Convocation’s Pursuit of Power and Reconstruction

As long ago as 1840, a powerful group in the Senate had agreed on the desirability of creating a convocation, and had envisaged that by about 1850 the Senate would in effect be elected by that convocation. That possibility had been accepted as dead, long before Convocation was established in 1858, but there was resentment and disappointment among many of the graduates about the very limited powers which the new body was given. In the following quarter-century, much of that resentment was doubtless modified by the developing partnership between Senate and Convocation and by the success of Convocation in initiating and seeing accepted a number of important University policies. But there remained an ambition among many members of Convocation to see its constitutional position vis-a-vis the Senate strengthened. In part this desire was expressed, and to a minor extent achieved, by successive changes to the internal procedures of Convocation, incorporated in the Standing Orders. And it might be argued that the establishment of the University’s seat in the House of Commons, whose filling was effectively a Convocation affair, might be regarded as giving some extra edge to Convocation’s status vis-a-vis Senate – though electoral manoeuvring and later experience was to show that the incumbent of the seat could be involved in University affairs without necessarily supporting Convocation positions. But in any event, a more fundamental shift of authority to Convocation could only be brought about by altering the Charter and by the award of specific new powers. Efforts to bring about any major shift were unsuccessful. In the 1863 Charter, Convocation’s fundamentally important existing power to accept or surrender any new Charter was extended to cover any Supplemental Charter: Convocation was given power, if they wished, to introduce postal voting for electing nominees to be appointed to the Senate: and Convocation could decide whether holders of new degrees were qualified to become members. There were no other changes until the legislation which re-arranged the constitution of the University for the twentieth century. But there were attempts to acquire new powers which are worth attention because of the contexts in which they were made, and because of the people who led them.

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