Cambridge Apostles
The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar.[1]
The origin of the Apostles' nickname dates from the number, twelve, of their founders. Membership consists largely of undergraduates, though there have been graduate student members, and members who already hold university and college posts. The society traditionally drew most of its members from Christ's, St John's, Jesus, Trinity and King's Colleges.
Contents
Activities and membership
The society is essentially a discussion group. Meetings are held once a week, traditionally on Saturday evenings, during which one member gives a prepared talk on a topic, which is later thrown open for discussion.
The usual procedure was for members to meet at the rooms of those whose turn it was to present the topic. The host would provide refreshments consisting of coffee and sardines on toast, called "whales".[2] Women first gained acceptance into the society in the 1970s.
The Apostles retain a leather diary of their membership ("the book") stretching back to its founder, which includes handwritten notes about the topics each member has spoken on. It is included in the so-called "Ark", which is a cedar chest containing collection of papers with some handwritten notes from the group's early days, about the topics members have spoken on, and the results of the division in which those present voted on the debate. It was a point of honour that the question voted on should bear only a tangential relationship to the matter debated.[3] The members referred to as the "Apostles" are the active, usually undergraduate members; former members are called "angels". Undergraduates apply to become angels after graduating or being awarded a fellowship. Every few years, amid great secrecy, all the angels are invited to an Apostles' dinner at a Cambridge college. There used to be an annual dinner, usually held in London.
Undergraduates being considered for membership are called "embryos" and are invited to "embryo parties", where members judge whether the student should be invited to join. The "embryos" attend these parties without knowing they are being considered for membership. Becoming an Apostle involves taking an oath of secrecy and listening to the reading of a curse, originally written by Apostle Fenton John Anthony Hort, the theologian, in or around 1851.
Former members have spoken of the lifelong bond they feel toward one another. Henry Sidgwick, the philosopher, wrote of the Apostles in his memoirs that "the tie of attachment to this society is much the strongest corporate bond which I have known in my life."
Eleven former members of the Apostles are buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge : Henry Jackson, classicist (1863); Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, classicist (1859); Desmond MacCarthy, newspaper critic (1896); Sir Donald MacAlister, physician (1876); Norman McLean, orientalist (1888), G. E. Moore, philosopher (1894); Frank P. Ramsey, economist and philosopher (1921); Gerald Shove, economist (1909); Vincent Henry Stanton, Professor of Divinity (1872), Arthur Woollgar Verrall, Classicist (1871), and Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1912). These eleven members were from Christ's, King's, St. Johns College and Trinity. A twelfth member Benjamin Hall Kennedy is buried in the Mill Road Cemetery, Cambridge.
Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore joined as students, as did John Maynard Keynes, who invited Ludwig Wittgenstein to join. However, Wittgenstein did not enjoy it and attended infrequently. Russell had been worried that Wittgenstein would not appreciate the group's unseriousness, style of humour, or the fact that the members were in love with one another.[4] He was admitted in 1912 but resigned almost immediately because he could not tolerate the level of the discussion on the Hearth Rug; they took him back though in the 1920s when he returned to Cambridge. (He also had trouble tolerating the discussions in the Moral Sciences Club.)
Bloomsbury
The Apostles became well known outside Cambridge in the years before the First World War with the rise to eminence of the group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. John Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey and his brother James, G. E. Moore, E. M. Forster and Rupert Brooke were all Apostles. Keynes, Woolf and Lytton Strachey subsequently gained prominence as members of Bloomsbury.
Cambridge spy ring
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The Apostles came to public attention again following the exposure of the Cambridge spy ring in 1951. Three Cambridge graduates with access to the top levels of government in Britain, one of them a former Apostle, were eventually found to have passed information to the KGB. The three known agents were Apostle Guy Burgess, an MI6 officer and secretary to the deputy foreign minister; Donald MacLean, foreign office secretary; and Kim Philby, MI6 officer and journalist.
