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