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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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Robert Booth matriculated as a sizar at St John's, 1565, graduated BA 1571, MA 1574, and was made a Fellow of St John's in 1573, where he also served as Bursar. He came from Cheshire and was probably the son of John Booth of Dunham Massey. Booth seems to have been in the household of the Countess of Shrewsbury and it was through his advocacy that St John's Second Court was built. He made a bequest of £300 to pay for a fountain in Second Court, but the money was used for other purposes

Joseph Robson Tanner was born on the 28th July 1860, the son of Joseph Tanner, who headed a printing firm in Somerset. He was educated at Mill Hill School, before coming up to St John’s in 1879. There, he placed in the First Class of the Historical Tripos, and was both Treasurer and President of the Union Society. Tanner became a Fellow of the College in 1886; from there, he also held posts as College Lecturer in History (1883-1912), Director of Historical Studies (1905-1920), Assistant Tutor (1895-1900), Tutor (1900-1912) and Tutorial Bursar (1900-1921). He was also a member of the Council of the Senate, the Press Syndicate, and edited the Historical Register of the University of Cambridge.
Tanner continued to write frequently after his post-war retirement from College services, producing and editing works such as the Cambridge Medieval History, Samuel Pepys and the Royal Navy, and English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century.
Tanner was married in 1888, to Charlotte Maria Larkman. He died on the 16th January 1931, and his funeral was held in the College Chapel the following week.

Obituary in the Eagle: Vol. 46, Easter 1931, p. 184

James Pilkington, was the son of Richard Pilkington and his wife, Alice, of Rivington, Lancashire. He was one of seven boys, his younger brother Leonard (1527-1599) was also Master of St John's. James Pilkington entered Pembroke College at 16 but soon transferred to St John's, receiving his B.A. in 1539. He was elected to the Fellowship shortly after receiving his degree. He became a senior fellow and preacher, taking part in the a disputation on transubstantiation. He was ordained between 1547-1550 and was presented to the vicarage of Kirby in Kendal by Edward VI but he resigned to continue his studies at Cambridge, taking his BTh. in 1551.

Pilkington left for the continent upon Mary's accession to the throne, travelling to Switzerland and Germany. He was appointed Master of St John's shortly after his return to England in 1559. In February 1561 he was made Bishop of Durham and resigned the mastership of SJC in October of that year. He was succeeded by his brother Leonard.

For more information see the Oxford DNB

Leonard Pilkington, was the younger brother of James Pilkingon. He, like his brother, was born at Rivington, Lancashire. Leonard matriculated at St John's as a sizar and graduated BA in 1544. He was appointed to the fellowship in 1546 and proceeded to the MA the following year. He was named mathematical examiner at the College in 1548, lecturer in mathematics in 1550 and a senior fellow in 1551. He was ordained a deacon at St Paul's, London in May 1552, and he was appointed preacher at St John's later that year. He was forced to resign his fellowship shortly after Mary took the throne. He left England like his brother. He returned to England upon Elizabeth's accession. He was named Master of the College on 19 October 1561 succeeding his brother James.
For more information see the Oxford DNB

Joseph Timmis Ward was born in Banbury in 1853, and subsequently educated at King’s School, Rochester. He was matriculated at St John’s in 1872, and took his degree in 1876 as Senior Wrangler. Following this, he was first Smith’s prizeman, and was elected to a Fellowship that lasted until his death.
Ward was ordained as a deacon in 1877, and then as a priest at Ely in 1879. After returning to Cambridge, he became mathematical lecturer at St John’s, where he also served as a tutor for twelve years started in 1883. From 1896 to 1903, he was also Senior Dean.
Ward was an original founder of Westcott House, Cambridge. He was a supporter of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, and served as Secretary of the Committee for the St John’s College Mission at Walworth c.1906-1910. He died in Cambridge on the 23rd June 1935.

Obituary in the Eagle: Vol. 49, Mich 1935, p. 122

Adams was born at Lidcot farm, Cornwall, in 1819, the eldest son of a tenant farmer. He developed an early interest in astronomy and in 1831 was sent to his cousin's academy, where he distinguished himself in classics and spent his spare time on astronomy and mathematics. Adams's progress was such that his parents decided that he should be sent to university, and in October 1839 he sat for examinations at St John's College and won a sizarship. In July 1841, at the end of his second year, he wrote himself the following memorandum: 'Formed a design ... of investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree, the irregularities in the motion of Uranus, which are yet unaccounted for; in order to find whether they may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet beyond it ...' Having won the highest mathematical prizes in his college, Adams graduated in 1843 as senior wrangler and won a fellowship. He could now return to his deferred investigation of Uranus. By October 1843 Adams, aged just 24, had arrived at a solution of the inverse perturbation problem and although his first result was approximate, it convinced him that the disturbances of Uranus were due to an undiscovered planet.

In February 1844 Adams applied to the astronomer royal, Sir George Biddell Airy, for more exact data on Uranus. With Airy's figures Adams then computed values for the elliptic elements, mass, and heliocentric longitude of the hypothetical planet. He gave his results to James Challis, Director of the Cambridge Observatory, in September 1845, and after two unsuccessful attempts to present his work to Airy in person, left a copy at the Royal Observatory in October. Airy replied to Adams a few weeks later but did not institute a search for the planet until July 1846.

In the meantime the French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier had independently published several papers on Uranus and reached the same conclusions as Adams regarding an exterior planet. It was as a result of Le Verrier's efforts that Johann Gottfried Galle, of the Berlin Observatory, discovered Neptune on 23 September 1846, less than one degree distant from where Le Verrier had predicted it would lie. While Le Verrier was showered with honours, Adams's earlier prediction, which agreed closely with Le Verrier's, remained unpublished. First publicised in a letter from Sir John Herschel to the London Athenaeum in October 1846 it provoked a long and bitter controversy over priority of discovery and the issue became a public sensation. Adams and Le Verrier themselves, however, met at Oxford in 1847 and became good friends. Adams was offered a knighthood by Queen Victoria in 1847 but declined. In 1848 the Adams Prize was founded at Cambridge and the Royal Society awarded him its highest award, the Copley Medal.

Adams was elected President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1851 and began work on lunar theory. On the expiration of his fellowship at St John's he moved to Pembroke College in 1853 and shortly afterwards presented to the Royal Society a remarkable paper on the secular acceleration of the Moon's mean motion, showing Laplace's 1788 solution to be incorrect. While this provoked a sharp scientific controversy, Adams was later proved to be right.

In 1858 Adams became Professor of Mathematics at St Andrew's University but returned to Cambridge in 1859 to become Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry. In 1861 he took over as Director of the Cambridge Observatory and two years later married Eliza Bruce of Dublin. In the 1860s and 70s he undertook work on the Leonid system, observations for the Astronomische Gesellschaft program, work on Bernoulli numbers and Euler's constant, and the arrangement and cataloguing of Newton's mathematical papers, presented to Cambridge University by Lord Portsmouth. While much of Adams's later work has been superseded, as the co-discoverer of Neptune he occupies a special place in the history of science.