before recommended that the Museum be erected upon a
portion of the Downing Site, the purchase of which had
been by this time authorised by the Senate, and that the
Grace of the Senate of June 1891, which had assigned the
site on the okl Botanic Garden area, be rescinded. This
report was somewhat vigorously criticised in the Art School
discussion, but was eventually carried by 196 placets as
opposed to 42 non-placets.

In May 1897, still another (21) Syndicate was appointed
to obtain plans and estimates for the erection of the Museum
upon the site which has just been mentioned. As usual,
this Syndicate had to be continued, and its life was pro-
longed to the end of the Easter Term in 1898, but by
May in this year they had approved the plans and asked
for power to obtain tenders and specifications. They pro-
posed that a building should be erected at a cost of ^^41,500,
which included fittings and furniture, and the architect's
commission and the clerk of the works' wages. In February
of 1899, however, a larger scheme was adopted by the
Senate, and for this it was estimated that an additional
i:^2625 would be required. Of this the share of the Univer-
sity would be .i^l7,500, but allowing for contingencies
the Financial Board estimated that .£'21,000 would about
provide for the larger scheme accepted by the Senate.

On the 16th February 1899, Mr. Jackson's larger scheme
was approved by 96 votes to 58, and powers were given
to the Syndicate to obtain the necessary specifications and
tenders.

At last, on the 26th October 1899, another (22) Syndicate
was appointed to superintend the erection of the Museum,
and they were requested to co-operate with the Law School
and Library Buildings Syndicate, and the Botany Building
Syndicate, since all these buildings were being set up on
the new Downing Site at approximately the same time. In
their final Report it appeared that the cost of the building,



332 y- <^s Secretary to the Museums

including the fees of the architect and of the clerk of the works,
came to a little below 1^50,000. Towards this sum rather
more than half of this, just over o^26,000, was subscribed by
the Sedgwick Memorial Trustees ; ^ the Common University
Fund furnished XT3,000 and the Syndics of the Press
.£'6000, whilst a benefaction from Mr. Latham, Master of
Trinity Hall, for the beautifying of the building added
about ^900.

That these Syndicates were exceptionally numerous, and in
fact that it was normal to have one in session although
little came of its deliberations, is shown by the pathetic
outcry of Professor Hughes'' Annual Report for 1899:
"There is not even a Syndicate sitting to consider the dis-
posal of the money subscribed with a view to erecting a
new Museum in honour of Professor Sedgwick." The un-
certainty when the building could be begun, and still more
when it could be finished, hampered in every way the activities
of the Department.

Geology has waited long for the Sedgwick Museum, but
it has not waited in vain. When, on 1st March 1904,
King Edward VII, accompanied by Queen Alexandra and
Princess Victoria, opened the Sedgwick IVIuseum, he opened
the most spacious, the most stately of all the scientific
Museums in the University.

Professor Hughes records in his Annual Report for 1904
that the vast collections stored in CockerelTs Building were
now transferred to the Sedgwick Museum, and partially
arranged. In the same Report we learn that he was giving
a helping hand to Geography, which has even yet not found
a home for itself. The space set free in CockerelPs Building
naturally went to the Library. Owing to the generosity of
the Goldsmiths' Company, the Syndics of the University
Library have been able to fit the old Woodwardian Museum

' Whilst all these Syndicates had been talking, the original fund
collected in Professor Sedgwick's honour had been working, and had
almost doubled itself in about thirty years.



3\dmeraIogy 333

with iron bookcases in which about 400,000 volumes can
eventually be stored.

To return for a moment to Mineralogy. As we have seen,^
a Syndicate had been appointed in February 1853 to advise
how Dr. Walker's botanic garden might be legally acquired
by the University, and to prepare a scheme for new museums
and lecture-rooms. In their Keport they include a most
careful and detailed account of the requirements of the dif-
ferent departments. They tell the Senate "that the Minera-
logical Museum is now arranged in a room under the new
wing of the University Library, which is by no means
sufficient for the display of the Collection. But the Professor
is compelled to carry on his private investigations in the
vaults below . , , and he is unprovided with a laboratory."
I do not know at which end of CopkerelPs building this room
was, but whichever end it was the Professor of Geology
coveted it. The suggestion mentioned above to erect a new
building was well received by the Senate but rendered nugatory
by want of funds, and so the proposal lapsed till early in the
sixties, when there seems to have been more money. After a
good deal of discussion and some delay, the Mineralogical
Museum was installed by 1866 on the first floor of the western
wing of Salvin's building. With the solitary exception of the
Museum of Comparative Anatomy, it alone occupies the rooms
where it was placed forty-six years ago.

