2013 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

50 FREND OF JESUS I Jesus College Annual Report 2013
take meals at High Table or in his room, and
enjoy the Combination Room. Here was an
interesting predicament: how could a Fellow
of the College receive all the benefits of his
membership of the Society, and yet be
banished from the town in which the College
was located? How could his expulsion be
physically enforced?
Frend loved Cambridge, and the College.
He decided to linger on in his rooms, waiting
to see what would happen. This infuriated
William Pearce the Master, who now decided
to bring the Visitor, the Bishop of Ely, James
Yorke, into the fray. The bishop wrote his
decision in the Master’s favour by the end of
July 1793: Frend should be banished,
physically, and forthwith, from the College.
The letter was duly read to the assembled
Fellows without a word of protest, according
to Pearce.
Frend was accordingly summoned to the
Lodge where Pearce informed him of the
Bishop’s decision: “I told Mr Frend”, Pearce
wrote to the Bishop on 31 July, “that it was my
duty to inforce the sentence, and hoped that
he would go away without giving me any
trouble. To this he said nothing but asked
whether that was all I had to say to him.”
Four days later Pearce confronted Frend to
ask “when he meant to leave College”. To
which Frend replied “that this was an
extraordinary question” and that his own
questions concerning the “very heavy charge”
that the Master and Fellows had lied about
him had not yet been answered. Whereupon
Pearce took himself up to London once again
to consult Sir William Scott.
Sir William’s opinion was that “if Mr Frend
persists in staying…then the Master may
direct the servants of the College to forbear
attending upon him and supplying him with
necessaries”. He went on: “I see no reason
why furniture may not be removed to a secure
Place thence to be delivered to him on his
order, notice being given him, and a Padlock
put on his Chamber door”. Moreover, Scott
opined that the Master “may order the Porter
to refuse him admittance into the college . . .
and wd be justified in using force to turn him
out, no more force being used than was
absolutely necessary for that Purpose…”.
This was signed “Wm Scott, 24 July 1793”,
and clearly gave leave for the College to use
strong-arm tactics with legal impunity.
On Tuesday 30 July the Master accordingly
despatched a note to Frend by messenger
warning that the contents of his room were
to be removed and that he would be barred
entrance to the college. As Pearce wrote to the
Bishop, “On Friday next . . . I shall order all
the College servants to forbear supplying him
with anything or attending upon him in
College, & the Porter to shut the Gate against
him”. Pearce complained that the Frend
business had prevented him going on holiday
in Cornwall, and that he “could not well
delegate the affair of Mr Frend to another,
especially as it appeared every day to be
coming to crisis”.
Friday came, and the Master, from his
vantage point in the Lodge, could see Frend
coming and going through the morning.
Eventually Frend presented himself at the
Lodge demanding to see Sir William Scott’s
written opinion and condemning, as Pearce
put it, “the illegality of our proceedings and
the stretches of arbitrary power which were
made against him”. Pearce refused.
Apparently Pearce later saw Frend leaving
the College and walking towards the town,
whereupon it appears that he ordered the
Porter to shut the gates. When Frend
returned at seven o’clock and knocked to gain
entrance, the Porter, according to Pearce,
“opened to see who was there”, and Frend
“rushed in by force and went to his room”.
The next day, however, accepting the
inevitable, Frend left the College forever,
eventually taking himself to London. He
would continue to collect his College stipend
until his marriage in 1808 to one Sarah
Blackburne, said to be attractive and a
competent artist. They would have one
daughter, Sophia.
Frend would live for another 44 years – a
respected businessman in the City of London,
a founder of modern insurance, and an
influential, still radical, figure in political and
educational circles. He urged better
conditions for workers, and promoted
tertiary education free from religious
prejudice and clerical domination. “The first
thing to be done…”, he wrote to Lady Byron,
“is to get education out of the hands of