Source: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol3/pp15-29
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 08:43:41+00:00

Document:
After the social unrest that engendered Ket's Rebellion, and the violent swings of the religious pendulum under Edward VI and Mary, registered, for instance, in the parish books of Great St. Mary's, (fn. 1) Cambridge settled down to enjoy its prosperity and civic pomp, concerning itself little with national politics. When in 1564 Elizabeth I visited Cambridge, the church bells rang, and the Mayor and aldermen rode out to meet her between Newnham and Grantchester and presented her with a standing cup of silver gilt containing 40 angels. As soon, however, as the cortège reached King's College the civic representatives had to fall out, having 'no authority or jurisdiction in that place', (fn. 2) and the rest of the celebration was the University's affair. The burgesses could well afford the purchase of the charters of 1589, 1605, and 1632, no less than the frequent gifts to the noble patrons to whose support they looked in their unceasing disputes with the University. (fn. 3) The ill-feeling between town and gown was to take on a fresh colour in the 17th century and to be absorbed into the national conflict. With some important exceptions, the University was high church and royalist, the town puritan and parliamentary.
By March 1642 the control of the militia had become not only the serious concern of the Cambridgeshire gentry but the burning issue between king and Parliament. It was at Newmarket in March 1642 that Charles gave his final refusal to the parliamentary commissioners, and he 'graciously turned in' at Cambridge to pick up his eldest son who had been greatly enjoying the hospitality of the University. (fn. 29) But the students' loud acclamations of 'Vivat Rex!' were offset by the women and others of the town who 'followed his coach humbly and earnestly entreating that he would return to his parliament or they would be undone', (fn. 30) as he drove from St. John's College along the Huntingdon Way to muster his forces at Nottingham.
On 17 August the care of the town was entrusted by Parliament to Cromwell, together with the Mayor and three aldermen. (fn. 34) He had already seized the magazine at the castle on his own responsibility, (fn. 35) and he proceeded to organize the defence of Cambridge. By March 1643 the new works at the castle were well in hand and in July Parliament was informed 'our town and castle are now very strongly fortified, being encompassed by breastworks and bulwarks'. (fn. 36) All bridges over the Cam except the Great Bridge and the Small Bridges were destroyed; a gun was placed on the Great Bridge and a breastwork at Jesus Lane. Something like £2,000 was spent in bringing the fortification of the castle up to date. (fn. 37) The soldiers found it best to stay in barracks within the ramparts, as there was plague in the town, especially at Spital End, every year from 1643 to 1647. Ten 'brave pieces of ordnance' were mounted on the works. A garrison of 1,000 was originally intended but it does not seem in fact to have exceeded 300 at the most. (fn. 38) In fact the castle never stood a siege, though both in February and October 1643 and in March 1644 there were alarms. (fn. 39) It was actually soon after Naseby that the royalist forces came nearest to Cambridge when Charles, advancing south from Doncaster, drove a small body of parliamentary troops out of Huntingdon and occupied Godmanchester. On 27 August 1645 some of his horses were within two miles of Cambridge. The army there was 40 weeks' pay in arrears, and owing the town £3,000, but on 26 August a force of 1,800 foot with 8 troops of horse marched out towards Huntingdon. The king however refused battle and withdrew by way of St. Neot's and Woburn to Oxford; (fn. 40) and Cambridge, 'so faithfull and so reall' for the Parliament, (fn. 41) could breathe again.
A following-up committee was appointed of which, besides the Duke of Rutland and a number of county gentlemen, three Cambridge aldermen were members; Purchas, Finch (another dissenter), and Forlow, who had recently 'come in on the Liberty side'; (fn. 101) and three burgesses, Anderson, Foster (a Baptist), and Mortlock. Cole mentions that Alderman Burleigh also recommended it to the notice of the Corporation. (fn. 102) It was the year of county petitioning, and the resolution is easily recognized as advocating 'economical' rather than 'parliamentary' reform. Of its supporters on the Corporation only Forlow was to remain permanently attached to the New Party. But apart from the dramatic sounding of the popular war cry, the meeting was significant as being the means by which Mortlock was brought into contact with Rutland, the challenger of the 'old interest' in county and borough, and through Rutland with his college friend, Pitt. Rutland was glad to avail himself of Mortlock's personal and financial interest on behalf of his brother, a candidate in the coming county election, (fn. 103) and in due course, as we shall see, (fn. 104) Mortlock was to add the town of Cambridge to the list of Rutland pocket boroughs.
