Convocation was the first interested party to subject the Association’s original proposals to detailed scrutiny. During the eighteen months of that scrutiny, in 1885–86, just reviewed, the Association had acquired an Executive Committee, had established faculty panels to consider its proposals in detail, and had held conferences with representatives of most of the institutions who had responded to invitations to become members. As a result, by early in 1886, the Association’s original scheme had been refined, and was deemed to be sufficiently developed for a fully documented version to be presented formally, for their consideration, to the University, UCL, KCL, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, the Medical Schools and the Council of Legal Education.

The Senate responded first, on 14 April, by establishing – on the motion of its new member, Fry – a committee empowered to confer with a committee of the Association, with a committee of Convocation, and with anyone else whom they might think fit to consult. The experience of this Senate committee is best dealt with a little later. But it is worth noting now that it became, in effect, the parallel body to the Convocation committee of twentyfive, headed by Magnus, though much smaller. From 1886 until mid 1888 it met seventeen times: the average turn-out was eight. Sir Henry Paget, the Vice-Chancellor, and Fry, were never absent, while Pye-Smith (only appointed by the Crown to a Fellowship in the previous month), Quain, Hutton, Fitch, George Carey Foster, and the mathematician, E.J. Routh, were very regular in attendance. Of these, Pye-Smith was the only one who was, simultaneously, on the Magnus Committee, and it must be some indication of the difficulties of dual membership that he attended only one of the Convocation committee’s meetings between May, 1886, when the Senate committee first met, and mid- 1889.

Senate may have acted first in appointing a committee, but therefter the governing bodies of KCL, UCL and the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons moved more quickly. Both UCL and KCL met the Association’s representatives in May, 1886, and subsequently recorded a general approval of the Association’s proposals, without committing themselves in detail. However, the reception of the proposals by UCL was made particularly memorable by the attitude of the College’s academic Senate, which had been invited to comment by the College Council.