Two and a half centuries late, maybe, but you're there.
More news from times past. I'm reading along in Town and Gown, all about the centuries-long conflict between Cambridge University and the town of Cambridge, and you'd think what with living in Richmond surrounded by historical markers I'd be used to this, but I got all squealy when I stumbled on an incident that occurred at a place where I'd been.
A friend of mine did her PhD at Cambridge and when she got married in the chapel of her college, I got to be one of her bridesmaids. The wedding was quite extravagantly attended: the guest list included people from every continent except Antarctica. Someone even came from as far away as outer Mongolia where she was doing her research, although admittedly she didn't come back to Cambridge only for the wedding.
Anyway, I'm reading my book and make a little squeal every time I see a little reference to Emmanuel College. Then I see a big reference, so you can make your own estimate of squeal magnitude.
In 1732, some students procure a corpse, for their anatomy lab, from a churchyard in another town. The townspeople are not pleased with this and, in an effort to get the corpse back (no mention of who the corpse was), get a warrant to search Emmanuel where the corpse was being stored, doubtless in some very dignified and respectful manner.
Right.
So the students don't let them in. Then the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of the university get a warrant too, with similar results. Various bystanders involve themselves and break down part of the college wall, but the students barricade themselves in the inner court, which may (or not) be the same thing as the Front Court where the chapel is. That my friend got married in. And the pretty green that only professors, or doctorate-holders, or whatever are allowed to walk on, but they made an exception for the wedding party so we could walk straight across the courtyard to the chapel, designed by Christopher Wren, by the way, and therefore extant at the time of this incident.
Now with various university and non-university people laying siege to the inner court and the students therein and who knows what damage being done (these being the people who pulled down part of a stone wall), the Town Clerk gets called out to read the Riot Act, this being a literal reading of the Act, basically to the effect of "You people get out of here or you're going to prison." At which point dispersion happens.
After all this, you'd think that the students would really knuckle down to their Anatomy, considering what it probably cost them in beatings and what-all, but the next day the corpse is found floating in the garden pond, where nowadays the famed ducks of Emmanuel paddle about. At the wedding, one of the porters used ducky chow to lure the ducks out for a photo-op with the bride and the flower girl.
To think there was once a stolen corpse floating in that very same pond by where we took all the wedding pictures! How cool! If you like that sort of thing. Which, evidently, I do.
546 words | June 20, 2005 08:46 PM | Real true story