Looking for Mr Darcy’s Cambridge

The Schoolroom at Lyme Park (Photo: J Starnes)

Earlier this month, Diana Birchall took us with her on a lovely visit to Jane Austen’s school, then Maria Grace gave us detailed and thought-provoking insights into Mr Darcy’s education (you can find the posts by following the links).

It’s fascinating and extremely poignant to imagine Mr Darcy’s early school years, and I’d like to think that he had older cousins at his side, keeping the bullies at bay – or at least one older cousin in possession of a fighting spirit that would stand him in good stead later, in his military career.

It’s also poignant to imagine what he might have done during school holidays, or whether his parents were benevolent or strict. Glimpses of real-life Georgian families make the Darcys a little easier to picture, so I loved coming across Adeline Hartcup’s Children of the Great Country House, a book about childhood through the ages, which revealed a thing or two about some of the names we have come to know so well.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington by Thomas Lawrence c. 1815-1816

Apparently, although the Duke of Wellington was a stern (or absent) father, he became a doting grandfather. His children respected and feared him, but his grandchildren were treated to a different side of him: he would write to the children in the house and watch their delight as the letters were delivered along with the family post; he and the children would play under the dining room table or stage pillow fights and call them the ‘Battle of Waterloo’, then the little ones would be awarded medals for their bravery (shillings hung with ribbons – red for the Army, blue for the Navy).

The first Duke of Westminster and his siblings were allowed to eat with the family from an early age, rather than in the nursery, and would spend the evening with their parents, romping and playing ‘hunt the slipper’. The father taught the children chess and Latin and read aloud to them in the evenings from Shakespeare, Gibbon and Sir Walter Scott.

The second Marquess of Salisbury took charge of his children’s education (the girls as well as the boys) when his wife died, gave them history lessons and corrected their essays.

It’s very likely that much of the parenting of the age (and much of the schooling, as Maria Grace’s post tells us) relied heavily on the adage ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. In the early years of the century, an otherwise affectionate father wrote to his wife “…with regard to your male cubs, I should recommend a wholesome application of the birch…” and Lady Lytton whipped her eldest son with nettles for lying.

Unavoidably, we look at the past with modern eyes and it often shocks us, even if we endeavour to accept that our predecessors governed themselves by principles very different to our own. Still, I would like to believe that Mr Darcy’s father was a supportive parent, even if he could have been a better judge of character where a certain Mr Wickham was concerned.

What a pity that the elder Mr Darcy didn’t stop in Cambridge for a surprise visit!

Photo: BBC

Even if that scene wasn’t in the book, it’s interesting to imagine Mr Wickham’s face if his godfather were the one who opened the door of his Cambridge lodgings and came upon him and his scantily-dressed companion.

But then again, the early Georgians were nowhere near as straight-laced as their Regency children and Victorian grandchildren, so who knows, maybe Mr Darcy the elder might have regarded young George’s peccadilloes with a mildly complacent eye.

Speaking of Cambridge, I thought you might like to follow in Mr Darcy’s footsteps and see where he might have gone when he left Eton or Harrow or one of the other public schools he might have attended.

We are not told specifically that he had attended one of the Cambridge colleges, but we do know from his letter to Elizabeth that Mr Wickham had. Seeing that Mr Darcy the elder intended his godson for a career in the church, we might wonder why George Wickham was not sent to Oxford, which in those days was considered the place to go to study divinity. I think it’s safe to assume that Wickham was sent to Cambridge because Darcy was. Ah, but at which college? We’ll never know, so we can only guess. And this is what I did a couple of years ago: I walked through Cambridge on a guessing trip. I was lucky to have my very dear friend Mira Magdo for a guide, and we went, had a peek, took lots of photos (of course 😊), but the matter still remained undecided.

So, what do you think? Which one of these might have been Mr Darcy’s college?

CHRIST’S COLLEGE

(Former members: John Milton; Charles Darwin)

KING’S COLLEGE

(Former members: Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster; Charles ‘Turnip’ Townshend, statesman and promoter of crop rotation; Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first de facto Prime minister; Horace Walpole)

ST JOHN’S COLLEGE

(Former members: Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister; William Wilberforce; William Wordsworth)

TRINITY COLLEGE

(Former members: Francis Bacon; John Dryden; Isaac Newton; Lord Byron; William Makepeace Thackeray; Lord Tennyson; Lord Grey, whose government introduced the great Reform Bill of 1832)

ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE

(Former members: Adam Buddle, botanist; John Addenbrooke, founder of Addenbrooke’s Hospital)

PEMBROKE COLLEGE

QUEENS’ COLLEGE

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One of the things I discovered on my trip is that the colleges are best seen from the river.

