There were thirty-two foundation Fellows, and twenty-one founded by private benefactors, the latter having all the privileges and advantages of the former. Each of these private foundations had its own special restriction; the holders were to be perhaps of founder's name or kin, or to come from certain specified counties, parishes, or schools. The effect of these special restrictions was that many fellowships had to be filled by men possessing the special qualification without, perhaps, any great intellectual distinction. But once a county was "full" no Fellow could be elected who had been born in that county; and even if a vacancy occurred a promising man might be again cut out by some special restriction. Dr. Wood and the Fellows addressed themselves to this point and obtained in 1820 the Royal consent to a statute throwing open the foundress' fellowships without restriction as to county; the private foundations were left untouched, but the College was empowered to transfer a Fellow on the foundress' foundation to one of the special foundations, if qualified. Dr. Wood was succeeded as Master by Dr. Ralph Tatham, whose father and grandfather (of the same names) had been members of the College. He was Public Orator of the University from 1809 to 1836, an office for which he was well qualified by a singular dignity of person and courtesy of manner. "He brought forth butter," said the wags, "in a lordly dish." In the year 1837 the Earl of Radnor and others raised the question of University reform, and tried to induce the House of Lords to pass a bill for the appointment of a University Commission. In the end the matter was shelved, the friends of the University undertaking that the Colleges, with the approval of their Visitors, should prepare new statutes for the assent of the Crown. The change in St. John's was opposed by some ultra-conservative Fellows, who urged that as they were bound by oath to observe and uphold the statutes, and to seek no dispensation from them, they were precluded from asking for any change. The Bishop of Ely, however, gently put this objection on one side, and the statutes then prepared were approved by Queen Victoria in 1849. The more ardent reformers have described this code as merely legalising the customs and "abuses" which had grown up around the Elizabethan statutes without introducing any effective change.