Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Portraits
- Acknowledgements
- Sources
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- I The Political Arena
- II An Uneasy Beginning
- III Degrees for Women
- IV The Parliamentary Seat to 1886
- V The University and Secondary Education
- VI Examining and Teaching – the Long and Crooked Road to Compromise
- Appendix
- Index
32 - The Pre-Emptive Strike of Sir John Lubbock
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Portraits
- Acknowledgements
- Sources
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- I The Political Arena
- II An Uneasy Beginning
- III Degrees for Women
- IV The Parliamentary Seat to 1886
- V The University and Secondary Education
- VI Examining and Teaching – the Long and Crooked Road to Compromise
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
At almost the same time that the Government was being defeated in the Commons, on 21 June 1895, news reached Cozens-Hardy and Ramsay, from Lord Playfair, of the approach by Bompas and Napier to the Opposition leaders.
Bompas, Collins and Co have persuaded Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Devonshire that an amendment to the University Bill should be introduced making it incumbent that Convocation should have a veto and should be consulted by voting papers.
Cozens-Hardy was contemptuous but worried: he told Allchin that
This is childish nonsense. It seems that Napier’s victory has been made great use of to impress the Duke. Can you get any Liberal Unionist to approach the Duke? Lord Playfair hopes the Bill will be read a second time on Monday week.
And he added a postscript which foreshadowed future concern: ‘Lubbock is so weak in the knees that it is useless to expect any help from him.’
Ramsay summoned a meeting of ‘our former committee’, – the Cozens- Hardy Committee – for 24 June, and told those invited that he had been advised by Playfair that they should send an ‘immediate deputation to Lord Salisbury and the Duke’. Ramsay felt that ‘if we fail, our Bill will be mutilated and useless’. Playfair had also written to Sir George Young, and Young sent him a reply which certainly gives an impression of his and UCL’s general support for the Bill, and of sensible suggestions for moderate amendment of it.
If there is anything to be done, it had better be by institutions, than by individuals. The Council of University College have appointed a small committee, consisting of the President, Vice-President and Mr Haldane, MP, to deal with any communications, such as might be expected from those in charge of the Bill. I have just met Lord Reay, and ventured to tell him the contents of your letter, and he has undertaken to see you about it. He thinks Lord Cowper is the best man to see the Duke of Devonshire. I hardly know how Lord Salisbury is to be approached, and do not like to speak to Dr Wace without authority.
This opposition of Convocation is certainly no new thing, but it is very serious that the Opposition leaders should declare themselves impressed by it.
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- Information
- The University of London, 1858-1900The Politics of Senate and Convocation, pp. 382 - 395Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004