(On the front of the menu is a photograph of the Great Gate at Trinity. The signatures include those of a number of Fellows of the College besides Housman, including F. A. Simpson, R. St John Parry, Henry Jackson, V. H. Stanton, W. C. Dampier Whetham, Sedley Taylor, R. Vere Laurence, J. Ellis McTaggart, H. McLeod Innes, Gaillard Lapsley, F. R. Tennant, and F. G. Hopkins.)
Promises to do his best to give Dr Frefort 'the latest academic ideas' if Patterson sends him to Sidgwick with an introduction. Warns that, being in the vacation, he will have to take his chance of finding people there. States that he does not know any else here whom Patterson knows, except Sedley Taylor. Suggests that, through Bryce, he might find out who there is at Oxford to help him. (2 docs)
Reports that the portfolio has come and is beautiful. Hopes to come to visit her 'on Saturday week', or before that. Announces that the Pauls are to come on Easter Monday, and will stay for the week, and that he himself has to go back to Cambridge on the Monday afterwards. States that his friend Sedley Taylor is going to Rugby around Good Friday to stay with [Rev.?] C. J. Smith, and asks her to be hospitable to him if he turns up at the house. Thanks her for the portfolio. Hopes that she is well and has enjoyed her visits.
Reports that he is 'tolerably busy', and that he goes to see Roden Noel on the following Saturday - 'the day of the [boat] race'. Remarks that it is thought that Cambridge is to lose again. Reports that Tawney is coming to England that summer to be married. Reports that he has been in correspondence with his uncle Robert 'about a curious historical question connected with the founding of Shipton School', whose Master 'is bound to pray to the Virgin Mary every afternoon.' Mentions that he met a lady the previous day at [Rampride] who said that she knew his mother and Mrs Plunkett.
Mentions a Methodist Minister - Mr [Hugh Price?] Hughes - who 'has recently become a member' of their Union. Has asked [Edward] Enfield to provide Sidgwick with Hughes' address. Thinks Sedley Taylor's pamphlet is 'excellent for the class of readers whom he chiefly desires to influence', and while it is 'a little formal and limited in the construction of its argument', is 'entirely free from any narrowness of principle which can raise a scruple on [their] part.' Expresses his apologies for being unable to attend the Committee meeting the following day, on account of 'being called out of town for two or three days.' Reports that he has written his opinion to [Mr] Enfield.
Martineau, James (1805-1900), Unitarian ministerTwo letters from H. L. Greenfield to Dr Parry, and one letter from Dorothea Pertz to Dr Parry about an oil sketch by Miss Margaret Bernardine Hall, with a description of the circumstances of its creation.
Signed by Léon Bourgeois, Ministre de l'Instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts. With envelope postmarked 16 and 17 Jan. 1891, addressed to Sedley Taylor and bearing the seal of the French embassy, London.
Trinity College, Cambridge.—Lists and discusses recent elections to the ‘Cambridge Apostles’. At the last Congregation Sedley Taylor proposed that money should be raised for a chair of physics by abolishing heads of houses.
(Dated Saturday.)
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Transcript
Trin. Coll. Cam.
Saturday
Dear Sir Frederick
At last I have got sight of the secretary’s book, {1} which has been changing keeper lately and so became temporarily invisible. The list of me and my successors is as follows:
165—W. K. C.—Nov. 17 ’66
166—J F Moulton—Jun 1 ’67
167—F. E. Anderson—Nov 2 ’67
168—G. H. Blakesley—Feb 22 ’68
169—C Colbeck—Oct 24 ’68
170—M. R. Pryor—Nov. 13 ’69
171—Hopkinson—Oct 28 ’70
It appears from this that your constant advice about electing people is quite right; for while the average rate of election since the beginning of years has been 3 men a year, we have for the last four years let it get down to below 2. Jackson and Currey have become angels; {2} it appears that Elphinstone was rude to the former at Richmond and hinted that he was staying on too long. Stuart is now secretary. Besides Hopkinson who comes in today we have 2 new men in prospect. The objection to them is that they are all high tripos men to be—I mean mathematical—and this will give too strong a flavour of π to the functions. The last meeting was in my rooms—question wife or mistress?—and you will be glad to hear that with the help of 2 angels we were unanimously in favour of the latter—Stuart making some weak partial protest supposed to be due to a well-known influence. The last news of their shadowy outside is that at a Congregation last Saturday Sedley Taylor proposed to raise money for a physical professor by abolishing heads of houses. 2 of them died on the spot, 3 (including our own) are dangerously ill, and the rest are gone to refresh themselves in the country—we don’t appear to have got the money yet though. I have been sleepless since I came back and accordingly unfit to do anything whatever.
Yours all of us
W. K. Clifford.
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The dashes in the table of elections have been added.
{1} The record book kept by the secretary of the Cambridge Conversazione Society or ‘Cambridge Apostles’.
{2} i.e. they had left the Society.
On headed notepaper for the Société pour l'étude pratique de la participation du personnel dans les benefices
The newly elected fellows of Trinity are Sedley Taylor, Trotter, and Kirby.
Menu for dinner signed by the Master H. M. Butler, T. P. Pemberton, H. F. Newall, H. F. Stewart, Charles Waldstein, Francis Jenkinson, Sedley Taylor, E. Seymer Thompson, F. C. Burkitt, Charles Villiers Stanford, Edward J. Dent, Alan Gray, Charles Wood, Karl Breul, R. D. Archer-Hind, Oscar Browning, [G. H. Orpen?], and J. E. Nixon.
Green leather volume, with embossing and gold decoration. Printed illustration from 'Happy New Year' card pasted to inside front cover. Bookplate, 'Ex Libris Bryan William James Hall', with coat of arms and illustration, pasted to front free endpaper.
Numerous autographs, mostly in the form of ends of letters and addresses on envelopes, pasted into book. Notes beneath items (sometimes also pasted in) often identify writers. Complete letters etc have been described in individual records dependent to this one, referenced by their folio numbers; signatures and addressees are referenced by linked authority record only. Some names remain undeciphered or unidentified.
Compiled by a sister of C. W. King, see part letter from King on f. 14r, 'I enclose the autograph of a distinguished Grecian for your book. With love I am, my dear Sister, yours affect[ionate]ly C. W. King'. Although no first name appears, C. W. King's only sister appears to have been Anne, sometimes known as Annette (1824-1874). A letter from W. G. Clark to C. W. King, preserved on the verso of the flyleaf, was sent with 'some autographs for your friend', and there are also envelopes and letters addressed to William Aldis Wright and other members of Trinity suggesting King was actively gathering material for his sister. The bulk of the collection appears to have been assembled between the late 1860s and early 1870s.
King, Anne Hawes (c 1822-1874), sister of Charles William KingWrites on the death of Henry Sidgwick to express his sympathy with Nora for her loss. Says that he has known Henry for the past forty-four years, and that they met as Freshmen in Trinity College, 'by which early time it was already clear that he would certainly become a most distinguished man.' States that he has watched his brilliant career with interest, but claims that 'the special point of light in it is, and will remain...the resignation for conscientious reasons of his Fellowship at a time when that step might have very seriously injured, if not ruined, his academic career.' Prays that Nora may be strengthened to bear this loss. Adds that he leaves Cornwall the following day.
Concerning Butler's kind words and reception for [Joseph] Joachim.