John Harvard's England

By Rucker Alex '99-00

You've seen the statue, you've heard the name, and you've experienced the thrill of his legacy. Now, you can visit three landmarks of John Harvard's pre-New England life by wending your way through London and the English countryside.

You don't have to be an expert on the history of the University to know that John Harvard is not technically the founder of Harvard, but instead its main benefactor. The facts we know about him are few. We do know that no contemporary portrait of Harvard exists. It's rumored that the famous statue in Harvard Yard is in the image of an acquaintance of the sculptor. A stained-glass window commemorating Harvard at Emmanuel College, it is reported, was based partly on likenesses of his contemporary John Milton, but with long hair.

So what's the real story behind the mystery man? The historical tour, whether traveled by bus or vicariously, unveils as many provocative questions as satisfying answers: Were John Harvard and William Shakespeare friends? Why is the Harvard seal stuck to an English chapel ceiling? The trip will also test your true devotion to Harvard. How much would you be willing to pay for a postcard with a facsimile of the only existing Harvard signature?

We know few details of John Harvard's New England life. In pursuit of religious toleration, he left England for this continent in 1637 with his wife.

After a year working as an assistant to the pastor for a church in Charlestown, Mass., Harvard died suddenly of consumption in September 1638. In his verbal disposition he granted half of his estate and his entire library of 230 books to a new college in Cambridge (then Newtown). The overseers, recognizing the generosity of Harvard's gift, ordered "that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shal bee called Harvard Colledge."And so John's affiliation with the University was established.

The following brief tour through old England may give you more of a feel for the man behind this well-known story.

Southwark: John Harvard's Home

We'll start closest to central London, in the historically rich area of Southwark. Southwark Cathedral, home to the Harvard Chapel, is just a short stroll from London Bridge. A church has been on this site for more than 1,000 years. John's father, Robert, a respected Southwark citizen, was a warden at St. Saviour's Church on the site of the present Cathedral, and operated a butcher shop in Pepper Alley, now located under an arched bridge directly behind the Cathedral.

John was christened at St. Saviour's on November 29, 1607. He attended St. Saviour's grammar school, where his father was governor. Harvard's Southwark, which operated outside of the city of London's jurisdiction, was, it seems, a pretty interesting place -- a home not only to inns, prisons, and pious Puritans but also to a lively, somewhat raucous theater scene. It was a place, we can guess, where Harvard would not have lived a sheltered life, despite his father's church involvement.

Southwark is also where Robert Harvard and William Shakespeare quite possibly rubbed shoulders. In his 1907 book, John Harvard and His Times, Henry C. Shelley posits an interesting theory regarding how despite Robert's Puritanical leanings, he and the dramatist were, for a number of reasons, likely to have crossed paths. First, Robert was a prominent townsman and butcher. Second, Shakespeare and members of his acting company were parishioners, if only occasional ones, at St. Saviour's Church, where Robert was a warden. Also, the owner of the Rose Theatre was Philip Henslowe, a colleague of Shakespeare's who was active at the church, and even worked directly with Robert.

John's mother, Katherine, lost husband Robert and four of her children to the Southwark Plague of 1625. Katherine remarried twice, and acquired ownership of the Queen's Head Inn on Borough Street. Borough Street had been lined with inns since Chaucer's time, each one a jumping-off point for a different destination. When Katherine died in 1635, the inn went to John, who maintained it for a short time before his departure for America. Although the Queen's Head no longer stands, its site is commemorated with a plaque at 103 Borough High Street.

Harvard Chapel, which adjoins the north transept of the Cathedral, is a gem. It is a graceful space with high, sweeping arches and a magnificent tabernacle designed by 19th-century Gothic revivalist A.W.N. Pugin. The chapel space has been used through the centuries as a vestry and petty debtors' court. It is currently (and more traditionally) a place of reflection and quiet prayer; communion is held several times a week, and the sacrament is performed at the tabernacle.

Parts of the room display traces of Norman architecture. The east wall features a stained-glass window by the famous John LaFarge, depicting the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. The upper frames of the window include the Harvard College and Emmanuel College arms. However, the only pictorial reference to John is a minuscule floating head in the center panel. Guy Rowston, the church historian, describes it as a nondistinctive "typical portrait of a godly 17th-century man." What appears to be a small facsimile of the Harvard shield is affixed to the ceiling of the chapel.

It is through the perseverance of alumni at the turn of the century that the Harvard Chapel even exists. The dedication ceremonies arranged by these interested Americans occurred in two stages, and proved a delight to local and national newspapers, which had a field day listing the important people attending.

On May 22, 1905, Joseph Choate, a former American Ambassador in London, presided over a ceremony to unveil the newly installed stained-glass window. At the ceremony, Choate spoke of why he funded the project: ". . . the name of John Harvard, unknown and of little account when he left England, has been a benediction to the New World, and his timely and generous act has borne fruit a millionfold . . . we are here today to lay a wreath upon the shrine." However, the space continued to be known as the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist.

The interest ignited by the unveiling of the window spurred an influx of donations from alums, which helped to restore the chapel proper. Two years later, the new U.S. ambassador, Whitelaw Reid, officially requested the Bishop of Southwark to rededicate the space to John Harvard. In a ceremony attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and many members of the Harvard community, the Harvard Chapel was officially dedicated on July 17, 1907, on the 300th anniversary of John Harvard's baptism.

What else you can find

A gorgeous historic building in its own right, Southwark Cathedral was also Shakespeare's place of worship. A monument and an overhead window pictorially commemorate the Bard and his plays.

~ The true Bard die-hards may enjoy a 15-minute walk to the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's recently re-created stage. There are open-air performances and guided tours in the spring through early fall.

