Full text of "About Winchester College"

See other formats

CENTRE 
for 
R EFORMATION 
and 
RENAISSANCE 
STLIDIES 

VICTORIA 
UNIVERSITY 

T O R O N T O 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 



MACMILLAN AND CO., LI,ll'I'ED 
I.ONDON  BOMBAY  CALCçTrA  MADRAS 
MELBO[.'RNE 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NE,V YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO 
BALLAS  5AN FIANCI$CO 
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
TOIONTO 



,1 

7 

II 

iii II ,il" 

Il i Il 



ABOUT 

WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

A. Ko 

BY 
COOK 

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED 
DE COLLEGIO IVINTONIENSI 
BY 
ROBERT MATHEW 

Fixit carmine norma, qvixit usu 

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
,97 



COPYRI;HT 



MAGISTRIS INFORMATORIBUS 
HESTERNIS HODIERNOQUE 
WICCAMICE DE RE WICCAMICA 
MERITIS E MERENTI 

Sunt tres, cura vagae quibus est commissa im,entae 



PREFACE 

WJEr in 1848 Charles Wordsorth, afterwards 
Bishop of St. Andrews, published "the graceful an- 
thology which he called The. College of St. Mary 
Winton near Winchester, he rightly gave the place of 
honour in his volume, not to th.e most elegant piece 
which it contained, but to some vigorous though by no 
means faultless hexameters which describe the life of 
Winchester scholars in bygone days--as he supposed, 
in the middle of the sixteenth century. It is agreed 
that these hexameters, De Collegio seu potius Collegiata 
Schola Wicchamica ll'itoniensi, are of unique ina- 
portance for Wykehamical and indeed for public- 
school history, but except in Wordsworth's volume 
they have never been published, and that volume has 
long been out of print. A rcpublication of the poem 
may therefore be justified, but such a rcpublication 
cannot be a mere reprint of Wordsworth's text, with 
his introduction and notes; for his introduction is 
marred by a mistaken ascription of authorship which 
led him to ante-date the poem by a century ; his notes 
are scanty and incorrect; his text suffers from the 
inevitable results of hasty editing. Even, however, if 
his introduction and notes were free from errors, and 
his text a faithful copy of the Winchester manuscript 
from which he transcribed it, an entirely new edition, 
and no mere reprint, would be needed ; for the rccent 
vil 



viii ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

discovery, at Magdalen College, of a far better manu- 
script, writtcn and signcd (almost ccrtainly) by the 
poct himsclf, has supcrscdcd the Winchcster manu- 
script. It is on this Magdalcn manuscript that I have 
relied in prcparing a text of thc poem; which tcxt, 
with an introduction and a paraphrase, forms Part I. 
of this book. 
Part II. consists of a serics of chaptcrs " about 
Winchcstcr Collcgc". The subjccts of many of these 
chapters vere suggested by the poem, upon which 
they were af first designed fo be a commentary. Such 
a commentary was hOt necessary, perhaps, in Words- 
worth's rime, for Dr. Ridding could describe the poem 
in 1893 as "presenting the school-life of fifty years 
ago". But the school-life of 1843 bas become very 
dina fo most of us in 1914, so fast and so far have we 
travelled ; and much must be said to make intelligible 
fo modern Wykehamists what fo Wordsworth's 
Wykehamists was obvious and familiar. Even these 
chapters, however, have grown into something which 
is more than a commentary. Dating as it does from 
a rime almost exactly half-way between the founda- 
tion of thc College and to-day the poem tempts a 
studcnt to look before and after, fo trace, so far as he 
can, the earlier and the later history of the institutions 
and usages which if describes or takes for granted; 
and I have yielded fo the temptation. 
An accourir of the MSS. of the poem and other 
marrer which seemed unsuitable to Part II. will be 
found in the Appendices. In one of these I have 
printed some hitherto unpublished and unnoticed 
letters of John Harris, the greatest, perhaps, of Win- 
chester Wardens. The letters are valuable alike for 
their authorship, their style, and their contents ; some 
of them have a special interest from their allusions 
to incidents of the Civil War. 



PREFACE ix 

I am under obligations (which are generally ac- 
knowledged in the notes) to many modern writers, 
but very partieularly to three : to the late Mr. C. W. 
Holgate, who ean hardly have realized, when under- 
taking his arduous labours upon Winchester Long 
Rolls, in how many ways he would faeilitate the study 
of Wykehamieal history ; to the late Mr. T. F. Kirby, 
and to Mr. A. F. Leaeh. Mr. Kirby's Annals of 
Winchester College is a veritable gold mine ; thc proeess 
of extraeting its ore from its quartz may be diffieult 
and eostly, but the " life " of the mine is assured. 
The book was written by a busy man within narrow 
limits of rime, and its author's researehes ranged 
over a very wide field ; he had to deal with a mass of 
documents, often diffieult to read or to explain. If 
an examination of some of these documents by Mr. 
Chitty and myself bas obliged me to point out errors in 
his reading and what we regard as errors in his ex- 
planation of them, I share the admiration whieh Mr. 
Chitty and ail other readers of,nnals feel for the un- 
tiring zeal, the sagaeious judgment, the varied know- 
ledge, whieh Mr. Kirby brought to bear on the history 
of a sehool whieh was not his. The happy blend of 
learning and vivaeity which charaeterizes Mr. Leaeh's 
History of IIïnchester College needs no recognition from 
me; I have learnt even more from the luminous col- 
lcction which he calls Educational Charters, the only 
fault of which is its brevity. I have made lnuch use 
of the side-lights thrown upon Wykchamical customs 
and institutions by documents printed in Etoniana, 
and by such writers as Mr. John Sargeaunt in his 
Annals of Westtninster School and Sir H. Maxwell 
Lyre in his monumental History of Eton College. 
Among other printed marrer by whieh I have profited 
I must mention articles, letters, and news-items 
published in The Wykehamist during the nearly fifty 



x ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

years of its prosperous eareer, and the instructive 
evidenee given by Dr. Moberly fo the Publie Sehool 
Commissioners. The main interest of this latter 
source of information eonsists in its presenting a 
most vivid pieture of the school when if was beginning, 
but only beginning, tobe stirred by the spirit of re- 
form ; as we study the picture we have the by-interest 
of following the quick workings of the artist's singu- 
larly acute and subtle mind. 
Unprintcd matter, however, has been even more 
hclpful. The Themes of Christopher Johnson (c. 1565), 
nmv in the British Museum, certain notes about Win- 
chcster (c. 1670), now in thc Bodlcian, the Bond Lctters 
(1770-1), transcribed by Canon Christopher Words- 
worth, have supplied me with much material for thc 
history of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth 
eenturies ; many letters and other unpublished papers 
bave been no less valuable for that of the nineteenth. 
Al)ove all, I have been permitted to study at my 
leisure various doeuments of various dates in the 
possession of the College; a considerable number of 
these bave not been used by Wykehalnieal historians. 
I bave acknowledged in the notes many debts to 
correspondents, but my special thanks are due to 
the Rev. H. A. Wilson, who gave me full opportunity 
of studying the Magdalen manuseript to vhieh I have 
referred ; to Sir Harry Verney, M.P., for information 
coneerning certain Verney letters; to Professor Itenry 
Jackson, O.M., for the loan of an unusually copious 
and informing "word - book" ; to Mr. Reginald 
Blomfield, R.A., and to Mr. W. D. CariSe, for com- 
munications which they have allowed me to print. 
Among the old Wykehamists who have helped me in 
various vays are Canon Bramston, Archdeacon Fearon, 
Sir Frederic Kenyon, and Mr. A. O. Priekard; my 
son, Mr. A. B. K. Cook, who has read the manuseript 



PREFACE xi 

and the proof-sheets of the whole book, and pruned 
it toits great advantage; Mr. H. J. Hardy and Mr. 
Leach, whose criticisms and suggestions have been 
invaluable. But my heaviest dcbt of all is to my 
friend Mr. Herbert Chitty, the Home Bursar of the 
College; he bas placed his unrivalled knowledge of 
Wykehamical antiquities at my disposal, and has 
lavished time and labour on the solution of my 
difficulties. The pleasantest and most useful of the 
hours which I have devoted to the preparation of this 
book bave been those during which I bave sat at his 
feet, while he deciphered or taught me to dccipher the 
records of the past. 

July 1914. 

*** The publication of this book has been delaved 
for an obvious rcason; it had left the printer's hands, 
and was praetieally ready to appear, in August 1914. 
Had it been written later, some of it would bave been 
vritten differently. 
Two interesting documents relating fo matters 
which I have diseussed have eome to mv notice since 
the type vas dispersed. One of these would have 
enabled me to add to my aecount of Robert Mathew 
(in Appendix III.) some strange particulars of the 
diflîculties whieh he encountered as a Royalist studcnt 
at Oxford in 1649. The other eonfirms the belief 
expressed on p. 485 that Warden Harris built Sick- 
house " in the foresight of death " in (or about) 1656. 
I regret that a eareless mis-statement about this 
building on p. 482 should have been left uneorrected 
in the text. 
An unfortunate eonsequenee of the mistake to 
whieh I have called attention in the Introduction to 



xii ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Part I. has occurred very recently. In Shakespeare's 
England (Oxford, 1916) a learned vriter of high 
authority makes use of the Winchester poem of 1647 
as evidence for his " survey of the schools of England 
in the age of Shakespeare"; he accepted Bishop 
Wordsvorth's assurance that the poet was Christopher 
Johnson. 
Since I wrote my Preface two Wykehamists 
who had helped me greatly have passed avay. My 
brother-in-law Arthur Francis Leach, to whom my 
obligations are thêrc acknowlcdged, died on September 
28, 1915. Ilis death is a grievous loss fo educational 
history, which he unravêlled vith matchless industry 
and insight, and fo the history of Winchester College 
in particular. Throughout his researches Wykeham 
and his work were continually in his thoughts; his 
loyalty fo lais school was in the strictest sense Wyke- 
hamical. Another he!per, vhose keen and critical 
intcrêst in nay undcrtaking vas my constant delight, 
was killed in action before Ovillers on July 7, 1916. 

July 1917. 



