Pembroke College, Oxford

“ He was sent to schools in Normady and Southampton, and completed his education at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1777 he took orders, and in 1781 became head master of Reading grammar school, a post which he held for fifty years. ”

“ It was a popular spot in Oxford in somewhat later times, when the ladies, serious and frivolous, were "so farthingaled, so penthoused-out far beyond their bodies, with bucklers of pasteboard, that they could not pass through any other door except sidewise!" In 1624, during the reign of James I., Broadgates became, by Letters Patent, the "College of Pembroke in the University of Oxford"; and as such it was styled a "Perpetual College of Divinity, Civil and Canon Law, Arts, Medicine and Other Sciences." ”

“ I have already spoken of Ella Longspée and the Lady Devorgilla, and in the following century their noble example was followed by Philippa of Hainault, the foundress of Queen’s College, Oxford, and Mary de St. Pol, the widowed countess of Pembroke, who founded Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was chosen on account of her virtue and learning to direct the education of Queen Philippa’s daughters. No one can study the histories of those times without being frequently struck by the superiority which appears in the characters of their illustrious women. ”

“ To Pembroke College, founded 1624, by King James I., his Queen, Anne, attached a Canonry of Gloucester to the Mastership.
To Worcester, founded 1714, Mrs. Sarah Eaton was a benefactor.
It may be that the result of there being fewer female benefactors in Oxford than in Cambridge may have affected the comparative want of gratitude to women in this city. Whatever be the cause, the oldest University is the hardest to move.
Oxford Lectures for the benefit of women were started as early as 1865, but not in connection with the University. ”

“ In short, the Parliamentary Visitors, having placed the government of the University and colleges in hands which they regarded as trustworthy, were mainly occupied in discharging the functions which properly belonged to the Chancellor and the ordinary Visitors of the several colleges. In an appeal from Jesus College, they deliberately set aside the jurisdiction of the Earl of Pembroke as hereditary Visitor of that society. ”

“ He was educated at the King's School, Worcester, under Henry Bright (d. 1626) , one of the most celebrated schoolmasters of the day. In 1624 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner. Finding himself under 'a careless tutor,' he removed to the newly founded Pembroke College as a pupil of Thomas Lushington [q. v.] ”

“ In this confidence, her favorite son returned to the grammar-school, where he not only resumed his studies with greater diligence, but endeavored, and not altogether in vain, to promote religion and virtue among his associates.
Having fully secured his literary preparation for the university, Whitefield removed to Oxford in his eighteenth year, and was immediately admitted, as a servitor, into Pembroke college. He soon found that [30] the seat of learning was also a scene of danger. ”

“ Cheerfulness broke in pretty often in Oxford. And that was a time when there was more love of Oxford than ever before. Even the wealthy Fellows of All Souls’ (“that Eden to the fruitful mind,” as Lady Winchilsea called it at that time) never bought their college; and when one of them was taunted with the quip that Oxford was less learned than Bath, he was able to reply that it was also more fashionable. I find, too, in its love of the past, as [Pg 176] in its love of nature, something heartier, though I daresay less mystical, than our own. Johnson’s love of Pembroke is an example. ”

“ When he was young (June 1724) he was deprived of his father, and soon after (August 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who managed the estate.
From school he was sent in 1732 to Pembroke College in Oxford, a society which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature. Here it appears that he found delight and advantage; for he continued his name in the book ten years, though he took no degree. ”

“ Boswell mentions Hawkins as one of the distinguished alumni of Pembroke College, when commenting on Johnson's description of the college as ‘a nest of singing-birds.’ The serjeant lived in the city of Oxford, and for some years his son dwelt at the university, busying himself with the composition of sermons, poems, and tragedies. ”

“ Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, was the principal nursery in Oxford for students of the civil and common law. With his brothers Henry and Francis, who went with him to Oxford, John quitted the university without taking a degree on the death of his father in 1598. Henry succeeded to his father's estates in Leicestershire; was knighted in 1603, but died in 1605, aged twenty-four (Dyce, p. xxi) , when John succeeded his brother. John, with his brother Henry, was admitted student of the Inner Temple in November 1547 (List of Students admitted to Inner Temple, 1571-1625, pp. 80, 82) . ”

“ John's College, Oxford, was matriculated as sizar of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, May 1550, from Richmondshire. He graduated B.A. in January 1553–4, was elected fellow of his hall, 1554, and proceeded M.A. 1557. He was recommended by the master of Trinity, Robert Beaumont (d. 1567) [q. v.] , to Cecil, with Matthew Hutton, as a fit person to be made master of Pembroke Hall, but Hutton was chosen. On 19 May 1563 he was incorporated at Oxford. He was nominated by Sir Thomas White, the founder, to be president of St. ”

“ He obtained admission to Oxford University as a poor student or servitor in Pembroke College, “in 1687, aged seventeen years or more” (says Anthony a Wood; I conjecture that the year was 1684) ; he afterwards became a clerk of All-Soul’s College. He took the degree of B.A. ”

“ Returning to Oxford, he gained a first class in the final school of mathematics and physics in Michaelmas term 1864, and graduated B.A. From 1865 to 1875 he held, after open competition, the Sheppard medical fellowship at Pembroke College. ”

“ Pembroke College, Cambridge, reduced from Loggan's print, taken about 1688.
A, Chapel; B, Library; C, Hall; D, Master's Lodge; E, Kitchen; F, Master's Garden; G, Fellows' Garden.
The upper chamber (solarium) which Thomas Cobham (Bishop of Worcester 1317-27) began to build over the old [150] Congregation House on the north side of S. Mary's Church, Oxford, about 1320, for the reception of the books which he intended to present to the University, is the earliest of these libraries in existence. ”