~ It's not Widener, but the unassuming John Harvard public branch library at 211 Borough High Street, a 10-minute walk from the Cathedral, has an excellent Local Studies Library in the back. The staff can show you planning maps of Southwark in the 1600s, original clippings of articles commemorating the chapel, and photographs and illustrations of famed Southwark characters and landmarks. The library is closed Wednesday and Sunday.

~ The Borough Street inns in Southwark were once famous as the point for coach departures, and boast extraordinary literary associations. Chaucer, for instance, has his Canterbury pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn ("It happened in that season that one day/ In Southwark, at The Tabard, as I lay/ Ready to go on pilgrimage and start/ For Canterbury, most devout at heart"). Dickens and Shakespeare featured inns, like the White Hart, in, respectively, the Pickwick Papers and Henry IV.

How to get there

Southwark is easily reached by the Underground. Take the Northern Line to London Bridge and exit on Borough Street, facing the Southwark Cathedral. The Borough and Elephant & Castle stations are also nearby.

Emmanuel College:

The Other Cambridge

Since its founding in 1584, Emmanuel College, at Cambridge University, was singled out for its nontraditional Calvinist views on religion and ritual. The college placed its focus on the students, a hardy and nonconformist group. One-third of the university graduates who first settled in New England were Emmanuel graduates, and John Harvard belonged to this group.

John Harvard attended Emmanuel College, graduating with his B.A. in 1632 and earning his M.A. in 1635. Proof of his attendance is scattered through the College: a shaky signature in a book, a stained-glass window in a chapel, a room which may have been his (now reserved for the Lionel de Jersey Harvard scholar).

The hub of Harvard in the other Cambridge is at Wren Chapel, the Emmanuel College Chapel. The windows in the chapel were originally plain, but for the tercentenary in 1884 the college installed beautiful stained-glass portraits commemorating past graduates and famous historical and intellectual figures. John Harvard is on the north wall, next to a portrait of Laurence Chaderton, the first master of Emmanuel and one of the translators of the 1611 English Bible. In the portrait, John holds a scroll inscribed "POPULUS QUI CREABITUR LAUDABIT DOMINUM" ("a people which shall be created shall praise the Lord," Psalm cii 18). At his feet is an urn, on which is written "SAL GENTIUM" ("the salt of the earth"; preacher Cotton Mather used this in phrase in 1702 in reference to Harvard College). Behind Harvard are a sailing ship, similar to the one Harvard may have used to travel to America, and his Charlestown gravestone.

Nearby is the Emmanuel College Library, which houses the matriculation book John Harvard signed -- the only sample of his handwriting known to exist. You can also buy postcards with John Harvard's signature.

How to get there

The cheapest way to travel to Cambridge is by bus. National Express runs a Cambridge-London shuttle 20 times a day (2 hours each way). BritRail operates a service between Cambridge and London; it's a one-hour ride. If you're going all out and want to visit Oxford, too, Cambridge Coaches runs hourly shuttles between the university towns.

Stratford: John's Mum

Katherine Rogers, John Harvard's mother, was raised on High Street in Stratford-upon-Avon. She came from a large and wealthy family, and the construction of the family's house in 1596 caused a stir in the town. More than 400 years later, the house still stands, and remains a prominent example of fine, well-detailed architecture. In search of a wife in 1605, Robert Harvard made the journey to Stratford. Some theorize it was actually Shakespeare who facilitated Harvard's introduction to Katherine. Robert and Katherine married in April 1605, when she was 21 years old.

Katherine's childhood home was known as the Ancient House until the late 1800s, when a neighboring printer distributed a postcard with the inscription "The Harvard House." Legend says this feat of entrepreneurialism brought many American tourists, eager to see John Harvard's birth site. (Of course, John was born in Southwark, not Stratford.)

In 1909, Chicago millionaire and Harvard alum Edward Morris was persuaded by a local writer, Marie Corelli, to buy the house. In 1910 he presented it to Harvard University. Harvard owns the house but placed it under the supervision of the Shakespeare Trust, which maintains the five Shakespeare properties in Stratford. The house recently underwent renovations and acquired the Neish Collection of Pewter, now displayed on the ground floor.

The house is presented as it would have been in Katherine's time. Although the items are not necessarily those that were in the Rogers's home, they are all authentic to the period, or nearly all --you'll pass by months-old issues of the Harvard University Gazette on the way up, and photographs of Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine hang over a mantel on the second level.

Harvard alumni are invited to sign a guest book, though they don't retain the other privileges accorded them in the past. (After World War II, Harvard House was open to students and affiliates only; rumor has it that students were able to enjoy a cup of hot tea and a place to rest and write postcards here before resuming their travels.) Admission is free, and the House is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from late spring through early fall.

What else you can find

Stratford-upon-Avon is especially crowded in the summer months, for reasons other than its Harvard connections. You quickly realize that if a poet indeed exists within you, it will emerge in this beautiful setting. The River Avon flows through (you can rent a rowboat to paddle along it), and swans frolic on the lawns next to delighted children.

~ Star attractions include the Shakespeare-related sites. You can visit all five of the Shakespeare Trust properties, most of which are in easy walking distance. The most popular site is Shakespeare's birthplace, found next to the Shakespeare Centre museum.

~ For a spot of live drama, try the stupendous Royal Shakespeare Company theaters. Stratford hosts three, ranging from a grandly traditional stage to an ultramodern, small venue. There are "rush tickets" available, but it's best to book your seats as far in advance as possible.

~ For additional poetic inspiration, visit the neighboring idyllic Cotswalds villages, home to castles, tearooms, and rolling hills.

How to get there

Stratford can be reached by the National Express buses (a 3-hour ride). You can also take the train from London (2 hours).

Contemporary photos by
Rucker Alex