THE UNIVERSITY DURING THE REIGNS OF GEORGE III. AND GEORGE IV.
[Sidenote: Stagnation of University legislation in the eighteenth
century]
We may pass lightly over the history of the University during the
latter part of the eighteenth century, when its external and internal
life were equally barren of memorable events. Only eight statutes
had been enacted by Convocation between 1636 and 1759; nor was the
succeeding period more prolific of reforms. The legislative energy of
the University was confined for the most part to amendments of mere
administrative details, and it was even suggested that such trifling
measures were beyond its powers. In the year 1759, the right of the
University to abrogate any of the Laudian statutes without the consent
of the Crown was challenged by the proctors. The objection, however,
was overruled, and the principle was established that, whereas it was
not competent for the University to make any statutes as immutable
as the laws of the Medes and Persians, it could not delegate any
such power to the King himself, so that any statute made under royal
sanction was subject to repeal, like ordinary bye-laws. In 1770,
a new statute was passed for the regulation of academical habits,
which provoked a long controversy, and incidentally established the
principle, applicable to more important subjects, that no individual
Head of a college, nor even all the Heads of colleges together, could
dispense with statutable rules, independently of Convocation.
[Sidenote: Statutes affecting the University]
Meanwhile, a considerable number of Acts were passed by Parliament
confirming or enlarging the privileges of the University. For instance,
in 1774, the Universities of England and Scotland were empowered by
special enactment to hold in perpetuity their exclusive right of
printing books, the copyright of which should have been vested in them
by the authors. Other Acts granted colleges special exemptions from
the land tax in respect of their buildings, and from legacy duty in
respect of collections and other specific articles bequeathed to them.
Resident members of the University were further exempted from service
in the Militia, and the stringent Act of 1799, ‘for better preventing
treasonable and seditious practices,’ was expressly limited so as not
to curtail the freedom of University lectures or the University press.
[Sidenote: Political sympathies of the University after the outbreak of
the French Revolution]
In 1793, the installation of the Duke of Portland as successor to
Lord North in the chancellorship was signalised by festivities on an
unprecedented scale, and a tumultuous struggle for admission to the
Sheldonian Theatre led to a fray which reflected little credit on
academical manners. The hero of the day, and favourite of the gownsmen,
was Edmund Burke, whose son received an honorary D.C.L. degree, but who
is said to have declined it for himself on the ground that, in 1790,
the Heads of Houses had negatived a requisition from forty-nine Masters
of Arts proposing that a D.C.L. degree should be conferred on him ‘by
diploma.’ The political sympathies of the University were, in fact,
strongly called forth on behalf of the Royalist cause in France, and
a large subscription was raised in 1792 for the relief of the French
refugees, especially Catholic priests, three of whom settled at Oxford.
Tn 1794 nearly 2,500_l._ was contributed for purposes of national
defence by the resident body of graduates, including a grant of 200_l._
from the University chest. In 1798, a further contribution of 4,000_l._
‘in aid of the revenue of the country’ was sent to the government from
the University and colleges of Oxford, while an University volunteer
corps, mustering about five hundred men, was formed and drilled, as
in the days of the Civil War. This martial ardour, and the drain
of students into the army, doubtless contributed to increase the
depression of academical studies which preceded and rendered necessary
the ‘new examination statutes’ of 1800. But academical studies must
also have suffered from the prevailing distress which marked the winter
of 1799, when bread-riots took place in Oxford, and large subscriptions
were raised in the University for the relief of the poor townspeople.