“ He entered Broadgates, in 1590, at the age of twelve; and he was "acquiring great classical learning" when his father's death, a year or two later, necessitated his retirement, without a degree.
Pembroke's most Distinguished Son was Samuel Johnson, although, as is generally the case, his Alma Mater did not so regard him during the days of his undergraduate infancy. He performed much better, as a man, than he promised as a boy. The Rev. Douglas Maclane, a Fellow of Pembroke, gives in "The Colleges of Oxford" very completely the story of Johnson's associations with Pembroke. ”

“ This court belongs to 1883; the Master’s Lodge, between it and the rest of the college, is by Waterhouse, and was finished ten years earlier.
“O Domus antiqua et religiosa!” said Queen Elizabeth, as she passed by the gates of Pembroke Hall. Very few colleges deserve the epithet better, for Pembroke has been one of the most religious of all Cambridge foundations, and its history is closely connected with the Church. Like Clare, Pembroke owes its origin to a woman. Marie de St Paul, daughter of Guy, Count of St Paul and Châtillon, married Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. ”

“ When Oxford became the king's headquarters, Pembroke was superseded in the chancellorship by the Marquis of Hertford, but on 3 Aug. 1647 parliament issued an ordinance for his restoration, which was quickly followed by an ordinance for the visitation and reformation of the university. The visitors, headed by Sir Nathaniel Brent, began operations at Oxford in September, and a committee of lords and commons, sitting in London under Pembroke's presidency, directed them to act vigorously and to administer the solemn league and covenant to all university officials. ”

“ But with the great extension of the University curriculum, by the addition of a host of literary and scientific subjects to the Mathematics which had previously been the sole avenue to a Degree, there has come as marked an increase in the number of students, and the old College classification has broken down. Trinity, indeed, remains at the top, even more than ever, having almost doubled its overwhelming numbers; but St. John's has been caught up and overpassed by several of the once "small" Colleges, amongst them by Pembroke. And yet, in the year 1858, Pembroke had only one solitary freshman ”

“ The picturesque and collegiate-looking building which arose in 1873 for the accommodation of 21 students, was thus the first residential college for women ever built in connexion with a university. It was, like Pembroke, the result of a woman’s intention to found and finish a domus seu aula scholarium, the scholars being, for the first time, of the sex of the founder. ”

“ At last, in October 1643, the Heads of Houses agreed that 40l. should be raised weekly during the next twenty weeks, by a levy on colleges and halls, in lieu of all further contributions towards new fortifications. In the same month articles were drawn up by some of the leading residents against the Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of Oxford, whom they accused of betraying the privileges and neglecting the interests of the University, but whose real crime was complicity with the Parliament, and whom the King caused to be superseded by the Marquis of Hertford. ”

“ Entering Silver Street, a mean thoroughfare, all too narrow for its volume of traffic, and demanding no small caution from all and sundry, we have on our left a building for all the world like a College—so frequently, indeed, mistaken for one by newcomers, as to have gained the nickname of "the Freshman's College." In reality this is the University Printing Press, or the Pitt Press, as it is commonly called; the existing frontage opposite Pembroke having been erected in 1831, in memory of that statesman, who was a member of Pembroke College. ”

“ Clarendon assigns Pembroke's conduct at Oxford to ‘the extreme weakness of his understanding and the miserable compliance of his nature.’ Wood describes him as better fitted by ‘his eloquence in swearing to preside over Bedlam than a learned academy.’ ‘He would make an excellent chancellor for the mews were Oxford turned into a kennel of hounds,’ writes the author of ‘Mercurius Menippeus,' variously identified with Butler and Birkenhead. ”

“ Obviously in so far as I chose my own public school and my own college at Oxford there has been autobiography, but I fancy it would have been merely foolish to send Michael to Cambridge, a place of which I know absolutely nothing. Yourself assures me that nowadays it is a much better university than Oxford, and in thinking thus you are the only Oxford man who has ever held such a heresy. ”

“ Gell, the antiquary and explorer of Pompeii, who died in 1836, was also an Emmanuel man. But the present century, although the standard of work and scholarship has been high, is not prolific in eminent names. Our greatest living historian, Dr Creighton, held a fellowship at Emmanuel according to the terms of the Dixie Professorship, but Cambridge cannot count him as her own. At present, the college is rapidly increasing in numbers and emulates the modern popularity of Pembroke ”

“ Earl Pembroke, slain so impiously!
That slender Youth, a scholar pale,
From Oxford come to his native vale,
He also hath his own conceit:
It is, thinks he, the gracious Fairy,
Who loved the Shepherd Lord to meet
In his wanderings solitary;
Wild notes she in his hearing sang,
A song of Nature’s hidden powers ”

“ No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and acquirements. ”

“ In 1755 he became rector of Counde in Shropshire; and, in 1756, took his B.D. and D.D. degrees in Oxford. He was elected to the mastership of Pembroke, to which was attached a prebend of Gloucester, in 1775, and resigned St. Chad's. ”

“ The ordinary English man or woman, unconnected with Oxford, has never heard of them. The undergraduate and the ordinary don has seen some part just now and then, when some enthusiastic guests have had to be taken round the sights.
And yet a book of many volumes might be written to tell of the things both rare and exquisite that Oxford hugs most close to her breast. He who cares to look may find them everywhere. There is not a college in all the University that does not possess something precious, either for its intrinsic beauty or for its historical interest. ”

“ If Oxford thus, to some extent, moulded to her pattern men who, welcome as they were, were only accidental, surely the college spirit may be trusted to assimilate whatever material the changed conditions of social or of political life furnish to it. The hope of many at Oxford is that there will be a great development and a great change. On one side it will be good if Oxford becomes to a much greater extent not only an all-British, but also a world university; on another side it is to be hoped that far more than ever before men of all classes in England will come to Oxford. ”