Annual Review 2011
‘Fellows’ Speedy Relief ’ Digging for tree-planting to the north of the Fellows’ Garden the College gardeners came across a few pieces of Victorian glass and earthenware. This encouraged Mick Gooch of the Maintenance Department to turn archaeologist and extend the ‘dig’. Our photograph shows a selection of his smaller finds. Archive research locates the 19th century College ‘dump’ in approximately this area, which would then have been at the furthest extremity of the kitchen gardens. On the right of the picture the dark pottery bottles with pouring lips would have held ink – long expended on early essays and equations. Of special interest is the glass bottle from Fellows and Co, chemists of St John New Brunswick. How did that get here? In the mid 19th century Israel Fellows established in North America a flourishing and lucrative business in the sales of his Syrup of Hypophosphites. His son Israel James moved to England in 1863 and, by means of ‘a judicious system of advertising and an energetic method of doing business’, he established a good trade selling Fellows’ Worm Lozenges, Fellows’ Speedy Relief, and Fellows’ Dyspepsia Bitters. They probably reached Cambridge just in time for the College’s move there ten years later. If Maintenance should chance to find a full bottle of Fellows’ Speedy Relief, the retiring editor will be happy to start his own ‘energetic method of doing business’ and auction it among his colleagues. Peter Sparks
Girton Chamber Music Scheme When I came to take up my Research Fellowship at Girton in English and Music this year, I thought I was putting my previous life as an orchestral manager in London far behind me. However it turns out that the instinct to organise musicians into groups (rather like a sheepdog with a flock) runs far deeper than I thought. From my own experiences as a cellist at Cambridge in the late 1990s, I remember well how easy it is to find like-minded players, and musicians of the same standard, if you are lucky enough to be selected to be on the Instrumental Awards Scheme. You are assigned a group, and given coaching with professionals, so all the difficulties of finding the right players (and matching standards is essential to the success of a chamber music group), choosing repertoire, and making the group happen, are taken out of your hands. It is a privilege for a very select handful of players, from throughout the undergraduate community, and a wonderful experience (generally) for those on the scheme, but often a very different matter for the majority excluded from it. 42