaching of Physics. The summer meetings, at which these lectures were delivered, helped to keep teachers from falling behind in the general progress of knowledge and also to guide them in the practical work of education.

One very large part of the story of Newnham has been as yet little or incidentally treated in this history; the development of student life and interests. At the beginning that was practically the whole life of the community: there were no dons, and the Principal (without losing separate and family interests) merged her life in that of the young people who were under her care. Things were bound to develop in both expected and unexpected ways. As more and more students came to College, variety increased, and at the same time College was likely to become more like a continuation of school. It would perhaps be impossible to trace quite accurately any particular tone or character or even standard of ability rising and falling in the annals of the Newnham students. At first, as already suggested, there was sure to be something of originality and enterprise. Girls were never sent to College as a matter of course, and in many cases they had had hard work in persuading their parents to let them come even for a slight taste of College life. Certainly some came for a short spell and remained for many years, though the fact of coming up without any definite intentions often worked havoc with chances of academic success. There were generally cultivated adult women grappling with subjects which they ought to have mastered in childhood; and also very young students striving after knowledge of a kind beyond their present reach. Possibly these aberrations made student life more interesting. But they could not fail to be diminished—though not even now eliminated—with the growth of a more uniform standard in the curriculum of girls' schools.

The oldest student society was the Debating Society. It is said to have had its first meetings under the medlar tree in Merton Hall garden. Its rules were reduced to writing in the late seventies, though subjected later to much revision. Its history—like all histories—would, if written, show great fluctuations in energy, popularity, and capacity. In the early days there was quite enough earnestness and desire to convince the world—the Newnham world that is—of the truth or falsity of certain propositions, political, moral or social. I believe that the good rule against reading speeches was generally adhered to, but it was sometimes avoided by the speech having been learned by heart, and having thereby lost spontaneity without acquiring the possible merits of a careful essay. The early generations of students were very kind and tolerant to wearisome speakers, though the time rule was strictly adhered to. The fatal fault of most debating societies—the desire to be humorous rather than convincing—threatened at times to destroy both qualities. But from time to time, capable speakers who really had something to say arose to retrieve the character of the Society. In 1884 it suffered somewhat by the creation of another society, which became almost co-extensive with the College, for discussing political questions. The original Debating Society did not preclude itself from politics, but it naturally left them to the other society, and was apt to descend to what was somewhat trivial or else took refuge in the paradoxical. Its temporary declines, however, were, as just said, generally followed by reinvigoration. Meantime the Political Debating Society, which met weekly (for the space of one hour only), kept up a very lively interest in public affairs, and also gave more practice in ready impromptu speaking than was possible in the general College debates. It adopted all the forms of an imitation House of Commons, with Speaker, Government, Opposition, and the like. Some older critics were only in part sympathetic, considering that the association of public interests with party disputes was detrimental to the formation of unprejudiced opinions. On the whole, however, the great advantage was secured of keeping a large number of students au fait with the chief political questions of the day. Additional instructiveness and liveliness were imparted by the fact that students whose fathers or friends were in Parliament occasionally "coached them up" in arguments and prognostications. The society became slack after many years, owing, I think, to the excessive burden thrown on a few students who were responsible for preparing the weekly business, and was reorganized with the forms of an ordinary debating society. It was suspended during the War, but revived—as society, not as amateur parliament—after the Armistice. It has since resumed the parliamentary form.

Besides the debating societies, each subject or group of subjects has for many years had its meetings for reading and discussing papers on Classical, Scientific, Historical, and many other subjects. Not infrequently some distinguished man or woman from outside has been invited to deliver a lecture.

The Choral Society began in the earlier days of Newnham, and long enjoyed the devoted and very able direction of Dr. Mann, Organist of King's College, and gave very successful concerts. The display of musical talent in the College is anything but uniform. One year we had a good orchestra of stringed instruments, and the same may occur again from time to time. Meanwhile, a musical society, started in a much humbler way by an industrious student who was desirous of "keeping up her practice" and inducing fellow students to do the same and be ready to play some piece to one another on Saturdays, has developed into a considerable College club called after its foundress, The Raleigh Musical Society. A good many students, too, have been members of the Cambridge University Musical Society.

Astronomical interests have been cultivated in non-mathematical students since the valuable gift of a telescope and small observatory by Mrs. Boreham (daughter-in-law of the astronomer) in 1891. It was at first placed on a mound to the south of Clough Hall, but when the view from it was obstructed by the building of Peile Hall it was removed to an open space at the far end of the College grounds. It was placed under the curatorship of a mathematical scholar who had not only been a high wrangler, but had had the advantage of having been brought up in an astronomical atmosphere, Miss E. A. Stoney. Students with no knowledge of astronomy were invited on certain evenings to see Saturn's rings and Jupiter's moons. Their interest was attracted even to things of the heavens which are visible to the naked eye. There was an enthusiasm for "learning the constellations," instruction being given by the expert to the ignorant. One night, when one of the mathematical lecturers informed the students that the phenomenon was about to take place described as "the Moon swallowing Jupiter," a large number of students assembled on the lawn to watch the event. Happily it occurred about 9 p.m. on a clear night. The act of swallowing was greeted by a cheer—though whether the object cheered was Jupiter, the Moon, or the lecturer who had given warning was not very clear. This little event is mentioned as one of the many cases in which the common life of students engaged in heterogeneous subjects has advantages of an educational as well as of a social kind.

We have already mentioned the lectures on Literature which were at one time given by first-rate men of letters to students of all faculties four or five times a year. Attendance at them was never compulsory, but the interest of the subject and distinction of the lecturer attracted many, and this continued to be the case with the Sidgwick Memorial Lecture. A student of natural science has expressed her deep debt to the attraction to good literature which these lectures afforded. Latterly the lectures given by holders of the new professorship of English (Dr. Verrall and Sir A. Quiller Couch), which are open to other than special students of the subject, amply provided for the objects aimed at in the earlier Newnham lectures.