LIST OF ABBREVIATED REFERENCES 

Adams=Wykebamica, by H. C. Adams (Oxford and London, 1878). 
Annals =Armais of Winchester College, by T. F. Kirby (London and Winchester, 
1892). 
Carlisle=Endowed Grammar Schoos, by Nicholas Carlisle (London, 1818). 
Cockerell  The Architectural Works of William of Wykeham, by C. R. Cockerel| ; 
published in the Proceedings of the Archaeological lnstitute ai Winchester 
(London, 1846). 
D.D.=Dulce Domum, by C. A. E. Moberly (London, 1911). 
D.N.B.=Dictionary of National Biography. 
Description:A Description of the City, College, and Cathedral of Winchester 
[by Thomas Warton] (London, no date). 
E.C. = Educational Charters and Documents, by A. F. Leaeh (Cambridge, 1911). 
G.L.C.=Correspondence between the Rev. Dr. Gabell and the R«v. Robert Lowth 
(Oxford, 1819). [Of two littlc books thus namcd thc smaller is rcferred 
to.] 
G.P.S.=Great Public Schools (London, no date). 
G.R.=George Ridding, Schoolmastev and Bishop, by Lady Laura Ridding 
(London, 1908). 
H. & A.= The History and Antiuities of Winchester (,ïnton, 1773). 
History=A History of Winchester College, by A. F. Leach (London, 1899). 
L.R.= Winchester Long Rolls, by C. W. Holgate and Herbert Chitty (Win- 
chester, 1899 and 1904,). 
M. L.=A History of Eton College (1440-1910), by Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyre, 
K.C.B. (Fourth Edition, London, 1911). 
Mansfieid--=School-Life ai Winchester College, by the author of The Log of the 
" Water-Lily" [R. B. Mansfield] (London, 1866). 
llcDonnell= A History of St. Paurs School, by M. F. J. McDonneli (London, 
1909). 
N.E.D.=New English Dictionary. 
P.S.C.= Report of Her Iajest's CommMones appoited to nquire to the 
ReoEnues and Management of certain Collees ad Schools, vol. iii. (London, 
1864). 
R. and R. = New College, by Hastings Rshdll and R. S. Rait {London, 1901 I- 
Rich = Recoll«ctios of tbe Two St. Ia W inton Collees, by an Old Vykehamist 
[Edward Rich] ('Valsall and London, 1883). 
Sargeaunt=Annals of lVestminster School, by John Sargcaunt (London, 1898). 
T. A. T.----What 1 remember, by T. A. Trollope, vol. i. (London, 1887). 
Themes=Themes ai IVinchcster School [by Christopher Johnson], British 
Museum, Add. MSS. ;79. 
xiii 



xiv ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Tuckwell:The .lncicff Ways : II'iwhestcr Fifly Years ,4go, by the Rev. 
William Tuckwell (London, 1893). 
Vol. oe I. = ! ïsilation Articles and I«junctions, edited by W. II. Frere, vol. iii. 
(London, 1910). 
".II.: .4 llislory of Hampshire and Ihe Isle of IIïgh/, vol. ii. ( Victoria History 
of lhe Counlies of Egland), (London, 1903). [When other volumes of the 
Victoria llistory are referrcd to, the naine of the County is given, e.g. 
I'.H. Bucks.] 
V.31.=31emoirs of the Verney Family, by F. P. Verney and M. M. Vcrney 
(London, 189°-9). 
W.C.: I$'ichester Collegr 1393-1893, by OId Wykehamists (London, 1893). 
II'.S.: Winchester Scholars, by T. F. Kirby (London and Vinchcstcr, 1888). 
W.!l'.B.---Wichester IVord-Book, compilcd by Il. G. K. Vrench (Second 
Edition, Winchester, 1901). 
Walcott = William of li'ykcham and his Colleges, by Mackcnzic E. C. Wa|cott 
(Winchcster and London, 1852). 
Wordsworth=The College of ,çl. 31af!! II'into near Winchester [edited by 
Charles Wordsworth] (Oxford and Wincbcster. 1848). 



C()NTENTS 

DEDICATION 
PREFACE . 
LIsT OF ABBREVI TED I{EFERENCES. 

l'AfIN 
vii 

PART I 
DE COLLEGIO WINTONIENSI 

INTRODUCTION 
TEXT AND PARAPIIRASE 

3 
12 

CHAP. 
I. 
III. 
¥I. 
¥II. 
YIII. 
IX. 

PART II 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

THE HEAD MASTER 
T. HEAD M.<STEtt (conli.ued) 
THE SECOND [ASTER 
ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 
THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 
PREFECTS : TUNDING AND FAGGING . 
COLLEGE OFFICF.RS 
BIBLE-ÇLEIK AND 05"TIARIU,ç 
ÇHAMBERS 
EARLY RISING 
XV 

33 
47 
65 
85 
97 
109 
1:53 
143 
150 
168 



xvi 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
CtI.P. pAGE 
XI. BREAKFAST 17 
XII. DtN.R 182 
XIII. BEVERS AND SUPPER: BEER 196 
XlV. THE SOCIETY AND THE CIIIL3REN 204 
XV. OL3 AND NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOIS "222 
XVI. T,aluL,a LG» 236 
XVII. SUNDAYS 248 
XVIII. SUNDAYS: ATTE.NDANCE AT CTHEDRAL 257 
XIX. laM Ltrccs: GOlXG ('/actr.t 266 
XX. SCHOOL-DAYS : BOOKS-CAMBERS 270 
XXI. '" FORMS OR BOOKS" 276 
XXIl. AUTHORS I{EAD: INTRODUCTION OF GREEK . 285 
XXIII. EDUCATIONAL 3IISCELLANEA : INTRODUCTION 
OF 3IATHEMATICS 301 
XXIV. BIBLING AND TIIE BIBLING ROD 322 
XXV. I{EMEDIES AND THE I'(EMEDY-RING 830 
XXVI. GOING ON flILLS: ORIGIN 342 
XXVII. (JOING ON fllLLS: DESCRIPTION 347 
XXVIII. GOING ON fllLLS : DECLINE AND FALL 359 
XXIX. MEADS 365 
XXX. FIRES IN HALL 379 
XXXI. CLOISTER TIME 384 
XXXII. ELECTION 390 
XXXIII. DOMUM: DOMUM BALL: MEDAL SPEAKING . 409 
XXXIV. TUE ]IoLIDAYS 422 
XXXV. CIIAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 439 
XXXVI. QUIRISTERS 451 
XXXVII. SERVANTS 465 
XXXVIII. Trie POET'S OMISSIONS: SICK-HOUSE . 474 
XXXIX. OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 489 
XL. NU.IBERS 505 



CONTENTS xvii 

APPENDICES 

PGE 
I. THE MSS. OF IATHEW'S POEM 521 
II. THE TEXT OF TE POEM 526 
III. TE POET 530 
IV. REGALLç PLATEA . 534 
V. PaçPERES Er LVDIC.EVTES 537 
VI. DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF TIIE TABULA LEGUM 545 
VII. ETON COV8UErUDLVAIIU»t AND WESTMINSTER 
STATUTES 549 
VIII. LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 553 
IX. DR. BURTON AND OLD COMMONERS . 567 
X. THE ILLUSTRATIONS 570 

INDEX 573 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

WINCHESTER COLLEGE ABOUT 1692 Frontispiece 
FRONTISPIECE OF THE AGDALEN ]lS. Facing page 7 
THE ]IAGDALEN IS., VV. 131--167  Facing page 8 
 IR. BOWLES'S PLAN . Between pages 370 and 371 
THE MAGDALEN IS.--CONCLUSION OF THE POEM AND 
EPILOGUE . Facing page 522 



CORRIGENDA 

Page 259, line 20, for forebore read forbore. 
,, 480, line 28, for Eltington read Ettington. 
,, 482, lines 2:1-25, for The first addition to our buildings since Chantry 
read Of ail additions to out buildings since the fifteenth 
century, and erase of ail such additions. 
,, 508, line 23, for was there ruade read was ruade on p. 229. 
,, 514, line 10, for bifurcation read trifurcation. 



PART I 

DE COLLEGIO IVIN TONIENSI 

B 



INTRODUCTION 

HISTORY OF THE POEM : ITS DATE AND 
AUTHORSHIP 

IN the brief Introduction which Charles Wordsxvorth 
prefixcd to his edition of the poem here re-editcd he 
statcd positively that its author " was Christopher 
Johnson, a person of considerable note in thc reign 
of Queen Elizabeth". Johnson was Head Master of 
Winchester from 1561 to 1571 and was afterwards 
an emincnt London physician, but Wordsworth be- 
lieved, with good rcason, that the pocm was the pocm 
of a boy; he therefore refcrred its date to a rime 
(15¢9-53) whcn Johnson was not yet of considcrable 
note but only a Winchester scholar, " to the rcign 
of King Edward VI. or Queen Mary at the latcst" 
The half-ccntury which followed the publication 
of Wordsworth's volume in 188 was a busy time with 
Wykehamical historians. 1 " More books ", says Mr. 
Leach, 2 " have been written about Winchcster than 
about any other school ", and most of these books 
wcre written during this same half-century. The 
writers of many of them made much use of what 
Wordsworth had called Johnson's pocm, and acccpted 
it as first-rate evidence for life at Winchcster in the 
Mid-Tudor period; Wordsworth's assertion was too 
1 Especially its last decade, when the Quincentenary stimulated interest 
in Wykehamieal history and antiquities. 
 V.H.p. 362. 
3 



4 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. 

positive fo countenance questionings about ifs date 
and authorship. 
The half-eentury ran out, and in 1899 if oeeurred 
fo Mr. J. S. Cotton fo do what these writers had not 
done, fo go fo the College Library and examine the 
manuscript from which Wordsworth's edition had 
been printed. 1 He diseovered af once that if supplies 
" no infernal evidenee for Johnson's authorship". 
If is true that the little volume whieh eontains it 
contains also some verses whieh are undoubtedly 
Johnson's, but these verses were copied into the 
volume by another hand and ata much later date.  
The manuscript had a further "secret to betray ". 
The poct, in a famous passage (vv. 137-42), says that 
thc " rcmcdy-ring " gives and takes back " the power 
of going to Hills and Mcads ". Wordsworth printed : 

ad Montes, ad Prata potentiam eundi 
Qui gerit arque refcrt, 

but Mr. Cotton found in the manuscript, with POTEN 
and GER rubricated, 

ad Montes ad Prata POTENtiam eundi 
Qui GERit atque refcrt, 

vith a marginal note : Annuli lnscriptio POTENtiam 
GERo feroque. 3 Why, he asked himself, these rubri- 
cated capitals ? For though he often found whole 
words printed in such capitals, in no other place did 
he find parts of words so printed. His knovledge of 
Wykehamical history supplied him with the answer 

