Lost Cambridge

Musician, anti-fascist, communist, and peace campaigner Frida Knight (previously Frida Stewart) had long since settled in Reading where her husband Prof Basil Knight worked at Reading University. She penned this piece in the midst of one of the most violent offensives of the Vietnam War. This from the Reading Evening Post in the British Newspaper … More Frida Knight on Vietnam at the time of the Tet Offensive in 1968 – two years before she returned to Cambridge with her husband

I digitised and uploaded one of my original copies to the Internet Archive You can view the maps in Vol 2 here. If you want to read Vol.1, Cambridge City Council have digitised it here. They don’t publicise it though – which is a shame. I remain of the view that the analysis of Cambridge … More The Holford-Wright Maps of the Cambridge Development Plan 1950

Prof Macalister from his WikiP page here. He said that King Henry VI gave the College permission to use the stone Prof Alexander Macalister was a long-serving Professor of Anatomy at the University of Cambridge, taking up his appointment in 1883 to 1919, when he died. As with many academics past and present, Prof Macalister … More Professor Alexander Macalister accuses King’s College of running off with all of the stone from Cambridge Castle. 1895

At a time when Cambridge’s population (less Chesterton) was around 40,000 people, around 1,800 teachers and delegates rocked up to the town for the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers – one of the largest and most respected of the national trade unions in the country at the time. And an exciting time … More “And we’re gonna party like it’s 1899!”

Today’s politicians were not the first to struggle with the options available to them to improve Cambridge’s transport links. The most comprehensive history of Cambridge’s railway station, lines, and the people who made them is Rob Shoreland-Ball’s book on Cambridge Station. I won’t go into detail over the squabbles between the college land owners and … More Mayor of Cambridge hosts railway summit shortly after the new station opens

A very old poem published in one of Cambridge’s earliest newspapers, the Cambridge Intelligencer was a short-lived radical newspaper active at the very end of the 18th Century. I spotted this poem about the River Cam in it, which will be of interest to today’s generation of residents and campaigners who very recently gathered to … More To the River Cam – 03 May 1794

Above – Leah Manning from her Homerton College days. Before she married Cambridge Astronomer Will Manning, Leah Perrett gained prominence as a teacher and political progressive who spoke out against the poverty that she saw every day teaching at New Street School in one of Cambridge’s worst slums off East Road. The foundation stone that … More Dame Leah Manning’s early teaching philosophy before WWI.

Sir Robert Richard Torrens c1880 from the National Library of Australia here. His introduction address to the people of Cambridge provides very little on this. Even the Conservatives did not know how the Cambridge Liberals secured the services of Torrens. …and clearly they rated him as a colonial administrator, but really did not like some of … More Why did Robert Richard Torrens choose Cambridge? Cambridge 1865.

Sir Robert Richard Torrens c1880 from the National Library of Australia here. It was the first of several contests that the former Australian colonial premier Sir Robert Richard Torrens took part in for the Cambridge Liberals – finally winning after the Second Reform Act of 1867 expanded Cambridge’s electorate from around 1,500 to 4,000 male … More Cambridge Liberals prepare to lose another election contest – amid allegations of Tory corruption and bribery. 1865

Above – a sketch by Redfearn of the back of Petty Cury south side. It’s not just the post-war generations that spoke out against the demolition of old buildings. From the Cambridge Independent of 06 April 1894 digitised in the British Newspaper Archive “In our last issue, it will be remembered, we mentioned the fact … More Lamenting the loss of old buildings by the Late Victorians in Cambridge. 1894.