The Downing College Magazine / Volume 25 / Winter 2013–2014
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DOW@CAM THE DOWNING COLLEGE MAGAZINE / VOLUME 25 / WINTER 2013–2014 in the last two days of the May Bumps will accommodated better than ever since remain long in our collective memory. our foundation. The houses at 40/42 CAM Lensfield Road were restored over Many of you watched the fine the summer, on schedule and within OW D performance of our University Challenge budget. D Staircase is currently under team, and will join me in congratulating wraps, and that will be followed in the them on their first-round victory. As I New Year by major improvements to have been saying around College, there is the services of the Howard Building. The no fundamental contradiction between fourth project is First Court and Parker’s excellence in sporting and cultural House, which, as alumni may be aware, activities, and academic distinction. will be converted to provide on-site This theme was picked up by Jeremy accommodation for 77 graduate students. From the Paxman in his introductory “Let’s see if the Downing team is as good at general When these extraordinary works are Master 2014 knowledge as it is at frisbee”. Fortune completed, almost all our resident was less favourable in the second students will be housed within the On being admitted to Downing round, but the defeat was noble. historic site of the College. Admittedly, on 1 October, I became my own sixth it was already thus when the Boat Club Head of House, after three in Oxford and Barely have the new students of 2013 was founded in 1863, with all 25 or so two in Cambridge. I have often wondered arrived in College, than we begin undergraduates reported as living on what being a Master is like, but only the assessment of the 2014 round the Domus. The first three projects recently have I aspired to find out. I do of 730 applicants in competition for have been made possible through the not yet have a succinct answer, but the about 130 places. We will make offers magnificent support of our friends and position is totally occupying and very based on performance in interviews, alumni, and fundraising for First Court fulfilling. The Downing community has examinations, and admissions tests. and Parker’s House is getting under way. accorded Rosine and me a very warm The admissions process is a complex welcome for which we are deeply grateful. affair with a multiplicity of interlocking I am looking forward to meeting more constraints not all of which are under of you on my forthcoming travels Barry Everitt has passed on the Mastership our control. That said, we aim always around the UK and further afield. The of a College in full swing. Forty-two new to admit those who will benefit most Downing community is strong across students were admitted this week to the from education in Cambridge. the generations, and I am eager to rank of scholar, in celebration of their experience that at first hand. academic achievements. Of our many The College is undergoing four linked fine sporting achievements, the victory in renovation programmes which, when Professor Geoffrey Grimmett, rugby cuppers and the drama on the river complete, will see our students Professor of Mathematical Statistics DOW CAM THE DOWNING COLLEGE MAGAZINE Address: Development Officer Vol 25 Winter 2013–14 Development Office, Downing College, (Alumni Relations) Cambridge CB2 1DQ Donna Thomas Dow@Cam is published annually [email protected] by the Downing College Tel: + 44 (0)1223 334850 Development Office. Email: Development Officer (Legacies, [email protected] Stewardship & Research) Editor in Chief: Susan Luton Geoffrey Grimmett Website: www.downingcambridge.com [email protected] Publication Co-ordinator: Events and Data Assistant Donna Thomas Staff contacts: Development Director Claire Varley Writers: Gabrielle Bennett [email protected] Anjana Ahuja, Anthea Milnes [email protected] Cover: Editorial Board: Deputy Development Director Professor Nick Coleman in the Roof Bill Adams, Gabrielle Bennett, Thomas Northcote Laboratory, Department of Pathology Paul Millett, Jane Perks, Guy Williams [email protected] 2 | Volume 25 Image showing the painstaking process to conserve the Sylvester Harding miniatures From the Archives Jenny Ulph became College Archivist in March 2013 on the retirement of Dr Kate Thompson. Previously the Records Manager, with a background in archives, she was already familiar with much of the College’s history but has spent the past few months exploring the Archive’s original records, plans, photographs and artefacts. Here she gives an update on developments with the Sylvester Harding miniatures and an overview of her work. he Archive generally receives over 70 enquiries a year, Two World Wars”, but the Griffin cartoon and editorial suggest covering all manner of subjects from the