In 1963, American writer Michael Straight, also an Apostle, and later publisher of The New Republic magazine, admitted to a covert relationship with the Soviets, and he named Anthony Blunt, MI5 officer, director of the Courtauld Institute, and art adviser to the Queen as his recruiter and a Soviet spy. Confronted with Straight's confession, Blunt acknowledged his own treason and revealed that he had also drawn into espionage his fellow Apostle Leonard "Leo" Long. Straight also told investigators that the Apostle John Peter Astbury had been recruited for Soviet intelligence by either Blunt or Burgess. Leo Long confessed to delivering classified information to the Soviets from 1940 until 1952.
Writers have accused several other Apostles of being witting Soviet agents. Roland Perry in his book, The Fifth Man (London: Pan Books, 1994) makes a circumstantial case against Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild, who was a friend to both Burgess and Blunt. The espionage historian John Costello in The Mask of Treachery (London: William Collins & Sons, 1988) points a finger at the mathematician Alister Watson. Kimberley Cornish, in his controversial The Jew of Linz (London: Century, 1998), makes the rather extravagant claim that Ludwig Wittgenstein was the "éminence grise" of the Cambridge spies.
In the 1930s when Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt were elected the membership was mainly Marxist. Documents from the Soviet archives included in the book The Crown Jewels (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), by Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, indicate that it was Burgess who seduced and led Blunt into the Soviet underground. As the Queen's art adviser, Blunt was knighted in 1956, but was stripped of his knighthood in 1979 after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publicly named him as a spy — his confession having been kept secret before then.
Current members
- Partha Dasgupta, emeritus Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at St John's College, Cambridge
- Geoffrey Lloyd, emeritus professor of classics at Cambridge; member of Darwin College, Cambridge (195?)[citation needed]
- Sir Jonathan Miller, physician, comic, member of Beyond the Fringe, theatre, opera and film director (1957)
- James Mirrlees, Nobel Prize–winning economist
- Garry Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford[citation needed]
- Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize–winning economist and philosopher and previously master of Trinity College[5][citation needed]
- Quentin Skinner, historian of political philosophy (196?)
- David Wootton[citation needed]
Former members
Members of the Apostles include (with the year they joined in brackets, where known);[6]
A
- Thomas Ainger (1820)[7]
- Noel Annan, intelligence officer, provost of King's College, Cambridge, provost of University College, London, vice-chancellor of the University of London, member of the House of Lords (1948)
B
- Francis Maitland Balfour (1875)
- Gerald William Balfour (1872)
- Theodore Beck (1881)
- Ferenc Békássy, Hungarian poet (1912)
- Julian Bell, poet (1928) killed in 1937 in the Spanish Civil War
- Francis Birrell, critic and journalist (?) query
- Hugh Blackburn (1844) ODNB
- Joseph Blakesley[8] (1827)
- Anthony Blunt,[3] art adviser to the Queen, MI5 officer, KGB spy (1927)
- R. B. Braithwaite, philosopher (1921)
- Rupert Brooke,[3] poet (1908)
- Oscar Browning, educator (1858)
- Arthur William Buller, judge of the Supreme Court, Calcutta (1828)
- Charles Buller, barrister and MP (1826)
- Guy Burgess,[3] MI6 officer, KGB spy (1932)
- John Butcher, 1st Baron Danesfort (1873)
- Samuel Henry Butcher[9] (1871) ODNB
- Arthur John Butler[3] (1865)
- Henry Montagu Butler (1853)
C
- John Cairncross,[3] Civil Servant, KGB Spy
- James Carter (judge) (1824)
- D. G. Champernowne (1934)
- William Dougal Christie (1836)
- William K. Clifford[10] (1866)
- Arthur Clough[3] (1883)
- Andrew Cohen (colonial governor), Sir (192?)
