Oxbridge grad with Inns of Court scholarship peddling 3OO+ miles from Barsham to Barmouth 🚴
An aspiring barrister is taking on a 305-mile cycling challenge across England and Wales in a bid to raise over £12k to cover his living costs during the bar course.
Harry Camp has already set off on his ‘Bar2Bar‘ bike ride, a 305-mile journey from Barsham in Suffolk to Barmouth in Gwynedd, the easternmost and westernmost places in England and Wales beginning with ‘Bar’.
The route pays tribute to both his English-Welsh heritage and the two nations that form the jurisdiction in which he hopes to practise. When he emailed Legal Cheek earlier today, he had reached Leicester and was en route to Staffordshire.
The bar hopeful is no stranger to overcoming obstacles. Raised between working-class communities in Cumbria, Essex and Cambridgeshire, Camp explains how he worked various part-time jobs to support himself through a first-class undergraduate degree at Cambridge and a master’s at Oxford, where his dissertation topped the cohort.
“I am extremely fortunate to come from a deeply supportive family, but that same level of support cannot be offered financially,” Camp explains on his fundraising page, which has already attracted more than £3,500 in donations. “My father is a self-employed carpenter and joiner who left school at 16 and has worked his entire adult life to provide security and stability for his family, weathering some challenging times. My mother was, until her recent retirement, a district nurse and physiotherapist in the NHS.”
His determination to pursue a career at the bar has already won him a prestigious scholarship from Lincoln’s Inn, which will cover the cost of his bar course tuition and part of his rent in London. However, with living costs for the year-long course expected to exceed the scholarship, Camp — who will also be working part-time alongside his studies — is seeking to raise the remaining £12,858 through his cycle challenge and crowdfunding efforts.
Explaining why he has resorted to donning lycra to raise the funds, Camp says he has tried additional scholarships, charities, and even loans, all without success.
“A postgraduate student loan can be obtained for an extended, 12-month version (called an LLM) of my intended eight-month course,” says Camp, who plans to study the bar course at City St George’s, University of London. “However, I am unable to obtain this, as I already used a Postgraduate Student Loan to fund my Masters at Oxford, several years before I decided to become a barrister. One Postgraduate Student Loan is allowed per student, and I do not meet any of the limited exceptions.”
Camp’s CV is very impressive. In addition to his first-class degree from Cambridge and master’s from Oxford, the aspiring barrister has completed a conversion course at The University of Law and undertaken mini-pupillages at some of London’s most elite commercial sets, including Atkin, Erskine, 4 New Square, Maitland, Keating, and One Essex Court. He’s also previously worked as paralegal at US law firm Weil and completed an internship with Magic Circle law firm Clifford Chance.
Camp has also pledged to donate any funds raised beyond his target to The 93% Club, a charity that offers mentorship, career support, and opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, he has committed to making a minimum donation of £15,000 to the diversity charity Bridging the Bar over the course of his career.
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