 Wordsworth, p. 4. 
- Sec Appendix I. 
 Vordsworth quotes the note, but again ignores the eapitals. Strangely 
enough they are also ignored (as well as the note) in another eopy of the poem 
which was manifestly taken direct from the College MS. This eopy is, I think, 
in the handwriting of Archdeaeon Gilbert Heathcote (Fellow 1804-29). It 
became the property of his son the Rev. G. V. Heathcote, and it was given 
to me after his death in 1893. 



xrao». DE COLLEGIO IVINTONIENSI 5 

to his question. John Potenger was Head Master 
from 1642 to 1653,1 and " the syllables twiee empha- 
sized " spell his naine. It must therefore have been 
Potenger, Mr. Cotton eoncluded, who engraved the 
remedy-ring, and the date of the poem eould not be 
earlier than 1642.--A difficulty whieh had puzzled 
Mr. Cotton was af the saine rime removed. The poet 
refers (vv. 124-5) to a certain Robinson, in whose 
" garden " Sixth and Fifth Books eould on Mondays 
" gather flowers of rhetorie ", and Mr. Cotton had 
been unable to diseover any trace of any book by any 
Robinson from which they could have done so in the 
sixteenth eentury. But there is a book by a Robinson 
from whieh they eould gather them in the seventeenth. 
Hugh Robinson was Head Master of Winehester from 
1613 fo 1626; he wrote school-books for Winchester 
seholars, and one of them, published in 1616, eontains 
a Rhetorica brevis from whieh out poet himself pieked 
flowers.3 
The Robinson allusion, however, proved no more 
than that the poem vas not vritten before 1616; 
the remedy-ring passage was more important, for it 
proved, as we have seen, that the poem was not 
written belote 1642. Could a latest possible date 
* In his list of ttead Masters (Annals, p. xii) Mr. Kirby makes Burt succeed 
Potenger in 1654. But in the Long Roll produced in the autumn of 1653 Burt 
is already Ludimagister. 
 Error dies hard ; as lately as June 1912 Professor Herbert Strong, in an 
interesting paper in The Arena, ealled the poem a description of the school "' as 
it was under King Edward VI."--It is unfortunate that the publication of 
Mr. Leach's History and that of Mr. Holgate's Lmg Bolls (vol. i.) were not 
delayed for a few months. Both these valuable books were published just too 
soon for their authors to take accourir of Mr. Cotton's announcement of his 
discovery (in The Wykehamist for July 1899); both Mr. Leach and Mr. 
Holgate assumed that the poem was Johnson's. In a later article upon 
Hampshire Schools (I'.H. pp. 261-366) Mr. Leach bas corrected the mistakes 
into which a reliance upon Wordsworth betrayed him. 
 See below, p. 296.--$Vordsworth was acquainted with the Rhetorica 
brevis and gives its date eorrectly (p. 42) ; it is most strange that it did not 
oecur fo him that a poem containing an allusion fo a book published in 1616 
could hOt bave been written between 1549 and 1553. 



6 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE - 

for its composition be likewise fixed ? Mr. Cotton, 
indeed, elaimed to have proved that it was written 
" during Potenger's headmastership", i.e. not later 
than 1658; he assumed, apparently, that Potenger 
took his remedy-ring away with him when he retired. 
But why should he hot have handed on to his sueeessor 
so pretty a memorial of himself and his headmaster- 
ship ? 1--Mr. Leaeh has suggested  that a line at 
the end of the poem fixes not merely the latest possible 
but the approximate date of its composition very 
surely. The poet alludes (v. 284) to certain embellish- 
ments of the " aqueduet " in Chamber Court as 
reeent : 

Ductus aquoe quamvis sit plumbo et poste novatus ; 

upon whieh Mr. Leaeh observed that " the aeeounts 
for 1651 eontain entries whieh show the ereetion of 
rive new and gorgeously worked eolumns, whieh with 
the capitals and the founder's arms above were 
painted and gilded at a eost of £4 : 15s.". If this were 
so, then (if we assume, what we need hot doubt, 
that the line quoted was part of the original poem) 
the poem would date from 1651 or not much later. 
But Mr. Leaeh was misled by Mr. Kirby. 3 The ex- 
penses of the renovation deseribed by the poet and 
Mr. Leaeh were ineurred 4 and paid, not in 1651, but 
in the fourth quarter of the bursarial year ending 
September 24, 1647. Mr. Leach was right in attaching 
importance to the aqueduct allusion ; but the inference 
to be drawn from it is that the poem was written not 

i The play on Potenger's name was repeated by Mathew, and familiar to 
Wykehamists, in 1652 ; ee below, p. 45. 
* I'.H.p. 831. 
a Sec Annol$, p. 41. 
« I say "" ineurred" beeause many of the items of the eost were the wages 
of day-labourers.--The work was mueh Bore elaborate than we should gather 
from Mr. Kirby, who omits many items from the aeeounts. The total eost 
exeeeded £20. 



Frontispiece of the Magdalen MS. 

T," ,.,-,.f 7 



ro». DE COLLEGIO IrIVTOVIEN,-çI 7 
earlier and not much (if at all) later than the summer 
or early autumn of 1647.1 
Mr. Cotton's discovery was ruade, as we have seen, 
in 1899; thirteen years afterwards another was to 
be made of almost equal importance. In the Library 
of Magdalen College, Oxford, there is a volume 
labelled Tracts; if contains speeches and pamphlcts, 
mostly on ecclesiastical questions, bearing dates from 
1680 to 1712. Examining this volume in 1912 the 
librarian, Mr. H. A. Wilson, found, sandwiched in 
between the musty bread of .4 Word in Season for 
Christian Unity (1680) and the more palatable Her 
Majesty's Most Gracious Speech (1704), a small 3IS. 
of a Latin poem, vith prologue and epilogue, entitled 
De Collegio seu potius Collegiatâ Scholâ ll'icchamicâ 
lVintoniensi. If is a manuscript of the pseudo- 
3ohnson poem, and a far more valuable one than 
that af Winchester. Ifs spelling, ifs punctuation, 
ifs readings are better, and if clears up some serious 
difficulties. That, hovever, is not ail. Af the end 
of the poem, or rather of the epilogue which follows 
it, there stands in this newly-found MS. a boldly 
written signature, claiming the authorship for 
Robertus Mathew. The signature and the poem are 
in the saine handvriting. The manuscript vas 
written by one who, unlike the Winchester scribe, 
always understood the meaning of vhat he wrote; 
it contains occasional corrections in the saine hand 
as the words corrected, and these corrections are 
such as are ruade, not by a copyist who has copied 
a Mr. Leach hinted in I'.H. (p. 331) that the date of the poem might be as 
late as 1656-7 ; " the poet," he said, " describes as a conspicuous object on 
the north wall of school a map of the world" (see v. 76), " and there is an 
item in the Bursar's book for 1656-7 of £1 : 17 : 6 paid to the informator for 
a rnappa rnundi for school ". That is so, but there were maps in School at an 
earlier date ; ten shillings were paid in 1614-15 pro fabrica pro carta geo- 
graphica in Schola.--Maps were provided for Shrewsbury School by the 
Bailitïs" Ordinances in 157. 



8 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .i 

vrongly, but by an author vho is improving his ovn 
work. The internal evidence gives us every rcason 
to believe, and no reason to doubt, that thc manu- 
script was written, and that the poem was com- 
posed, by the person who affixed his signature.--The 
prologue i states that the author, who makes a boy's 
mistakes, was a boy: 

Suln puer, et vircs tantas natura negavit ; 

and the epilogue suggests, vhat the style and manner 
of the poem also suggest, that the boy-author was 
nearing the end of his school-days and was arLxious 
about New College. " You are reported ", he says, 
addressing the Founder, " to bave founded Win- 
chester with your left hand", and he continues: 

Si talis sit loeva manus, tua dextera quaIis, 
Wicchame ? Ad Oxonium si (si !) pervenero, dicam, e 

Have ve then, it remains to enquire, external 
evidenee of the existence of a Robert Mathew who 
was a Winehester seholar in (or not mueh later than) 
the sulnmer or early autumn of 1647, and was af that 
rime likely fo be arLxious about his admission to New 
College ? We have sueh evidenee. A marble in 
the east window of Third Chamber records the naine 
of Robert Mathew, 16477 The saine naine appears 
(10th) on the roll ad llïnton, of September 1643; its 
bearer was admitted as a seholar of Winehester on 
September 3, 1644. It appears (9th) on the roll 
ad Oxon. of September 1646 ; its bearer was admitted 
as a seholar or probationary Fellow of New College 
 Both the prologue and the epilogue will be fotmd in Appendàx I. 
z He alludes of course to the ïamous line whieh he prints on his frontispiece : 
Qui condis dextra, condis coilegia loeva. 
a The compiler of Inscriptiones Wiccamicae misread the date as 1649 
(p. 75). 



The Magdalen MS., vv. 13I- I67. 



isT,o,. DE COLLEGIO IfZlNTOzVIENSI 9 

on September 23, 1647, and as the months imme- 
diately preceding his admission passed the poet's 
amxiety--ad Oxonium si (si !) perveneromust have 
been his anxiety. The evidence of the poem, and 
in particular of the Magdalen MS., is thus most fully 
confirmed. 1 

I need not call attention to the salient character- 
istics of the poem, which Mr. Leach, when he supposed 
it to be Johnson's, very happily compared to " the 
paintings of the contemporary Dutch School, with 
its quaint realism and careful, yet easy, reproduction 
of life "3---The poet is so fresh and unaffected, so 
cheerful and so loyal, that we would gladly know 
much about lfim, and something at any rate has been 
discovered ; it will be round in an appendLx.--During 
Mathew's short school-life some stirring events 
occurred at Winchester. He vas admitted to College, 
as ve bave seen, on September 3, 1644; some six 
weeks later, on October 19, " the King came vith his 
train to Winchester ", and it was not till January 6, 
164 that the Committee of both Kingdoms took 
measures " for removing the King's forces " from 
the city. "On the Lord's Day, the 28th of Sep- 
tember," 1645, Cromwell "entered the tom and 
summoned the Castle "; on the following Lord's 
Day, Oetober 5, "the Governor gave up hope and 
surrendered-.3 Did one of the Fellows preach a 
sermon in Chapel as usual, and did the boys take 
notes of it, on eaeh of those two Sundays ? 4 Neither 
 A Latin .farrago, eomposed by Mathew at New College in 1652 {see p. 44), 
though very different in style and manner from out poem, suggests that he was 
the kind of person who might have written the latter rive years earlier. 
 ltistory, p. 276. 
 Slate Papers, Doneslic, 1644-5, pp. 60, 231; 1645-7, p. 179 ; Carlyle's 
Cromzvell, Letter XX_.OEII. ; Gardiner's Civil War, ii. p. 362. 
* As Warden Harris said in the saine year that they did "' every Lord's 
day " ; sec below, p. 250, and w. ll9, 120. 



