Riches and Responsibility: The Financial History of Trinity College, Cambridge

Abstract

Trinity College, Cambridge, the largest and wealthiest college in Oxbridge, has not received its due from modern historians: the twentieth century has seen only G.M. Trevelyan's brief historical sketch of 1943 (updated in 1990), and David McKitterick's account of the Wren Library of 1995. Robert Neild's well-presented and well-illustrated book makes no pretensions to be that full modern history which Trinity badly needs: it is instead a history of Trinity's finances, a smaller counterpart to H.F. Howard's magnificent financial history of St John's College, Cambridge, published in 1935. Trinity's financial history is equally worthy of detailed study, for this can help to explain its remarkable rise to prosperity, especially in recent years. For the earlier period, Neild is quite happy to rely on Trevelyan for the basic historical narrative, although he does improve on Trevelyan in his accounts both of the initial endowment of the College—not least the assistance given it by Queen Katherine Parr and later by Mary Tudor—and of Trinity's first great builder, Thomas Nevile (Master, 1593–1615), and the problems created by his prodigious appetite for building.