ABSTRACT
Tansley was only in his sixty-sixth year when he died; but the period between his death and the outbreak of the First World War witnessed the passing of most of the Founders and students of the early days. Some of them, like Ludlow, had long been but scarcely remembered names; but others, like R. H. Marks and Alfred Grugeon, remained familiar figures in the College up to the last. When Tansley died, six of the eight Founders were still alive; by 1916 they were all gone. Charles Wright recalled later how as a boy of sixteen he had entered the College just in time to hear Maurice's last address as Principal; but there were few in the College by 1914 who could remember the ‘dear Prophet’, and none who had worked with him and shared his ideals and hopes. The death of Tansley and the passing of his generation, the Jubilee in 1904, and the move to the new building in Crowndale Road during the session 1905–6, marked clearly enough the end of one distinct phase in the life of the College. But there was no sudden break, and because the changes were spread over a number of years and were cumulative in their effect, their significance passed unobserved. The College was growing into middle-age, and when it one day awoke to the realization of this (which it did not really do until after the War) it found that it was no longer in the old familiar world of its young manhood. This was not a profound surprise, for the social stirrings and ferment of ideas in the decade before 1914 had not left the College unaffected. But it is one thing to notice what is going on in the world outside, and perhaps even invite a few strangers indoors; and quite another to be compelled to go out into the world and seek one's fortune afresh.
