26 - A Charter Rejected

Summary

Whatever was felt about the very existence of the power which Convocation held to accept or reject a new Charter, none of the parties would have been in any doubt about the crucial significance of the decision which would be taken on 12 May 1891. Defeat for the Senate would mean that UCL and KCL would see their chance of creating the Albert University revived; the Provincial Colleges would face the likelihood of losing their place in a Teaching University, but would retain their influence within the continuing, existing University of London; and the Medical Colleges and Schools would have to begin yet another attempt to modify the rigours of the London degrees. Thus the contest in Convocation would be fundamental to the interests of all those parties: it would reflect their followings in Convocation, but, in addition, it would demonstrate the extent of concern among members about the future of Convocation – for a defeat of the proposed Charter might well imply the division of the existing University and a consequent reduction in their power and influence. Indeed, the more far-seeing might even have envisaged a negative attack on the Senate’s policy as leading, in the longer run, to a removal of Convocation’s most important power altogether.

University and King’s Colleges, as we have seen, came out against the Scheme in March, 1891. It is clear that the decisions owed not a little to the persistence of Sir George Young and Dr Wace. Young seems to have had the blessing of the Times, to which he almost certainly contributed, on 17 February, a long condemnation of the Scheme, ‘illustrating [its] cardinal and inherent vices’, and preferring the idea of a separate Teaching University. Since he received the final version of the Senate’s Scheme, earlier in the month, Young had written twice, privately, to Wace, on the tactics to be pursued by the two Colleges. He was contemptuous of the Senate’s proposals, and felt sure that

If we fail to defeat this, still it can never pass: if it could pass, it would not work; if it could be worked for a time, it would soon have to be abandoned, or modified profoundly. But except we defeat it now, we shall hardly get a good scheme in its place.