In 1780, however, Mortlock had yet to make himself master of the Borough. In April 1782 he was elected alderman, and Purchas and he founded a new club at which plans were presumably hatched for ousting the Old Party. The very general terms of the charter of 1632, coupled with the unwillingness of the courts to restrict the powers of corporations, made it possible for a skilful and audacious man of property to undermine the power of the aldermanic aristocracy and base his power on the direct support of a handpicked body of freemen. (fn. 105) The by-law that prescribed a six-year interval before a man could be re-elected Mayor was successfully defied when the courts in 1783 upheld the election of Tunwell, (fn. 106) and its repeal made possible the monopoly of the office by Mortlock, his dependants and his sons from 1784 to 1820.
From 1788 to 1835 Cambridge was under one-party administration. Mortlock was Mayor or deputy-Mayor every year until 1810; from then until his death in 1816 his two sons held office in turn. For sixteen years 'the town of Cambridge was exempt from the mortification of having its chief magistrate bear any other name than that of Mortlock'. (fn. 118) The younger Mortlocks, however, lacked their father's ability and energy. In 1817 the management of the Borough, according to Cooper, (fn. 119) passed to John Purchas, the son of John Mortlock's one-time ally. He was Mayor five times between 1817 and 1831. But the system, as surveyed in retrospect by the commissioners of 1833, was what Mortlock had made it. Its worst features were manifest even before 1788, and after Mortlock's death corruption was unredeemed by efficiency.
To the ardent young Whigs who held the investigation of 1833 the worst feature of the town government, and one that explained all its vices, was its political exclusiveness. Only supporters of the Manners interest were admitted to the Corporation. Persons claiming the freedom by birth found insuperable obstacles placed in their way unless they had the right friends. In a town of over 20,000 inhabitants, only 118 were freemen; office was the monopoly of a small inner ring, and so informal and domestic were the proceedings that they became irregular. It was not uncommon for the Grand Common Day for the election of town officers to be short of the required number to hold the election (the procedure called for eighteen electors); it appeared on investigation that Mortlock's younger son, Frederick, who had been Mayor four times, had never been sworn in as a freeman. (fn. 151) It is ironical that the career of the man mainly responsible for this state of things had opened with the support of a resolution asserting that public administration carried on by means of corruption was unjustifiable, dishonourable, burdensome, and dangerous.
Pictorial expression to the judgement of the commissioners was given in the anonymous cartoon of a local artist (fn. 152) entitled 'The Unjust Stewards'. It represents a table surrounded by eight aldermen exhibiting every sign of dismay at the apparition of two shrouded skeletons, waving papers inscribed 'Crane's Charity' and 'Sir Thomas White's Charity', and uttering the words, 'Give an account of your stewardship or ye shall be no longer stewards.' On the wall behind hang pictures of a grossly fat 'corporator', a lean and haggard 'non-corporator', and the representation of a gallows, with the noose prepared for the criminal. The fate of the old régime was indeed sealed, but it passed 'not with a bang, but a whimper'.
The Municipal Corporations Act did not dissolve the old Corporation of Cambridge; as Maitland says, 'In 1835 it renewed its youth.' It recognized a three-century-old shift of power by changing the style from 'The Mayor, Bailiffs and Burgesses' to 'The Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Cambridge'. The number of the aldermen was reduced to ten, and that of the councillors increased to 30, elected by the ratepayers of the five newly constituted wards. (fn. 153) Tacitly, it would seem, the Common Day ceased to be a municipal function, only meeting for parliamentary elections, and then in a number of different polling stations.