10 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r., 

of the visit of Charles I., 1 nor of that of Cromwell, 
nor inàeeà of any events (exccpt " Going on Hills ") 
outside the College walls, shall we find an echo in 
Mathew's poem.--He was aàmitted to New College 
in 1647. Dià he remember his promise that, if (if !) 
admitted, he would write a poem about the College 
that Wykcham's right hand founded ? If such a 
pocm was writtcn, let us hope that a librarian may 
one day discovcr it, embedded perhaps, like that 
about the collcge of Wykeham's left hand, between 
strata of unrcadable tracts. 

 Charles I. was again at Winehester, as a prisoner, on his way from IIurst 
Castle to Windsor (just a month before his trial began), on December 19, 1648. 
"*Ve have evidence of the Warden's "consenting to his eldest son's exploit of 
redeeming the King's life" at this time ; see below, p. 553. But Mathew haà 
then left school. 



12 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE w. 

DE COLLEGIO 
SEU POTIUS COLLEGIATA SCHOLA 
WICCHAMICA WINTONIENSI 

Inter turrigeras quas Anglia continet urbes 
Urbs antiqua suo minitatur culmine nubes ; 
Venta prius dieta est, Wintonia deinde voeata. 
Australis loeus est, ubi se via findit in urbem ; 
Regalis platea est, si vulgi more loquamur. 
Wieehamus, insignis mitraque pedoque Swithini, 
Condidit hic saeris saeraria digna Camcenis ; 
Hic, hic pauperibus Kovpo.rp64)o, ille loeavit ; 
Et, ne dirueret soevus fundamina Demon, 
Tutele domus hec dive est sacrata Marie ; 
Et, ne civili domus hoec arderet ab igni, 
Est positus Custos, qui proesidet omnibus unus. 
Sunt duo, cura vagoe quibus est commissa iuvente, 
Atque decem Socii, qui dicti a plebe Magistri. 
Inde Capcllani, qui constant ordine trino ; 
Vendieat et trinum numerum sibi Clerieus ; unus 
Organa qui faeili pereurrit dissona dextra. 
Sed Pueros numerus bene septuagesimus aretat. 
Proefeeti oetodecim seniores rite voeantur ; 
Exemplo monituque sehole moderamina servant ; 
Si tamen obstiterint rabidi nimiumque protervi, 
Nomina sunt ehartoe, eharta est data deinde Magistro, 
Qui quadripartita bene eorrigit omnia virga. 
Sexdeeimus numerus iubet ut sit meta Choristis. 
Hi resonant sacros argutis vocibus hymnos 
In templo, ex templo sociis puerisque ministrant ; 
His quoque discipulis patet alnfi ianua ludi. 
Nomine seu pueri vociteris sive choriste, 
Non caput obtegitur pileo crassoque galero, 
Cimmeriisque togis vestiti inceditis omnes. 80 



 DE COLLEGIO IIOeIVTOVIE.Ar, S'I 1,5 

The Foundation of the Colle,ge and its Members (1-30) 

Among the towered towns of England there is one 
which rises high to heaven; it is the ancient city 
once called Venta, afterwards Winton. South of it, 
where the road splits off into the town, is what people 
call the King's Highway. Here Wykeham, who wore 
the mitre and bore the staff of Swithun, founded a 
school as a shrine for the Muses and a nursing mothcr 
for the poor; that the Devil might hot uproot it, 
he dedicated it to the Virgin's protection; that civil 
strife might not inflame it, he placed it undcr a 
Warden's sole control. Two persons are entrusted 
with the charge of " inconstant youth "; there are 
ten Fellows, whom the boys call " 3lasters "; three 
Chaplains, three Clerks, an Organist. The number 
of the " Children " is duly limited to seventy, of whom 
the eighteen seniors are known as Prefects. These 
maintain discipline by example and precept; if the 
rowdy and the wanton obstruer, their names are 
written on a roll and handed to the Master, who 
corrects all things with his rod. There are also sLxteen 
Quiristers, who sing in Chapel and wait upon the 
Fellows and the children; to them too out school 
graciously opens its doors. Children and quiristers 
alike go hatless, and wear dusky gowns. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

Sex camere pueris signantur et una choristis. 
Ut magis hic mores serventur et ordo decorus, 
Proefecti camera tres proeponuntur in una. 
Purpureas Aurora fores ubi pandit ab ortu 
Eoo, et quinta cure linea tangitur umbra, 
Stridula spirantes campana reverberat auras ; 
Inde sonus subito somnosas perforat aures : 
" Surgite ", prmfectus clamat ; "num stertitis ? ohe 
Iam campana sonat ; vos surgite, surgite, pigri ! " 
Surgendum est; vestes calige solemque petuntur ; 
In classera properant, et, si campana taceret, 
Discincti incipercnt psalmum cantare Latinum. 
Postea sint vcrsoe camerm, pexique capilli, 
Sternuntor lecti, facies sit lota manusque. 
Convocat ad templum tandem campana secunda, 
In medio recte quoe quintam dividit horam. 
Iam templum petitur; reseret vigil ostia functor, 
Et cure sibi sit ne clavem perdat aduncam. 
Tum pia vota Deo fundantur, ut omnia recte 
Dirigat, ut sacro foveat nos lumine Christus, 
Spiritus ut pariter dignetur tertius ipsis 
Perpetuo studiis aura spirare secunda. 
Nunc duo proefecti, quibus est hoec cura, sagaci 
Prospiciant pueros oculo, ne forte loquantur, 
Ne propriis careant libris recitentve profanum, 
Ne sine coneessa venia sit quilibet absens. 
Iam tandem precibus divina mente peraetis, 
Campana minima leviter breviterque sonante, 
Sexta quidem ad doctas pueros vocat hora Camoenas. 
Attamen ad studium non illico tendimus ipsum; 60 
A Iove principium : Deus est prius ipse vocandus, 
Ut procul inscitioe nebulas detergat opacas. 
Iam Pindi petimus montem culmenque bicorne, 
Per prata Aonidum, per amoena vireta volamus, 
Nectareosque favos fecundo condimus ore. 
Scrutamur cerebri rimas, ne forte lateret 



 DE COLLEGIO IrlNTOVIENSI 15 

Chambers : Getting up : The Hours before 
Breakfast (31-69) 
Six chambers are assigned to the children and one 
to the quiristers ; in each of the children's chambers 
three prefects keep order. At rive o'clock cornes 
" first peal ", and a prefect cries out "Surgite; stop 
snoring, you sluggards, and get up ". We obey ; put 
on gowns, breeches, shoes; hurry into linc, and at 
" bells down " chant a Latin psalm halï-dressed. 
Then we must sweep out chambers, and make our 
beds; wash out hands and faces, and comb out hair. 
"Second peal", at halï-past rive, summons us to 
Chapel; an official unbars the door; he must not 
lose his key. We pray God for guidance, protcction, 
a blessing on out studies; it is the duty of two 
preïects appointed for the purpose to see that we 
don't talk, have our own books, read nothing profane, 
and are not absent without leave. 
At six the smallest bell rings, summoning us 
to School. But a love principium. We pray for 
enlightenment, and then set to work on a "versc- 
task", cudgelling out brains for a poem to fit our 



lA ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr 
Carmen proosito quod iungat et hmreat apte. 
Quilibet ad cistam quam stricte est iunctus ! ut olim 
Caucasem rupi dirus fuit iste Prometheus. 

Musa, Scholam memora, que vera est mamma 
Minervoe, fo 
Quoe pleno pueros lactantes ubere nutrit. 
Quatuor iliccis fulcris schola nostra quiescit ; 
Lux tribus banc lustrat bipatentibus alma fenestris, 
In quibus octodecim prefectis, structa superne 
Ut bene prevideant aliis, subsellia dantur. 
Hec australis habet paries; borealis apertam 
Totius mundi tabulam ; qui tendit ad ortum 
Ostendit fieri quoe, Quintiliane, requiris ; 
Murus ad occasum tapir hoc insigne decorum : 
AUT DISCE, AUT DISCEDE ; MANET SORS TERTIA CAEDI. 
Mitra pedumque potens hmc verba, aut disce, coronant; 
At cornugraphium gerit aut discede, vel ensem ; 
Vindicat et teneram sibimit sors tertia virgam. 
Tres tibi, parve puer, (sed quamvis elige) sortes. 
Si tibi prima placet, si fellea pocula, Phcebus 
Quoe dabit, ore bibas (sic vult Latous) hianti, 
Ut proesul fueris, mitraque pedoque notescit. 
Tetrica displiceant rigidi si verba magistri 
Vel grave pensorum pondus, discedere fas est. 
Si sub vexillis Martis, non Palladis, ibis, 
Terribilem gladium dabit hic tibi murus ; abesto. 
Si eurve placeant leges strepitusque forensis, 
Et cornugraphium paries eoneedet ; abesto. 
Discere si non vis, et nec diseedere, eoedi 
Tertia sors iussit, virgamque affixit acerbam.-- 
Intueare (precor) paulo submissius : ecce 
Erigitur rostrum, quo declamare solemus ; 
Hic agimus lires, hic arma scholastica forti 
(Nedum sanguinea) dextra vibramus in hostes ; 



 DE COLLEGIO ]]ZlNTOEVIENSI 17 
theme, bound fo our " scobs" as Prometheus was 
bound to his Caucasian rock. 

School : Its Arrangement and Position (70-113) 
Our School, the true breast of Minerva, gives us 
suck. The building is supported by four oaken posts, 
and lighted by three two-light windows; in the 
windows, vhich are in the southern vall, are seats 
for the prefects, raised high that they may watch 
their schoolfellows. On the northern wall is a map 
of the world; on the eastern a table of Quintilian's 
Laws [the Tabula Legum]; on the western the Aat 
Disce, with its symbols, offers three portions for your 
choice. Will you learn, quaffing the bitter draughts 
which Phoebus purs to your lips ? Over the words aut 
disce a mitre and a staff promise you a bishopric. Are 
you loth to learn, hating tasks and teachers' talk ? 
Leave; over aut discede an inkhorn invites you to 
the law-courts, a sword to the battlefield. Will you 
neither learn nor leave ? There is the third alter- 
native, the rod.--A little below the Aat Disce stands 
a pulpit for declamations. Here we fight our foes, 

C 



18 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. 

