There is a want of precision in many of the statements that have been made
by Tennyson's biographers concerning his school days. In the _Encyclopedia
Americana_ (1889), vol. iv., p. 660, Dr. C. E. Washburn says Alfred
"attended for a time Cadney's village school, and for a brief period the
grammar-school at Louth,"--which is partly true, but curiously
misrepresents the matter. He was a pupil in Louth Grammar School four
years (1816-20)--not a very "brief period." Howitt and others make the
length of time "two or three years," and some have the mistaken impression
that he passed some time in Cadney's school before he went to Louth.
Cadney came to Somersby about 1820, and, in the autumn of the next year,
he instructed the Tennyson boys in arithmetic at the rectory. Cook
erroneously supposes that Charles and Alfred were at Louth in 1827.[35]
There has been considerable guessing as to the time when Tennyson went to
Cambridge. He is said to have entered Trinity College in 1826;[36] in
1827;[37] about 1827;[38] in 1829;[39] and "early in 1829."[40] There is
no occasion for such indefiniteness. To be exact, Alfred became a student
of Trinity in October, 1828.[41] He left college without graduating, at
the time of his father's death. His brothers, Frederick and Charles,
finished the course in 1832.