[Sidenote: Accessions to professoriate in the eighteenth century]
Notwithstanding the decline of academical vigour during the eighteenth
century, both the professorial staff and the public buildings of the
University received a considerable extension. In 1708 the Professorship
of Poetry was founded out of funds bequeathed for the purpose by
Henry Birkhead. In 1724 the Regius Professorship of Modern History
was established by George I. In 1728 the Professorship of Botany,
then in a state of suspended animation, was re-endowed out of the
munificent bequest of William Sherard. In 1749 the first Professor
of Experimental Philosophy was appointed, with a salary of 30_l._,
out of the Crewe benefaction. In 1758 the bequest of Charles Viner
took effect by the election of William Blackstone to the new Vinerian
Professorship of Common Law. In 1780 the Clinical Professorship was
founded in connection with the Radcliffe Infirmary. In 1795 the
Professorship of Anglo-Saxon was constituted, forty years after the
death of its founder, Dr. Rawlinson, the famous antiquary, and in 1798
George Aldrich, formerly of Merton College, bequeathed property for the
endowment of Professorships in Anatomy, Medicine, and Chemistry.
[Sidenote: Architectural improvements]
Meanwhile the mediæval aspect of Oxford was modified by many new
architectural features. Early in the century additional buildings
sprang up in Magdalen, Corpus, Queen’s, and Oriel. To the same age
belong the Codrington Library at All Souls’, with the new Library and
Peckwater Quadrangle at Christchurch, and other college buildings. In
1713 the Clarendon Building was opened to receive the University Press.
Books had been printed in Oxford since 1468, when Caxton’s invention
was still on its trial, but Delegates of the Press were not appointed
until 1586, and the University privilege of printing dates from the
patent granted in 1633, at the instance of Archbishop Laud. After 1669
the University Press was set up and worked in the Sheldonian Theatre,
but the copyright of Clarendon’s ‘History of the Rebellion’ having been
presented to the University, the profits were applied towards the cost
of erecting the fine edifice known as the ‘Clarendon Press’ for 118
years. A still more important benefaction was that of the celebrated
Dr. Radcliffe, who died in 1714, leaving a large sum of money to be
accumulated for the foundation of a Medical Library, an Infirmary,
and an Observatory. The first stone of the library was laid in 1737,
all the houses in ‘Cat Street,’ north of St. Mary’s Church, having
been demolished to make room for it. It was opened for the use of
students on April 13, 1749, after a ‘two days’ solemnity,’ including a
Public Act, and a concert managed by Handel, whose oratorios had been
received with great applause at Oxford six years earlier, and whose
‘Sampson’ was performed in the Sheldonian Theatre on the following
day. The Infirmary and Observatory were completed in 1770 and 1795
respectively, but are not under University control, though closely
associated with University studies. In 1788 Sir Robert Taylor, an
architect of some eminence, bequeathed a large sum to found a building
for the cultivation of ‘the European languages,’ but this bequest did
not take full effect until 1848, when the present ‘Taylor Institution’
was opened. Meanwhile, in 1771, an Act of Parliament had been passed
enabling the City to rebuild Magdalen Bridge, and take down the
east and north gates, the south and west gates having been already
demolished. By these alterations the conversion of Oxford into an
University town was finally consummated, and few of its inhabitants now
realise that it was once a fortified city sheltering a cluster of poor
schools and halls not yet aspiring to the dignity of colleges.
[Sidenote: Effects of the French war upon the University. Opposition to
reforms]
The general history of the University in the present century may be
divided into two periods: the first terminated by the Reform Act of
1832, and the great ecclesiastical reaction which followed upon it; the
second embracing the last two or three years of William IV.’s reign,
and the whole reign of Queen Victoria. The new Examination Statute of
1800, and the subsequent introduction of the class system,[16] were
the only events of any academical importance in the earlier of these
periods, and nothing occurred to disturb the repose of the University
during the last twenty years of George III.’s reign, or the ten years’
reign of George IV. The domestic records of this interval are meagre
and trivial in the extreme. When the Peace of Amiens was proclaimed in
1802, there seems to have been a short-lived revival of educational
vigour at Oxford; when the war broke out afresh in 1803 volunteers were
again enrolled from the University, and Oxford studies again began
to languish. In 1805 these were vigorously attacked by Sydney Smith
in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and vigorously defended by Mr. Copleston,
afterwards Provost of Oriel, himself among the foremost of University
reformers. While the country was engaged in its desperate struggle
with Napoleon, the ‘class system’ was being quietly introduced, and
supplying a new incentive to industry. The political animosities
which had agitated the University in the last century had completely
died out, but it is certain that Oxford was profoundly affected by
the anti-Jacobin panic which set in after the French Revolution and
lasted for a whole generation. It is, however, some proof of a latent
inclination to moderate Liberalism among Oxford graduates that in 1809
Lord Grenville was elected Chancellor after a contest with Lord Eldon.
