Darwin Heritage
Exploring the Heritage of the College
In 1965, two Fellows (Chester White and Sylvia Fitton Jackson) were exploring the attic floor of Newnham Grange to consider how the space might be converted into student rooms. Before climbing back down, they discovered a rectangular wooden box, some four feet long, which had been left behind by the Darwin family. Inside the box they were astonished to find a large brass telescope with a tripod stand. Dated to the 1840s, it seems likely that the telescope once belonged to George Howard Darwin (1845 -1912) – and possibly, before that, to his father Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Some very worn railway luggage labels on the wooden travelling case indicate that the telescope may have been transported between Cambridge and Charles Darwin’s family home at Down House in Kent – perhaps whilst George was a student at Cambridge in the 1860s?
Since December 2020 I have been working as a volunteer with the Master and the Bursar on a project to identify, catalogue and annotate the heritage objects that are owned or held by the College. Most are artworks, furniture or silverware that have been given or loaned to the College. Some items relate to the Darwin family, who for 80 years owned and lived in the historic buildings that then became the foundation of the College; others are linked to Fellows, staff members or alumni. A few have considerable monetary value; all have a story that brings to life the history and community of the College.
The aim of the project is to create, by drawing on the College’s various files, lists, archives and records, a single catalogue of heritage objects, based on photographs taken in situ around the College. A one-page template is used to record each item in a consistent way and to signpost further information in linked electronic and paper files. The catalogue now includes more than 150 objects and in the future we hope to display more of these items, with their stories, in College. Let me give you some more examples.
On a domestic note, the large wooden cabinet that is shoehorned into an alcove in the Old Library has an interesting Darwin family history. George and Maud Darwin were married in July 1884 and within a few months they were in negotiation to buy the house that they named Newnham Grange. The cabinet in the Old Library is one of several pieces of furniture that were made for the house from a single large, heavy, and elaborately carved black-oak ‘side-board’ that George and Maud had bought on holiday in France in January 1885. The story of this exuberant purchase is told by their daughter Margaret Keynes in her carefully researched account of the history of Newnham Grange, A House by the River. Margaret quotes from a letter that Maud wrote to her family in the USA in March 1885:
“Our side-board has been unpacked and it is very beautiful. Unfortunately, two carved heads that formed the handles have been broken off and lost on the way.”
As Margaret comments:
[The sideboard] was most unsuitable for an English Georgian house, but Mrs Darwin never ceased to admire the four pieces of furniture they had made out of it. Most important of all was the grand mantelpiece, supported by carved figures at each end, which stood in the dining room for nearly eighty years until it had become so riddled with worm that Darwin College had to have it removed and burnt. But the sideboard, partly constructed out of some of the same carved wood, still remains intact in the recess [of the Old Library] … One of the cupboards lacks a handle; this was the carved head lost on the journey to England, as Mrs Darwin related in her letter. An elaborate two-tiered table, on top of which a large blue oriental [sic] plate for the visiting cards of callers was always kept, was made for the inner hall and is still in the College [now on the landing by the top of the stairs up to the Dining Hall]. More of the black oak was used … to construct a mantelpiece for the new fireplace in the hall and is still there [in the hall at the foot of the staircase in Newnham Grange].
A fine photograph of George Howard Darwin in about 1885 now hangs above that mantelpiece in the hall of Newnham Grange; on the opposite wall is a print of a charming portrait of George’s American wife Maud in 1889. Maud survived George by several decades and lived at Newnham Grange until her death in 1947.
The source of the photograph of George Howard Darwin brings the links between the Darwin family and the College into the 21st century. The photograph was presented to the College by George’s grandson Edward Darwin “in memory of his namesake, my late brother, in recognition of the high place his Fellowship among you took in his life.” Edward’s brother was George Pember Darwin, who had been an esteemed Honorary Fellow of the College until his death in 2001.
In starting to document the provenance of these objects, I have received guidance from Elisabeth Leedham-Green, the College Archivist and co-editor of the 2013 book that chronicles the first 50 years of the College. As the project progresses, conversations with members of the College community and the Darwin family are helping to augment the records that I am excavating from amongst the files in the Bursary and the College Archive.
I would be delighted to hear from anyone who knows about an object that was acquired by the College or has a story to contribute.
If you would like to contribute towards this project, please email alumni@darwin.cam.ac.uk. We will pass your message on to Dr Rands.
Darwin artworks online
Some of the notable works of art that are displayed in the College can be viewed online at ArtUK.org. The collection includes the 14 historic portraits of members of the extended Darwin family that have been generously loaned to the College by the Darwin Heirlooms Trust, as well as paintings by Gwen Raverat and the portraits of former Masters.
Built with Shorthand