In the early days of Tripos, coaches were in private business in rooms off-campus.
In the 1880s and 1890s instruction at college improved to the point that coaches merely supervised their students’ progress.
In 1900 senior wrangler J. E. Wright was his student, and his textbook A Treatise on Geometrical Optics was published.
[3]: 451 His students James Jeans, Harry Bateman, and Arthur Eddington, among others, later proved their facility with methods of differential geometry as they developed the theories of electromagnetism and relativity of spacetime.
Andrew Forsyth reviewed the history of Tripos, and wrote, "my old friend, R. A. Herman, who died a few years ago, a man of unusual manipulative skill, a great and stimulating teacher, the last of the great coaches.