‘Shoulder to Shoulder with the Gallant Men of Ulster' 1

Lubbock's continued support for the work of the London County Council (LCC), despite his personal reservations on many areas of policy, was noted in Liberal circles and, in May, he was feted by the City Liberal Club, organizing a dinner in his honour. ² The constituency that sent Lubbock to Parliament, however, was not the LCC but the University of London, and, for once, an issue was emerging that was of direct relevance to the university. Many academics shared a long-standing aspiration to establish a ‘teaching University’ in London (the University of London, it was argued, was merely an ‘examining University’ and, as such, not of equivalent status to Oxford, Cambridge, or indeed the civic universities that were springing up in provincial centres such as Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol). At the beginning of 1892 a proposal had been laid before Parliament for the establishment of the ‘Albert University’. Despite having the support of University College, King's College and the eight London Medical Schools, all of which had uneasy relations with the University of London (the Colleges had no formal place in the governance of the University), and the endorsement of a Royal Commission ³ the idea had come to nothing, until the Gresham Foundation, funded by a long-standing endowment and governed jointly by the Corporation of the City of London and the Mercers’ Company, came forward with a promise of funding and a building, on condition that the institution be styled the Gresham University rather than the Albert University. The possibility that the great London Colleges would break away from the University of London became a real one, and was winning influential support. Lubbock led a large deputation to lobby Lord Salisbury against the idea, and Salisbury responded by referring the matter to another Royal Commission, chaired by Lord Cowper.