It was in the 19th and early 20th centuries that Cambridge, characterised in the previous century as a place of indolence and complacency, underwent the changes which produced the institutional structures which persist today. Foremost among them was the rise of mathematics as the dominant subject within the university, with the introduction of the Classical Tripos in 1824, and Moral and Natural Sciences Triposes in 1851. Responding to this, Trinity was notable in preparing its students for honours examinations, which came to seem rather like athletics competitions, by working them hard at...

--To wife Elizabeth, tenement where testator now dwells; on her death, same to go to grandchild Robert Large & heirs. To go to daughter Frances Miller, pair of sheets & stock of bees in the orchard--Early wills make compulsive reading and supply invaluable information for social, local and economic historians, and for genealogists. The Archdeaconry of Sudbury corresponded broadly to the administrative county of West Suffolk. The editor of this collection, a professional historian, brings out any indication of the religious beliefs of the testator, and everything to do with the life and...

The history of Winchcombeshire is no obscure tale of a lost shire: the story of its creation, development and demise is intricately interwoven with the story of the development of England prior to the Norman Conquest and the fabric of government which rules our lives to this day. Winchcombeshire comprised what is now the Cotswold area of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, and its centre was at Winchcombe. A scribe's tantalising marginal addition to the heading of an early-11th-century charter started Julian Whybra's quest for the history and boundaries of the vanished shire, and his research...