Fellow of Magdalene College, 1953-1983
Professor of Veterinary Clinical Studies, 1951-1963
Attended Bristol Grammar School
Trained in Chinese at Cambridge (1967), and at New Asia Research Institute, Hong Kong (1963)
1965-85 University Lecturer in Modern Chinese, at the University of Oxford
1985-89 Professor of Chinese at Cambridge
1989-2000 Shaw Professor of Chinese
Taught Chinese literature at Yale University, UC Berkeley, Beijing Normal University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong
He was an Honorary Academy Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1996)
He served as president of the European Association for Chinese Studies from 1998 to 2002
He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1984
Born in Rochester and educated at Repton School and Magdalene College, Cambridge
During World War II he was an assistant adjutant in the Rifle Brigade. After the war he worked for the Ford Motor Company
1952-55 Secretary to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
1955 joined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
1960-70 assistant general administrator
1960-80 general administrator until 1980, when it was renamed general director
1988 retired
Augustine was born to Joseph Brimley and Jane Gutteridge and baptised at the Baptist church in Blunham Bedfordshire.
He married Hannah Gotobed (1789–1825) on 11 March 1819. They had at least four children: George (1819), Harriet (1821-1822) and Caroline (1823). Hannah died in 1825 at the age of 35. Augustine went on to marry her sister Harriet (1795-1833) on the 24 June 1827 at St Georges Church, Hanover Square, London. They had 2 children Harriett (1829) and Fanny (1831). Harriett died in 1933 after a long illness, aged 39.
Mayor A.G. Brimley from Mayors of Cambridge:
Augustine was a grocer, wholesale grocer, hop and provision merchant, a Deacon at St Andrew’s Baptist church and an Alderman of the borough, serving on many committees. From 1853 to 1854 he served at Mayor and on one occasion he met Prince Albert.
In 1841 Augustine and George were living at 4 Hills Road, Cambridge. In 1851 he was living at 13 Park Terrace, Cambridge with 2 unmarried daughters. Harriet who married William Henry Farthing Johnson and Caroline who married Alexander Macmillan, and two sisters in law.
Frederick was born in Cambridge and was the third son of solicitor Stephen Adcock (1803-1867) and his wife Johanna (née Poland) (1805-1883).
He went to the Perse School, Cambridge and then to Jesus College Cambridge. He studied Law and obtained his L.L.B in 1866 and his L.L.M in 1869. He did not go to Jesus College until 1862 and was already working as a solicitor before entering University life.
He married widow Fanny Hardwicke at St George’s Church, Hannover Square in London on 31 January 1859. They had at least three children: Laura Belle (1861-1922), Emma Robinson (1862-1875) and Richard Robinson (1865-1905). He practised at 7 Regent Terrace (1861) and was widowed in 1867 when he was 32 years old.
He married for a second time to Mary Moseley at St Mark’s Church, Tollington Park, London on 3 May 1870, and was widowed for a second time in 1875. He died at his home at 30 Regent Street aged 47 years old.
Edward Fenton was an undergraduate at Magdalene College (admitted 1977).
He has worked as a writer, publisher and editor. He started out as a music journalist for NME, before getting his first job in publishing. His novel Scorched Earth won the Sinclair Prize for Fiction.
He has written and/or researched over twenty radio documentaries, broadcast on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4, including a documentary on Samuel Pepys’s love of music. He has a particular interest in diaries, and in 1998 he set up an independent publishing company, Day Books.
Robert Painter worked with his son Robert Painter Junior. Need more evidence to work out their dates and which is submitting the bill. This could be worked out by a closer inspection of handwriting.
Benedict Spinola was a Genoese money lender. He saw the potential of the land in London that had been granted by Lord Audley to the College on its foundation.
Due to an Act of 1571 he could not lease the land directly from the College so the College granted the freehold of the land (seven acres of land in the Parish of St Botolph without Aldgate) to Queen Elizabeth I in return for a perpetual rent chatge of £15 a year (13 Dec 1574). The grant was to be invalid if the Queen did not convey the land to Spinola by 1 April 1575. However, the Queen who was repeatedly in debt to Spinola, took only 6 weeks to complete the transfer.
Why did the College give away its most valuable asset to Spinola? Mainly due to pressure from Lord Burghley.
The immediate effect was to see the College's income rise from £6 per annum to £15. But Spinola quickly divided the property into different plots and began building on them. He then sold his interest in the estate to the Earl of Oxford. By the early 17th century the estate was worth £10,000 with a yearly income of £800.
When Barnaby Goche (lawyer) became Master of the College he set about legal proceedings to challenge the legal validity of the transfer to the Earl of Oxford.
