Thomas Stearn (1825-1905), a Cambridge tailor, founded this firm of photographers around 1866. Later he ran the firm with his wife Eliza trading as 'Mr and Mrs Stearn'. Later still he took his sons Frank b:1856, Harry Cotterell b:1860, and Walter James b:1865 into the business, trading as Messrs Stearn and later as Stearn and Sons.
After Thomas died the business was run by his sons. Harry Cotterell Stearn died in 1906. Another son, Gilbert Stearn b:1866, was involved in the business at least until 1917. Walter James Stearn died in 1929. Thomas's niece, Edith was also involved with the firm.
Stearn’s operated throughout its history from 72 Bridge Street Cambridge, narrowly avoiding the loss of their premises in a fire in their darkroom in 1898. From 1908 to 1920 local directories also listed premises at Brunswick Terrace Cambridge. At some point between 1939 and 1943 the firm was taken over by A. H. Leach and Son, a well established and growing photo processing business based at Brighouse in Yorkshire.
A new limited company, Stearn and Sons (Cambridge) Ltd, was formed in April 1943, neither the shareholders not the Directors were from the Stearn family. During the period 1942 to 1950 the firm’s processing work was done by A. H. Leach in Brighouse. In 1966 A. H. Leach was taken over by an advertising company, Hunting Surveys, until the Leach family bought the business back from them in 1999. From 1968 the new company, Stearn and Sons (Cambridge) Ltd, did not trade on their own account but acted as agents of their holding companies. In 1970 the Cambridge firm joined Eaden Lilley Photographers.
Stearn and Son took most of the rowing photos until the late 1960's when they joined Eaden Lilley Photographers. Cambridge Central Library have a lot of the original negatives from 1942-1950. The copyright of the photos taken by Eaden Lilley has now passed to Lafayette Photography.
Born at Kirkthorpe, Yorkshire, and was baptised on 27 December 1602 in the parish church at Wakefield. He was the son of Francis Oley, clergyman, and his wife, Mary Watterhouse.
In 1607 Oley entered Wakefield grammar school.
In 1617 he was admitted to Clare College as a Cave Scholar.
Graduated BA in 1621.
Having been elected a probationer fellow of the foundation of Lady Clare at the college on 28 November 1623, he proceeded MA in 1625 and was elected a senior fellow in 1627.
In 1633 he was appointed to the college living of Great Gransden, Huntingdonshire, which he held for the rest of his life, but due to his duties as a Fellow he continued to live in Cambridge for many years.
In 1634–5 he served as taxor (price regulator), for the university, and in 1635–6 as proctor.
He started the rebuilding of Clare College on 19 May 1638, although work was not finished until 1715.
Oley was a Royalist and on 8 April 1644 he was ejected from his Fellowship by Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester on the grounds of non-residence in Cambridge and failure to appear before the commission of visitors. All his personal and landed property was confiscated and he was forced to leave Great Gransden.
During the late 1640s he led a wandering and impoverished life.
In 1643 and 1646 he was in Oxford.
During the sieges of Pontefract in 1644 and 1645 he preached to the Royalist garrison defending the castle.
By 1647 he had been sequestered from the impropriate rectory of Warmfield, Yorkshire, which his father had resigned in 1643.
Having helped Sir Marmaduke Langdale to escape in 1648 from prison and a death sentence, the following year Oley had to compound for delinquency in assisting the forces against parliament, and was fined £30. A further £50 was added in 1652, in lieu of which he was required to settle £5 a year on the minister of Warmfield.
In 1659 Oley returned to Great Gransden and on 9 July 1660 he was restored to his Fellowship at Clare College by order of the same Earl of Manchester.
On 3 August 1660 he was presented to the third prebendal stall of Worcester Cathedral.
In 1663 he left his Fellowship.
In 1664 he was the leading benefactor of the brick school house at Gransden, which he endowed with £20 a year. He built brick houses for six poor people on his own freehold land, leasing them for one thousand years to the churchwardens for the time being at a peppercorn rent, and he erected a vicarage.