The end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth was a period of great building activity. Not only
was the Sedgwick Memorial Museum rising from the ground,
but the new Botanical School, the Medical School, and the
Squire Law Library and the Lecture Rooms were all in
process of construction. The Professor of Botany had been
annually complaining of the overcrowded state of his laboratory,
and he records in his 1898 Report that a Syndicate has been
appointed " to consider what steps should be taken for the erec-

1 p. 303.



334 "J- ^^ Secretary to the Museujns

tion of new buildings for the Department of Botany." In the
following year, he reports that the Syndicate are in favour of
placing the building on the Downing site, and that the Council
have reported in favour of apportioning a sum of money for
building a INIuseum, Herbarium, Library, the necessary Lecture
Rooms, Laboratories, Workrooms, and Research Rooms, from
the Benefaction Fund. The position approved by the Senate
was on the Downing site, about equidistant from the east and
west boundary. Mr. W. C. Marshall, M.A. (Trin.), was chosen
as architect; the tender was accepted in March 1901, and the
building was opened by King Edw^ard VII on 1st March 1904.
On the same day, besides the Sedgwick ]\Iuseum and the Botany
School, the King opened the Squire Law Library and the
Medical Schools.

A Syndicate had been appointed, in March 1899, to consider
what steps should be taken to erect a Law School and Library
on part of the Downing ground. In May 1900, they reported
in favour of " the north side of the ground — the Librarv to
be built adjacent to the Geological INIuseum, and the School on
part of the remaining north front of the ground adjacent to
the Library. They are happy to report that they have received
an extremely munificent oft'er, from the Trustees under the will
of the late Miss R. F. Squire, to defray the cost of the Library
and of furnishing it with internal fittings." It was the wish
of the Trustees that the Squire Law Library should " form a
distinct and self-contained part of the whole building," thouo-h
they raised no objections to the main entrance and staircase
affording access to the professors' rooms and class rooms. As
is mentioned above,^ a certain sum of ]\Ir. Henry Latham's
benefaction was devoted to the embellishment of the buildino-s
on the Downing Street site. The expense of the porter's lodge
which was then erected and of the Law Lecture Rooms was
borne by the University. The proposals of the Syndicate were
accepted by the Senate in June 1900. The University was

^ p. 332.



Tathology 335

fortunate enough again to secure the services of Mr. T. G.
Jackson, to whose genius we owe this fine entrance to the
Downing grounds, now being fast covered with Laboratories
and Museums.



A buildino; was also rising on the other side of the street.
We have seen ^ that, when Chemistry vacated the okl buildings
in the north-east corner of the southern court, Pathology stepped
in. The accommodation, however, was not only inadequate,
but bad. Part of the building dated from 1786, and all of it
was in poor repair, insanitary, and in just the sort of state
that a pathological laboratory should not be. Professor
Sims Woodhead, who had succeeded Professor Kanthack in
1899, reports in his Annual Report for 1899 that " the
buildings are very difficult to keep in repair," and deprecates
spending further money on them. The state of the Octagon,
which dated from 1832-3, was even worse. After the Human
Anatomists had vacated it in 1891, it had in the main been
used for the teaching of Surgery and Obstetrics. Here also
was a room used by the Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence,
and here possibly one or two other Medical Teachers had
their centre, but whoever worked there did so under conditions
of great discomfort. " It is impossible to keep the roof in
repair, and as a result the ceilings and walls are always in one
part or another soaked with wet, and sometimes the rooms
and passages are flooded." Thus writes Mr. J. Griffiths, the
Reader in Surgery, in his report for 1898. In the following
year, he mentions that the presence of dry-rot is more extensive
than ever ; and that whilst the rain is dripping in from above
the dry-rot is creeping up from below. The sole accommodation
for the Regius Professor of Physic (Sir George Paget) ^ was a
tiny room at the western end of the Philosophical Library, and
Dr. Paget until he died made an amiable and annual protest
against this absurdly inadequate apartment.

Perhaps the Downing Professor of Medicine was better off
^ p. 314. "" 1872-1892.



336 y. as Secretary to the JVIuseums

than the others, for he had hired certain rooms from Downing
College, and there had organised a small Pharmacological
Laboratory. It was felt on all sides that something must be
done, and, in March 1899, a Syndicate was appointed "to con-
sider what steps should be taken for the erection of new build-
ings for the Medical School." The site had already been fixed
by Grace in November 1897. It ran along the north side of
Downing Street, leaving a considerable gap between it and the
east end of the Chemical Laboratory, until it reached Corn
Exchange Street ; and here the plan was to continue the build-
ing up to the south-east corner of Fawcett's second building, but
funds proved insufficient, and less than a third of this " return "
has been built. The site of this has however been cleared ;
and all the old 1786 buildings have now gone. It is greatly
to be hoped that the Medical School will in the near future
be completed.

The 1899 Syndicate recommended that the subjects of
Medicine, Surgery, Pathology, Pharmacology, and Public Health
be all accommodated in the proposed new building, and that a
Museum, which in view of Sir George Humphry's great services
to the University should be called the Humphry Museum, be
erected. Mr. E. S. Prior, M.A. of Gonville and Caius College,
now Slade Professor of Fine Art, was chosen as architect, and
tenders were accepted in May 1901. Since on the site allotted
to the new Schools there were buildings in which Pathologists,
Surgeons, etc., were then working, it became necessary to find
temporary accommodation for them whilst the existing build-
ings were being pulled down and the new ones put up.
As usual, allied departments did what they could by lending
lecture rooms, etc., but most of the pathological work was
transferred to the offices remembered by many of us as the
first home of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company
in St. Tibbs' Row. Surgery however retired to 16 Mill Lane
and the adjoining granary, where also the pathological speci-
mens were carefully stored.

The new building proceeded at a rapid pace, and, although



School of 3V[edicine 337

not completed, was in a sufficiently advanced state to be opened
by the King on his visit of 1st March 1904. Considerable sums
were contributed to its cost from outside ; over .^GOOO came from
the Endowment Fund, and Lady Humphry's family and a few
friends defrayed the expenses of fitting up the Humphry Museum.
Although the existing jNIedical Schools are barely two-thirds
the size at first contemplated, they manage in a very cramped
sort of way to accommodate Medicine, Surgery, Pathology,
Pharmacology, Medical Jurisprudence, Hygiene, Vaccination,
and even to find a corner for the Reader in Ethnology, and, in
a laro^er but very inconvenient Laboratory under the Humphry
Museum, for the Quick Professor of Biology, whose chair was
founded in 1906. The overcrowding is however very apparent,
and it is hoped that before long the gap opposite the Arcade
will be filled in, when this piece of Richard Walker's Botanic
Garden will again bear University buildings as it did one
hundred and twenty-seven years ago. When this gap is filled,
the site he bought and gave to the University in 1762 will,
practically, be fully occupied. Before passing on, it should be
mentioned that the authorities of the Medical School com-
bined in 1909 with the authorities of the Agricultural School
and those of the School of Physiology in purchasing five acres
of land on the Milton Road for the purposes of an experi-
mental plot for animal breeding, animal diseases, etc. This
area is now adequately provided with farm buildings and a
caretaker's house.

Nor must we forget to mention that the staircase in
Salvin's building between the Zoological Lecture Room and
the Philosophical Library was removed in 1908, and in its
place three fair-sized rooms were constructed. The ground-
floor room is at present used by the Arthur Balfour Professor
of Biology. The others are allocated to the Department of
Morphology.