tutorial records that the bath house contained something grander. ‘O’ staircase, T of deceased relatives to the development of the College prior to the Baker buildings in the North Range, was presumably buildings. This year, enquiries have significantly increased, with the current U or V, but contemporary plans for this period are research covering a fascinating variety of topics. Records from lacking. The Archivist would be very interested to hear from any the Archive have proved invaluable in supporting planning alumni who remember this ‘Bath House’ – and its location! applications for building projects around the College including: dating the former stable block, which will form an exciting part of Update on the Sylvester Harding miniatures the redevelopment of Parker’s House, and showing that what we Last time, Kate Thompson provided an overview of the album of now know as D staircase was, until 1964, a curtain wall with an Sylvester Harding miniatures. She was trying to raise funds to pay open courtyard behind. for conservation work, and so it is exciting to report that the album has been sent to the Cambridge Colleges Conservation Consortium The ‘inauguration’ of the College Bath House at Corpus Christi, funded by pooling the College’s library and This cartoon was archive conservation budgets (thanks to the College Librarian, found in the Lent 1927 Karen Lubarr). The conservators have painstakingly removed issue of The Griffin. the miniatures from the old acidic album, revealing the original An anonymous writer printed paper borders for the first time. They will be cleaned and recounted his new remounted in archival window mounts to allow each to be seen routine: ‘At eight I in full, while ensuring they are safely secured and protected from run across to the future damage. The album was photographed before being sent bathroom… I leap into for conservation and the Archivist has produced a display, in the the water and swim display cases at the rear of the Library Octagon. It is intended they round and round. I leap out again refreshed, glowing, full of life’. will be photographed again following the conservation work, and The editorial for the next issue claimed that ‘the inauguration of that the collection may be made available online. the new baths… may be said to virtually initiate a new epoch for Downing… No longer… need we henceforth confess… though in all other matters our college has few equals and no superiors – we Plea for photographs can only just use the plural when speaking of our baths… Now… The Archivist has recently produced a display on the one may rise like a Lord, stroll in one’s negligé to staircase O like a archive and its collections, in the Library Octagon, Duke, disrobe like a King, and – pausing deliberately for the advent showing how the College and its members have changed of the psychological moment – take the great aquatic plunge over time. Photographs are an invaluable resource, and like an Emperor.’ The installation in 1913–14 of baths in I and K any old photographs showing either College scenes or staircases (the present O and Q) is covered in “Downing and the sports teams would be a welcome addition. Winter 2013–14 | 3 CAM OW D The Closed Doors of Cambridge Richard Stibbs “The Closed Doors of Cambridge” was education, I found that my fellow The lowering of the age of majority to 18 the title of an article written by a applicants were from similar backgrounds in 1970 and pressure from the student Schoolmaster Fellow Commoner after and I started then to make my lifelong body meant the rules were swept away, a six week visit to Downing in the mid- friends. The subsequent fifty years have and in particular College gates were left eighties and which was subsequently seen the widening of both fellowship open all round the College perimeter. By published in the national press. and of my intellectual horizons. the early eighties, you could criss-cross Cambridge in all directions confident of In the article he compared the physical But it is not all Panglossian. Consider entrance and exit through the Colleges. doors of the Colleges and the hurdles the physical gates. In the sixties, gates Sadly, although understandably, that has to the acquisition of knowledge. In were all locked at curfew time and I can had to change from student pressure both cases he found that the obstacles still point out the various unofficial ways following every incident of theft or assault. were illusory. The massive College into Colleges via lampposts and walls. We are now back to medieval security, doors always contained a small wicket Not for nothing was the apocryphal with the modern accoutrements of CCTV, door. A gentle push on the wicket door joke told about many Colleges: security lights, card locks and controlled opened to a welcoming court or to an entrance and exit via Porters’ Lodges.