Chapter 4: 1817 to 1822: Undergraduate at Trinity College.
CHAPTER 4
1817 TO 1822: UNDERGRADUATE
AT TRINITY COLLEGE
IN June of 1817, Mr. Newman took his son John Henry, aged sixteen, to Oxford and enrolled him at Trinity College, one of the colleges at Oxford University. Oxford and Cambridge were England’s centers of higher education as well as cultural and religious life. Both universities had been founded by Catholics in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, respectively, for the education of the clergy primarily. Students at Oxford and Cambridge were imparted with a classical education in Latin and Greek.
Oxford began as a town built on the Thames River. In the sixteenth century, it became a city as well as an Episcopal See of the Church of England. After the schism by Henry VIII, Oxford University retained its role in the education of clergy, but from then on, for the Church of England. With the advent of the 1844 Oxford-London railroad line and the construction of the London-Midlands canal, commerce grew. The population increased correspondingly from 12,000 to 49,000 during the nineteenth century.
At the beginning of the same century, Oxford University had over twenty colleges. During Newman’s time, the university was open to students from both poor and wealthy families and about four hundred students were admitted each year. Poor students who obtained scholarships were able to attend, but the student body had more students from wealthy families and the nobility. Among the student population there was a growing number of youths from the upper-middle class of landed gentry, clergy, professionals, and businessmen. In 1810, the sons of married clergymen made up 29 percent of the student body.1 In the following decades, over 40 percent of these men were receiving Holy Orders and many obtained parish livings.
Trinity College had been established in 1555, by Thomas Pope, who had served as Treasurer of the Court of Augmentation, which had dissolved the estates of monasteries for Henry VIII. The college was built on the site of an earlier school founded in the thirteenth century to educate monks at the Cathedral Church of Durham. The original charter of Trinity stipulated that all Fellows must take Holy Orders and remain celibate.
The entire time that Newman was at Oxford, Dissenters from Anglicanism, among them Roman Catholics, were excluded from Oxford. This policy changed with a parliamentary act in 1856. The Oxford Newman entered was a worldly environment that focused on gaining social advantage while maintaining some external appearance of religion. On top of this, Trinity College was at the forefront of liberal-minded theological thinking.
Overly self-conscious, shy and, at the same time, disgusted by the excess drinking of the college students, Newman had a difficult beginning. At Trinity, he dedicated himself to his studies and to practices of piety. Despite his reserved nature and exacting moral character, he managed to make some friends. The closest one was John William Bowden, a youth from a wealthy family, who would remain a loyal friend all his life.
Bowden was a few years Newman’s senior and an excellent student. He and John Henry prepared for their Bachelor’s exam at the same time. At Trinity, they edited anonymously a periodical, The Undergraduate, and they composed a romantic poem, St. Bartholomew’s Eve, which depicts a Catholic priest leading assassins in search of Protestants. Both of these literary projects are early indicators of Newman’s interest in verse and poetry. The theme of St. Bartholomew’s Eve also reveals his youthful prejudice toward Roman Catholics.
Newman had a weak physical constitution, and before going up to Oxford for the first time, he experienced an eye illness. For some months, he was unable to read for more than a short time every day. At Oxford, he had bouts of poor health, which he recorded in his diaries. While preparing for the exams to obtain the undergraduate degree, he experienced lightheadedness and exhaustion, probably due to excess work, a lack of sleep, and inordinate worry over his achievements at school. He recovered by following his mother’s insistence that he rest and exercise. Newman accepted physical ailments and periods of suffering with patience and even good humor. He drew meaningful spiritual lessons from them. For instance, the exhaustion as an undergraduate led him to combat his pride and vanity. On his seventeenth birthday, he composed the following prayer:
No! give to me, Great Lord, the constant soul,
Nor fooled by pleasure nor enslaved by care;
Each rebel-passion (for Thou canst) controul,
And make me know the tempter’s every snare.2
A few months after Newman’s arrival at Oxford, he made his First Communion, and the following year, he was confirmed in the Anglican Church. As was the common practice at the time, his siblings also made their First Communion and received Confirmation in their late adolescence. Starting in August of 1821, Newman began to take Holy Communion every fortnight; this practice set him apart from most Anglicans since frequent Communion was not a custom, and it caused his mother to warn him of becoming overly righteous.3