Can you picture Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley punting on the Cam?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Photos of Cambridge locations: J STARNES

I wonder where else they might have gone to amuse themselves (because even the dedicated Mr Darcy must have taken the odd break from his studies).

Needless to say, the all-powerful colleges sought to limit the opportunities for entertainment, which would distract the students from loftier pursuits. The annual Stourbridge Fair was a traditional source of tension between ‘Town’ and ‘Gown’ i.e. between the Cambridge Corporation (the town council) and University officials:

“From the 13th century onwards, Stourbridge Fair was the biggest trading event locally and beyond. […] Young people attended for the social opportunities, enjoying dances, concerts and theatres, mingling in the hope of either procuring a partner or else indulging in some innocent coquetry. Unknown and lovesick poet ‘Mr Travis’ wrote, “To the Fair Unknown, upon seeing her in the Music Booth at Sturbrige fair [sic]”. However, the Fair also attracted a darker underbelly – beggars, thieves and prostitutes […].

 Representing all that was sinful and distracting for students, the entertainment was specifically disapproved of. In 1740, the Vice-Chancellor ordered the Theatre Booth to be demolished, gambling ‘games’ such as Roly Poly and The Colour Board to be carefully monitored or banned altogether, and even entertainers to curb their acts.

 As always, those who made rules often broke them; University officials disregarded the prohibition of the Fair’s ‘idle games and diversions’ listed in James I’s charter. In the 1780s, Vice-Chancellors spared no expense in ordering the same menu each year: herrings, neck of pork, round of beef, goose, plum pudding and apple pie, and dined in a private, tiled booth. In the 1790s, the Master of Emmanuel College Dr Richard Farmer was regularly spotted guffawing in the front row of the Critic’s Row at the Playhouse of the Fair. Reports claim that Masters of Arts, Fellows and clergymen were often seen drunkenly singing and linking arms as they stumbled through the Duddery.” (The 800-year-old story of Stourbridge Fair)

By the time Mr Darcy might have attended Cambridge, the old rules were not so strictly adhered to, anyway. Theatrical performances, once forbidden within five miles of the city for fear that they would corrupt the students, were here to stay:

“…in the late eighteenth century, a permanent theatre was built on the edge of the fairground [on Newmarket Road, on a site next to the Sun Inn]. There, fairgoers could see plays by Shakespeare, vaudevilles and melodramas, and even, in September 1797, an opera which had previously been performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent Garden.” (Creating My Cambridge: Stourbridge Fair).

 

The Stourbridge Fair Theatre is no longer there. By 1814 it was already demolished and replaced by The Festival Theatre, which had its own eventful history, from Georgian playhouse to mission hall and is now a Buddhist centre.

While the outline of the colleges hasn’t changed in hundreds of years, it’s hard to believe that Mr Darcy would not have laid eyes on the Fitzwilliam Museum as we know it, or at least not during his university years.

The museum was founded in 1816 with the legacy of the library and art collection of the 7th Viscount FitzWilliam and was initially located elsewhere (in the old Perse School building in Free School Lane). The first stone of the new building was not laid until 1837.

Young Mr Darcy might have wandered through the Walkerian Botanic Garden with a book under his arm and found a quiet bench to read in peace, but we can’t follow in his footsteps there. The site is now occupied by the Cavendish Laboratory and other university buildings, and the University’s Botanic Garden can be found farther from the centre, on a much larger site.

The face of the age-old city has changed in many other ways. Even places steeped in tradition, like Oxford and Cambridge, can’t remain frozen in time, so thank goodness for old maps!

I didn’t have an old map of Cambridge with me, so one of the things I couldn’t find was a coaching inn old enough to have been patronised by Mr Darcy, his cousin and his friend. With any luck, I might find one next time. But never mind, there’s always the full English at Fitzbillie’s (and as we know, a Fitzbilly NEVER disappoints  😊 ).