The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S. / A Biographical Sketch

by T. E. Thorpe

I am delighted to hear that Huxley has joined and is to be President of the Association. It will give me pleasure to act as a Vice-President with Jebb.

Things look very well, and our views must greatly influence the Royal Commission.

I will try to secure names here. My wife sends a list per parcel post.

He made proposals with the idea of uniting what have come to be called the Internal and External sides of the University, and in his evidence before Lord Cowper’s Commission he suggested a machinery of a less cumbrous and, as he hoped, of a more satisfactory character than that which became law in 1898. In 1896 he succeeded Sir Julian Goldsmid as Vice-Chancellor. It was during his term of office that the Act of 1898, which reconstituted the University as the result of Earl Cowper’s Commission, was passed. As Vice-Chancellor it became his duty to watch the progress of the measure, and to use his influence in promoting its passage through Parliament.

Unfortunately the University was as a house divided against itself. One section of its Senate, numerically not very strong, was avowedly hostile to its reconstitution as a teaching body. Some members of Convocation acted as if their conception of the sole purpose of a University was the holding of examinations and the giving of degrees. Their object, apparently, was to strengthen by all possible means the influence of Convocation; to make it, in fact, the main controlling power. Accordingly, they used such parliamentary support as they could command to wreck the Bill, or failing that, so to modify its provisions as to preserve as far as possible the existing constitution of the institution, and to perpetuate its restricted functions. Thanks, however, to the action and alertness of Lord Bryce, Lord Haldane, Sir W. Priestley, and Sir John Gorst, and the firmness of the Government, the measure was steered safely through Parliament and received the Royal Assent.

The statutory commission which followed the University of London Act of 1898 reported in 1900; its provisions were approved by Parliament in June of that year, and the new Senate held its first meeting in the following October. Roscoe took an active share in the rearrangements consequent on the reconstitution of the University, and in the changes necessitated by its removal from Burlington Gardens to the buildings of the Imperial Institute at South Kensington.

This last step was a somewhat delicate matter. As housed in Burlington Gardens the University was only moderately well provided for as regards examination-rooms and administrative offices, but such laboratories and store-rooms as it possessed were wholly inadequate for the practical work required in the examinations for science and medical degrees. The pressure on the limited space grew more severe each session, and for some time previous to 1898 the necessity of making fresh provision had forced itself upon the notice of the authorities. The wants of the University in this respect had been freely ventilated in the course of the discussion on the Bill. Accordingly, overtures were made to the Senate to take over some portion of the building of the Imperial Institute as a home for the reconstituted University. The offer was not received with any great enthusiasm. The Imperial Institute had not fulfilled the anticipations of its projectors; its associations, to say the least, were not altogether academic, and this circumstance naturally created a prejudice against it. Moreover, the building itself, although grandiose in design, and possessing an admirable façade, was rather like the geometrical definition of a line—length without breadth; and when that portion of it intended to be assigned to the University was measured up, it was actually not much, if any, larger in superficial area than was available in Burlington Gardens. There was, however, more space in the neighbourhood, and a certain amount of rearrangement and new construction was possible. Moreover, the authorities of the Science and Art Department were projecting new laboratories for chemistry and physics, and it was hoped that facilities might be granted to the University to enable them, under certain conditions, to use them, or some portion of them, for their practical examinations in those sciences. But objections were raised in regard to the geographical position of the building, its distance from the main-line stations, etc. Its possible association with what was styled “the South Kensington clique” was another rock of offence.

There were possible difficulties also with the Council of the Institute as to the partition of the structure, use of the main entrance, etc. But all these matters were adjusted eventually by the skill, tact, and firmness of the Vice-Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Treasury and of the Office of Works; and the University entered into the possession of the eastern half of the building.

Not the least of the services which Roscoe rendered to the University was his action with regard to the selection of the late Sir Arthur Rücker as its first Principal. It was entirely through his efforts that the appointment was made. Its success, he says in his “Life and Experiences,” more than justified those efforts, and he always spoke of it as the best day’s work he ever did for the University.

Roscoe resigned the Vice-Chancellorship in 1902, when he presented to the University the handsome mace which now lies on the table during the meetings of the Senate, and which is used on ceremonial occasions. It was so employed, draped in crape, at the memorial service held in Rosslyn Hill Chapel at his death.