Hoc nostrum bellum magis est mulieribus aptum, lOO 
Non etenim manibus, sed linguis utimur aeres. 
Nec loeus est, quo noster habet fundamina ludus, 
Non (inquam) est minime laudandus. Cum fera soevit 
Bruma, pruinosis gelidisque hirsuta eapillis, 
Vergit ad australes pattes Aquilone relicto lO5 
Phoebus, et algentes tota nos lampade lustrat. 
Nec schola nostra focum complectitur, attamen omnes 
Phoebeis radiis halituque calescimus oris; 
Sub Iove sic caluit proles argentea°quondam. 
Tempore at oestivo Titan boreale revisit no 
Frigus, et huie nostre non est tam fervidus edi. 
At, si torrenti rapidus Canis estuat ore, 
Mitis ab arboribus venir aura et temperat aestum. 

In classes pueros secuit reverenda vetustas. 
Sexta locum primum, sed classis Quinta secundum 115 
Occupat, et Quarte concessa est tertia sedes ; 
Ultima que sequitur vocitata est Quarta-secunda. 
Officium proprium sibi lucifer omnis habebit. 
Si lux Solis adest, et templum concio sacrat, 
Scribe notas, scriptasque tuo committe libello. 120 
Te iubet Aonias revcreri Luna sorores 
Si sis in Sexta vel Quinta classe locatus, 
Bilbilitanus olor festiva Epigrammata cantat, 
Arque Robinsoni (si sis orator) in horto 
Rhetorices varios fas est decerpere flores ; 
Proediaque expectant Ciceronis Tuscula Quintam. 
Tullius officium Quarte prescripsit, et illam 
Edocuit Naso doctis annalibus annum. 
Tristibus ast Elegis lugeret Quarta-secunda, 
Ni cito Colloquium dcderit dilectus Erasmus. 
Mereurius libros, quos Luna, requirit eosdem, 
Et solet zEnee profugi renovare dolores, 
Arque alternatim tua, Marce, volumina volvit. 



I DE COLLEGIO IVINTOArlEVSI 19 

hurling our scholastic weapons; but it is women's 
warfare, for we fight with tongues and not with hands. 
School is splendidly placed. In winter the sun 
keeps well to the south and gives our chilled frames 
ail his warmth. True, there is no fireplace; like 
the men of the silver age we are warmed by the 
rays of Phoebus and his breath. In summer the 
sun turns back towards the north, and the heats of 
the dog-days are tempered by a brceze from the trees. 

School Days : Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, 
and their Work (114-188) 

Venerable antiquity has divided the children into 
classes, first Sixth, then Fifth, FomoEh, Seeond-Fourth. 
Each day of the week has its speeial "business" 
On Sunday you take notes of the sermon and eopy 
them out into your notebook. On Monday Sixth 
and Fifth read Martial's Epigrams and Robinson's 
Rhetoric; Fifth, Cicero's Tusculans also; Fourth, 
his Odces and Ovid's Fasti; Sccond-Fourth vould 
groan ail day over Ovid's sad elcgics, but the Col- 
loquies of Erasmus give a wclcome relief. Wedncsday 
rcquires the same books as Monday, but the ,neid 
is rcad alternately vith Cicero. 



20 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Si modo lux aderit Martisve Iovisve serena, 
Grata Catharini visemus culmina montis, 185 
Otia pedonomus dederit si forte petenti. 
Signifer ad pueros mittatur ut annulus equum est 
Aureus, ad montes, ad prata * POTENtiam eundi 
Qui GERit arque refert, et ad aulam, si datur ignis. 
Annulus at venia obtenta repetendus ab ipso 140 
Est domino ; Ludi-prefectus tollat in altum ; 
Protinus excusse resonabunt verbere ciste. 
Tutu quoque centoculus noster circumspicit Argus, 
Ut modus in ludis teneatur et ordo palestris ; 
Lusibus in nostris etiam lex certa tenenda est. 145 
Ad portas igitur prefeetus eonvoeat aule; 
Quilibet ad proprium nomen respondeat " Adsum ". 
Stetur et in partes, ne sit promiseua turba 
(Wieehamus haud noster tali farragine gaudet) ; 
Prefecti dextra, plebei stanto sinistra, 1»0 
Custodem nimia nec garrulitate laeessant. 
Ad iuga sublimis viridantia montis eundum est; 
Ineedat soeiata eohors, soeiata reeedat, 
Arque ira, donee apex montis tangatur, eamus. 1» 
Hune hunfilis montera vallis, quasi eingulus, aretat ; 
Hee meta est pedibus non transilienda; nec aude 
(Ne tibi sint tremule febres) diseumbere terre. 
Hic tamen eieeto diseas bene ludere disco, 
Seu pila deleetat palmaria, sive per auras 
Sepe repercusso pila te iuvat icta bacillo, 160 
Seu pedibus ealeata tuis; his lusibus uti 
Innoeuis fas est; fas est his lusibus uti, 
Lusibus arque aliis, quos iam preseribere nolo. 
Nona domum voeat hora; "Domum", prefeetus, 
camus ; 
At diseineta phalanx ne nostra vagetur in agris. 16 
Ae veluti glomerantur apes estate serena, 
Arque ieta repetunt alvaria prisea patella, 
 Anauli Inscriptio : POTENtiam GERo, feroque. 



, 1)E COLLEGIO IV'LVTOVIENSI 21 

Tuesdmds and Thursdays : Remedies : Hills and 
Mead8 (1,34-179) 

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, xveather 
permitting, xve go " on Hills " if the Master grants a 
" remedy "; but a golden ring must first be asked 
for, and obtained from his own hand. This " remedy- 
ring "--its posy plays xvith the name of Potenger, 
our Master--gives (just as, when returned, it with- 
draws) leave to go on Hills and into Meads ; or into 
Hall, if we tan have a tire there. Prefect of School 
holds the ring aloft; scobs are shut with a bang. 
Even in our recreations order and discipline must 
be maintained; Prefect of Hall, out hundred-eyed 
Argus, summons us to the gare; we answer Adsum 
to our names. To avoid confusion, which Wykeham 
would hOt endure, let prefects stand on the right, 
plebeians on the left; we must hot worry the Wardcn 
with our chatter. We match forth, each (as on out 
way home) with a socius, till we reach the hill-top. 
There must be no going outside " trench ", which 
confines the hill like a girdle ; no sitting on the ground, 
for that spells fever. But we may play quoits, or 
hand-ball, or bat-and-ball, or football; these gaines 
are innocent and lawful, with others which I will not 
mention. At nine the prefect calls Domum; we re- 
turn, not straying disorderly about the fields. 
As bees swarm forth in summer-time, and at the 
clatter of a pan repair again to their old hives, so we, 



2. ° ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE - 

Wicchamice volitamus apes post prandia rursus 
Ad virides montes; si tertia venerit hora, 
Campane sonitu solitas revocamur ad edes. 
Cana pruinosis fucrit si terra capillis, 
Forsitan et tcpida conceditur ignis in aula; 
Carboncs igitur, si missa pecunia, tradat 
Aule-prefectus, ni sit carbone notatus. 
Ignivomans campos si Sirius urit, eundum est 
Ad prata; hec folio stipant virgulta comanti. 
Attamcn ad libros, postquam rediere, revertunt, 
Proefcctusque vigil quoe sunt disccnda docebit.-- 
Hos Iovis, hos Martis proebct lux candida lusus. 

170 

175 

dolor! heu, Veneris htx sanguinolenta pro- 
180 

Pro 
pinquat ; 
Sanguineamque voco, nain, si peccaveris huius 
Hcbdomade spatio, pcenas patiere crucntas. 
Flccte gcnu, puerique duo, qui rite vocantur, 
Dcmittcnt ligulas manibusque ligamina solvent.-- 
Meeonius vates hodie dabit omina Sexte ; ls5 
Audict af lyricum modulantem Quinta poetam, 
Et forsan sermo vel epistola doeta legetur, 
Carmina nec Megarus retieebit blanda Theognis. 
At Metamorphosi mutatur Quarta novata, 
Cultus et in scenam venit ipse Terentius, ore 190 
Cuneta terens lepido ; eomoedo seena paratur, 
Cocta tamen nulla est eomedoni eoena petenti. 
Advenir hebdomade lux quando novissima nobis, 
Cui dedit extremus nomen Saturnus, in illa 
Verbula divini Grece repetenda Novelli ag» 
Classibus a primis; aliter diseenda Latine. 
Musoeus tandem Museum visere gaudet ; 
Hesiodus sequitur, eomitatus et ille Marone, 
Qui Sexte Quinteeque solent benedieere classi. 
Tristibus exonerat Naso precordia Quarte ; 200 



r DE COLLEGIO tçIVTOVIEVSI 23 

the bees of Wykeham, flit away again to Hills after 
dinner, and at the stroke of three are recalled to our 
familiar home. 
In winter we may perhaps be allowed a tire in 
Hall ; Prefect of Hall, if he has the money sent him, 
must give us coals, or we shall put a coaly mark against 
his name. In the dog-day heats we may enjoy the 
shade of the trees in Meads. Afterwards there xvill 
be " Books-chambers "; a prefect will teach us out 
lessons.--Such are the recreations of a fine Tuesday 
or Thursday. 

Fridags and Saturdays and their ll'ork : Fridag 
Floggings (180-202) 

Alas, bloody Friday is at hand! bloody, because 
on Friday all the sins of the past week are visited 
with a bloody punishment. Kneel; two children, 
duly summoned, will loose your braces. .. Sixth 
begins Friday with Homer; Fifth reads Theognis 
and the Odes, or (it may be) one of the Satires or 
Epistles, of Horace ; Fourth finds a change in Ovid's 
Metamorphoses, and the elegant Terence cornes upon 
the scene ; the boards are ready for the comedian, but 
it is Friday, and no board is spread for the hungry 
comedo. On Saturday the higher classes say the 
Catechism of Nowell (the learned divine) by heart-- 
in Greek; the others learn it in Latin. At length 
Musseus visits out " Museum "; there is Hesiod, and 
there is Virgil, to delight Sixth and Fifth. Ovid 
unburdens lais soul of sadness to Fourth [i.e. it reads 
his Tristia], but Second-Fourth will hot let it grieve 
over-much, for unless the Fasti [which Second-Fourth 



24, ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

Quarta-secunda vetat nimium lugere ; propinquat 
(Ni male decipiant Fasti) lux aurea Solis. 

