THE GRAHAM COMMISSION, 1850

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND THE PRINCE CONSORT

The appointment of Lord John Russell as Prime Minister in 1846 and the election of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's Consort, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, brought university reform nearer and affected the way it was accomplished. Russell's restless temperament and reforming tendencies made him responsive to the clamour for change at the universities, and dissatisfied with the leisurely pace that they thought it fitting to employ. The Chancellor was also keen to effect change and used his position as Chancellor to press for it, but he was more anxious than Russell to work with the university if possible; he restrained Russell from pressing ahead with a royal commission at least once, but in the end failed to influence the Prime Minister, who was after all far more powerful than the Queen's Consort, however intelligent and perceptive Albert might be.

Russell was unusual among British (or at least English) politicians in not having spent any time at either university. His elder brother, the Marquess of Tavistock, had received only a ‘pretended education’ at Cambridge, and their father, the Duke of Bedford, declaring that ‘nothing was learned in the English universities’, sent John Russell to Edinburgh.