PREFACE

Summary

I complete with this volume the task I set myself of telling the story of the University of Cambridge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for the time has not yet come to continue that story after 1882, when the statutes, framed by the Commissioners, became operative. I have, however, exceeded this limit in describing the events which led up to the Cambridge University and Corporation Act of 1894; but as the conflict between Town and Gown, from which that Act emerged, was, happily, the final stage of an ancient feud which I discussed in an earlier book, it seemed fitting to include it. It seemed equally fitting to exclude from this survey the University Extension Movement and the admission of women to University education; for any account of these important developments would be very imperfect unless carried well into the twentieth century.

I must also explain that after this book was in type I found among the University Papers in the University Library a printed copy of Dr Butler's letter of 19 May 1890, which is referred to in a footnote on page 95. It confirms the opinion I expressed that Dr Butler wished, the Proctors to be more active; but it should be added that he emphatically advised them to make sure, before arresting a woman, that she was a ‘known prostitute on the list kept by the police’. It is also clear that he had consulted the Proctors before writing the letter, and that they were in agreement with him.