Henry Alvey came from Nottinghamshire, matriculated at St John's in 1571, gained his BA in 1576, graduated MA in 1579 and BD in 1586. He was a Fellow from 1577 and became President of the College in 1590. In 1601 he relocated to Ireland, where he became Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. He returned to Cambridge in 1609.
Born 24 May 1840 in Westminster, Charles Taylor was the son of William and Catherine Taylor. After losing his father aged 5, Taylor moved to live in Hampstead. He was educated at St Marylebone and All Souls Grammar School, London (in union with King's College), and afterwards at King's College itself. He won prizes at both of these schools, and it was at King's College that he began his lifelong friendship with Ingram Bywater (later Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford).
Taylor entered St John's College in October 1858, where initially he devoted most of his attention to mathematics. In 1860 he was elected to one of the new foundation scholarships, and in 1862 he obtained his BA as 9th Wrangler and was also placed in the second class of the classical tripos. In 1863, he obtained a First in the theological exam, and in 1864 he won the Crosse scholarship and the first Tyrwhitt scholarship. He was elected to a fellowship in 1864; obtaining his MA in 1865, the Kaye Prize in 1867, and his DD in 1881. Taylor also had interests in the Church, and was ordained deacon in 1866, priest in 1867, and was Curate of St Andrew the Great 1887-8. He was also Select Preacher at Cambridge 1887, 1893, and 1899, and 1873 he was appointed as College Lecturer in Theology; a position from which he soon made his mark as a Hebrew scholar.
In 1877-8, Taylor took an active part in the revision of the statutes of the College, and in 1879 he was chosen as one of three commissioners to represent the College in conferring with the University Commission. Before these new statutes could come into force, the College Master, W. H. Bateson, died, and Taylor was elected as his successor on 12 April 1881. From November 1880 Taylor was a member of the Council of the University. He represented the university at the 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard, where he received an honorary degree on 8 November 1886. He served in the office of Vice-Chancellor of the university 1887-9, and in 1889 he was one of two university aldermen who were chosen as members of the borough of Cambridge; an office he retained until 1895. He made important donations to both the University Library and to St John's College (including the Lady Margaret Boat Club), and published many works from 1863 onwards. He was also President of the University Theological Society 1902-3, and of the Philological Society 1900-1.
As a student at St John's, Taylor was fond of sculling and rowed in the college boat races from 1863-6. He was always a great walker, and proved to be an energetic mountaineer during the period 1870-8; writing for the Alpine Journal in 1872, and being a member of the Alpine Club from 1873 until his death. In October 1907, Taylor married Margaret Sophia (1877-1962), daughter of the Hon. Conrad Adderly Dillon, but he then died suddenly less than a year later on 12 August 1908 whilst on a foreign tour at the Goldner Adler, Nuremberg. After a funeral service in St John's College, his body was buried in St Giles's cemetery, Cambridge, on the 17th. A stained-glass window was placed in the College Chapel by his widow to commemorate him.
The priory was probably founded c. 1148 - c. 1151, originally as a daughter house of St Sulpice in Brittany. Mary, daughter of King Stephen, was a nun at St Sulpice and moved with some other nuns from St Sulpice to the nunnery of St Leonard, Stratford at Bow. When tensions arose between the nuns of St Sulpice and St Leonard it was agreed that she and the St Sulpice nuns should settle at Lillechurch in the parish of Higham, in a priory founded by her parents. The patent rolls of 1266 state that King John (1189-1199) granted the manor of Lillechurch to the priory, but this may be the confirmation of a grant by a predecessor, i.e. Stephen. In 1227 Henry III granted the manor to the Abbey of St Mary and St Sulpice and the prioress and nuns of Lillechurch in frankalmoign, with an annual fair. In 1346 the nuns were granted a licence by Edward III to acquire land in Higham. However, the names Lillechurch and Higham were used interchangeably to describe the priory from at least the 1230s. The process of dissolution began in 1521, by which time Lillechurch / Higham was decaying and there were only three nuns left. Henry VIII granted the priory to St John's College on 21 October 1522, with all its possessions in Higham, Lillechurch, Shorne, Elmley, Dartford, Yalding, Brenchley, Pympe, Lamberhurst, Cliffe, Hoo, Horndon on the Hill, and 'Hylbrondeslands' in the counties of Kent and Essex. The commissary of the bishop carried out the appropriation on 19 May 1523, and it was confirmed by the bishop and the dean and chapter in March 1524, and by the archdeacon of Rochester on 1 May 1525. Pope Clement VII confirmed it by a bull dated 28 September 1524.
Richard Longworth matriculated as a pensioner in 1549. He graduated B.A. in 1553, M.A. in 1556, B.D. in 1563 and D.D. in 1567. Longworth was a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge from 1553-1557 and a fellow of St John's from 1559. He was elected to the Mastership of St John's in 1564 but was deprived of the position by College's Visitor, the Bishop of Ely (Richard Cox) in 1569. Longworth was an enthusiastic Protestant and under his mastership the College had become a Protestant force in the university. Under Longworth, the Master and others refused to wear the surplice in chapel and Longworth was summoned to London to explain himself. The Visitor was called on to intervene as a result of internal feuding and dissension within the College.
Thomas Lever was an English Protestant reformer and Marian exile, one of the founders of the Puritan tendancy in the Church of England. He was from Little Lever, Lancashire. Lever graduated B.A. from St John's in 1541/2 and was elected to the Fellowship in 1543. From 1547, he along with Roger Hutchinson led the discussion of the mass and transubstantiation in the College. Lever was Master of the College from 1551-1553.
