The University of Cambridge

Abstract

James Bass Mullinger (1834–1917) was a University Lecturer in History and Librarian at St. John's College, Cambridge. His monumental History of the University was the standard history of the University at the turn of the twentieth century. For most of his career Mullinger worked on the project, alongside his academic duties and his many articles, the first volume appearing in 1873 and the last in 1911. His extraordinary range of knowledge and the ambition of the work make this an important landmark in the history of universities in Britain. This volume covers the political and religious turmoil of the Civil War and the Restoration, ending symbolically with the decline of the Cambridge Platonists, the major philosophical movement of the seventeenth century. Mullinger describes the role the University played in the rise and fall of Buckingham and of Cromwell, and explores its early connections with America.