D
- Erasmus Alvey Darwin, brother of Charles Darwin (1823)
- Hugh Sykes Davies (1932)[11]
- Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, historian and philosopher (1885)
- James Hamilton Doggart (1919)
- James Duff Duff (1884)
E
F
- Julian Fane (diplomat)[12]
- James Farish
- Frederic Farrar[13]
- Charles Fletcher-Cooke
- E. M. Forster,[1] writer (1901)
- Hugh Fortescue, 3rd Earl Fortescue
- Roger Eliot Fry,[3] art historian (1887)
G
- Robin Gandy, mathematician (1947)
- Sydney Gedge
H
- Arthur Hallam,[14] poet (1829) ODNB
- Sir William Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1847)
- Joseph Hardcastle (politician)
- G. H. Hardy, mathematician (1898)
- Ralph George Hawtrey,[3] Sir (1900)
- Douglas Heath, last of the early members
- Dunbar Isidore Heath
- Arthur Helps
- Arthur Hobhouse, Sir (1905)
- Eric Hobsbawm, historian (193?)
- Alan Lloyd Hodgkin (1935)
- Francis James Holland
- John Hopkinson
- Fenton John Anthony Hort,[1] theologian (1851)
- George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle
J
- Henry Jackson[3][15][16] OM, FBA, Regius Professor of Greek (Cambridge), Classicist, Vice-Master Trinity College, Cambridge 1914–1919, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1863) [2D47]
- Lal Jayawardena, economist, diplomat (19??) query
- Sir Richard Jebb[15][17] OM, MP, FBA, Regius Professor of Greek (Cambridge), Classicist, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1859) [4I2]
- Harry Gordon Johnson (1951)
- William Ernest Johnson
K
- Anthony Kelly (physicist)
- John Mitchell Kemble,[1][18] historian (1826)
- Benjamin Hall Kennedy,[19] Latinist (1824)
- John Maynard Keynes,[1][3] economist, member of the House of Lords (1903)
L
- Walter Leaf
- F. L. Lucas, writer and critic (1914)
- Gordon Luce, scholar (1912)
- Edmund Law Lushington[20]
- Henry Lushington
- Vernon Lushington
M
- Sir Donald MacAlister,[15][21] Vice-Chancellor Glasgow, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge (1876)
- Kenneth Macaulay
- Sir Desmond MacCarthy,[3][15][22] Literary and drama critic (1896) [1H2]
- Malcolm Macnaghten[3]
- Henry Maine
- Frederic William Maitland
- John Gorham Maitland
- Edward Howard Marsh[3]
- Frederick Denison Maurice,[1][14][23] theologian, Christian socialist, founder of the Working Men's College, one of the original Cambridge Apostles (1823)
- James Clerk Maxwell,[1] physicist (1852)
- Norman McLean[15][24] FBA, Orientalist, Master Christ's College, Cambridge (1888)
- J. M. E. McTaggart, philosopher (1886)
- Charles Merivale[25]
- Karl Miller
- Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton[14][26]
- Robert Monteith
- George Edward Moore[3][15][27] OM, FBA, Philosopher, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Philosophy (1894) [1H1]
- E. J. C. Morton[28]
- John Fletcher Moulton
- Arthur Thomas Myers
P
- Lionel Penrose (1920)
- Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet[3]
- John Henry Pratt
- Derek Prince (1938)
- Philip Dennis Proctor
- Marlborough Pryor[3]
R
- Walter Alexander Raleigh[3]
- Frank P. Ramsey[15][29] Philosopher and mathematician, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge (1921)
- Sir Dennis Robertson ODNB, economist (1926)
- Henry John Roby
- Edward Romilly
- Victor Rothschild, financier, member of the House of Lords (1933)
- Bertrand Russell,[3] philosopher, mathematician, social activist and logician, member of the Royal Society, Nobel prize winner, member of the House of Lords (1892)
- Dadie Rylands (1922) ODNB
S
- J. T. Sheppard,[3] classicist, provost of King's College (1902)
- Peter Shore, Labour politician (1947)
- Gerald Shove, economist (1909)[30]
- Henry Sidgwick,[1][31] philosopher (1857)
- Arthur H. Smith[3]
- Henry Babington Smith,[32] Sir (1885)
- James Parker Smith
- James Spedding[33]
- W. J. H. Sprott
- Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby[34]
- John Stanning
- Vincent Henry Stanton,[3] Rev., Regius Professor of Divinity, (1872), (2D50)
- James Fitzjames Stephen,[35] Sir (1847)