The next building we have to deal with, the School of
Agriculture, is the result of a remarkable movement started






8 y. as Secretary to the 31useums



by a letter, dated 25th July 1890, addressed by Mr. Henry
Chaplin, then President of the Board of Agriculture, to the
eighth Duke of Devonshire, our Chancellor. The purport
of the letter was to ask if the University could see its way
to undertake the training of agricultural teachers and experts.
Although, in the opinion of some members of the Senate,
this subject was not at all a proper study for University
instruction, a Syndicate was appointed which in time suggested
a fairly complete scheme for a Department of Agriculture.
However, as usual, there was little or no money available, and
after reconsideration a revised and more modest scheme of an
Examination for a Diploma in Agriculture was put forward
and accepted by the Senate in November 1893. It was
obvious that if this Examination should prove a success,
Cambridge must provide teaching. Professor Liveing and
Professor Hughes, who had both taken the keenest interest
in the movement, interviewed the authorities of the County
Councils of the Eastern Counties, and from these interviews
arose the Cambridge and Counties Agricultural Education
Conunittee. This Conmiittee, with the aid of certain moneys
granted by the Board of Agriculture and by some of the
County Councils, started in January 1893 with one or two
teachers to instruct seven students. In six years the numbers
had grown to twenty-five, and then the University took the
work over.

One of the earliest benefactors to the School was Sir
Walter Gilbey, who gave a sum of ,^25 a year for twenty-one
years to endow a Lectureship in the History and Economics of
Agriculture (1896), and later (1898) an endowment of 1^200
for ten years to provide the stipend for a University Lecture-
ship in Agriculture. This was coupled with the condition
that the University should institute a Special Examination in
the subject, so that a student might graduate in Agriculture.
Such a condition needed consideration, and whilst it was being
considered two events happened. The Secretary of the Board
of Agriculture and Fisheries intimated that, if the subject were



School of Agriculture 339

officially recognised, the Board would endeavour materially to
increase its annual grant ; and, secondly, the Drapers' Company
offered to provide the stipend of a Professor for ten years,
should the University establish a Professorship of Agriculture
and create an Agricultural Department. These proposals were
formally accepted by Grace of the Senate in March 1899.

To the first Professor, Dr. W. Somerville (1899-1902),
and to the help of Mr. W. A. Macfarlane-Grieve of Clare
College, the University owed its first experimental farm, at
Impington. Some years later the Impington Farm was
given up, and a holding of 230 acres belonging to Trinity
and Clare Colleges, near to the Observatory, was taken. Con-
tiguous to the eastern boundary of this farm is a plot of
ground on which a house and other buildings are now
being erected for the use of the Balfour Professor of Biology.

Under the second Professor, Mr. T. H. Middleton (1902-7),
efforts were made to raise money to pay for a permanent
home. Up to April 1910 the Department had been housed,
thanks to the kindness of Professor Liveing, in some half
dozen rooms of no great size, in a basement under the large
students'" room in the older (1889) block of the Chemical
Laboratory. The need for new buildings was pressing, as
the accommodation was unsuitable and entirely inadequate.
The Drapers' Company, with its habitual generosity, offered
rit^oOOO " provided that ,£^5000 could be raised elsewhere."
The Chancellor, the late Duke of Devonshire, with the assist-
ance of the Cambridge University Association, raised the
second ^5000 before his last illness. He had, indeed, the
matter much at heart, and not long before his death asked
his nephew to help in getting the remaining ,£'10,000 for the
building, and allowance for upkeep. The present Duke readily
undertook to help, and in a comparatively short time the
amount was collected. A site had been assigned to the south,
and parallel to the School of Botany, and plans were prepared
by Mr. Arnold Mitchell, F.R.I.B.A. They were accepted, the
building was finished, and on 26th April 1910 it was opened



340 y- ^s Secretary to the 3VIuseums

by the present Duke of Devonshire, who had helped so materi-
ally in rendering its erection possible. Although opened to
students less than four years ago, the press of work — some
of it undertaken for the Government — and the increase in the
numbers of students, has squeezed the Reader of Forestry and
his Department out of the building, and has already necessitated
a considerable increase in the accommodation. Additional
buildings forming an extension of the old School towards
Tennis Court Iload are now (1913) all but complete.

In the meantime the Department of Forestry has taken
temporary refuge in an ancient house close to the northern end
of Free School Lane, but a site has been assigned to it in the
south-east angle of the Downing site, plans have been prepared,
and the buildings for our School of Forestry are now rising.

When Agriculture vacated the rooms they had so long
used in the basement of the Chemical Laboratory, they were
adapted for use as a Metallurgical Laboratory. In 1908 the
Goldsmiths' Company most generously gave ,^10,000 to
endow a Goldsmiths'' Reader in Metallurgy, and in 1910, when
Agriculture moved out, the Company increased the gratitude
felt towards them by the University by making the necessary
alterations in, and by providing the necessary fittings for, the
Metallurtjical Laboratory.