He had given a pulpit to Gransden church in the first months of his incumbency in 1633 and in 1681 he provided wainscot seats for the chancel.
On 8 November 1679 he was nominated to the archdeaconry of Ely, but the following year he resigned this preferment because of doubts of his ability to discharge its duties. However, he retained the stall at Worcester until his death.
Oley died at Great Gransden on 20 February 1686, and in accordance with his will was buried there on the night of 22 February.
In his will he left 100 marks (£67) to Clare College for building a library, and £10 to the descendants of John Westley, the builder of the College.
A charity was set up in his name, with assets in Warmfield, Kirkthorpe, and Great Gransden, overseen by the fellows of Clare College and still operating with limited resources in the late twentieth century.
William Greaves was born in Rochdale, Lancs and was the son of William, of Gartside Hall, Lancashire.
He was admitted to Clare on 26 January 1719/20.
B.A. 1720/1. M.A. 1724
Fellow, 1722-42.
Admitted at Lincoln's Inn on 03 June 1724 and at the Inner Temple on 09 November 1727.
Commissary of the University, 1726-79.
Steward of the estates of Trinity College.
Married a daughter of Beaupré Bell.
Succeeded to his estates at Outwell, Norfolk, and assumed the name of Beaupré-Bell.
Died at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, 10 March 1787.
Born in 1871 the son of Edward Chadwick, Vicar of Thornhill Lees, Yorks
School - Wakefield
Admitted to Clare as a scholar on 23 March 1889
Matriculated at Michaelmas 1889
Classics Tripos 1st Class, Pt I, 1892, and Pt II, 1893
B.A. 1892; M.A. 1896
Fellow, 1893
University Lecturer in Scandinavian, 1910-12
Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, 1912-39
Hon. D.Litt. (Durham). LL.D. (St Andrews)
Fellow of the British Academy
Author of 'Studies in Old English'; 'Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions'; 'The Origin of the English Nation'; 'The Heroic Age'; 'The Growth of English Literature' (with his wife)
Senior member of Clare with dining rights in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Was involved with establishing the University Centre and University College (now Wolfson College).
Paul Mellon was born 1907 in Pittsburgh, he graduated at Yale in 1929 and then came to Clare College that year to read History. He graduated in 1931 and his father, Andrew Mellon, was given an Honorary Degree at the same ceremony. After his father died in 1937 he turned from his father's world of business and made philanthropy his extraordinary legacy. Over his lifetime, Mellon gave nearly a billion dollars to museums and other causes ranging from public health to the environment. In 2007 the College will celebrate the centenary of Paul Mellon's birth and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Mellon Fellowships. An exhibition has been mounted at the University Library.
Joseph Senior (1911) studied Classics, was awarded the Greene Cup in 1915 and Owst Prize for Classics (for finishing in top 6 across the University in Part II). He was killed in action in 1917 serving with the Royal Flying Corps.
William Clifford Jones was from the Rhondda Valley and attended LLandovery College before coming to Clare in 1933 "to read law and play rugby". He was awarded three Blues and thirteen Caps for Wales whom he captained in 1938.
After leaving Clare he qualified as a solicitor.
During the Second World War he served as a major with the Control Commission.
He later gave up being a lawyer and joined his father in the family business.
He came back to Welsh rugby in 1957 as a selector, was chairman of the committee for a period, and served until 1978.
He played a significant part in the establishment of the national coaching scheme and the squad training system which underpinned the success of the Welsh team in the late 1960s and the 70s.
In 1979 he was awarded the OBE.1980-81 was President of the Welsh Rugby Union.
Obituary: The Clare Association Annual, 1990-91, pg. 72
Malcolm Mitchinson read Medicine at Queen's College, Cambridge and took his BChir in 1960 and MD in 1969. He was elected as a Fellow at Clare College in 1966 and taught here until 1990. He was the Director of Studies in Pathology for 20 years. He died in October 2015.
Obituary Clare Association Annual 2014-15