ID DATA
Cambridge Apostles
Cambridge Conversazione Society
Founded by twelve Tory evangelical students in 1820.
"Absolute candour was the only duty that the tradition of the society enforced." From memoirs of Apostle Henry Sidgwick, published 1906.
Summary
An elite intellectual secret society aka Cambridge Conversazione Society, founded by George Tomlinson in 1820. Tomlinson later became the Bishop of Gibraltar. The name is taken from the idea that its members are supposedly the 12 brightest students at Cambridge. Active membership consists largely of undergraduates, although graduate students have been members. Traditionally the society centered around King's College and Trinity College, but that is no longer the case.
Purpose
Described as a "debating" club, weekly meetings were held, when one member giving a prepared talk on a topic, while the members eat sardines on toast, called "whales". Following the talk, the topic is opened for discussion. Any topic is fair game, no matter how controversial or politically incorrect, and any idea may be used as an argument. All members were expected to read an essay at one time or another.
Serious Pursuit of Thought
The Society, as they liked to refer to themselves, fancied that they were more sober and serious than other societies formed around the same time, as they intended to follow professions or politics. As time went on, many of the other groups disintegrated but the Apostles survived for a longer time, and because of their longevity, they elected larger numbers of members who became distinguished.
Traditions
The Apostles retain a leather diary of their membership stretching back to its founder, which includes handwritten notes about the topics each member has spoken on. The diary is retained by the secretary of the society. The Ark was the chest where they kept the club's papers.
Saturday Night Ritual
On Saturday evenings, they gathered in the rooms of a member, who became their host - called the moderator - read a paper to the Society while standing on the hearth-rug. In turn, each of the brethren, in an order chosen by lot, took to the hearth-rug and commented on the paper. Their discussion was spirited but they were expected to take the paper seriously. Fines were imposed for failing to bring a paper; if the moderator was unable to attend due to illness or accident, a suitably serious selection was read aloud to those present.
Membership
Apostles and Angels
Plato held a commanding presence in the Brotherhood, especially in the Apostles' terminology. Active members are "Apostles" and former members are "Angels." The angels usually agree to look out for prospective new members among the undergraduate population. Those being considered for membership are called "embryos" and are invited to parties where, unknown to these particular students, they are judged on their worthiness to be invited to join.
Phenomenal vs. Reality
Propagation was the method for identifying embryos, fathers were sponsors of embryos, a birth was an induction, stumps were philistines, footprints were the marks they hoped to leave on the world, and they all referred to themselves as Reality - all else was Phenomenal.
Initiation
Becoming an Apostle involves taking an oath of secrecy and listening to the reading of a curse, originally written by Apostle Fenton Hort abt. 1851. Very few women have joined, the first being in 1985. A significant percentage of angels have acquired fellowships at Cambridge, and positions in media, government and church.
Eligibility
There have been very few women in the group. The first woman to join, an American Ph.D student in social anthropology, became a member in 1985, 165 years after the society was founded.
Their Highest Standards
The Brotherhood consistently represented tolerance, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and self-examination, which its members saw as essential in contributing to an individual's sense of identity and personal worth.
Rebellious Idealism
In 1830-31, several Apostles, in their youthful romanticism and Byronic rebelliousness, became involved in the doomed Spanish Adventure, a failed insurrection of exiled liberals against the throne of King Ferdinand VII, which resulted in the execution of many of the revolutionaries.
Liberal Elitism
In the atmosphere within which it existed at Cambridge, heterodoxy and homosexuality flourished more-or-less openly. Single-sex environments such as those involuntarily present in prisons and (in the past) on shipboard, encourage homosexuality faute de mieux; environments that are rigidly single-sex by choice (as the recent scandals in the Roman Catholic church show) attract those who are homosexual by preference. Even though Protestant in theology, the great English universities retained well into the nineteenth century their monastic/clerical character, and were such environments.
The Higher Sodomy
Deacon describes an atmosphere of misogyny which found open and ugly expression amongst many homosexuals, who justified their behavior on the grounds that men were superior to women, hence the love of one man for another was a superior form of love to that of man for woman. Much classical learning has been adduced to this point. This constitutes the "Higher Sodomy" to which Deacon devotes a chapter of his book.
Products of Closed Societies
The Apostles refined and concentrated the expression of attitudes widely present in the larger setting of Cambridge. To be sure, there were many Apostles who were neither communists nor homosexuals. Certainly very few were Soviet spies. But those who were, were entirely predictable products of their surroundings, nurtured and encouraged by the closed society of the Apostles.
Historical Highlights
Bloomsbury
The Apostles first became well-known outside Cambridge in the years before the First World War with the rise to eminence of the group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. Bloomsbury, the name given to a group of friends who lived in or near the London district of Bloomsbury from about 1905 to 1939, included several Apostles, and many who were not members. Bloomsbury -- to some an "Intellectual Aristocracy," to its detractors, merely a community of "Bloomsbuggers" -- was a modern symposium. Sex and sexuality were frequent topics of conversation and became the basis of many of the ties that bound the members.
Like the Apostles, Bloomsbury was united by friendship. Like the Apostles, nothing mattered to Bloomsbury so long as one was honest. Like the Apostles, Bloomsbury was engaged in a moral adventure. Like the Apostles, Bloomsbury saw through the humbug of family. Like the Apostles, Bloomsbury was marked by candid discussion in which high seriousness, gossip, gaiety, and argument were all mixed together."
