There were thirty-two foundation Fellows, and twenty-one founded by private benefactors, the latter having all the privileges and advantages of the former. Each of these private foundations had its own special restriction; the holders were to be perhaps of founder's name or kin, or to come from certain specified counties, parishes, or schools. The effect of these special restrictions was that many fellowships had to be filled by men possessing the special qualification without, perhaps, any great intellectual distinction. But once a county was "full" no Fellow could be elected who had been born in that county; and even if a vacancy occurred a promising man might be again cut out by some special restriction. Dr. Wood and the Fellows addressed themselves to this point and obtained in 1820 the Royal consent to a statute throwing open the foundress' fellowships without restriction as to county; the private foundations were left untouched, but the College was empowered to transfer a Fellow on the foundress' foundation to one of the special foundations, if qualified.
Dr. Wood was succeeded as Master by Dr. Ralph Tatham, whose father and grandfather (of the same names) had been members of the College. He was Public Orator of the University from 1809 to 1836, an office for which he was well qualified by a singular dignity of person and courtesy of manner. "He brought forth butter," said the wags, "in a lordly dish." In the year 1837 the Earl of Radnor and others raised the question of University reform, and tried to induce the House of Lords to pass a bill for the appointment of a University Commission. In the end the matter was shelved, the friends of the University undertaking that the Colleges, with the approval of their Visitors, should prepare new statutes for the assent of the Crown. The change in St. John's was opposed by some ultra-conservative Fellows, who urged that as they were bound by oath to observe and uphold the statutes, and to seek no dispensation from them, they were precluded from asking for any change. The Bishop of Ely, however, gently put this objection on one side, and the statutes then prepared were approved by Queen Victoria in 1849. The more ardent reformers have described this code as merely legalising the customs and "abuses" which had grown up around the Elizabethan statutes without introducing any effective change.
On the death of Dr. Tatham (19th January 1857), Dr. William Henry Bateson was elected Master; he had been Senior Bursar of the College from 1846, and Public Orator of the University from 1848. Dr. Bateson was a man of scholarly tastes, but he was above all a practical man of affairs and of broad views. He served on more than one University Commission appointed to examine into and report upon the University and Colleges. The College statutes were twice revised during his mastership; the first code becoming law in 1860, the second was prepared during his lifetime, though it did not become law till a year after his death. These statutes are much less interesting reading than the early statutes, though undoubtedly more useful. While aiming at precision in the matter of rights and duties, they leave great freedom in matters of study, discipline, and administration. All local restrictions on scholarships and fellowships have been abolished. The government of the College is entrusted to a Council of twelve, elected by the Fellows, and presided over by the Master; a simple method has been provided of altering them if necessary. Independently of the changes thus introduced the College, on its own initiative, was providing for the newer studies. In 1853 a chemical laboratory was built, and a lecturer in chemistry appointed, and other lecturers appointed from time to time as the scope of University teaching was widened. St. John's at an early date began to elect men to scholarships and fellowships for Natural Science. In all this we may trace the influence of Dr. Bateson, one of whose guiding principles was to widen and increase the teaching power of the College, and to reward intellectual distinction of any kind. Dr. Bateson died 27th March 1881, and was succeeded by Dr. Charles Taylor, the present Master.
Of men who have added lustre to the College roll of worthies we may mention Sir John F. W. Herschel, the astronomer, who was Senior Wrangler in 1813, and died in 1871, laden with all the honours which scientific and learned bodies could bestow upon him; he lies buried in Westminster Abbey close to the tomb of Newton. John Couch Adams, Senior Wrangler in 1843, in July 1841, while yet an undergraduate, resolved to investigate the irregularities in the motion of the planet Uranus, with the view of determining whether they might be attributed to an undiscovered planet. The memorandum he made of his resolve is, as has been stated, now in the College Library. It is a matter of history how Adams carried out his purpose, and how through a series of unlucky accidents he did not get the sole credit for his discovery of the planet Neptune. Adams became a Fellow of the College in 1843, but had to vacate his fellowship in 1852 as he was not in orders. The College tried to induce a Mr. Blakeney, who then held one of the very few fellowships tenable by a layman, to resign his fellowship and make way for Adams; offering to pay him for the rest of his life an income equal to that of his fellowship. Mr. Blakeney, however, refused, and a fellowship was found for Mr. Adams at Pembroke College, which he held till his death.
It is perhaps a delicate matter to allude to those still living, but two may perhaps be mentioned. The Hon. Charles A. Parsons by his development of the steam turbine has revolutionised certain departments of engineering. Dairoku Kikuchi, the first Japanese student to come to Cambridge, after graduating in 1877, in the same year as Mr. Parsons, returned to Japan, and has held many offices, including that of Minister of Education, in his native country.
We may say that the changes introduced in the nineteenth century have restored to the College its national character, admitting to the full privileges of a University career certain classes of students who had been gradually excluded. During the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, there was always a part of the nation, Protestant or Roman Catholic, which found the entry barred to it. The establishment of the Anglican rule in the reign of Elizabeth led to the exclusion of Roman Catholics, and for three hundred years the doors of the University were closed to them.
The Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration produced religious difficulties of another kind; the wholesale ejections in 1644 and 1660 testify to the troubles men had to face for conscience' sake. After the Restoration the Puritan, the Protestant Dissenter, was excluded with the Romanist.
In the eighteenth century a certain variety was introduced by the entry of students from the West Indies, sons of planters; one or two individuals came from the American colonies. The constant wars drew off men to military careers, and the religious movements towards the close of the century attracted men, after leaving College, to Unitarianism or Wesleyanism. The celebrated Rowland Hill was a member of the College; Francis Okeley, after leaving, became a Moravian or a Mystic. Such dissenters as entered the College, and they were very few, were obliged to leave without graduating.
The removal of all religious tests has thus restored to the ancient Universities a national character they had not possessed since the early days of Henry VIII., when all could come, as all were practically of the same faith.
Thus a wider field is open to the College to draw on, not only in the British Islands, but in all its colonies and dependencies. On the other hand, it is no less true that her sons are to be found more widely scattered. A hundred and fifty years ago one could say of a selected group of men that the majority would become clergymen or schoolmasters, a few would become barristers, others would return to their country estates, one or two might enter the army; with that we should have exhausted the probabilities. Now there is probably not a career open to educated men in which members of the College are not to be found; the State in every department, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, enlists her sons in its service. The rise of scientific industries has opened new careers to trained men. We talk of the spacious days of Elizabeth; if space itself has not increased it is at least more permeated with men who owe their early training to the foundation of the Lady Margaret.