- James Kenneth Stephen,[36] poet, tutor to Prince Albert Victor (Eddy) and suspect for Jack the Ripper (1879)
- John Sterling,[1][14][37] ODNB, writer and poet, one of the original Cambridge Apostles (1825)
- James Strachey,[3] translator of Freud[38]
- Lytton Strachey,[1][3] writer and critic (1902)
- Michael Whitney Straight, American magazine publisher, member of the Whitney family, Presidential speechwriter (1936)[39]
- Saxon Sydney-Turner,[3] civil servant (1902)
T
- Charles Henry Tawney
- Alfred Tennyson,[14] English poet, member of the House of Lords (1829).
- Henry Yates Thompson (1860)
- George Tomlinson,[1] Bishop of Gibraltar, founder of the Cambridge Apostles (1820)
- Stephen Edelston Toulmin
- Richard Chenevix Trench,[1][14][40] Christian writer, Archbishop of Dublin, one of the original Cambridge Apostles (1827)
- G. M. Trevelyan, historian (1895)
- Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet (1859)
- Robert Trevelyan,[3] poet and translator (1893)
V
- George Stovin Venables
- Arthur Woollgar Verrall,[15][41] Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Classicist, (1871), King Edward VII professorship of literature, literary scholar. [2B33]
W
- Spencer Horatio Walpole,[42] one of the original Cambridge Apostles
- William Grey Walter (1933) ODNB
- James Ward (psychologist)
- Alister Watson
- Henry William Watson (1848)
- Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 1st Baronet
- Brooke Westcott
- A. N. Whitehead, OM, mathematician, logician and philosopher (1884)
- Ludwig Wittgenstein,[15][43] Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1912)
- Leonard Woolf[3] writer and publisher (1902)
Appearances in literature
- Avenging Angel, a murder mystery by the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah
- The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
- The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
- The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
- The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
- The Philosopher's Ring by Randall Collins
- The White Garden by Stephanie Barron
Notes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 W. C. Lubenow, The Cambridge Apsotles 1820-1914, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
- ↑ Brookfield, Frances Mary. The Cambridge "Apostles", C. Scribner's Sons, 1907
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 "A Cambridge secret revealed: the Apostles", King's College, Cambridge, January 2011
- ↑ McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 118.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Levy, Paul (1979). Moore: G. E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 300-311
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- ↑ The Times obituary, 8 June 1984.
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- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 "Tennyson at Cambridge: The Apostles", Faculty of English, Cambridge, July 2014
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 "A Cambridge Necropolis" by Dr. Mark Goldie, March 2000, for the Friends of The Parish of The Ascension Burial Ground
- ↑ Henry Jackson at Find a Grave
- ↑ Sir Richard Jebb at Find a Grave
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- ↑ Sir Donald Macalister at Find a Grave
- ↑ Sir Desmond MacCarthy at Find a Grave
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- ↑ Norman McLean at Find a Grave
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- ↑ George Edward Moore at Find a Grave
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- ↑ Frank P. Ramsey at Find a Grave
- ↑ The Times obituary, 18 August 1947.
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- ↑ The Times obituary, 11 May 1967.
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- ↑ Arthur Woollgar Verrall at Find a Grave
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- ↑ Brian McGuinness, Young Ludwig, Oxford University Press, 2005, p146.
References
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