A map of Cambridge will appear here, as soon as we have finished drawing it! In the meantime, please click on one of the links below, to discover more about the city in 1830.
Darwin's recollection of an altercation in the streets of Cambridge
Darwin's recollection of an altercation on the streets of Cambridge
“I once saw in his [Henslow's] company in the streets of Cambridge almost as horrid a scene, as could have been witnessed during the French Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been arrested and whilst being taken to prison had been torn from the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged them by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They were covered from head to foot with mud and their faces were bleeding either from having been kicked or from the stones; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures. Never in my life have I seen such wrath painted on a man's face, as was shown by Henslow at this horrid scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob; but it was simply impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to follow him, to get more policemen. I forget the issue, except that the two were got into the prison before being killed.”
The Botanical Garden
Cambridge's first Botanical Garden was created in the mid-1700s by the University's then Chair of Botany, the Reverend Thomas Martyn. It was situated on an area of about five acres adjacent to Free School Lane, on a site later occupied in part by the Cavendish Laboratory. When Martyn died in 1825, the Garden gradually fell into dereliction, due, in part, to the general lack of enthusiasm for Botany within the University. By the time that Darwin came to study in Cambridge, the Garden were in a very bad state indeed; in the words of Henslow “completely unsuited to the demands of modern science”.
Henslow's efforts to secure a location for the Botanical Garden finally bore fruit in 1831, when the present site on Trumpington Road was purchased. The new Garden was not opened until 1846.
King's College Chapel
Although Darwin had, by his own admission, very little musical talent, he loved choral music, and would often visit King's College Chapel, either on his own or with friends, to listen to the choir sing evensong. It should not be forgotten that Darwin's studies in Cambridge were intended to prepare him for the ministry, and that he still held strong religious convictions whilst an undergraduate, so visiting the chapels of King's and other colleges would have been significant from a religious as well as a musical perspective.
“I acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often to time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in King's College Chapel. This gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there was no affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I used generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived pleasure from music.”
The Red Lion Inn
The Red Lion Inn coaching establishment once occupied some of the area where the Lion Yard Shopping Centre now stands. Conveniently close to Christ's College, Darwin certainly got to know this pub whilst an undergraduate, and it is possible that he stabled his horse here. Darwin also stayed at the Red Lion when he returned to Cambridge in the Autumn of 1831, and it was from here that he wrote to Henslow to accept his place on board the Beagle.
The Senate House
Charles Darwin returned to Cambridge in 1877, to receive his honorary doctorate in law. The ceremony took place on Saturday 17th November, in the Senate House, an impressive neo-classical building, which was constructed in the early eighteenth century by the architect James Gibbs, and which is still used primarily for degree ceremonies today.
The honorary degree of LLD was conferred upon Darwin in the Senate House amidst a scene of some disorder. The building was crammed, floor and galleries, the undergraduates being chiefly in the galleries; and it was of course an occasion on wh. undergraduate wit felt bound to distinguish itself. The chief pleasantry consisted of a monkey swung across by strings from gallery to gallery, which monkey was in the course of the proceedings to have been changed into a man. Before however this desirable consummation was reached, the representative of the original ancestor, (than whom he was less fortunate), was seized by one of the proctors, & thus prevented from fulfilling his high destiny. The perpetrators of the joke were very wrath, & vented their fury chiefly in groans for Humphreys, the most unpopular of the proctors. He was also made the butt of such remarks as this, Would Dr. Darwin kindly afford us some information regarding the ancestors of Mr. Humphreys? — a sally which took amazingly. Sandys, the public orator, introduced Darwin, according to custom, in a rather long Latin oration, wh. was delivered amidst a ceaseless fire of interruptions, (chiefly feeble), from the wittiest of the under-graduates. Sandys (I imagine inadvertently) made use of the word apes, & then the cheering was enormous. Darwin bore himself in a rather trying position with remarkable dignity; but I heard afterwards that his hand shook so much while he was signing the registry, that his signature was scarcely legible. Another emblem swung from the galleries was a large ring of iron, adorned with ribbons, supposed to represent the missing link. It was ultimately swung down into the lap of one of the lady visitors, who pluckily cut it down and appropriated it, amidst tremendous applause. I afterwards found that this courageous lady was Miss Borchardt.(Keynes, Neville : Diary, 1877)
Sidney Street
When Darwin first arrived in Cambridge as a student, on Saturday 26th January, 1828, no accommodation was available for him in the College, so he found lodgings in Sidney Street, above the shop of the tobacconist William Bacon. At this time, the houses on Sidney Street were unnumbered, but the building later became number 63, and was occupied by Messrs Rutter and Son. This information was provided by a Mr. Thomas Hunnybun, born in 1830 in the house on the opposite side of the street to number 63. Writing for Christ's College Magazine in 1911, Mr. Hunnybun recalls that:
...he well remembers his father going on several occasions to call on the Master of Christ's College to complain of the behaviour of undergraduates at Bacon's; and this fact impressed the recollection of the house upon his mind. The cause of complaint was, apparently, that the sporting young gentlemen over Bacon's were in the habit of leaning out of the windows and with tandem whips flicking the passers by. This seems to have been a favourite amusement at the time, for it is said that sixty years ago it was quite dangerous to walk down Rose Crescent on a Sunday morning, and one was unlikely to get through without having one's hat literally whipped off.
Bacon's tobacconist moved to number 16, Market Hill, to a location now marked by a plaque bearing Calverley's “Ode to Tobacco”. Number 63 Sidney Street was demolished in the 1930s. Its position is best indicated by the bicycle racks outside Boots the Chemist, and two commemorative plaques can be found on Boots' wall.