The Orator

Summary

InThe Historical Register of the University of Cambridge is printed a list of the Public Orators since the beginning of the sixteenth century, commencing with the name of Richard Croke the Greek scholar. The duties of this officer are to be the mouthpiece and correspondent of the University. As footnotes to the list Dr Tanner has appended a most delightful store of personal anecdotes and illustrations. Such names are included as those of Sir Thomas Smith, Sir John Cheke, Roger Ascham, George Herbert, Christopher Wordsworth, Sir Richard Jebb and Sir John Sandys–the predecessor of the present Public Orator, Mr T. R. Glover.

Sir John Sandys, in the year 1910, published the Orationes et Epistolae Cantabrigienses, which he had spoken or written from the year 1876 when he was appointed after a memorable contest with that refined scholar Mr Charles Moule of Corpus. Till 1920 he continued to make elaborate speeches from the floor of the Senate House. Allusion has already been made (see p. 38) to an incident which occurred when, a schoolboy visiting his future University, he occupied a place in the gallery of that renowned building.

The Public Orator has from the first been entitled “to have precedence of all other Masters of Arts; and, as a mark of honour, to walk in processions and sit in public acts separate from the rest.”