Born on 7th June 1879 in Wiltshire, the son of Arthur Gregory and Eliza Standerwick Barnes, and schooled at Weston-Super-Mare, Reginald Gregory matriculated at St John’s in 1898. In 1901 he graduated BA in the Natural Sciences Tripos, with a focus on Botany in Part II. Elected to the Fellowship in 1904, and University Lecturer in botany in 1907, he became a Tutor in 1912 and was popular with students and colleagues.
While his mother was known for her work on the genus Viola, Reginald Gregory focussed on the genetics and cytology of plants, having many papers published on the subject in scientific journals.
At outbreak of the First World War Gregory joined the Cambridge University Officers’ Training Corp, teaching cadets at the Cambridge School, and later served in as 2nd Lieutenant in the Gloucester Regiment. In August 1917 he was discharged from the Army after being badly gassed, and in November 1918 died from pneumonia brought on by influenza. He left his wife, Joan Laidlay and three daughters.
Obituary in The Eagle: Vol 40, Lent 1919, p117
Barnwell Priory was founded in 1092 by Picot of Cambridge and construction was finally completed in 1112. The Priory was extremely wealthy during its time, with the number of monks rising from 6 to over 30. Additionally, it was chosen as the location for a Parliament held in Cambridge during the reign of Richard II.
The Priory became a target during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 which caused a reported loss of £1000. It was dismantled in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and stood as a ruin until 1810 when the land was cleared. Today, a school nearby is named after the Abbey and several streets in the area are named after former Priors.
The origins of St. Radegund's Priory (also known as the Priory of St. Mary and St. Radegund) are unknown, though it is likely it was founded in the earliest years of the reign of King Stephen, during the episcopate of Nigellus, Bishop of Ely. There seem to be no records of its patronage; in 1496, when Bishop Alcock planned to convert the Priory into a college, he stated that it was 'of the foundation and patronage of the Bishop of Ely', though this assertion has been questioned.
During its time, though the Priory was given numerous small benefactions and gifts of land, it was never wealthy, with its poverty said to be notorious by 1277. This contributed to the Priory falling into a bad state of repair as there were not the funds necessary to fix damage caused by storms and fires. These conditions as well as the extravagant and dissolute life of the nuns, attributed to their proximity to the University of Cambridge, led to Henry VI in 1496 granting permission to Bishop Alcock to take the buildings and estates of the Priory for the foundation of what is known today as Jesus College, Cambridge.
Denny Abbey was founded in 1159 as a Benedictine monastery and is the only religious site in England to have been occupied by three different monastic orders at various times in its history. It was handed over to the Knights Templar in 1170 as a home for their aged and infirm members. In 1308, when the Templars were arrested for alleged heresy, the Abbey became a convent for a group of Franciscan nuns known as the Poor Clares. Their patron, the Countess of Pembroke, converted the original church into private apartments and built a new church, refectory and other buildings. Following the dissolution of the nunnery in 1539 by Henry VIII, it was converted into a farm and was in use until the late 1960s when it was acquired by Pembroke College and placed in the care of what is now English Heritage.
Chertsey Abbey was founded in 666 by Erkenwald, a prince from Stallingborough, Lincolnshire, who was said to be related to Offa, King of East Anglia. The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine House, dedicated to St. Peter, and grew to become the fifth largest monastery in the country, with land covering 50,000 acres. Little is recorded of the Abbey before the mid 11th century, however it is known to have been the subject of a Viking raid in 871, after which it was rebuilt and had its land confirmed in a Charter of 889. The Abbey also suffered at least two fires in 1235 and 1381 as part of the Peasants' Revolt.
Throughout its history, Chertsey Abbey was regularly visited by the King, including King John, Henry III who held court there in 1217, Edward III and Henry VIII. The Abbey was dissolved in 1537 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with its monks sent to Bisham to create a new order specifically to pray for the soul of Jane Seymour. However, this new House was dissolved in less than a year and within a century, the empty buildings of Chertsey Abbey had been destroyed.
Dr George Colin Lawder Bertram was born in Worcester in April 1911, the son of Frank Bertram, Deputy Director of Civil Aviation, Air Ministry. He read Natural Sciences at St John’s College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1932 and gaining a PhD in 1939. He was awarded the Polar Medal in 1937, after taking part in the British Graham Land Exhibition from 1934-37 as Biologist.
Bertram was appointed Tutor at St John’s in 1945 and became Senior Tutor in 1965, serving in this position until 1972. During his time as a Tutor he was the Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute for eight years between 1949 and 1957. Throughout his life he published numerous papers and books on the arctic, zoological and population. He remained a Fellow of the College from 1972 until his death in 2001.
He married Kate Ricardo in 1939, and was survived by four sons.
Obituary in The Eagle: Vol 83, 2001, p. 69
The Reverend John Hymers was born in Omersby, Cleveland in July 1803, where his father occupied a farm on an estate. He was elected to Sizar and matriculated at St John’s in 1822; graduated Second Wrangler in 1826, before being elected Fellow a year later. He was appointed Moderator in the University in 1833 and 1834, and Lady Margaret’s Preacher in 1841. Alongside this, at St John’s he became Assistant Tutor in 1829, Tutor in 1832, and President in 1848.
He was well known for being a strong teacher and getting the best out of his pupils academically. He authored several works on mathematics throughout his lifetime.
Hymers was elected to the Rectory of Brandsburton in Holderness in 1852, where he remained until his death in 1887.
On his death he bequeathed a large sum of money for the foundation of a Grammar School in Hull, to enable academically gifted pupils from any background to receive an education. This led to the foundation of Hymers College in 1893, and is still in existence today.
Obituary in The Eagle: Vol 14, 1887, p398