Cambridge Spy Ring
The Apostles were in the media following exposure of the Cambridge spy ring, in which at least two of four named spies were Apostles with access to the top levels of British government, found to have passed information to the KGB. Guy Burgess was the Queen's art advisor and knighted in 1956, but was stripped of his knighthood in 1979 after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publicly named him a spy. He drink himself to death in Moscow in 1963. Anthony Blunt, a communist, was recruited during a visit to Russia in 1933, who in turn recruited other students at the instruction of his KGB handlers.
Influence of Apostles
In the nineteenth century, the circle was widely influential and particularly powerful in politics (up until the Great War, thirty-four Apostles--or fourteen percent--were Members of Parliament; one even became a member of the U. S. House of Representatives) and the civil service, law and literature, church and education; later it branched out to science, medicine, economics, and technology.
Prominent members:
- Ainsworth, A.R.
- Annan, Noel. Intelligence officer, provost of King's College, Cambridge, provost of University College, London, vice-chancellor of the University of London, literary critic, member of House of Lords.
- Balfour, A.J. Prime Minister.
- Bell, Julian. Poet.
- Birrell, Francis. Critic and journalist.
- Blunt, Anthony (1927). Art adviser to Queen, Director, Courtauld Institute, MI-5 officer, KGB spy.
- Brooke, Rupert (1908). Poet.
- Browning, Oscar. Classicist.
- Buller, Arthur. Judge of the Supreme Court, Calcutta.
- Buller, Charles. Barrister and MP.
- Burgess, Guy. MI-6 officer, KGB spy.
- Cory, William.
- Darwin, Erasmus Alvey (1823). Physician and brother of Charles Darwin.
- Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes. Historian and philosopher.
- Gross, John. Journalist.
- Hallam, Arthur (1829). Poet.
- Hardy, G. H. Mathematician.
- Hobsbawm, Eric. Historian.
- Hodgkin, Alan. Recipient of Nobel Prize for Medicine.
- Hort, Fenton. Writer of the curse or oath of secrecy.
- Huxley, Aldous. Writer.
- Fitzgerald, Edward. Poet and translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
- Forster, E.M. (1901). Writer.
- Fry, Roger Eliot (1887). Artist and art historian.
- Johnson, Harry. Economist.
- Kemble, John Mitchell. Historian.
- Kettle, Arnold. Shakespeare expert.
- Keynes, John Maynard (1903). Economist, member of House of Lords.
- Levy, Paul. Food critic for the Observer.
- Llewelyn-Davies, Richard. Architect.
- Lloyd, Geoffrey. Emeritus professor of classics at Cambridge, Master of Darwin College, Cambridge.
- MacCarthy, Desmond. Newspaper and literary critic.
- MacLean, Donald. Foreign office secretary, KGB spy.
- Maitland, Frederic William. English law expert.
- Marsh, Eddie. Private secretary to Winston Churchill, patron of the arts.
- Maurice, J.F.D. "Frederick." Christian socialist writer.
- Maxwell, James Clerk (1852). Physicist.
- McTaggart, J.M.E. Philosopher.
- Meredith, H.O. Economist.
- Miller, Jonathan. Surgeon and theater expert.
- Moore, G.E. (1894). Philosopher.
- Mortimer, Raymond. Art critic, journalist, editor of the New Statesman.
- Noel, Roden.
- Norton, Henry.
- Philby, Kim. MI-6 officer, journalist, KGB spy.
- Pollock, Frederick. Jurisprudence expert.
- Rives, George Lockhart. Assistant Secretary of State and planner of the New York subway.
- Rothschild, Victor. Financier, member of House of Lords.
- Runciman, W.G. Sociologist.
- Russell, Bertrand (1892). Philosopher, recipient of Nobel Prize for Literature, member of House of Lords.
- Sheppard, John Tressider "Jack." Classicist, provost of King's College.
- Shove, Gerald. Economist.
- Sidgwick, Henry (1857). Philospher.
- Snow, C.P. Writer and physicist.
- Stephen, Leslie. Philosopher.
- Sterling, John. Writer and poet.
- Strachey, James. Editor, translator of Sigmund Freud.
- Strachey, Lytton. (1902). Writer and critic.
- Straight, Michael Whitney. American magazine publisher The New Republic, Presidential speechwriter, KGB spy.
- Sydney-Turner, Saxon.
- Tennyson, Alfred (1829). English poet Laureate, member of House of Lords.
- Tomlin, Stephen. Sculptor.
- Tomlinson, George (1820). Bishop of Gibraltar.
- Trench, Richard. Christian writer, Archbishop of Dublin.
- Trevelyan, G.M. Historian.
- Trevelyan, Robert. Poet and translator.
- Turner, Saxon Sidney. Writer.
- Waley, Arthur. Chinese and Japanese translator and historian.
- Wedd, Nathaniel. Classicist.
- Westcott, Brooke Foss. Theologian, Bishop of Durham.
- Whitehead, A.N. (1884). Mathematician, logician and philosopher.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1912). Philosopher.
- Woolf, Leonard. Publisher, novelist, husband of Virginia Woolf.
A Secret Society That Really Influenced Events
Michael S. Swisher of Stillwater, Minnesota, shared these remarks in his review of The Cambridge Apostles : A History of Cambridge University's Elite Intellectual Secret Society by Richard Deacon.
Open to New Ideas
The Apostles were anti-authoritarian and sceptical. They taught themselves that knowledge was always fallible and limited, subject to questioning. They were repelled by dogma, by posturing, and by any behaviour which prevented the Brethren from freely unburdening themselves. Ideas and their consequences were of real interest to the Apostles, whose membership included artists and intellectuals of the first rank.
"Ideas and their consequences, rather than crude fraternity stunts and pranks, were of real interest to them."
