A History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 3, 1750–1870

The third of a major four-volume series on the history of the University of Cambridge.

Peter Searby (Author)

9780521350600, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 November 1997

815 pages
23.5 x 16.3 x 5.2 cm, 1.415 kg

'… a surefooted account of the university's response to the upheavals generated by the revolutionary climate of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and by the movement for reform which followed it … it illuminates not only the history of a particular university but also that of the period more generally.' Economic History Review

Cambridge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a place of sharp contrasts. At one extreme a gifted minority studied mathematics intensively for the Tripos, the honours degree. At the other, most undergraduates faced meagre academic demands and might idle their time away. The dons, the fellows of the colleges that constituted the University, were chosen for their Tripos performance and included scholars of international reputation such as Whewell and Sidgwick, but also men who treated their fellowships as sinecures. A pillar of the Church of England that denied membership to non-Anglicans, the University functioned largely as a seminary, while teaching more mathematics than theology. This volume describes the complex institution of the University, and also the beginnings of its transformation after 1850 - under the pressure of public opinion and the State - into the University as it exists today: inclusive in its membership, diverse in its curricula, and staffed by committed scholars and teachers.

General editor's preface
Introduction
1. Townscape and University: topographical change
2. The University: its constitution, personnel and tasks
3. Colleges: buildings, masters and fellows
4. Colleges: tutors, bursars and money
5. Mathematics, law and medicine
6. Science and other studies
7. Religion in the University: its rituals and significance
8. The orthodox and latitudinarian traditions, 1700–1800
9. Cambridge religion 1780–1840: evangelicanism
10. Cambridge religion: the mid-Victorian years
1. The University as a political institution, 1750–1815
12. The background to University reform, 1830–50
13. Cambridge and reform, 1815–1870
14. The Graham Commission and its aftermath
15. The undergraduate experience, I: Philip Yorke and the Wordsworths
16. The undergraduate experience, II: Charles Astor Bristed and William Everett
17. The undergraduate experience, III: William Thomson
18. Games for gownsmen: walking, athletics, boating and ball games
19. Leisure for town and gown: music, debating and drama
Appendices
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]