As regards his own office, he did many things to promote its permanent dignity. He persuaded the Board to give him a grant for enlarging the fine house which his predecessor had built, and this addition is one of its chief features; it is the stately Provost’s study, added at the north end of the main structure. He took care so to lease the Provost’s estate as to preserve its rental undiminished to his successors. The same principles appear in his improvement of the College. With the aid of a grant from the Erasmus Smith’s Board of £2,500, he built the noble Examination Hall, intended for a Theatre or Hall of public Academic performances, at the fortunate moment when our 18th century builders had just reached the zenith of their art. No room in Dublin is more perfect in its proportions, or more rich as well as chaste in its ornamentation. He also persuaded the Senior Fellows, who trembled for their renewal fines, to have the College estates re-valued, and thus added a permanent £5,000 a-year to the property of the Corporation. We are told that he could not carry out this eminently honest and practical reform without guaranteeing each of the persons who sat with him on the Board against loss of income. Not one of them was willing to risk one shilling for the future improvement of the College estate. He showed more questionable taste when he transformed a number of old silver cups into a service of dinner plates, which his enemies said he intended for his own use, and probably for that of his heirs; for he carried them to his suburban residence at Palmerstown [Park], and used them in his entertainments. The service is, however, still safe, and perhaps adds as much to the dignity of College entertainments as would the cups that were melted down. But we grieve to think what splendid old specimens of Caroline or Queen Anne plate have thus been lost. So far as Hutchinson was a politician--probably accepting the Provostship with the determination to have the University for a pocket-borough, and so to attain a position equal to that of the County magnates--so far his life and conduct are open to severe criticism. In every other respect his 20 years of rule were both brilliant and profitable to the College. He continued the great traditions of his two predecessors, and far surpassed the men who succeeded him for the next 40 years. But whether the opposition of the Fellows was really irreconcilable, or whether he was himself wanting in tact or fairness, the painful result is beyond question, that he lived all his life at war with his subjects.