In 1615 the Chief Justice found for the College but the Earl of Oxford appealed and the case went to Chancery where they found against the College.
Goche and Smith were outraged and protested that they had aleady secured judgement. They only succeeded in securing a spell in the Fleet Prison.
The College tried to over turn the ruling in 1621 and during Charles II's reign. Between 1805 and 1807 the College spent more than £100 trying to secure legal opinion for their case and A.C. Benson tried again in 1914 but all to no avail.
[A History of Magdalene College, 1428-1988, Cunich et al]
Harry Redfern was a British architect. He was articled to Henry Woodyer in 1876 and subsequently worked for William Butterfield, Alfred Lawers, Alfred Young Nutt, Peter Dollar, and William Young. In 1889 he established an independent practice in Derby, then worked in partnership with J. J. Stevenson from 1896 until Stevenson's death in 1908. He became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1903.
At the University of Cambridge he was the architect of the chemical, metallurgical, physical and biological laboratories, and restored portions of Christ's College and Magdalene College. At Oxford he carried out additions and restoration work at Oriel College and St John's College; and was architect of the biochemistry laboratories.
Frances Wray was the daughter of the Magdalene benefactor Sir Christopher Wray.
She married her brother’s friend, Sir George St Paul (1562-1613), who had homes at Melwood Grange , Epworth, and Snarford in Lindsey.
He was an ardent puritan. His grandmother was Jane Askew, sister of the famous Protestant martyr Anne Askew.
Frances and St Paul’s only child, a daughter, had died in 1597 and much of their wealth was spent on charity. They supported ten old men and old women and young tradesmen in Market Rasen where St Paul also funded a schoolmaster and supported a hospital. He died in 1613.
Frances and her sister Isabel together are credited with financing the Cambridge education of the puritan rector of Worksop Richard Bernard and he dedicated his book, Christian Advertisement, to St Paul and Frances.
Frances then married Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick, who was also a puritan. She was described in later life as ‘a person of shining conversation and eminent bounty’ and who supported her father’s patronage of Magdalene College at Cambridge with three Fellowships and six scholarships. The Countess of Warwick, as she had now become, continued to support the university education of suitable young men such as Edward Reyner, who graduated in 1621 and then became master of Sir George St Paul’s school in Market Rasen. During the Civil War he was nearly murdered by Royalists in the cathedral library, but was saved by a past pupil; later he preached to the Parliamentary army at the siege of Newark.
Baptised in January 1740
School - Shrewsbury
Admitted as a pensioner at Magdalene college on 31 Dec 1758
Matriculated Michaelmas 1759
B.A. 1763; M.A. 1766
Made a Fellow in 1763
Ordained a deacon (Norwich) 18 Dec 1763
Worked for Jeffs and Dawson.
Son of William Thompson (clerk). Born at Well, Lincolnshire
School - Alford
Admitted sizar (age 18) at Magdalene on 3 Jan 1724
B.A. 1728
M.A. 1731
Fellow, 1728
Ordained deacon (Lincoln) 22 Feb 1730; priest, 19 Sept 1731
Curate of Chapel Allerton (West Riding of Yorkshire)
Died May 1734
Master of Magdalene College, 1760-74
Son of the Rev. Josiah Sandby, Prebend of Worcester
Matriculated from Merton College, Oxford, 5 April 1734, age 17
B.A. (Oxford) 1737; M.A. (Oxford) 1740
M.A. 1760, incorported from Oxford; D.D. 1760
Vice-Chancellor, 1760-61
Rector of Denton, Norfolk, 1750-1807
Rector of Skeyton
Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich, 1768
Died 24 March 1807, aged 90, at Denton
Succeeded Charles Prosser as College cook in 1846.
Edward Hills of Littleport.
1851 census – listed as a cook (that is, caterer) employing three men and two women, and living at 6 Magdalene Street.
1861 census - lived at 8 Magdalene Street, and is listed as ‘Master Cook’, employing four men.
His houses stood in the row that was demolished for street-widening in the early twentieth century. Today, their foundations lie under the Master’s front garden and Benson Hall.
Hills died in 1866, aged about 53.
Hills was succeeded by John Hobson.
Born on 15 October 1882 the son of Rev. Charles MacMichael of Walpole Rectory, Wisbech
Educated at Bedford Grammar School
Admitted pensioner 28 July 1901
There is a photograph of him in the Football team (1904-1905 - see MCCP/AVP/2 and a carte de visite size portrait in MCPP/AVP4)
He was a member of the Boat Club and rowed in the Lent and May Boats in 1902, 1903, 1904 and 1905. He was Secretary in 1903 and Captain in 1904
After leaving Magdalene he passed his civil service exam and entered the Sudan Political Service in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He then served in the Blue Nile Province until 1915, when he became a senior inspector of Khartoum Province. He rose to the position of civil secretary in 1926. In 1933, he became governor of Tanganyika until 1937.
