Higher education postcard: the university chancellor

Here’s a grand looking chap!

The card doesn’t identify him by name, and maybe it isn’t meant to be a specific chancellor, but the beard and demeanour are very suggestive of Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire and chancellor of the University of Cambridge between 1892 and 1908.

By my reckoning Cavendish was the hundredth chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and by the time he was doing it, it was a ceremonial role: the titular head of the university, but with the vice chancellor (vice from the Latin, vice chancellor meaning “for the chancellor”) being the actual head.

But was the chancellor always just a figurehead? Certainly they have been largely so for the universities founded in the nineteenth century onwards. But if you look back in the list of chancellors of the ancient English universities you’ll find some big historical figures.

For Cambridge: St John Fisher; Thomas Cromwell (yes, the one from Wolf Hall); William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster; Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex (and favourite of Queen Elizabeth); George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (the one in the Three Musketeers story); and James Scott, Duke of Monmouth (the one who staged the failed 1685 rebellion).

For Oxford: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (and another favourite of Elizabeth I); William Laud, wingman archbishop to Charles I, beheaded for his religious reforms; and Oliver Cromwell (yes, that one).

These were all big political players, and active from days when English politics was more obviously medieval and personality/power based than it is today. So you bet your bottom dollar that these chancellors thought nothing of interfering in university affairs; and almost certainly always with an agenda.

Nowadays they are figureheads, and play a big part in ceremonial activities. They may be a personality who will be recognised by students and their families at graduation (for example, Ade Adepitan at Birmingham City University); they could be a figure chosen to add respectability: a royal or a peer (for example, Princess Anne at the University of London); they could be an international figure (for example, Hillary Rodham Clinton at Queen’s Belfast). What they won’t be doing is line managing the vice chancellor.

Let’s go back to Spencer Cavendish. He was a distinguished political figure, and led, in the Commons or the Lords, three different political parties: the Liberal party, the Liberal Unionist party, and the Conservative party. And he was chancellor not only of Cambridge but also of the University of Manchester from 1907 until his death in 1908; and he was Lord Rector of Edinburgh University from 1877 to 1880. Normally only the royals get to be chancellors at multiple universities.

And let’s take a moment to appreciate the gown. Wikipedia suggests – without a supporting reference – that it’s similar to the UK Lord Chancellor’s gown. Which in turn is described as “elaborate robes of black flowered silk damask, with gold lace and decorations.” Its hard to disagree. And I bet the Burgon Society can give a more precise description if you’re interested.

As is now becoming a tradition, here’s a jigsaw of the postcard. It’s surprisingly straightforward: my advice is to start with the white and work inwards.