Three buildings remain to be mentioned on the Downing
site. One of them, the Laboratory of Psycho-physics, is com-
pleted ; of the other two, such portions of the Museum of
Archjeology and Ethnology and the new Physiological Labora-
tory as it has been found possible to erect are approaching
completion.

The Museum of Ethnology was very dear to J.'s heart, in
fact it was one of the many things he helped to start in the
University. Writing on the 27th April 1883 in his Annual
Report, J. records : —

" In the last place I have to mention that my friend
A. P. Maudslay, M.A. of Trinity Hall, has deposited in



3^useum of Ethnology 341

my charge a portion of the large and important Collection
of arms, dresses, ornaments, domestic utensils, pottery,
and other objects which he made in Fiji and the adjacent
islands. It is more than probable that he will present the
whole Collection to the University at no distant date ; and
it will serve as the nucleus of a Museum of Ethnology, the
importance of which in connection with Biological studies
is now generally recognised."

For a time J. kept the Collection in his private room at the
Museums, but the following year the Museum of General and
Local Archaeology and of Ethnology was opened, and an un-
suspected wealth of ethnological objects was gradually revealed.
The Maudslay Collection, greatly increased at a later date, still
forms one of the most important gifts to the Museum. At
best the Museum was but a long narrow gallery with two or
three inconvenient rooms attached to it. For years it had
been overcrowded, and for years many of the more important
objects have been stored away in a disused malting-house at
Newnham. It was felt that something must be done, yet
nobody did anything. Finally the Curator, Baron Anatole
von Hiigel, who has devoted his life to the Museum, took the
matter in hand and, almost entirely by his own exertions, got
together the money for the new Museum. The generous con-
tributions of the old and well-known Cambridge family of
Foster alone made the building possible.

Such portion of the building as it has proved possible
hitherto to put up contains a large Museum with a wide gallery,
certain unpacking rooms and workrooms, and two or three
private rooms for the Curator and the Reader in Ethnology.
The building extends from the west side of the Law School
up to the corner of Tennis Court Road, and then turns a little
way south along that thoroughfare. The plan, like that of
the neighbouring Law School, is by Sir. T. G. Jackson, R.A.
The Collections began to be moved into the Museum in 1912.

The Laboratory of Psycho-physics, which was begun in May
1911, and is now completed, is again due to the energy of one



man.



42 J' <^^ Secretary to the J^useums

Dr. C. S. Myers, who by his own exertions collected
just under o^4000, the majority of which was given by his
own family. The handsome building is a splendid contrast
to the decayed, rat-infested cottages in Mill Lane, in which,
in spite of their surroundings. Dr. Myers, Dr. Rivers, and
others have done such remarkable work. The plans for this
building, and of the new Physiological Laboratory, and of the
last named were again due to Sir T. G. Jackson.

The fact that Physiology will shortly be able to move
across Downing Street is again largely due to the generosity
of the Drapers' Company, who have done so much for the
Department of Agriculture. In 1910, they offered the Uni-
versity the sum of i'SSjOOO, which was, after some discussion,
dedicated to a new laboratory for Physiology. This sum does
not, at present, permit the building of Lecture Rooms, and
the Department of Bio-Chemistry is not provided for ; but
since 1911 some more thousands have come in, and it is hoped
shortly to complete the building in all its branches.

This completes the account of the Downing site. On
the old Botanic Garden site, or rather on the site of Mr.
Mortlock's garden, are two large buildings, recently erected,
the Examination Rooms and the new Lecture Rooms. The
former covers the eastern side, and very nearly fills the northern
boundary of the Court. It was opened in 1909, and contains
two rooms, both 106 feet in length, but the larger is 51 feet
wide and 30 feet high ; the smaller, which can be divided
into two, is 30 feet wide and 16 feet high. The Examination
Rooms were designed by Mr. William Marshall in a style of
restrained simplicity, which harmonises well with the Salvin
building opposite and the Fawcett building on the east.

The new Lecture Rooms, the last building we have to do
with, were first used in the Lent Term 1911. It is intended for
Literary, Historical, Economic, Philosophical, Mathematical,
and other lectui'es. These Lecture Rooms have a handsome