Wooden spoon award: Encyclopedia II - Wooden spoon award - The academic wooden spoon at Cambridge University

Wooden spoon award - The academic wooden spoon at Cambridge University

The wooden spoon at Cambridge, England was originally associated with the Cambridge University mathematical tripos exams, and was a kind of booby prize awarded by students to their fellow student ranked lowest in the final exams.

The custom dates back at least to the early 19th century, if not before, and continued until 1909. From 1910 onwards the results have been given in alphabetical rather than score order, and so it is now impossible to tell who has come last, unless there is only one person in the lowest class.

There were actual wooden spoons which became increasingly large, and in latter years measured up to 1.5 metres long. By tradition they were dangled in a teasing way from the upstairs balcony in the Senate House in front of the lowest-ranked recipient when he came before the Vice Chancellor to receive his degree.

Wooden spoon award - The last wooden spoon

The last wooden spoon was awarded to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St. John's College, Cambridge in 1909 at the graduation ceremony in the University's Senate House. The handle is shaped like an oar and inscribed with an epigram in Greek which may be translated as follows:

Or in more faithful prose: "This wooden object is the last souvenir of the competitive examinations in mathematics. Look upon it, and weep."

This magnificent spoon [1] is now in the possession of St. John's College, Cambridge and another one is at the Selwyn College, Cambridge library.

Wooden spoon award - The wooden wedge

There was an equivalent prize for the last-placed classicist called the "wooden wedge", first won in 1824 by Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-91) of the Wedgwood pottery family.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The academic wooden spoon at Cambridge University", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki