Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2008
The question in 1898 of the recognition by Cambridge University of St Edmund's House, a Roman Catholic foundation, might initially seem to involve questions irrelevant in the modern university. It can, however, be seen to raise issues concerning modernity, the place of religion in the university and the role of the university itself. This article therefore sets this incident in university history in wider terms and examines the ways in which the recognition of St Edmund's House was a chapter in the history of liberalism, in the history of Roman Catholicism, in the history of education and in the history of secularism.
1 John Mitchell Kemble (ed.), ‘Introduction’ to Sir Roger Twysden, Certaine considerations upon the government of England, London 1849, p. viii. John Mitchell Kemble (1807–57), philologist and member of the famous theatrical family, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, BA (1830), MA (1833). He was an Apostle, friend of Jacob Grimm, connected to the Whigs at Holland House and editor of the British and Foreign Review (1836–44). For his views on the universities see ‘British and Foreign universities: Cambridge’, British and Foreign Review v (July 1837), 168–209.
2 An abbreviated history of St Edmund's House, privately printed, Cambridge 1976, 1–3; memorandum of the Association of St Edmund's House, 14 Dec. 1897; Charles Few [the duke's solicitor] to the 15th duke of Norfolk, 18 Sept. 1896, ACA, 15th duke of Norfolk mss., unclassified correspondence, Apr.–Oct. 1896.
3 ‘Discussion of the report of the Council dated 21 Feb. 1898 on an application for recognition from St Edmund's House’, Cambridge University Reporter, 8 Mar. 1898, 584–91.
4 Neville Keynes diary, entry for 5 May 1898, CUL, Add. 7848, fo. 125.
5 Cambridge University Reporter, 17 May 1898, 825.
6 Neville Keynes diary, 12 May 1898, fo. 132.
7 See Bernard Holland, ‘Memoir’, in Baron Friedrich von Hügel: selected letters, 1896–1924, London 1927, 1–57.
8 For von Hügel and the background to Roman Catholicism in Cambridge see Christopher N. L. Brooke, A history of the University of Cambridge, IV: 1879–1990, Cambridge 1993, 388–91.
9 Anatole von Hügel to 15th duke of Norfolk, 16 Aug. 1896, 15th duke of Norfolk mss, unclassified correspondence, Apr.–Oct. 1896.
11 The quotations from the Senate House discussion in this section are found in the Cambridge University Reporter, 8 Mar. 1898, 584–91.
12 McTaggart, J. E., ‘The university and the Church of Rome’, Cambridge Review, 5 Nov. 1896, 54–5Google Scholar.
13 Francis Fortescue Urquhart to von Hügel, 23 May 1898, von Hügel papers, CUA, SOC IV/35/47.
14 Henry Montagu Butler to von Hügel, 4 Mar. 1898, ibid. SOC IV/34/46.
15 Sheldon Rothblatt, The revolution of the dons: Cambridge and society in Victorian England, Cambridge 1981, passim, esp. pp. 215–17, 219, 222.
16 Oscar Browning to the editor, Cambridge Review, 10 Mar. 1898, 275.
17 DNB, 1922–1930, 453–4. The entry is by Stephen Gaselee.
18 Francis Jenkinson to von Hügel, 28 Apr. 1898, von Hügel papers, SOC IV/34/76i.
19 Jenkinson to von Hügel, 12 May 1898, ibid. SOC IV/35/22.
20 Henry Sidgwick to von Hügel, 16 May 1898, ibid. SOC IV/35/37.
21 Jenkinson to von Hügel, 28 Apr. 1898, ibid. SOC IV/34/76i.
22 Derek Beales, Prosperity and plunder: European Catholic monasteries in the age of revolution, 1650–1815, Cambridge 2003, 268–9.
23 See Christopher Clark, ‘The new Catholicism and the European culture wars’, in Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (eds), Culture wars: secular–Catholic conflict in nineteenth-century Europe, Cambridge 2003, 11–46. For Roman Catholicism and nationalism in Ireland see, for example, Emmet Larkin, The Roman Catholic Church and the Plan of Campaign in Ireland, 1886–1888, Cork 1978, 3–47.
24 David Blackbourne, Marpingen: apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany, Oxford 1993; Ruth Harris, Lourdes: body and spirit in the secular age, London 1999.
25 Owen Chadwick, A history of the popes, 1830–1914, Oxford 1998, 354.
26 See Holland, ‘Memoir’, 22–3.
27 Quoted in Owen Chadwick, The secularization of the European mind in the nineteenth century, Cambridge 1975 [1990], 112.
28 Wilfrid Ward to 15th duke of Norfolk, 28 May 1899, ACA, MD. 2100.
29 Maisie Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the transition, II: Insurrection versus resurrection, London 1937, 200–1.
30 Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic revival, London 1912, 306–7, 314.
31 W. C. Lubenow, ‘Intimacy, imagination, and the inner dialectics of knowledge communities: the Synthetic Society, 1896–1908’, in Martin Daunton (ed.), The organization of knowledge in Victorian Britain, Oxford–London 2005, 357–70.
32 W. Ward, William George Ward, 236; M. Ward, The Wilfrid Wards, ii. 257.
33 Ward to 15th duke of Norfolk, 12, 15, 21 Oct., 2, 5 Nov. 1907, MD. 2100; M. Ward, The Wilfrid Wards, ii. 257, 260.
34 Fr John Norris to 15th duke of Norfolk, 6 Nov., 15th duke of Norfolk mss, unclassified correspondence, Nov. 1907–June 1908.
