St. John's College, Cambridge

by Robert Forsyth Scott

The present Chapel was built between the years 1863 and 1869, from the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott; it was consecrated by the Bishop of Ely, 12th May 1869. As we approach it we see on the right the outline of the old Chapel, which had served the College and the Hospital which preceded it for something like six hundred years. This former Chapel was a building quite uniform and simple in appearance, filling the whole of the north side of the Court. Originally built to serve the needs of the Hospital of St. John, it was considerably altered when the College was founded. Side Chantries were then, or shortly afterwards, added. In early times a good deal of the life of the College centred in the Chapel, in addition to its uses for worship. It was regarded as a place in which the Society was formally gathered together. In it the statutes, or rules for the government of the Society, were read at stated times, so that all might become aware of the rule under which they lived. The names of those who had not discharged their College bills were publicly read out by the Master. The elections of the Master and of the Fellows and Scholars were held within it; of this practice the sole part that remains is the election of a Master, which by the present statutes must be held in the Chapel. The scholastic exercises of Acts and Opponencies, in which certain doctrines were maintained and opposed, took place there. The seal of the College was kept in the vestry, and the sealing of documents took place in the Ante-Chapel. Though documents are now sealed elsewhere, the stock of wafers for the College seal is kept by the Chapel Clerk.

The erection of a new Chapel for the College was contemplated for about 200 years before it was carried out. Dr. Gunning, who was Master from 1661 to 1670, afterwards successively Bishop of Chichester and of Ely, left by his will the sum of £300 "to St. John's College, towards the beginning for the building for themselves a new Chapel." Gunning died in 1684, and in 1687 the College paid to Robert Grumbold the sum of £3 for "a new ground plott modell of the old and new designed Chappell." Nothing, however, came of the proposal at that time, though the idea seems always to have been before the Society.

Preaching on Commemoration Day (May 6), 1861, Dr. William Selwyn, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and a former Fellow, pointing out that the College was celebrating "its seventh jubilee," just 350 years having passed since the charter was granted, pleaded earnestly for the erection of a larger Chapel. The matter was taken up, and in January 1862 Sir (then Mr.) George Gilbert Scott was requested "to advise us as to the best plans, in his opinion, for a new Chapel." The scheme grew, and in addition to the Chapel it was determined by the end of that year to have also a new Master's Lodge, and to enlarge the Dining Hall. It was then intended that the scheme should not involve a greater charge on the corporate funds of the College than £40,000. As a matter of fact, before the whole was carried out and paid for, the cost had risen to £97,641; of this £17,172 was provided for by donations from members of the College, the rest was met, partly out of capital, partly by a charge on the College revenues, which ran for many years.

The Chapel was built on a site to the north of the old Chapel, and through this site ran a lane from St. John's Street to the river. An Act of Parliament had to be obtained before this lane could be closed, and the consent of the borough was only given on condition that St. John's Street should be widened by pulling down a row of houses on its western side, and throwing their site into the street.

The foundation-stone of the new Chapel was laid on 6th May 1864 by Mr. Henry Hoare, a member of the College, and of the well-known banking firm. As originally designed the Chapel was to have had a slender flèche instead of a tower. This had been criticised, and Mr. Scott, the architect, designed the present tower; the additional cost being estimated at £5000. This Mr. Hoare offered to provide in yearly instalments of £1000, but had only paid two instalments when he died from injuries received in a railway accident. The finial on the last pinnacle of the tower was fixed on 13th December 1867 by Mr. (now Sir Francis) Powell, M.P. for the borough of Cambridge, and a former Fellow of the College; Mr. Powell was accompanied on that occasion by Professor John Couch Adams and the Rev. G. F. Reyner, the Senior Bursar of the College.

The new Chapel was, as we have said, opened in 1869, and the old Chapel then cleared away. The woodwork of the stalls had been transferred to the new Chapel, but most of the internal fittings were scattered. The ancient rood-screen stands in the church of Whissendine, in Rutlandshire, and the old organ-case in Bilton Church, near Rugby, and other parts of the fabric were dispersed; it was perhaps inevitable. Sir Gilbert Scott's idea was that the new Chapel should be of the same period of architecture as the old, but it is absolutely different in design; in the lover of things old there must always be a feeling of regret for what has gone. The mural tablets in the old Chapel were removed to the new Ante-Chapel, the slabs in the floor were left. It is worth noting that Eleazar Knox, a Fellow of the College, and one of the sons of John Knox, the famous Scotch Reformer, was buried in the Chapel in 1591. His elder brother, Nathanael Knox, was also a Fellow. To the north of the old Chapel, and bordering on the lane which has been mentioned, stood the Infirmary of the Hospital which preceded the College. This was originally a single long room, of which the eastern end formed an oratory. In this the poor and sick, for whose benefit the Hospital was founded, were received, and Mass said for them, and in their sight, as they lay in their beds. This Infirmary, after the foundation of the College, was devoted to secular uses. For some time it was used as a stable and storehouse for the Master. Then later it was fitted up with floors and turned into chambers. It was approached by a tortuous passage at the eastern end of the Chapel, and was popularly known as the Labyrinth. When the Infirmary was taken down a very beautiful double piscina was found covered up on the walls; this is preserved in the new Chapel.

The new Chapel is built of Ancaster stone, and is in the style of architecture known as Early Decorated, which prevailed about 1280, the probable date of the Chapel of the Hospital. Sir Gilbert Scott very skilfully made the most of the site, and by the device of the transeptal Ante-Chapel made full use of the space at his disposal.

At the springs of the outer arch of the great door are heads of King Henry VIII. and of Queen Victoria, indicating the date of the foundation of the College and of the erection of the Chapel. On the north side of the porch is a statue of the Lady Margaret, and on the south one of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.

The statues on the buttresses are those of famous members of the College, or of its benefactors. Those facing the Court are William Cecil, Lord Burghley; Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland; John Williams, Lord Keeper to James I.; Thomas Wentworth, Lord Strafford; William Gilbert, author of De Magnete, in which the theory of the magnetism of the earth was first developed, and physician to Queen Elizabeth; Roger Ascham, and the Countess of Shrewsbury.