In addition to his earnestness in prayer, Newman was studious and very bright and thus he did well academically. Success, however, came after defeats and humiliations. His Tutor, Thomas Short, soon moved him up to a higher class because of his proficiency in mathematics and encouraged him to enter a scholarship competition newly opened to the University, which Newman won in 1818. Although competing against more qualified and older students, the young undergraduate displayed his abilities and earned the reward of being elected a scholar at Trinity. This position allowed him to remain in residence and to compete for a position as Fellow of one of the colleges; it also afforded him a burse of £60 a year. Informed by Francis, Mrs. Newman sent John Henry a congratulatory letter entitled “My dear Scholar” that read: “Accept the sincere congratulations of every one of us, that you have so early reaped honour and advantage from your assiduity.”4
During the summer of 1820, Newman prepared under an incredibly demanding schedule for his final college undergraduate examinations. Detailed diary entries show that from July to November he spent an average of 12 hours a day studying, and on some days, he studied as much as 14 hours a day. In November of that same year, he passed his Bachelor of Arts degree examination, but without obtaining the honors that he greatly desired and for which he had prepared. Thus he wrote in a despondent mood to his parents: “It is all over; and I have not succeeded.”5
The desire of achieving academic honors had haunted him during his undergraduate studies. Although these honors were necessary for advancing in academic life, Newman confessed in his diary and verses to a frequent struggle against the temptation of pride in the outcome of his studies. He explained to his parents that he had studied earnestly and the examiners had been kind to him, yet he had failed out of nervousness during the examination.6 His parents responded with an affectionate letter conveying their understanding and admiration for him.7
Nonetheless John Henry earned a Bachelor’s degree and kept his Trinity Scholarship for nine years. For some of these years he was able to remain in the college rooms. This was a difficult period for his family because in the fall of 1821, Mr. Newman’s business failed and he was declared bankrupt. In response, John Henry, who always tried to keep his father’s failure secret, exchanged a number of loving letters with his parents. Newman assured them of divine assistance in their financial distress, and wrote to his father insisting that he wished to pay for Francis’s expenses at Oxford.8 In 1823, following the advice of his brother’s friends, Francis enrolled at Worcester, which was less expensive than Trinity.
As a student, and later as a Tutor at Oxford, Newman took to heart the concerns of his siblings, writing to them and supporting them financially. In their letters, his parents acknowledged the good example of piety, the diligence in study, and the upright moral life that he, as the eldest brother, had given to his siblings. On John Henry’s twenty-first birthday, Mrs. Newman called him a “second father” to his sisters and brothers.9
In light of the financial circumstances of the family, Mr. Newman, who had entered his son at Lincoln’s Inn some years earlier, advised him to become a lawyer, and he asked him to make up his mind about his future plans. John Henry was interested in debating and suggested that the university have a debating society, but he did not seriously consider a career in law. While Bowden made plans to study law in London, Newman wavered about his own future plans. In June, he was turned out of Trinity College and had to take lodgings at a boarding house. Finally, in January 1822, John Henry gave up secular ambitions and decided instead to serve the Church as a clergyman. With this goal in mind, he wished to pursue his studies at Oxford and began to prepare to stand for a Fellowship at Oriel, a more difficult contest than his undergraduate degree. His mother worried because he was overworked and depressed and because he lacked confidence. She advised him to get fresh air and exercise as well as drink some wine. Following her advice, John Henry attended music parties and dined out. He also returned to two hobbies that he had developed as a child: playing violin and horseback riding. He liked to play Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Corelli on the violin, and took frequent and long horseback rides. He would also often walk for an hour and a half.
While Newman enjoyed these activities in the company of friends, he was able to resist the dissipation of many of his fellow undergraduates. His dedication to study and piety paid off. He won the scholarship at Trinity and obtained his Bachelor’s degree. Furthermore, he was set on the course to take Holy Orders and to become a Fellow at Oriel College. The demanding years at Trinity had prepared Newman for the challenging time at Oriel.
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1The University in Society: Oxford and Cambridge from the 14th to the Early 19th Century, Vol. 1, ed. Lawrence Stone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 39; 74.
2VV (February 21, 1819), 7.
3John Henry Newman, Autobiographical Writings, ed. Henry Tristram (New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1957), 174.
4LD, Vol. I, Mrs. Newman to JHN (May 24, 1818), 52.
5LD, Vol. I, JHN to Mr. Newman (Dec. 1, 1820), 94.
6Ibid.
7LD, Vol. I, Mrs. Newman to JHN (Dec. 2, 1820), 95.
8LD, Vol. I, JHN to Mr. Newman (Dec. 5, 1822), 156.
9LD, Vol. I, Mrs. Newman to JHN (Feb. 21, 1822), 122.