35 Ward to 15th duke of Norfolk, 21 Oct. 1907, MD. 2100.
36 Holland, ‘Memoir’, 13.
37 George Tyrrell to Maude Petre, 24 Apr. 1899, Maude Petre papers, BL, ms Add. 52367, fo. 5.
38 Tyrrell to Petre, 6 Apr. 1908, ms Add. 52368, fo. 73.
39 Ward to 15th duke of Norfolk, 10 Oct. 1907, MD. 2100.
40 Holland, ‘Memoir’, 12, quotation at pp. 23–4.
41 Roland Hill, Lord Acton, New Haven–London 2000, 2, 25.
42 Lord Edward Howard to the countess of Arundel and Surrey, 19 Oct. [?], ACA, 13th duke of Norfolk mss, C. 625.
43 Howard to countess of Arundel and Surrey, 11 Feb. [?], ibid.
44 John Martin Robinson, The dukes of Norfolk: a quincentennial history, Oxford 1982, 195–202.
45 Vincent Alan McClelland, English Roman Catholics and higher education, 1830–1903, Oxford 1973.
46 ‘Memorandum on the university question to the Roman Catholic hierarchy’ (1894), von Hügel papers, SOC IV/1/2A.
47 Lord Braye, Fewness of my days: a life in two centuries, London 1927, 59–60, 70–1.
48 Lord Braye to 15th duke of Norfolk, 11 Dec. 1894, 15th duke of Norfolk mss, unclassified correspondence, Mar.–Dec. 1894.
49 Edmund, bishop of Shrewsbury to 15th duke of Norfolk, 5 Mar. 1895, ibid. Jan.–Sept. 1895.
50 John Ross of Bladensburg to 15th duke of Norfolk, 2, 20 Feb. 1898, ibid. Oct. 1897–Jan. 1899.
51 Ross to 15th duke of Norfolk, 14 May 1905, ibid. May–Dec. 1905. Emphasis mine.
52 Ian Ker, The Catholic Revival in English literature, 1845–1961, Notre Dame, In 2003, 19, and pp. 26–30 for what follows.
53 Herbert Butterfield, ‘Journal of Lord Acton: Rome 1857’, Cambridge Historical Journal viii/3 (1946), 202.
54 [Notebooks for the 1850s], Acton papers, CUL, Add. 5528, fo. 47v.
55 The Hon. and Revd William Petre, Remarks on the present condition of Catholic liberal education, London 1877, 4–5.
56 Ward to von Hügel, 18 June [1894], von Hügel papers, SOC. IV/20/1.
57 ‘Petition to be presented to the English bishops and Propaganda on the subject of university education for Catholics’, Nov. 1894, copy in 15th duke of Norfolk mss, unclassified correspondence, May–Dec. 1894.
58 Florence Bishop to the baroness von Hügel, 2 Mar. 1897, von Hügel papers, SOC IV/33/31.
59 Jeffrey Cox, ‘Master narratives of long term religious change’, in Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf (eds), The decline of Christendom in western Europe, 1750–2000, Cambridge 2003, 201–17, quotation at p. 207, and ‘Secularization and other master narratives of religion in modern Europe’, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte xiv/1 (2001), 24–35. I am grateful to Professor Cox for some interesting discussions of these matters.
60 Martin Papenheim, ‘Roma o morte: culture wars in Italy’, in Clark and Kaiser, Culture wars, 202–26, quotation at p. 217.
61 Hugh McLeod, Secularisation in western Europe, 1848–1914, New York 2000, 5–9.
62 A. F. Hort to J. B. Lightfoot, 16 Mar. 1868, in Arthur Fenton Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, London 1896, ii. 94–5
63 Gordon Johnson, University politics: F. M. Cornford's Cambridge and his advice to the young academic politician, Cambridge 1994.
64 Brooke, History of the University of Cambridge, iv. 126.
65 Heretics printed programmes, 1912–23, CUL, Cambridge papers collection, J4510.
66 F. M. Cornford, Religion in the university, Cambridge 1911, 2–3, 5–6.
67 Francis Cornford to [?] Darwin, 10 Dec. 1910, Trinity College, Cambridge, Cornford mss, C 1/170.
68 [Idem], ‘Compulsory chapel’, [nd], ibid. A 5.
69 Sudhir Hazareesingh, Political traditions in modern France, Oxford 1994, 98–123, and ‘Religion and politics in the Saint-Napoleon festivity, 1852–1870: anti-clericalism, local patriotism and modernity’, EHR cxix (2004), 618–19.
70 W. R. Brownlow [bishop of Clifton] to von Hügel, 28 Apr. 1895, von Hügel papers, SOC IV/30/19.
71 15th duke of Norfolk to von Hügel, 10 May 1895, ibid. SOC IV/30/20. The other two laymen were Lord Braye and Charles Stanton Devas: McClelland, English Roman Catholics, 386.
72 Henry Jackson to von Hügel, 17 May 1898, von Hügel papers, SOC IV/35/44.
73 Wilfred Ward, Problems and persons, London 1903, 97–8.
74 15th duke of Norfolk, speech to the London Municipal Society, 16 Oct. 1906, 15th duke of Norfolk mss, unclassified correspondence, Jan. 1906–Oct. 1907.
75 Arthur Conan Doyle to Petre, 6 Nov. [19]10, Maud Petre papers, ms Add. 52381, fo. 38r–v.
76 Butler to von Hügel, 12 May 1898, von Hügel papers, SOC IV/35/27.
77 For ongoing discussions of these questions see George Dennis O'Brien, The idea of a Catholic university, Chicago–London 2002, and Lubenow, W. C., ‘Religion in the university: authority, faith, and learning’, Minerva xlii (2004), 269–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.