Chapel stall-plates: R Hyam

CHAPEL STALL-PLATES

MASTERS, PRESIDENTS, BENEFACTORS, AND NOTABLES

Most colleges commemorate their Masters and Presidents and other distinguished Fellows by means of memorial tablets, usually in Chapel. Trinity has a spectacular collection of large brass plates with Latin inscriptions, placed in their spacious Ante-Chapel; St John’s has a series of varied stone tablets also in the Ante-Chapel; Girton is unique in having a large set of inscriptions carved directly into the oak panels lining the Chapel (with memorial stones for Mistresses since 1952). The Magdalene practice is, as you’d expect, more modest, but the cumulative effect by candlelight of small brass or bronze stallplates (approximately 7¼” x 4¼”) is undoubtedly pleasing. In all there are 47 of these, of which rather more than half are accounted for by Masters (continuous from 1853) and Presidents (intermittently from 1787). A number of benefactors are commemorated: from Christopher Wray (1538), John Spendluffe, Drue Drury and John Millington, to Henry Lumley (1950). Famous alumni include William Cecil (1810), Charles Kingsley (1838), George Mallory (1905), and Archbishop Michael Ramsey (1923). Distinguished Fellows (not being Presidents) are represented by Richard Cumberland (1649), Bishop of Peterborough, Sir Robert Grant (1795), Professor Alfred Newton (1840, the zoologist and pioneer conservationist), and Robert Latham. There are two members who were killed in the First World War (W H Charlesworth and J E Tollemache, both benefactors), and one undergraduate, killed in a road accident (Basil Davis, 1922).

The earliest Master to have a Chapel stall-plate is Dr Peter Peckard, who headed the College from 1781 to 1797, famous for his part in initiating the campaign against the Slave Trade, and a notable benefactor. There is however, a better enamelled commemorative plate in the Old Library (shown below).

Two 18th-century memorials; on the right, the earliest presidential plate

Four Masters: Neville-Grenville became Dean of Windsor; Ramsay, the longest-serving recent Master; Willink, a Baronet for public services; Gurdon (family arms), a Nobel Laureate.

It was decided in 1955 on the initiative of Sir Henry Willink to fill recent gaps (since 1937) in the presidential sequence, and Will Carter was commissioned to produce a batch of stall-plates; he continued to do so until 1982.

Most Presidents are not armigerous, and therefore tend to take the College arms. They also tend to be in office for shorter periods than Masters, and so, to forestall the proliferation of individual memorials, a composite plate was designed in 2006 by Lida Cardozo Kindersley, with a redrawn coat of arms. At about the same time the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop also provided a stall-plate for Michael Ramsey, with the heraldic colours of an Archbishop of Canterbury.

Design-drawings by Lida Cardozo Kindersley

The most recent addition (2015) is also by Lida Cardozo Kindersley:

Duncan Robinson, CBE (Photo: Cardozo Kindersley Workshop)

Two stall-plates commemorate two young men who met untimely deaths within a few months of each other:

On 1 March 1923, Basil Davis (1922) was killed in a head-on motorcycle collision with an Indian undergraduate from St Catharine’s, on the Ely road just outside Cambridge. Davis held a scholarship in Classics and History. In September 1924 George Mallory (1905) lost his life on Mount Everest. He took part in three expeditions to Everest, ‘because it was there’. The mystery of whether or not he reached the summit has never been solved.

Sir Robert Grant: as a Fellow 1802–1818 he wrote the hymn ‘O Worship the King’; as an MP he was a persistent champion for the removal of Jewish civil disabilities; Governor of Bombay (from 1835 until his death in 1838). William Cecil (1810), while a Fellow, demonstrated in 1820 a working internal combustion engine (employing hydrogen as fuel) and thus has a claim to be at least one of its inventors. Designed by Will Carter.

Robert Mayo (1909), OBE, was an aviation pioneer, Technical General Manager of Imperial Airways (the forerunner of British Airways) in the 1930s. He designed the aircraft which made the first commercial air flight to the USA and Canada in 1938. Designed by Will Carter. Robert Latham, CBE, FBA, was a Fellow 1970 and Pepys Librarian 1971–1982. The shield is based on a portion of Pepys’s coat of arms. Designed by Lida Cardozo Kindersley.

Photography by Nigel Hawkes, Computer Officer, text by RH, College Archivist.