As the Reform Bill of 1832 had destroyed the Rutland ownership of the Borough, so the first elections to the new Borough Council swept away the former corporators. The men who had taken the lead in town meetings and civic protests were elected, and any former alderman who stood was defeated. (fn. 154) The first act of the new council, after electing its Mayor, was to eject the Duke of Rutland from the High Stewardship, and then to appoint a new town clerk. (fn. 155) The Poor Law Commissioners meanwhile had constituted the fourteen parishes of Cambridge a poor law union, (fn. 156) whose guardians were, with the Improvement Commissioners, the chief administrative rivals of the Borough Council.
The main features of the history of the Borough since 1835 are the increase of its population from some 21,000 to some 90,000; the extension of its area from 3,233 to 10,061 acres, with the accompanying thinning out of the congested ancient heart of the town; the settlement of its century-old disputes as to jurisdiction and taxation with the University, the gradual concentration of administrative responsibilities for the various needs of one community in one authority, and the change of its style from Borough to City in 1951.
The settlement with the University in 1856 was reached after long negotiation. The tradition of joint responsibility was translated into a modern form when it was agreed that the Senate should elect 5 of its members to sit on the Watch Committee with 9 members of the Borough Council, the Mayor acting as chairman. The practice was carried a stage further in 1889. The University then agreed to elect 6 councillors and 2 aldermen to sit on the town council (fn. 157) and was thus in effect constituted two wards for local government purposes. Since that year a number of members of the University have served as Mayor.
The Act of 1835 had provided that the powers vested in the Improvement Commissioners could only be transferred to the Borough Council if the University consented. (fn. 158) As members of the University had been prominent in urging such a transfer, this proved no obstacle when in 1889 it was agreed to extinguish the Improvement Commissioners and pass their duties on to the Borough Council. As early as 1855 the Borough had availed itself of the powers given by the Public Libraries Act of 1853 to open a free public library in the temporarily vacated Friends' meeting-house in Jesus Lane. (fn. 159) The Education Act of 1902 imposed further responsibility. Meanwhile the extension of the town boundary was desirable. Though the open fields of the Domesday Borough were not yet entirely built over, to the east and south Cambridge was encroaching on the countryside. Under the Local Government Board Act (1911) the area of the Borough was in 1912 increased by 2,224 acres and its population by 15,785 persons. (fn. 160) Three new wards were added, bringing the number of the councillors up to 42 and the aldermen to 15. Twenty-four years later the boundaries were again extended, 4,603 more acres were added and 3,380 persons. (fn. 161) There are now 12 wards, (fn. 162) each represented by 3 councillors, besides the 6 University councillors, and 14 aldermen, 2 representing the University.
Successive Acts of Parliament have laid so many burdens on the shoulders of the council that in 1950 25 committees and 32 sub-committees were needed to discharge them. (fn. 163) Since 1907 the services of women have been available, and very widely used; Cambridge has had many women councillors and up to 1945 three women Mayors. (fn. 164) Under the Police Act (1946) Cambridge and Peterborough were the only non-county boroughs to retain their own forces. By the Civil Defence Regulations of 1949 there was imposed on the Borough, together with only four other large non-county boroughs, the duty of recruiting, training, and administering its own division of the Civil Defence Corps. It is also an 'Excepted District' under the Education Act (1944) with delegated powers from the county council as the local education authority; and the Borough was recommended for county borough status by the Local Government Boundary Commission. The headquarters of the county council and two rural district councils are located in the City.
In the Second World War (fn. 165) Cambridge became an important centre for the defence of the east coast, an R.A.F. training centre, and the headquarters of regional organization for the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. It also served as an evacuation centre. Over 7,000 were billeted by the education officer in September 1939; but a large number both of school children and of adults returned to London, so that only 1,300 remained a year later. (fn. 166) In February 1941 the figure rose again to 5,500, and a third movement was started by the enemy's guided missiles in September 1944. Five of the 'Schools' of the University of London were transferred to Cambridge during the war. From 1941 the armed forces of the U.S.A. were spending their leave in Cambridge, occupying various centres from the Bull Hotel to Burleigh House on the Newmarket Road; an AngloAmerican Hospitality Committee was organized by the Mayor, and the old house that had served as Foster's Bank in the 1860's became the home of the English Speaking Union.
