William Cooper, Papers re University petitions. English and Latin, 1801-5

William Cooper, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 1830, and subsequently Chaplain to Queen Victoria (1770?-1856): papers relating to an opposition he attempted to concert within the University to a bill disabling the clergy from sitting in the House of Commons, promoted by Lord Sidmouth in 1801; to endorse a grace advanced by the Vice Chancellor, in 1803; and to an expression of support to a bill regarding the purchase of advowsons in 1805. The collection includes a letter from William Pitt, Downing Street, 18 May 1801; Pitt was a Member of Parliament for the University. It also includes a letter from Richard Venables of Clare Hall, [1801]; a petition in support of Cooper's resolution, signed by fourteen Fellows (twelve of them from St John's), [1801]; and a calculation of the average age of senior Fellows in the Cambridge Colleges, 1805 (it was forty-three). With a separate caption in Cooper's hand, 1841, on the flyleaf of a letter bearing a 'penny red' stamp.