On the other hand, the sympathies of the University on all ‘Church
and State’ questions were identical with those of George III. So far
back as 1810 a petition was presented against Catholic Emancipation,
and when Robert Peel was elected member for the University in 1817,
it was fully understood that he was to oppose the Catholic Claims.
In 1829, the University Convocation reaffirmed its reprobation of
these claims by a solemn vote. Peel resigned his seat, and upon a
new election was defeated by Sir Robert Inglis. In a like spirit the
University petitioned in 1831 against Parliamentary Reform, in 1833
against the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, and in 1834, with only
one dissentient, against the grant of a charter to the new London
University. No doubt, in this last case the instinctive hostility of
Churchmen to a non-religious academical body was quickened by a less
honourable jealousy of a rival institution to be invested with the
power of granting degrees. In spite of the Oxford protest, the charter
was granted at the close of 1836, and in the following year a similar
privilege was conferred upon Durham University.
[Sidenote: Reception of the Allied Sovereigns. Abolition of the Mayor’s
Oath]
Two other incidents in University life during this somewhat obscure
period deserve a passing notice. In 1814 Oxford was enlivened by the
famous visit of the Allied Sovereigns, when Blucher was received with
enthusiastic plaudits in the Sheldonian Theatre. Had the loyalty of the
University been doubtful, the Prince Regent must have been reassured
by the fervent display of it on this occasion; but these royal visits
had lost their significance when the adhesion of Oxford ceased to be
a factor in Imperial politics, and the subsequent receptions of Queen
Adelaide and Queen Victoria, though almost as hearty as that of Queen
Elizabeth, were tributes of respectful homage and not of political
devotion. In 1825 the mayor and bailiffs of Oxford were released by
a document under the University seal from the penance laid upon them
after the great riot on Scholastica’s Day in 1354, when they were
required, as we have seen, to attend St. Mary’s Church yearly with
sixty leading citizens, to celebrate a mass for the souls of the
murdered scholars, and to offer one penny each at the altar. No sooner
was the Sacrifice of the Mass forbidden in the reign of Elizabeth
than the citizens hastened to give up this annual appearance, but
were compelled to resume it by an Order of Council, a litany being
substituted for the mass. The whole ceremony was now abolished; but
another grievance of earlier origin still remained, and was not
finally removed until the year 1859. By the letters patent of Henry
III., already mentioned, dated 1248, the mayor and bailiffs, on taking
office, were directed to swear that they would keep ‘the liberties and
customs of the University,’ the Chancellor having been previously
informed, in order that he might witness the oath personally or by a
deputy. This obligation, though it may have been sometimes evaded,
does not seem to have been disputed for more than six centuries. In
1855, however, the mayor and corporation requested the University to
dispense with the oath. The University at first demurred, but after
friendly conferences gave its sanction to a Bill for abolishing the
oath, upon condition, however, of its being once more taken by the
mayor and sheriff for the last time. In 1859 this Bill, introduced at
the instance of the City, but with the concurrence of the University,
was passed into law, and the standing feud so long maintained between
these ancient corporations was thus brought to an amicable conclusion.
The harmony which has since prevailed between the authorities of the
University and the City may have been partly due to other causes,
but it has certainly been promoted by the disuse of a humiliating
formality, well calculated to revive the memory of barbarous violence
on one side and invidious pretensions on the other.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] See Chapter XVII.