Amongst the special measures which the arrival of immigrants necessitated was the establishment of four British restaurants. These were at the Pitt Club (Jesus Lane), St. John's and St. Andrew's halls and the Romsey Labour Club. In the years 1941–5 some million and a half meals were served. For the civil defence of the town some 100 full-time and 2,500 part-time workers were enrolled and were placed under the control of the Borough surveyor. Fire protection was organized by the deputy town clerk. Cambridge suffered only intermittently from air raids. Apparently railways were the main target, and no ancient buildings were destroyed, the town profiting by the determination in 1844–5 of the conservatives to keep the railway station well away from the centre. Bombs fell some 22 times, and 29 persons were killed. On 2 August 1945 the freedom of the Borough was conferred on the U.S. Army Air Force which, operating from bases round about Cambridge, had done so much to defeat German attacks.
1. W. D. Bushell, Church of St. Mary the Great, 52–75.
2. Cooper, Annals, ii. 187–9, 205.
3. Ibid. 233, 234, 380 sqq., 498 sqq.
4. Cooper, Annals, iii. 52.
5. Ibid. ii. 59; V.C.H. Cambs. ii. 170, spells the name Fanne.
6. Cooper, Annals, iii. 229, n. 2. It may even go back to 1570, when Chaderton began to lecture at St. Clement's; see below, p. 128.
7. Cooper, Annals, iii. 130.
8. C.A.S. Comm. iv. 322, 331 sqq.
9. 1610–15 Dr. Richard Sibbes; 1624–8 Dr. John Preston; 1628–33 Dr. Thomas Goodwin; 1636 Dr. Benjamin Whichcote.
10. Cooper, Annals, iii. 168.
12. C.A.S. Comm. iv. 325.
13. Cooper, Annals, iii. 467.
15. C.A.S. Comm. xvii. 87, 105–6.
16. Cooper, Annals, iii. 166, 199, 252, 257, 287–8.
18. Ibid. 268, 300; v. 410.
19. Ibid. iii. 270, 285.
20. Ibid. 303–4; see below, p. 70.
21. Ibid. 304, n. 2.
23. C.J. ii. 87, 150, 172, 215, 218–19.
24. Cooper, Annals, iii. 311.
26. J. M. Gray, Biog. Notes on Mayors of Cambridge, 36.
27. Cooper, Annals, iii. 317.
28. A. Kingston, East Anglia and the Great Civil War, 29.
29. Cooper, Annals, iii. 321–2.
31. Hist. MSS. Com. 15th Rep. App. I, MSS. of Duke of Portland, i. 136.
32. A. Kingston, op. cit. 39.
33. Ibid. 56 sqq.; F. Varley, Cambridge during the Civil War, 81; Cooper, Annals, iii. 326–9; see p. 199.
34. Cooper, Annals, iii. 331.
35. Varley, op. cit. 103.
36. Cooper, Annals, iii. 350.
37. See below, p. 118. For further reports on the state of Cambridge defences down to May 1646 see letters to Lenthall in the Nalson Collection: Hist. MSS. Com. 13th Rep. App. I, MSS. of Duke of Portland, i. 136.
38. Varley, op. cit. 103–17; Cooper, Annals, iii. 340–1.
39. In 1643 there were some 14,000 parliamentary troops in the town and both the House of Lords and the Earl of Essex issued orders for the protection of the college buildings where they were quartered: Cooper, Annals, iii. 394; cf. Varley, op. cit. 53, 69; Hist. MSS. Com. 13th Rep. App. I, Portland MSS. i. 135.
40. Varley, op. cit. 137–8; Cooper, Annals, iii. 394.
41. Lowry to Speaker Lenthall, 1 Aug. 1645; Cooper, Annals, v. 414.
43. Cooper, Annals, v. 414 sqq.
44. Varley, op. cit. 86; Cooper, Annals, iii. 347.
45. A. Kingston, East Anglia and the Great Civil War, 91 sqq.
46. Cooper, Annals, iii. 355; Kingston, op. cit. 343–5.
47. Varley, op. cit. 91.
48. Three of the orders of the Cambridge Committee are in the Bowtell Collection at Downing College and are printed in Cooper, Annals, iii. 343–5.
