Dinner with Cornwallis

[anteros_lmc]

I'm currently at a work thing in Cambridge and tonight we had a formal dinner at Clare College. As is usual in these places you sit at long wooden tables in an austerely ostentatious dining room with huge portraits of dead guys staring down at you. (There are _never_ any women.) Anyway the bloke staring down at me tonight was the Marquis of Cornwallis. To my shame his name was only vaguely familiar to me but I was able to date him by the cut of his jacket! I tried photographing the Clare portrait but the dining room was too dark, however I can say that he could easily have passed as Edrington's father ;)

So here's a different portrait of Cornwallis and a summary of his wikipedia entry:

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG (31 December 1738 – 5 October, 1805). Cornwallis was educated at Eton College and Clare College, Cambridge. Styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. In the United States and United Kingdom he is best remembered as one of the leading British generals in the American War of Independence. His 1781 surrender to a combined American-French force at the Siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America, but is often incorrectly considered the end of the war; in fact, it continued for a further two years. Despite this defeat, he retained the confidence of successive British governments and continued to enjoy an active career. In India, where he served two terms as governor general, he is remembered for promulgating the Permanent Settlement. As Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he argued for Catholic emancipation and oversaw the response to the 1798 Irish Rebellion and a French invasion of Ireland, and was instrumental in the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

Comments

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

Cornwallis - I knew the name and a miniscule bit about him but the rest is really fascinating. Thank you for posting.

Ah, college halls. Did it smell of stale cabbage?

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I have to confess it was his rather fine red coat that caught my eye :)

Ah, college halls. Did it smell of stale cabbage?
Of course it did!

[nodbear.livejournal.com]

As a rule of thumb I'd say the ones up to the 18th century smell of stale cabbage and the Victorian ones of stale furniture polish!

and as for portraits of women - at least Christ's has one of its founder Lady Margaret Beaufort

mind you - no pictures of women - bit like the average story on the Indy...

and St Johns, her other foundation , has her coat of arms which is better than nothing I suppose ...St Johns is a sort of holy ground anyway wouldn't you say for Archie- related reasons- and might of course eventually have a picture of one if its loveliest alumni whose alter ego graces these pages somewhat - in fact maybe we could suggest that their special collections would be the place to house the JB archive of HH -love in perpetuity ...

After all, Hornblower fic is the stuff of academic papers already so why not? Give some future PhD student a good time all in the interests of aesthetics of course,...

hope conference gone well

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Lady Margaret Beaufort sounds like a fascinating woman, must read a bit more about her.

LOVE the idea of St John's hosting an archive of HH fic in their special collections! What a brilliant, brilliant idea. The very thought had me giggling quietly all afternoon. And what a topic for a doctorate *swoon*.

And erm, not that I was looking or anything but I notice St John's Red Boys have registered a domain. Wonder if they'll post pics of famous ex-players? And I'm _not_ thinking of Rob Andrew!

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I can say that he could easily have passed as Edrington's father ;)

A plum role for Timothy West then?

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

A plum role for Timothy West then?
He'd be perfect!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_likimeya/]

Funny - I "met" his brother William today. Guess how! ;)

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

God I had no idea! That's why I knew the name Cornwallis!! I haven't read Hornblower and the Hotspur yet but I vaguely associated the name "Cornwallis" with the navy. I was rather surprised when I looked the Marquis up and discovered he was a military man! I thought I was just imagining things, glad you solved the mystery! Cheer's m'dear :D

[kittycallum.livejournal.com]

Neat! I didn't know anything about him, actually, before this, so it's interesting to see. Sounds like an interesting figure.

Enjoy the Cambridge thing! Hope the work stuff is going well!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I didn't know anything about him
Me neither! In fact see my comment to _likimeya above, I had the wrong Cornwallis all together. :}