CHAPTER VII 



DR. SHIPLEY'S REMINISCENCES 



By the Master of Christ's, Sir A. E. Shipky, G.B.E., F.R.S. 



NEWTON was admitted a member of Magdalene College 

 in the spring of 1848, the entry in the admission book 

 running as follows : 



Mail 30, 1848 



Alfred Newton, filius Gulielmi Newton de Eldon Hall 

 in comitatu Norfolkiensi, armigeri, et uxoris ejus Elizce 

 Milnes privatim institutus, annos natus XIX admissus 

 est Pensionarius 



. Kaven. 



His name appears for the first time in the Calendar 

 for 1849, and he apparently came into residence in the 

 October Term of the previous year. Altogether there 

 were about sixty students residing at Magdalene at that 

 time, including four sizars, and two " Ten-year men," a 

 class of student which is now as extinct as the dodo. 

 They were usually, but not always, country clergy, who 

 by keeping one term in each of ten years and passing the 

 necessary examinations obtained a degree. 



The Cambridge he came up to was very different from 

 the Cambridge of to-day. It is even possible that he 

 arrived on a coach or in a post-chay, for the railway line 

 to Norfolk was only opened three years before, and the 

 unlovely station which stands to-day much as it stood 

 seventy years ago, was only built in 1845. At first it 

 was provided with the usual two platforms, and no one 



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