Blog
25 November 2025
S is for…Shuckburgh
Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh, author of the first official history of Emmanuel College, is commemorated on a bronze plaque in the library. A fine piece by Ernest Gillick R.A., the sculpture does not, of course, convey the fact that its subject was tall, fair-haired and ruddy-cheeked. Shuckburgh was appointed to an Emmanuel fellowship after graduating 13th Classic in 1866. It was later recalled that he brought a ‘delightful freshness’ to the Fellows’ Parlour, although his blithe infringements of its more ‘absurd’ rules resulted in an ‘unprecedented total’ of fines. Upon his marriage to Frances Pullen, in 1874, Shuckburgh was obliged to resign his fellowship. He taught Classics for a decade at Eton, where his ‘tranquil kindliness’ endeared him to many pupils, but in 1884 he returned to Emmanuel, upon being appointed college Librarian. Shuckburgh was also a prolific translator and essayist, and was thus ideally fitted to write the Emmanuel volume in the University of Cambridge College Histories series. This book, published in 1904, is a highly readable, as well as useful, work of reference. Shuckburgh also wrote brief biographies of several Emmanuel worthies, and earned the enduring gratitude of researchers by translating, from the original Latin, William Dillingham’s invaluable memoir of Laurence Chaderton, the college’s first Master. In a letter written from Eton in April 1875 to a former colleague, Shuckburgh expressed a wish that it was the school holidays so that he ‘might lounge about for ever in this delicious weather’. In fact, he was an indefatigable worker, who when asked why he devoted so much leisure time to academic study, answered simply: ‘I enjoy it’. Overwork perhaps contributed to his sudden death in 1906, aged only 62. His friends remembered him as an ‘amiable, affectionate, charitable, large-hearted man’, with an immense enjoyment of life.
S is for…Sudbury Prize
A good many annual awards are now available to Emmanuel students, but for a long time only one was on offer: the Sudbury prize. The college’s early governors expected students to regard outstanding intellectual achievement as its own reward (with the contingent possibility of a fellowship, admittedly). After the disruptions of the Civil War and Commonwealth, however, it was felt by many, not least the new Master, William Sancroft, that the calibre of Emmanuel’s students needed raising. John Sudbury, admitted to Emmanuel in 1620, shared this opinion. A churchman and Royalist, Sudbury was deprived of his clerical living in 1642, but after the Restoration was appointed Dean of Durham. In 1667, he informed Sancroft that following their recent discussion, he would be giving the college £500 to fund, amongst other things, an annual student prize. Sudbury hoped this would be ‘an incentive to young schollers to study to deserve, partly for the advantage, which is but small, and partly for the honour of being reputed the most worthy of their year, and therefore I intend it shall be bestowed upon no other consideration but that of merit for learning and piety’. The prize was to be a piece of silverware worth £6, awarded to the BA commencer judged by the Master and senior Fellows to be the most deserving. The prizes could take any form (many recipients chose drinking vessels), but all were to bear the same Latin inscription, commemorating Sudbury, that Sancroft himself had composed. The award was later augmented by other benefactors and is now called the Sudbury-Hardyman Prize. It is currently reserved for students excelling in academic subjects for which no other named prize exists. Historic ‘Sudbury’ silverware occasionally comes up for sale, and several pieces have been acquired for the college, thanks to the generosity of an old member.