49. Varley, op. cit. 90–93.
50. Cooper, Annals, iii. 338.
51. Ibid. 372–9, 439 sqq.
52. Varley, op. cit. 52–71, exposes the unsoundness of the allegations of the highly tendentious Querela Cantabrigiensis; but see p. 200.
53. Cooper, Annals, v. 412.
55. W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism (1912), 162, 189, 201, 295.
56. Cooper, Annals, iii. 477.
60. Bodl. MS. Rawl. C 948, pp. 29–34, mostly printed in C.A.S. Comm., xvii. 80–88, 105–8.
61. C.A.S. Comm., xvii. 93–96; Cooper, Annals, iii. 556.
62. See below, p. 70.
63. Cooper, Annals, iii. 598; but see Milne in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. 1951, p. 91.
64. Cooper, Annals, iii. 599.
66. Maitland and Bateson, Camb. Boro. Charts. 184–7.
67. Cooper, Annals, iii. 605.
69. Ibid. 636 sqq. On 19 Apr. 1688 the king's secret agents had reported, 'There's a necessity of a regulation of the present Magistracy, for they are wholey under the influence of the University, and such as cannott influence the electors': Sir Geo. Duckett, Penal Laws and Test Act, 323.
70. Cooper, Annals, iii. 639–40.
71. Diary of Samuel Newton (C.A.S. Publ. 1890), 91–92.
72. Cooper, Annals, iii. 638.
75. Ibid. 614–34; see pp. 211–13.
77. See below, p. 44.
78. Cooper, Annals, iv. 10, 28, 47.
80. Cooper, Annals, iv. 127–37.
81. B.M. Add. MS. 5855, f. 140.
82. See below, p. 71. Cole in 1780 speaks of 'faction' as prevalent in the Borough 'these last twenty or thirty years': B.M. Add. MS. 5855, f. 140.
83. B.M. Add. MS. 35626, 22 Mar. 1780.
84. B.M. Add. MS. 5855, f. 143, cited by G. W. Gignilliat, Life of Thomas Day (New York, 1932), 180–2.
85. For Robinson's 'Political Catechism' see Miscellaneous works of Robert Robinson, late pastor of the Baptist Church of Cambridge (1807), i. pp. lxxxv–xc; ii. pp. 257–362. For the chapel see below, p. 137.
86. Cooper, Annals, iv. 43.
89. J. M. Gray, Biog. Notes on Mayors of Cambridge, 48.
90. Cooper, Annals, iv. 373.
91. J. M. Gray, op. cit. 49, 51.
92. Cooper, Annals, iv. 379–80.
94. Camb. City Archives, Common Day Bk.
95. Cambridge Chronicle, 5 Oct. 1776; B.M. Add. MS. 5813, f. 232d. Mortlock himself was an Anglican.
96. Camb. City Archives Common Day Bk.
97. D. Winstanley, Univ. Camb. in 18th Cent. 166; Cooper, Annals, iv. 402. Goddard was godfather to Mortlock's first child: (Mortlock family Bible).
98. B.M. Add. MS. 35626, 23 Mar. 1780.
99. Cambridge Chronicle, 22 Apr. 1780.
100. Cooper, Annals, iv. 394.
101. J. M. Gray, Biog. Notes on Mayors of Cambridge, 52.
102. Gignilliat, Life of Thomas Day (New York, 1932), 182.
103. B.M. Add. MS. 35626, 20 Mar. 1780.
104. See below, p. 74.
105. Camb. Hist. Jnl. viii (1946), 145–65.
106. Cooper, Annals, iv. 406.
107. J. M. Gray, Mayors of Cambridge, 55.
108. Cooper, Annals, iv. 415; B.M. Add. MS. 35627, 17 Apr. 1785.
109. See below, p. 44.
110. Cooper, Annals, iv. 430–1; Maitland and Bateson, Camb. Boro. Charts. 143, 147, 181.
111. Cooper, Annals, v. 513. The relation came from Aldermen Newling, Finch, Purchas, and Bond, and it brought charges of improper application of corporation revenues to private uses, granting long leases at low rents, &c. against 6 aldermen, 8 common councillors, and 23 freemen.
