St. John's College, Cambridge

by Robert Forsyth Scott

We find members of the College taking part in all the movements of the time. In the rebellion of 1745, James Dawson, a captain in the Manchester Regiment, was taken prisoner at Carlisle, and executed in July 1746 on Kennington Common; while Robert Ganton, afterwards a clergyman, was excused one term's residence in the University, during which, as one of "his majesty's Royal Hunters," he was fighting the rebels.

Charles Churchill, satirist, was for a short time a member of the College in 1748. William Wordsworth, afterwards Poet Laureate, entered the College as a sizar, and was admitted a foundress' scholar 6th November 1787. Many adopted military careers; of these we may mention George, first Marquis Townshend, who joined the College in 1741, afterwards entered the army, and was present at Fontenoy and Culloden; he went with Wolfe to Canada, and took over the command when Wolfe fell. Daniel Hoghton entered in 1787, he also became a soldier, and was one of Wellington's men in the Peninsular War; he was killed at the battle of Albuera, being then a major-general.

Of another type were William Wilberforce (entered 1776) and Thomas Clarkson (1779), whose names will always be associated in connection with the abolition of slavery. The saintly Henry Martyn, Senior Wrangler in 1801 and Fellow of the College, went out as a missionary to India in 1805, and died at Tokat in Persia in 1812. There have been many missionary sons of the College since his day, but his self-denial greatly impressed his contemporaries, and Sir James Stephen speaks of him as "the one heroic name which adorns the annals of the Church of England from the days of Elizabeth to our own." With Martyn curiously enough is associated in College annals another name, that of Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston, sometime Prime Minister of England; for Martyn and Temple appear as officers of the College company of volunteers in the year 1803.

Thomas Denman, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, entered the College in 1796; he resided in the Second Court, staircase G, at the top. When he brought up his son, the Hon. George Denman, to Trinity he pointed the rooms out to him, and the latter pointed them out to the present writer, "in order that the oral tradition might be preserved."

Alexander John Scott, who, as private secretary and interpreter to Lord Nelson, was present on the Victory at Trafalgar, entered the College in 1786, and became a scholar of the College 3rd November 1789. Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1770 to 1780, and first Lord Grantley, entered the College in 1734. With him, in a way, was connected John Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke), who entered in 1754; for Horne, for purposes of his own, libelled Fletcher Norton when Speaker. Horne Tooke's stormy career belongs rather to political than College history; but it is worth noting that when he presented himself at Cambridge for the M.A. degree, and the granting of this was opposed in the senate on the ground that he had traduced the clergy in his writings, the members of St. John's, headed by Dr. Richard Beadon, then Public Orator, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, carried the grace for the degree. Horne and Beadon entered the College in the same year.

We have already mentioned Charles Churchill. Another Johnian poet of this period was William Mason, who entered the College in 1742. Mason afterwards became a Fellow of Pembroke, where he was the intimate friend of Thomas Gray. As the biographer of Gray he is perhaps better remembered than for his own poetry, though during his lifetime he enjoyed considerable fame.

A somewhat unusual career was that of William Smith, who entered the College from Eton in 1747, but left without taking a degree. He is reported to have snapped an unloaded pistol at one of the Proctors, and rather than submit to the punishment which the College authorities thought proper to inflict, left the University. He became an actor, and was very popular in his day, being known as "Gentleman Smith." He was associated with David Garrick, and Smith's admirers held that he fell little short of his master in the art.

The reputation of the College as a medical school was maintained by Dr. William Heberden, who entered in 1724. Heberden attended Samuel Johnson in his last illness, and Johnson described him as "ultimus Romanorum, the last of our learned physicians." A description which may be amplified by saying that Heberden was in a way the first of the modern physicians.