THE CAMBRIDGE APOSTLES.
[To nag EDITOR or rue SPRCIATOR."] SIB,—An interesting review in the Spectator of December 15th, 1906. has drawn my attention to " The Cambridge Apostles," by Mrs. Brookfield. In speaking of the more distinguished of the undergraduates, she says :—" Henry Tomlinson (after- wards Bishop of Gibraltar) was of this gifted bend and one of the Founders of the Society." May I be allowed to say that Henry Tomlinson—incidentally, his name was George—was the actual and only founder of the Apostles' Club, though the fame it attained with growth was conferred on it by more illustrious members ? I learnt this from the late Lord Houghton when a fellow-guest in the house of Sir Charles Tennant some years ago, and it has been confirmed to me by other members of the Society.
If not trespassing too much on your valuable space, I should like to enlarge slightly the brief notice accorded to my father in this volume. George Tomlinson, who was of North Country extraction, was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the early part of the nineteenth century. He entered the Church, and 'was eventually appointed to the first bishopric of Gibraltar and Malta under the Administration of Sir Robert Peel. In the Life of the Prime Minister it is told how on his death-bed he sent for his old friend, Dr. Tomlinson, to give him the Sacraments. The Bishop's residence was in Malta. He interested himself in the affairs of the island, and was instrumental in obtaining the recognition of the Maltese marriages when the question came before the Houses of Parliament. Whilst in Malta he went to the Crimea as Chaplain-General to the Forces, and received the Crimean medal. His first wife was a daughter of Sir Patrick Stuart, then Governor of Malta, and late in
life he married again the eldest daughter of Colonel Charles Fraser, of Castle Fraser, by whom be left a family. Much of his leisure, which would have gladly been devoted to more congenial labours, for he was a scholar and a man of fine taste, was given to the compiling of the Clergy List, in the hope that it might provide an income for his children after his death. He was described by his friends as a man of strong personality, having a singular charm of manner and great sweetness of disposition, tempered by considerable humour and force. Since the Apostles' Club, the first article of whose creed was privacy, has been brought into public notice by the publication of " The Cambridge Apostles," will the Apostles pardon this attempt to rescue from oblivion the name and place of their " revered rounder, George Tomlinson"?
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