Quando domo pueri post annua festa revertunt, 
Bis sex prefecti seniori e plebe leguntur. 
Voe pueris aliis! quoties male grata frequentant 205 
Claustra ! pererrata hoec quoties pavimenta repulsant ! 
Ut schola, sic quendam proefectum claustra reposcunt 
(Attamcn alternis vicibus), qui promptus adirc, 
Si star pro foribus percgrinus et ostia pulsat. 
Si tamen incepta est Electio, claustra, valete. 

Ad veterem callem tandem, mea Musa, recede, 
Et qualis iuvet ordo scholam repete ordine recto. 
Quando notam nonam vaga gnomonis umbra reeondit-- 
Hoe bene eognotum per tintinnabula tempus-- 
Expectant omnes ientacula; quando dederunt 
Supplice corde preces ad summi teeta Tonantis, 
Pars abit ad forieas, et pars aseendit ad aulam ; 
Dat potum promus, panes artopta ministrat. 
Consumpto pane et potu, " Deseendite ", clamat 
Auloe-prefectus; subito descendimus omnes. 20 
Rursus ad undecimam pueros sehola eonvoeat horam. 
Interea studiis incumbimus, arque Minerve 
Nutricis mamma est teneris exposta labellis. 
Et ferme medioe eum venerit hora diei, 
E ludo campana vocat nos parvula ad aulam. 
Ante cibum quicunque solet benedicere mensoe, 
Illc novem sociis comitatus sancta profatur ; 
In testamento veteri caput alter in aula 
Clara voce legit, qui Biblio-clericus inde 
Dicitur ; hebdomadam propriis habct illc Camoenis. 
Proefectus quidam, qui nomcn sumit ab olla, 
Auloe-proefecto bubuloe cito fcrcula mittit ; 
Inter prandendum per mensas ambulat ille, 
Et sua cum famulis defessis prandia sumit. 



 DE COLLEGIO IVINTONIENSI 25 
reads] deceives us cruelly Il.e. unless the calendar 
is all wrong] Sunday is at hand. 

Cloister Time and Election (203-210) 
When the school returns after the annual [Whit- 
suntide] holidays, twelve prefects are picked out 
from the older children. Woe to the others! How 
often, on their way "up to ]3ooks ", do they tread 
the pavement of Cloisters! Cloisters need a prefect 
--like the Ostiarius in School, he holds office only 
for the day--to answer a stranger's knock. But when 
Election has begun, farewell to Cloisters! 

Breatfast : Middle School : Dinner (211-27) 
Return, my Muse, to our old path [i.e. go on with 
the rime-table upon which you started in 3-69].-- 
At nine the bell rings, and after a prayer to the 
Thunderer on high all look forward to breakfast. We 
go into Hall, where the beer-butler gives us beer, and 
the bread-butler bread; and when we have done, 
"Down ", cries Prefect of Hall, and down we go.-- 
Back again to school at eleven, af ter working for a 
rime by ourselves. About twelve to Hall for dinner. 
A prefect, standing up with his nine companions, 
asks a blessing on the meal; another (hence called 
Bible-Clerk) reads aloud a chapter from the Old 
Testament ; he has the week of his course for private 
study. Prefect of Tub sends a mess of beef to Prefect 
of Hall; he walks round the tables as we dine, and 
takes his own meal with the servants afterwards. 



26 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Disponit pueris sua fercula ; iunior ista 2z» 
Quatuor in partes cultello dividit oequo; 
Implet et hic potum ; pieeus prope eantharus astat. 
Cure bene latrantes stomaehos saturavimus hisee 
(Quas dixi) patinis, iam biblio-elerieus istam 
Advenir ad mensam, que dieta est mensa rotunda, 240 
Qua lieet officio funetis ientare, deeore 
Ad dominum corpus submisso poplite fleetit ; 
Annuit ille eaput ; mappas hic ponit in olla. 
Tutu grates agimus, psalmum eanimusque vicissim. 
His actis iterum revocant ad seria Muse. 24» 
Fragmenta in gremium turbe funduntur anilis ; 
Prandia iam servi capiunt, capiuntque choristoe. 

Opsonator emit nobis quodeunque neeesse est, 
Et duo sunt, victum quibus est data eura eoquendi. 
Qui eoquit humorem Cereali munere, potum 
Et facit inde, solet socio gaudere secundo. 
Hortorum Custos, Artopta, Molarius unus, 
Ianitor, et Lanio, Pistor, Suppromus, Agaso ; 
Squalidus atque cupit numerum sibi lixa secundum ; 
Unus qui mundat quadras, anus una culine : 
Hos stipe commerita geminus Bursarius implet. 

Tempore at estivo data eommessatio nobis 
Quando horoe trine pars dimidiata relapsa est. 
Si modo sedantur sitientia guttura potu, 
Protinus ostendunt pueri sua pensa magistro ; 
Si tamen omittant, dat nomina classieus horum. 
Campanella sonat, si quinta advenerit hora ; 
Cure superis dedimus sacris gratesque precesque, 
Ilicet ire licet circum, licet ire precandum. 
Coena parata vocat ; sunt fercula tamis ovinoe 
Danda ; tribus pueris subservit et una patella. 
Prandendi mores bene si cognoveris, ipse 
Hune quoque cognoscas. Coenatis itur ab aula 

260 

265 



I DE COLLEGIO IVINTOAIE'%'I 27 

He distributes their messes among the ehildren; a 
junior divides them into equal " dispers ", and fills 
up "jorums" from a "jack". When we bave 
satisfied our "barking stomaehs ", Bible-Clerk steps 
out to what is known as the Round Table (the table 
where the servants afterwards dine), and bows re- 
speetfully to the Master. The Master nods; Bible- 
Clerk purs the table-linen into its ehest; graee and 
a psalm are sung; we go baek to work once more. 
The broken meats are poured into the laps of a 
erowd of old women ; the quiristers and the servants 
dine. 

The College Servants (248-.°56) 

The servants are as follovs: a manciple, two 
cooks, two brewers, a gardener, a bread-butlcr, a 
railler, a porter, a buteher, a baker, an under-butler 
or beer-butler, an ostler, two squalid scullions, a 
man who cleans trenelaers, and an old woman for the 
kitehen. To ail these the two Bursars pay a well- 
earned wage. 

Bevers  Going Circum : Stqper : Evening 
Hours (257-275) 

At half-past three in summer ve bave " bevers " ; 
after quenching their thirst the claildren show up their 
tasks to the master; if they don't, the classicus 
gives him their names. At rive o'clock we give thanks 
to God, and may then go circum for private prayer. 
Supper is now ready; one mess of mutton supplies 
" dispers " for three children. If you have ruade 
out our ways at dinner, you can understand our ways 



28 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

Ad cameras ; paulo post tempore danda merenda. 
Cum primo octavam campana sonaverit horam, 
Exaltant anime psalmum cantando Iehovam. 
Cum templum intramus sanctum, procumbimus omnes, 
Ut nos divinus bene protegat umbo petentes. 
Ad cameras iterum celeri pede quisque revertit, 
Et lecto capite in lecto sibi quisque quiescit. 

Quid, queso, memorem campanas quinque canoras, 
Quas resonare iubet pietas, mors, atque voluptas ? 
Quid templum memorem picturatasque fenestras ? 
Quidve tuam loquerer lautam, Cleopatra, eulinam ? 
Hortos Alcinoi, necnon viridaria Tempe s0 
Proetereo, Musam nec bibliotheea gravabit ; 
Atria iam sileo, quamvis quadrangula fiunt; 
Nulla superfusis tingetur dextera lymphis, 
Duetus aquee quamvis sit plumbo et poste novatus ; 
Combibet in cella nullas mea Musa lagenas, 85 
In claustris remanet nec nostra Thalia sacerdos. 



 DE COLLEGIO IfrINTOVIENSI 29 

at supper too. From Hall to chambers; further 
refreshment presently; at eight a Latin psalm. 
Then to Chapel, where we pray that the divine shield 
may proteet us ; then to chambers again ; and then to 
bed. The prefeet reads a ehapter, and all is still. 

Chapel, Library, Kitchen, the Courts, etc. (276-286) 

I need not speak of the rive tuneful bells, whose 
melody piety, death, and joy evoke; nor of Chapel 
with its pictured windows, nor of Cleopatra's sumptu- 
ous Kitchen. I pass by Library, the gardens of 
Alcinous, the greeneries of Tempe. I say nothing 
of our Courts, though they are quadrangular ; nor of 
Conduit, though newly furbished up. My muse shall 
neither drain jacks in the Cellar, nor loiter in Cloisters 
like a priest. 



PART II 

ABOUT VIbICHESTER COLLEGE 



CHAPTER I 

THE HEAD MASTER 

Tn. title " Head Master ", now so generally adopted 
in England, was but one of many alternative titles for 
that oflïcial which were current in the eighteenth 
century. " Chief ", " First ", " Head ", " High ", 
"Principal ", "Upper"--you could use any of these 
prefixes, or you could dispense with them all. 1 At 
Eton Mr. Austen Leigh cites a use of " Chief Master " 
in 1710, and he finds " Head 3Iaster " in a list written 
by a boy in 1742 ; but " Master " or " Upper 3Iaster " 
were more often employed there till 1791, when 
" Head Master " established itself in the official Eton 
lists. * Thomas 3ames, appointed in 1778, was the 
first " Head Master " of Rugby. At Winchester the 
old terms " Master " or " Schoolmaster " were in 
vogue till about the same rime ; but Dr. Warton was 
called "Head Master " by the compiler of the History 
and 4ntiquities of Winchester in 1773, and again by 
the " Election Chamber" in 1793 when it thanked 

1 Among the more famous of out older schools St. Paul's is almost alone 
to-day in using any other prefix than " Head ". Of the great schools 
founded in the nineteenth century some, like Marlborough and Wellington, 
say « Master" simply ; at Cheltenham " Principal " is a substantive.At 
Shrewsbury the Ordinances of 157[, though sometimes employing '" Head 
Master", saythat the official " shall be called the principal or chief school- 
toaster". In an Act of Parliament affecting Shrewsbury in 1798 ,« Head 
Master" is almost invariably used, but " first toaster" also occurs. 
2 Eton Colle,e Lists, p. xxx. 
33 D 



