Has It Really Been 800 Years?

Cambridge University, believed to have been formed in 1209 by scholars who had left Oxford after a dispute with local townspeople, developed into one of the most respected universities in the world (it’s also one of the most extensive, with a campus of 31 colleges). Through the decades, it has produced more than 80 Nobel Prize winners and nurtured some of history’s great thinkers: the list includes John Milton, Isaac Newton, Jawaharlal Nehru, Hans Blix, Ludvig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Francis Crick and James Watson (discoverers of the structure of DNA), Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Stephen Hawking and… Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse. Doubtless, you are burning to find out who Cuthbert was, and always wondered what Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse looked like - well, he looked like this.

The object he is holding is the last ever of the original Wooden Spoons, in the sense of a mocking award for finishing last. It began as a tradition amongst the Mathematics faculty at Cambridge University, from at least 1803 until 1909, of awarding a wooden spoon to the student who graduated with the lowest passing mark. The spoons got bigger and more elaborate over time, culminating in this one, converted from a rowing blade. It was Cuthbert's devotion to the college boat that cost him greater academic success. (Were you surprised a maths student named Cuthbert turned out to be such a jock? Me too. Shame on us for our lazy preconceptions.)

The tradition ended in 1909 because 'the system was changed so that the results were announced in alphabetical order rather than by exam mark.'

Now really, if that little manoeuvre rendered an entire graduating class of Cambridge mathematicians unable to work out who had come bottom I can’t help but think wooden spoons were due all round.