The death of Dr Okes, though he had reached the mature age of ninety-one, has taken the University by surprise^[117]. He had become an institution of the place. While everything around him changed, and old things became new, his venerable figure remained unaltered, like a monument of an older faith which has survived the attacks of successive iconoclasts, to tell the younger generation what manner of men the Dons of the past had been. He was fond of saying that the first public event he could distinctly remember was the battle of Trafalgar. He had been a Master at Eton when Goodall was Provost and Keate Head-master, and he had begun to rule over King’s College when the University of Cambridge differed as widely from what it is now as the Europe of Napoleon from its present condition. Still, his load of years sat so lightly upon him, his interest in what was going forward was still so keen, that there seemed to be no reason why he should not complete his century of life. The slight infirmities from which he suffered did not prevent him, until quite lately, from attending service in chapel, at least on Sundays; his hearing was but little affected; his sight was good; and he could still enjoy the society of his friends. Only a few days before his death he was reading Miss Burney’s Evelina to his daughters. When it became known on Sunday last that he had really passed away, it was hard to believe that the sad news could possibly be true.

Richard Okes was born in Cambridge, 15 December, 1797. His father, Thomas Verney Okes, was a surgeon in extensive practice. Tradition is silent respecting the future Provost’s childhood and early education; but, as in those days boys began their lives at Eton at a very early age, it is probable that when he was little older than a child he was sent to fight his battles among the collegers, in what even devoted Etonians have called ‘a proverb and a reproach’—Long Chamber. In 1816, when he was rather more than eighteen, he obtained a scholarship at King’s College; but it appears from the University records that he did not formally matriculate until November in the following year. In those days, be it remembered, King’s College was a very different place from what it is now, both structurally and educationally. The magnificent site, on which Henry VI. intended to place an equally magnificent college, was occupied by no structures of importance except the Chapel, and the Fellows’ Building, part of a second grand design which, like the first, was never completed. The scholars, or at all events the greater part of them, were packed into Old Court—the small, irregular quadrangle west of the University Library, to which the founder intended originally to limit his college. It must have been a curious structure—picturesque and interesting from an archeological point of view, but unwholesome and uncomfortable as a place of residence. The very nicknames given to some of the chambers—“the Tolbooth,” “the Block-house,” and the like—are a sufficient proof of their discomfort. In one of these, on the ground floor, facing Clare Hall, young Okes resided; and until a few months ago, when the last remnant of this part of the old college was absorbed by the University Library, the present generation could form a fairly correct idea of the gloom and damp that their ancestors were obliged to put up with. But members of Kings College had to endure something far worse than physical discomfort. It had been the object of their founder to make his college independent of the University, and, as a consequence of these well-intentioned provisions, scholars of King’s were not allowed to compete for University honours, but obtained their degrees as a matter of course. The result is not difficult to conceive. In every society there will be some whose love of letters, or whose ardour for distinction, is so strong that nothing can check it; but, as a rule, the young Etonians who were obliged to spend three years in Cambridge threw learning to the winds, and enjoyed to their hearts’ content the liberty, not to say license, of their new surroundings. It was a bad state of things; and that Okes felt it to be so is proved by the eagerness with which he, a strong Conservative, set himself to get it abolished as soon as he had the power to do so. We do not claim for the late Provost any specially studious habits as a young man; he was too genial and too fond of society to have ever been a very hard reader; but his scholarship in after years would not have been as accurate as it certainly was had he wasted his time at Cambridge; and, as a proof that he aimed at distinction, it should be mentioned that he obtained Sir William Browne’s prize for Greek and Latin Epigrams in 1819 and 1820. To the very end of his life he was fond of writing Latin verse; and when the Fellows of his college congratulated him on his ninetieth birthday in Latin and English poems, he replied in half-a-dozen Latin lines which many a younger scholar could not have turned so neatly.

He proceeded to his degree in 1821, and was in due course elected Fellow of his college. Soon afterwards he returned to Eton as an Assistant-Master. Mr Gladstone was one of the first set of boys who, in Eton phrase, were ‘up to him’ in school. He filled his difficult position with a judicious blending of severity and kindliness that made him thoroughly respected by everybody, and at the same time beloved by those boys who saw enough of him to discover that his dignified and slightly pompous demeanour concealed a singularly warm and sympathetic heart. His house was well-conducted and deservedly popular; and though in those days masters did not see much of their pupils in private, he contrived to turn several of his boys into life-long friends. In 1838 he became Lower Master—an office which he held until he returned to Cambridge in 1850. While in that influential position he introduced at least one reform into the school; he got what was called ‘an intermediate examination’ established, by which the collegers were enabled to test their capacities before submitting to the final examination which was to determine their chances of obtaining a scholarship at King’s.

In November 1850, the Provostship of King’s College having been vacated by the death of the Rev. George Thackeray, Dr Okes was elected his successor. So anxious was he to abolish the anomalous position of King’s-men with regard to University degrees that, on his way from Eton to Cambridge to be inducted into his new dignity, he stayed a few hours in London to take counsel with the Bishop of Lincoln, as Visitor of the college, on the best way of effecting an alteration. The needful negotiations were pressed forward without loss of time, and on the 1st May, 1851, the college informed the University of their willingness to abolish the existing state of things. The University, as might have been expected, took time to consider the matter; and it was not until February 18, 1852, that the Senate accepted the proposed reform. Meanwhile Dr Okes had been elected Vice-Chancellor, and, in virtue of that office, had the pleasure of signing the report which concluded the negotiations. His year of office as Vice-Chancellor ended, he took but little part in University business. He served on the Council of the Senate from 1864 to 1868, and he was occasionally a member of Syndicates; but, with these exceptions, he devoted himself to the affairs of his college.

When he returned to the University the ancient constitution still subsisted, and it may be doubted whether he could ever have brought himself into cordial sympathy with the changes inaugurated by the statutes which came into operation in 1858. The abolition of the old Caput, and the virtual dethronement of the Heads of Colleges, must have seemed to him to be changes which savoured of sacrilege. Still, when a reform had been once carried he accepted it loyally, and never tried by underhand devices to thwart its provisions, or to diminish its force. He was too straight-forward to pretend that he liked change, but he was too honest to take away with one hand the assent that he gave with the other. In regard to his own college he was before all things an Etonian, and he clung to the ancient system by which King’s was recruited exclusively from Eton. But, when it was decided, in 1864, to throw the college open, under certain restrictions, to all comers, he offered no violent resistance to the scheme, though he did not like it; and it may be doubted whether he ever felt that the newcomers were really King’s-men. His sense of duty, as well as his natural kindliness, compelled him to accept them; but he looked upon them as aliens. This strong conservative bias, opposed to the liberal instincts of a society which his own reform had created, sometimes brought him into collision with his Fellows; but such differences were not of long duration. He was never morose. He never bore a grudge against any one. His sense of humour, and his natural gaiety of spirits, carried him through difficulties which his habitual tone of mind would hardly have enabled him to surmount. When his portrait was painted by Herkomer, the artist showed him as he lived, with a smile on his kind face. It was objected that so jocose a countenance was at variance with the dignity of his position. ‘What would the Provost of King’s be without his jokes?’ was the reply of a sarcastic contemporary. The remark had a deeper meaning than its author either imagined or intended.

1 December, 1888.