34 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE T. n 
him for his services " during the long course of years 
in which he has held the place of Second and Head 
Master of Winchester School". The Warden and 
Fellows, however, avoided the term till a much later 
date. Though they allowed themselves to say " Head 
Mastcr " in a letter to Dr. Gabell in 1809, they told 
him, when proceeding to speak of his succession to 
Dr. Goddard, that they proposed to admit him " to 
the office of I«oEormator"; and even in 1835 they 
preferred to use that Latin word when recording 
Dr. Moberly's appointment in their minute-book.-- 
Informator cornes of course from the Statures ; but it 
is hot by itself the Master's title there, nor is it even 
a nccessary part of his title, as Custos is the complete 
and only title of the Warden. The Master in the 
Statutes is Magister Informalor in gramatica, Magister 
I,nformator, Magister Instruetor Seholarium, Magister. 
When the oath of fidelity and seereey vas administered 
in 1400, he ealled himself Mag. Seholarium; under 
the Founder's vill he reeeived a legaey as Instruetor 
Seholarium. 1 So far, indeed, was Informator from 
being to Wykeham a teehnieal terre for a ehief sehool- 
toaster that he applied it in the Nev College Statutes 
(Rubrie XXVIII.) to what ve should eall a College 
Tutor. Even in the reign of Henry VIII. it vas not 
the only Latin title for the Head Master of Winehester, 
and the vord did not neeessarily mean "Head 
Master " at all. Thus in the Valor Eeelesiastieus of 
1535  the Head Master of Winehester is styled 
Peàagogus, whieh from 1670 to 180t meant " Second 
Master " in out Long Rolls ;  and in 15tl the Statutes 
of Canterbury and other Grammar Sehools provided 
 Armais, p. 67 ; Lowth, Lire of Wykeham, Appendix XVII.--In early 
aceounts the Head Master is sometimes .lagister Scole or Mr. Scole. 
* il. 4. 
a L.R.i.p. ]xxx. In the l'alor Ecclesiasticus the Second Master is Sub- 
pedagogus. 



v., THE HEAD MASTER 35 
for 2 Informatores puerorum in gramatica, quorum 
unus sit Preceptor, alter Sub-Preceptor. 1 In the fol- 
lowing century the Head Master of Winchcster 
signed himself Informator in the indentures or rolls 
ad Oxon. and ad Winton., but Mathew in 1647 nowhcre 
cmployed the word, well suited as it is, throughout 
its dcclcnsion, to hcxameter verse ; the Head Mastcr 
is magister in v. 22, pwdononus « in v. 136, dominus 
in v. 141. In the earliest Long Roll, that of 1653, 
he is ludimagister, as a Head Master commonly is 
elscwhere; and " on the rolls which follow, until 
1690, the saine title is givcn, with various abbrevi- 
ations .... In 1690 the title Informator is for the first 
time uscd on Long Roll, and has bccn continucd evcr 
since -.3 
Thc Hcad Mastcr was under the Statutes conduclicius 
et etiam remotivus, hircd by the Wardcn and Fellows 
and dismissiblc ; the language of Rubric VI. suggests 
that he was dismissible on the Wardcn's sole rcsponsi- 
bility, 4 and (at a latcr date, at any rate) he sccms 
to bave been usually the Warden's nomincc.  The 
Fellows, on thc othcr hand, were perpetui ; one of them 
is dcscribcd in Cloistcrs, with a rcmindcr that the 
sccurest of carthly tenurcs are insecurc, as 
Triginta socius perennis annos. 
The Head Mastcr's position, howcver, was higher 
than thcsc provisions of the Statutcs would suggcst. 
 The saine Statures subsequently speak of a Precipuus Informator and a 
,Secundarius lnformator, of a Superior informator and an Inferior informator. 
See E.C. pp. 454, 458, 462. 
 Titles of Greek origin---archiàidascalus, paedagogus, paeàonomus-came 
in with the Renaissance. Mathew perhaps borrowed paedonomus from 
Christopher Johnson's De Iïta oe Rebus. 
 L.R.i.p. lxviii. 
 Rubric XII. adds to conducticius et etiam remotitrus the words per custodem 
et socios ipsius Collegii oràinmàus seu providenàus. 
 "The Fellowes of New Colledge" (see p. 44) spoke in 160 of the School- 
toaster as "being a man commonly of the wardens owne ehoyce ". 



86 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

The Wardcn, of course, stood far above him and 
alone; lais state, his lodging, his stipend, his allow- 
ances, the terres of his commission as of one indisput- 
ably pre-eminent and controlling "things " and 
" persons " alike (Rubries I. and VII.), show that he 
was meant to exercise fo the fullest extent both the 
" dignificd " and the " efficient " functions of govern- 
ment. Next to the Warden ranked the Sub-Warden 
of the yenr ; but the Head Master ranked above the 
other Fellows. 1 His stipend was double theirs 
(R. XXVI.), and Wykelmm left him a larger legacy; « 
lac was a member of the " Election Chamber ", and 
acquired as such the valuable right of nomination 
to scholarships (R. III.); he was to sit in Hall, with 
the Warden and Sub-Warden, af a table fo vhich only 
so many of the Fellows were fo be admitted as could 
be conveniently accommodated (R. XIV.). His im- 
poloEance in the Founder's eyes is further shown by 
the provision that he must give six months' notice 
belote rctirement (R. XII., see p. 67). It was not 
Wykelmm's intention to found a college of priests 
with a school as a mere adjunct; in his Foundation 
Dced of 1382 the presbiteri socii are not even men- 
tioned, and the education of poor scholars appears 
as lais xvhole purpose, a The Warden and Fellows 
unhappily forgot ail this ; so that when Warden Bigg 
reminded " the Soeiety " in 1740 that it was " the 
ehildren for whom, it must be allow'd, the College 
was eheifly intended ", lais words seemed to most of 

t The fact is admitted, for instance, by one of the Fellows in 1770 : " The 
Informator", he writes, "though prior in Rank to the Fellows, is yet . . . 
subjected to the more immediate control of the SVarden" (from a pamphlet 
by Mr. Charles Biackstoe). 
z Lowth, Life of ll'ykeham, AppendLx XVII. 
 Sec also the preface to the Statures, and their Finis et Conclusio : auilium 
divinum in agendis devotissirne invocantes, ad relevacionern pauperum scolarium 
clericorum in scolis degencium oculos nostre rnentis interiores infleciln'liler con- 
figimus. 



oH., THE HEAD MASTER 87 

them an idle raie. x But they were true words; and 
it was because Wykeham intended what Bigg said 
that he assigned fo the Master who was to train his 
" ehildren " a position of unusual prominenee and 
dignity. 
When we turn from the Statures to the early 
history of the sehool, if is disappointing fo find that 
for a hundred years and more the Head Masters are 
most shadowy figures. With the single exception 
of Waynflete, who owed his later greatness fo lais 
connection vith Eton, 2 not one of them left more than 
a mere naine behind him, so that when Christopher 
Johnson wrote of them in the sixteenth century he 
had often neither praise nor blame to record. For 
example : 

Protinus Alvino concessa est summa potestas ; 
Nomen adhue remanet, eetera tempus habet. 

Ive, he says, vas perhaps related to certain 
Ives, but 
Cetera sunt Muse non bene nota mee. 3 

other 

And he vrites of Green : 

Centum anni euras dirimunt Grenique measque, 
Nec quiequam ulterius quod memoratur habct. 

He is driven fo play upon the names of other Head 
Masters ; and though he gives us an interesting couplet 
upon John Bernard (1455.9-59) whieh attests the 

x See Chapter XIV. 
z Henry VI. must of course have discerned Waynflete's merits during his 
visits to Winchester, before h¢ carried him off to be the first Head Master of 
Eton. 
a The researches of Mr. Kirby and of Miss Locke bave revealed facts about 
Ive (see Annals, p. 211 ; In Praise of Winchesler, p. 245) ; but these facts bave 
nothing to do with his headmastership. Mr. Chitty records tiret he was Vice- 
Chancellor of Oxford in 1461-2. 



38 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

munificence of the ïounder of Eton to the 
which had been his model-- 

Nostra suis Regem, Bernarde, altaria donis 
Vidisti ad multos accumulare dies--1 

college 

he tells us nothing of the man. Of John Rede (1483- 
1490) ve are told that 

Principis Arthuri tutelam Redus habebat, 
Qui tandem hic Custos  Oxoniique fuit; 

Johnson can only describe him by mcntioning the 
offices which he hcld aftcr his rctircmcnt. 3 Sctting 
asidc Waynflctc, the first Hcad Master who, as such, 
excites even a mild interest in any mind but an 
antiquarian's is William Horman (1495-1501), the 
author of a school-book called Vulgaria, a collection 
of short English scntcnces with Latin translations. 
It was published in 1519, and was still widely used 
more than forty ycars latcr; for Johnson praiscs it 
(c. 1565) and asks, who docs not know it? and 
Ascham, at about the saine date, condcmns it with a 

i The last recorded gifts of Henry VI. to Winchester were made in 1448 
or 1449 (History, pp. 209-10) ; his last visit is said to have been paid in 1452 
(Armais, p. 195). It appears therefore that he '" loaded our altars" before 
Bernard beeame Head Master. For Henry's gifts see Walcott, pp. 137-40 ; 
Armais, pp. 192-4. 
-" Rede became lVarden of Vinchester in 1501 ; he was the first of the 
seven ex-Head Masters who bave held that office. Sec below, p. 59. 
a Prince Arthur was born in 1486, was married in 1501, and died in 1502. 
Mr. Leach (who, by a printer's error, gives the date of lais birth as 1489)says 
that Rede became his tutor in 1500 (I'.H.p. 293) ; Mr. Chitty says, in 1490 
(The Headmasters" Shields, p. 8). The latter date is probably correct ; it is 
supported by the lïta Henrici 1"11. of Bernard André, who says, that " the 
excellent and learned John Red " became the prince's tutor as soon as he had 
learnt the alphabet (prima litterarum elementa); that he (André) succeeded 
Rede in that office post aliquot annos ; and that when he began his life of 
Henry VII. in 1500, he had held it per quatuor annos (Memorials of Henry 1"11., 
Rolls Series,.pp. 6-7, 43). André therefore succeeded Rede in or about 1496, 
and the aliquot anni during which 1Rede was Arthur's tutor may have begun 
on lais retirement from Winchester in 1490, by which date the prince may 
have known his alphabet. 