112. See Camb. Hist. Jnl. viii. 163–4.
113. See below, pp. 73–74.
114. See below, p. 74, n. 81.
115. Cooper, Annals, iv. 425–6.
116. Ibid. 427. In 1799, when the young duke came of age, his uncle resigned the recordership saying that his only pretension to it was the duke's minority: ibid. iv. 464.
118. W. Whittred, Letter to the Freemen of Cambridge (1818), 20.
119. Report of Commissioners appointed to enquire into the existence of corrupt practices in the Borough of Cambridge— Minutes of Evidence, H.C.  p. 419 (1852–3), xlvi.
120. Cooper, Annals, iv. 442–3.
121. Gunning, Reminiscences, i. 139.
122. Whittred, op. cit. 21.
123. Report of Commissioners into Corrupt Practices (1852– 3), p. 418.
124. Cooper, Annals, iv. 443.
125. Ibid. 455. It is significant that the action is taken by the deputy-Mayor; Francis, Mayor in name 1794–5, is only a figurehead.
126. Gunning, Reminiscences, i. 276–9.
127. Cooper, Annals, iv. 462.
130. Ibid. 433, 453, 454, 464, 469, 471, 506.
132. Cooper, Annals, iv. 522 n.
136. Ibid. 530, 542, 544, 558, 567, 568, 573.
137. Ibid. 527, 529, 549.
139. Reflections on the Disorder of the Corporation (Cambridge, 1789).
140. The Times, 16 Nov. 1833.
141. See below, pp. 147–8.
142. For details see pp. 66–67.
143. Whittred, Letter to the Freemen of Cambridge, 23.
144. A Digested Report of the Evidence as to the Corporation of Cambridge, pub. H. Wallis (1833), 43; Trial and Acquittal of W. Hatfield (1820), 22.
145. See below, p. 104.
146. Cooper, Annals, iv. 505.
148. Rep. on Municipal Corporations, H.C. 116 pt. iv., p. 2204 (1835), xxvi.
149. Ibid., pp. 2191–4, 2207.
150. A lawyer, who draws a line at 1818, says, 'Mr. Mortlock conducted the business of magistrate very ably': ibid., p. 2191.
151. Rep. on Municipal Corporations, pp. 2186–8.
152. Reproduced as the frontispiece to E. Jebb, Cambridge, A Social Study, from a drawing found among the papers of a Cambridge solicitor.
153. Cooper, Annals, iv. 596. The wards, as subsequently set out, were East Barnwell, West Barnwell, Market, Trinity, and St. Andrew's: ibid. 597.
157. The initiation of this idea has been attributed to Alderman William Bond: F. A. Keynes, Gathering up the Threads, 39; see pp. 253, 286 for the settlements of 1856 and 1889 with the University.
158. Cooper, Annals, iv. 597.
159. Ibid. v. 110, 191. In 1862 the library was transferred to the Guildhall.
160. H. C. Darby, Cambridge Region, 178.
162. Market, Trumpington, Newnham, Castle, West Chesterton, East Chesterton, Abbey, St. Matthew's, Petersfield, Romsey, Coleridge, Cherry Hinton.
163. Borough of Cambridge Year Bk.
164. Mrs. Hartree, 1924; Mrs. Keynes, 1932; Lady Bragg, 1945.
165. For what follows see Camb. Rev. (1945), lxvii. 44–47; see p. 307.
166. Susan Isaacs, Cambridge Evacuation Survey (1941), 34 sqq.
167. A. S. F. Gow, Letters from Cambridge, 232.
168. Ex inf. Brigadier Rawdon Briggs; Kelly, Directory of Cambridge; Report of Pye Ltd. Cambridge (1951–2), 3.
169. Ex inf. Town Clerk. The change in title makes no practical difference in the powers and methods of local government.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.