Item 102 - Letter from Richard C. Trench

Itchenstoke - RCT apologises for his unceremonious leavetaking at Trinity Lodge last week, but he felt he should make room for late comers. He has been informed by the Bishop of Oxford, 'a few days since, of the purpose of Government to issue such a Commission [into the universities] as you have alluded to. Indeed he spoke of it, & apparently with knowledge, as already issued. He did not think that Ministers had any purpose of again attempting to compel the universities to admit Dissenters - but that the expressed purpose of the commission would be to enquire whether the universities could not be made, as regarded the members of the Church, more adequate to the needs of the present time. I am not aware whether the Bishop knew who the members of the commission were or would be. He only stated that no one concerned with the University Education would have any place on it - & that it would contain a good number of sufficiently unfriendly names'.