In 1938 he became High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine.
In 1942 he was blamed for sending at least 768 Jewish refugees aboard MV Struma to their deaths.
During his tenure, he was the target of seven unsuccessful assassination attempts.
MacMichael also served as High Commissioner of Malta.
Alasdair Rennie is an award winning artist who paints portraits, landscapes and still-life, he is an accomplished figurative sculptor and muralist.
An English painter of portraits and historical scenes. Briggs was born at Walworth, County Durham, the son of a post office official. His cousin was Amelia Opie (née Alderson), the wife of artist John Opie (whose portrait was later painted by Briggs). While still at school at Epping he sent two engravings to the Gentleman's Magazine and in 1811 entered as a student at the Royal Academy, London, where he began to exhibit in 1814. From that time onwards until his death he was a constant exhibitor at the annual exhibitions of the Academy, as well as the British Institution, his paintings being for the most part historical in subject. After his election as a Royal Academician (RA) in 1832 he devoted his attention almost exclusively to portraiture. Briggs died, of tuberculosis in London on 18 January 1844, aged 50/51.
Of Milanese Jewish descent, Limentani left fascist Italy in July 1939. He joined the Italian Dept of the University in 1945, and became the Professor of Italian, 1964-1982; he was particularly well-known for his work on Dante. He was a professorial Fellow of the College from 1964, and an Honorary Fellow in 1988. He was awarded the gold medal of the Italian Government for services to scholarship (1982). He gave a wonderful rendition of the Crowland grace before dinner.
Obituary: College Magazine, No. 34 (1989-90)
Master of Magdalene College, 1813 - 1853
Third son of 2nd Baron Braybrooke, he assumed the name of Grenville in recognition of a legacy from a maternal uncle. Educated at Trinity College.
He was appointed Master by his father at the controversial age of 24. This made him ineligible on two accounts as the Master should be 30 years of age 'or thereabouts' and in Holy Orders. The first was ignored and the second was resolved when he was hastily ordained deacon and priest on the same day in Trinity College Chapel.
As a Master of a College he valued good breeding and gentlemanly behaviour and was addicted to genealogy and noble pedigrees. Academic activity was low on his list of priorities.
To provide more undergraduate rooms he moved out of First Court and into a separate new Lodge in 1835.
He was also responsible for starting a project to transcribe and publish Samuel Pepys' diary which had lain unread and virtually unknown in the library [see Cunich, P., Hoyle, D., Duffy, E., Hyam, R., A History of Magdalene College Cambridge, 1428-1988 pp. 195-199 and Latham, R. C. Pepys and his Editors (Occasional Paper no 6, 1992, p. 2) for further details]
Vice-Chancellor, 1818-1819
Dean of Windsor, 1846
Arms in Hall glass, E3. Memorial brass in Chapel.
Lord Thomas Audley’s son-in-law and successor, in virtue of his second marriage in 1558 to Margaret Audley, Thomas Audley’s daughter. A courtier and diplomat, who became probably the richest man in England, and who (fatally) planned to marry (as his fourth wife) Mary Queen of Scots. He was a benefactor to the College, though not to the extent promised (1564) in terms of funds and endowment, owing to imprisonment in 1568 and subsequent execution for treason. He made no appointment to the Mastership.
Anglo-Hungarian painter known particularly for his portraits of royal and aristocratic personages. In 1900, he married Lucy Guinness of Stillorgan, County Dublin, and he became a British subject in 1914
Irish artist, painter and designer. He was born in Dublin and studied architecture at the Bolton Street College of Technology. His painting style was strongly influenced by pop art. He is particularly well known for his hyperrealistic renderings of well known Irish literary, historical or establishment figures.
University Serena Professor of Italian (1929-1933), and formerly Professor of English at Naples. A stylish scholar, translator and poet, who died aged 46 from tuberculosis.
Made a Fellow in 1929.
‘Piccoli had it in him to be one of the dominant men of intellectual Europe – perhaps to bring English thought and feeling into that living touch with Europe (not Paris) we have so long needed’ (College Magazine vol. 70 (1933) pp.65-67).
‘By temperament he was a Neapolitan and he liked to explain his bold almost mask-like features – out of which the prominent mobile eyes piercingly, kindly, ironically, pensively, but always livingly, glanced – as proof of the survival of the ancient Numidian Mediterranean race, the race of Hannibal and Augustine’(College Magazine vol. 70 (1933) pp.65-67).