The Life and Times of John Wilkins / Warden of Wadham College, Oxford; Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Bishop of Chester

by P. A. Wright Henderson

Seth Ward was a Scholar of Sidney Sussex, ejected from his College and from Cambridge because "he refused the Covenant and other oaths." He went to London, and, like Wren and Wallis, studied mathematics under William Oughtred, the author of the 'Clavis Mathematica,'—"a little book, but a great one as to the contents,"—which brought its author a great name, as well it might. When in London Ward met Wilkins and formed a lifelong friendship with him. They were both men of learning, moderate, dexterous, and successful. Ward entered Wadham as a Fellow Commoner in October 1649, became Savilian Professor of Astronomy, and in 1659 President of Trinity. Like Wilkins, he was ejected from his Headship at the Restoration, and like him obtained high preferment under the new régime and became a Bishop. Both of them, when in Oxford, "became liable to the persecutions of peevish people who ceased not to clamour, and even to article against them as Cavaliers in their hearts—meer moral men without the Power of Godliness." "You must know," continues Pope, "that a moral and unblamable person, if he did not herd with them, was an abomination to that Party. I have heard one of them deliver himself in this manner." The "manner" is impossible to quote; it is to the effect that the speaker's opponents were hypocrites and Pharisees of the worst kind, and "in a desperate condition, on whom Jesus Christ can take no hold." The passage is instructive; it reveals the exasperation of party feeling in those times, and gives much food for reflection.

Christopher Wren belongs both to Wadham and to All Souls. He was admitted Fellow Commoner of Wadham in 1649, and migrated to All Souls in 1653, but maintained his connection with his first College, and for several years occupied the chamber over the gateway. Of him, the close friend of Wilkins, the scientist and architect, the President of the Royal Society, nothing more need here be said. His portrait hangs in Wadham College Hall, beneath that of Robert Blake.

Less known is Thomas Sprat, admitted Scholar of Wadham in 1651. Of him Wood says that he was "an excellent poet and orator, and one who arrived at a great mastery of the English language." His reputation does not rest on his poetry: he was known by the strange and dubious title of "Pindarick Sprat." But his History of the Royal Society justifies Wood's encomium; and he wrote a 'Relation of the late wicked contrivance of Stephen Blackhead and of Robert Young,' of which Macaulay, who does not praise lightly, says that "there are few better narratives in the language." Sprat became Bishop of Rochester and Chaplain to Charles II., though in his youth he had written an Ode on the death of Oliver Cromwell.

Lawrence Rooke was admitted in 1650 from King's College, Cambridge. He accompanied Ward in his migration to Oxford, "and seated himself in Wadham College for the benefit of his conversation." Pope "never was acquainted with any person who knew more and spoke less." He was a prominent member of the band of philosophers who met in Wilkins' Lodgings; and after the Restoration held the Professorship of Astronomy in Gresham College, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Pope's account of him is well worth reading: of his travels in France; of his encounter with the redoubtable Thomas Hobbes, whose quadrature of the circle he proved false: that hard-headed philosopher's logic or "computation" must have failed him on this occasion, for finding, as he thought, errors in Rooke's criticism, he concluded that his own solution must be true. With Ward and Wallis Hobbes had still more fierce encounters on the same question.

Gilbert Ironside, admitted in 1650, became Warden, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and, as his father had been, Bishop of Bristol, and finally of Hereford. He was the "rudest man in the University," and that without respect of persons, for he remonstrated, in a tone not far removed from rudeness, with James II. when he visited Oxford in 1687 to enforce his mandate on Magdalen College.

William Lloyd, who entered Wadham in 1655, was a learned Divine, with his learning at command, of whom Burnet says that "he had the most learning in ready cash of any one he knew." He devoted himself to the interpretation of prophecy. His labours were rewarded by the title of Pseudopropheta Canus, bestowed on him when he was old and white-haired, by the terræ filius of 1703. He had himself in his younger days shown some tendency to irreverent joking, by inventing an Eastern Patriarch, a native of London, a man of venerable appearance and dressed to suit the character, who deceived some eminent members of the University, and gave them his blessing; an incident of which Lloyd used to make his "bragge" long afterwards. He became Bishop of St Asaph, and was one of the Seven Bishops committed to the Tower. William III. rewarded him with the Bishoprics of Lichfield and Coventry, and finally of Worcester.

Samuel Parker matriculated in 1657, and became Bishop of Oxford in 1686. In the following year he was intruded by James II. into the President's place at Magdalen College, but held his office for only five months. He died in his Lodgings, and was buried in the ante-chapel, but honoured by no memorial to mark the place of his interment. His must have been a dismal reign.

Beside these names of bishops and philosophers occur names of interest of various kinds: historic names—Russell, Lovelace, Windham, Strangways; one also of quite different associations, Sedley, who entered Wadham in 1656, the boon companion later of Rochester, who, also a Wadham undergraduate, was his junior by four years. Both of them were libertines and wits, who received at their College, it may be presumed, an education the precepts of which they did not practise at the Court of Charles II. Other entries show the continued connection of the College with the West of England—with Somerset, the Wadhams' county; with Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, and Gloucestershire.

Enough has been said to prove that Wadham under Wilkins was a college of high reputation and efficiency. It was a nursery of bishops, contributing to the bench no less than six, including Wilkins himself; a nursery also of Fellows of the Royal Society,—Wilkins, Ward, Rooke, Wren, Sprat, and Pope were original members of the "invisible college." Not only to the Church and to Science did Wadham do good service, but more directly to the State, by educating together impartially the youth of both the great parties. "When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won," it is above all things desirable to allay bitter feelings, and bring the former combatants together. For this most difficult and delicate of tasks Wilkins was well qualified. He was beloved by the Cavaliers because he treated all his undergraduates kindly, Royalists and Puritans alike, in marked contrast with other Heads of Houses, who appear to have dealt faithfully with young Malignants, the sons of their political opponents.