of development of coaching—tuition usually outside the official University and college courses—went hand-in-hand with a gradual increase in the difficulty of the most testing questions asked. The standard examination pattern of bookwork (mostly memorised theorems) plus rider (problems to solve, testing comprehension of the bookwork) was introduced. Wranglers and their coaches The list of wranglers (the candidates awarded a first-class degree) became in time the subject of a great deal of public attention. According to Alexander Macfarlane To obtain high honours in the Mathematical Tripos, a student must put himself in special training under a mathematician, technically called a coach, who is not one of the regular college instructors, nor one of the University professors, but simply makes a private business of training men to pass that particular examination. Skill consists in the rate at which one can solve and more especially write out the solution of problems. It is excellent training of a kind, but there is not time for studying fundamental principles, still less for making any philosophical investigations. Mathematical insight is something higher than skill in solving problems; consequently the senior wrangler has not always turned out the most distinguished mathematician in after life. William Hopkins was the first coach distinguished by his students' performances. When he retired in 1849, one of his students, Edward Routh became the dominant coach. Another coach, William Henry Besant published a textbook, Elementary Hydrostatics, containing mathematical exercises and solutions such as would benefit students preparing for Tripos. After Routh retired in 1888, Robert Rumsey Webb coached many of the top wranglers. Warwick notes that college teaching improved toward the end of the 19th century: The expansion of intercollegiate and university lectures at all levels through the 1880s and 1890s meant that, by 1900, it had become unnecessary for coaches either to lecture students or even to provide them with manuscripts covering the mathematical methods they were required to master. The prime job to the coach now was to ensure that students were attending an appropriate range of courses and that they understood what they were being taught. … This curtailment of responsibility made it virtually impossible for a private tutor to dominate undergraduate training the way that Hopkins, Routh, and Webb had done. A fellow of Trinity College, Robert Alfred Herman then was associated with several of the top wranglers as their coach; evidently the university was finally providing their students