cH. x THE HEAD MASTER 39 
vigour which proves its vitality.  Its interest for us 
is like that of her brother's Latin Grammar for 3Iaggie 
Tulliver ; just as she cared neither for the grammar 
nor for the Latin, but only for the people of whom 
the examples spoke, so we care little for Horman's 
book as a help towards learning a language, but 
greatly for the boy who was " prepositer of his boke ,,,2 
or who " bath gyven up gramar, bycause he can nat 
away with it ", or who " could but nappe " when 
somebody preached, or whose " maister hath vndone 
his rennynge into the towne", or who was "a royal 
coyter " or "a gay wrastler", or who played " with 
a ball full of wynde ", or " hit me in the yie with a 
tenys balle ", or " played featly at the tynis and very 
quyverly ", or (as boys will) " lefte his boke in the 
tennys playe ", or who " caste awey his gowne lest it 
shulde lette hym of his rennynge ", or who " ruffeled 
all the gaine with his boistrusness", or, finally, who 
" rypped his gowne and sewed it agayne leste he 
shulde be ydell".3 Experiences of Eton and of 
Winchester life are no doubt blended in these descrip- 
tions. Horman was a Wykehamist, but, like one of 
his predecessors and one of his successors, he had 
been Head 3Iaster of Eton before he held the office at 
Winchester, and he had returned to Eton as Fellov 
(1502; he became Vice-Provost in 1503) long before 
his book was published. To Horman and the Vulgaria 
I shall return. 
 Scholemaster (ed. Arber), pp. 25, 110. Aseham couples together the 
books of two schoolmasters, Horman and Whittington, and says of them : 
"A childe shall learne of the better of them, that, which an other daie, if he 
be wise, and cure to iudgement, he must be faine to vnlearne againe ". There 
is a piquaney in the coupling, for Horman and ,Vhittington had fallen foui of 
one another over their respective methods of teaching Latin. The l'uigaria 
was highly praised, however, by William Lily. 
-" See below, p..o17. 
3 Mr. Leach in some delightful pages (Hislory, pp. 227-31) fully justifies his 
8rarement that Horman's book, " incredible as it may seem, is extremely 
entertaining ". 



40 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE " a 

Passing to the sixteenth century we find it recorded 
of John Twyehener (1525-81) that "though he is said 
to have taught grammar, the saered page was his 
ehief study " ; his statement eoneerning " the ordre 
and use of teehyng gramer " af Winehester is valuable 
historieally, 1 but leaves the impression that he did 
not teach it very wisely. Of John White (1585-4½), 
who, like Rede, was afterwards Warden, one of 
Johnson's distichs records, eorreetly, that he was 
the second ¥inehester Head Master, and, ineorreetly,  
that he was the first Winehester Warden, who was 
afterwards a bishop : 
Custodum primus, quos Mitra Pedumque beavit, 
Informatorum, Vhyte, seeundus eras. 

It is as Warden and as Bishop, rather than as Head 
Master, that he interests us. Johnson was in College 
during his wardenship, 3 and it was " partly on 
Johnson's report " that one of his pupils, John Pifs 
(Pitsaeus), wrote that White was acutus poeta, orator 
eloquens, theologus solidus, concionator nervosus.  His 
nervositas as a preaeher is well illustrated by the 
famous sermon which he preached in Westminster 
Abbey, on Deeember 14, 1558, af Queen Mary's 
funeral. In a highly spiey aeeount of it, given by 
Sir John Harington and aeeepted by Mr. Kirby and 
others as correct, he is said to have eounselled obedi- 
enee to Elizabeth on the ground that "a live dog is 
better than a dead lion ", but a eopy of the sermon in 
 See below, pp. 287-8. 
* Johnson forgot the first Warden, Thomas de Cranlegh (1882-9), who 
became Archbishop of Dublin in 1397. 
a $$rhite was "Varden frorn 15.½ to 155. ; Johnson was e]ected ad Winton. 
in 1549. In one of his two distichs upon SVhite Johnson says : Me puero 
Custos . . . fuit. 
 Quoted in the D.N.B. from De Rebus Anglicis, p. 763. For an estimate of 
White's character and of his services fo Winchester as Varden, see Canon 
Walter Smith's paper in W.C. pp. 68-. 



CH. I 

THE HEAD MASTER 

the British Museum 1 shows that White's dog and lion 
were not the two royal sisters ; the live dog was the 
lively preaeher, who dared to bark against sin and 
heresy, or the lively magistrate, who spoke against 
sedition and rebellion ; the dead lion was the man of 
perhaps greater dignity and vocation, who dared not 
open his mouth. The sermon eontains no offensive 
referenees to Elizabeth, but it offended her, and not 
unnaturally, 2 as a note in the manuseript explains : 
This Io. White, Bsp. of Vinchester at the beginning of 
the reign of Q. Elizabeth, refusing to eonforrne hirnself to 
the Religion then established vas depriued of his Bishoprick 
and cofffitted to prison the rather in regard of this Sermon 
by him preached at Q. Maries Funerall wherein he magnified 
& extolled her (saith Godwin in his Catalogue of Bishops) 
so ioderately, mentioning w'hall her sister so eoldly, as it 
was manifest he would haue defaeed her gladly enough, if 
he durst. 

For the sermon, indeed, Elizabeth was content to 
confine him for a month to his own house ; it was of 
course a little later--on April 3, 1559that, in the 
words of his brass in Chapel, " he was incarcerated 
and deprived for refusing the oath of supremacy " -- 
Many Wykehamists have admired the magnificcnt 
" Election Cup ", by sending which to Winchester 
White welcomed the Warden of New College and the 
" apposytors " at the election following his preferment 
to the bishopric of Lincoln. " This pore cownterfetyd 
cuppe", which he " desyred might remayne as an 
ymplcmente of Theelectyon "  and which is still 
i Sloane MSS. 1578. An account of this sermon is given by Mr. J. B. 
Wainewright in his (privately printed) John White of Winchester, pp. 48-51. 
lIr. Wainewright notes that Harington was as yet unborn when the sermon 
wv preached. 
 The text itself cannot bave pleased her : Laudavi mortuos magis quam 
viventes, et feliciorem utroque iudicavi qui necdum natus est (Eceles. iv. 2, 3). 
a Sec Mr. Chitty's Winchester College Documents, No. II. 8.--Mr. Kirby 
(Amals, p. 229) wrongly says that "More ", Vhite's predecessor, "was the 
giver of' Eleetion Cup'" 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  

displayed at Domum Dinner, is " the sole remaining 
piece from the wonderful store of gothic plate once 
possesscd by the college " 1 
It is not till we corne to Christopher Johnson 
(1561-71) that we are able really to know a Head 
Master of Winchester. Among Johnson's pupils was 
one William Badger, a clever boy, it would seem, with 
much capacity for taking pains; this admirable 
pupil took down and wrote out in a notebook faithful, 
or reasonably faithful, copies of the Latin exercises 
which Johnson composed for, and dictated to, the 
higher classes of the school. The notebook has been 
preserved, and as the exercises often treat of matters 
of school interest, and are often agreeably auto- 
biographical, its preservation is most fortunate3 I 
shall use many of these dictata in this volume; an 
appreciation, in the manner of Horace, of Johnson by 
himself is printed at the end of this chapter. As we 
decipher the neat but sometimes puzzling hand- 
writing of the pupil, the most human and humane 
personality of the toaster is revealed to us. No one 
could be less like "a formal important pedant, who 
will be a schoohnaster in whatever station of lire his 
fortune may advance him to" Flexibility, mellow- 
ness, a scholarship free from pedantry, a lively 
enthusiasm for what is great in literature, a wide 
outlook upon life--we find all these in this charming 
teacher, tte professes annoyance, and is sometimes 
annoyed, at the boys' àra$[at, which seem to him as 
inevitable as heresies in the Church ;  but he is full 
 The Burlington Magazine, July 1903 (p. 155}. 
z The notebook, labelled Themes at Winchester School, is in the British 
Museum {Add. MSS. 4379). Mr. J. S. Cotton, who diseove-ed that Johnson 
did hot write the poern whieh we now know to be Mathew's, also diseovered 
that he wrote these exercises ; see The Wgkehamist for July and August 1899. 
It would be diflïeult to determine whieh discovery was the greater service to 
Wykehamieal history. 
 7hernes, fol. 138 b. 



oH. THE HEAD MASTER 43 

of a whimsical sympathy with the waywardness of 
youth. His easy handling of thorny questions of 
discipline, his serene confidence in his authority over 
his pupils and in their regard and affection, his 
perpetually avowed lenity, his humorous self-de- 
preciation, his confessed lack of physical energy, hardly 
prepare us to find that the dictata were composed by 
a man barely thirty years old. 1 In 1571 the versatile 
Johnson gave up schoolmastering ; he was for many 
years a successful London physician,  and lais pro- 
fessional visits must have been the best of tonics. It 
seems that lais cheerful spirit was not averse fo 
festivity, for just before his retirement the ungenial 
Bishop Home laid his injunction upon the School- 
master and lais Usher " that they resort hot oft from 
their charge into the country, city, &c., to banquet or 
feast in the teaching days "  Johnson, it may be 
added, though not the ordy lay Head Master of 
Winchester in lais century 4 was, vith one exception, » 
the last layman vho held the office until 1911. 
The seventeenth century was a time of distin- 
guished Wardens rather than of distinguished Head 
Masters; Warden Harris, indeed, is the ablest, the 
most attractive, and perhaps the most conspicuous of 
the whole Custodum Series. Of Hugh Robinson 
(Head Master 1613-27) and of his laborious school- 
books I have spoken elsewhere. His successor, 
Edvard Stanley (1627-42), occupies a place in Wyke- 
hamical annals, but not an enviable one. He failed 
a Johnson's naine appears, as I have said, on the Roll ad lVinton, of 1549. 
His age at the time of election is not stated in W.S. ; but even if he was then 
just over fourteen, he cannot laave been more than thirty-one at Michaeimas 
1566, belote which date nearly ail the extant exercises had been dictated. 
2 Johnson became M.B. in 1570, while still Head Master of Winchester, 
and M.D. in 1571. He was Treasurer of the Royal Coilege of Physicians from 
1594 to 1596 (Chitty, The Ileadmasters" Shields, p. 7). 
 I".1. & 1. p. 331.  IZ.H.p. 301. 
 John Harmar {1588-96) ; who, however, was ordained in the course of his 
headrnastership (Hisory, p. 317}. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ii 

to maintain any hold on the parents of day-boys, 
keeping such scholars, if he kept them at ail, only by 
the hclp of archiepiscopal intervention; 1 he failed, 
most fortunately failed, to secure the wardenship 
against Harris, though he moved heaven and earth, 
or at any rate a bishop and a king, to secure it ; 2 and 
he obviously failed to win or to deserve the respect 
and attachment of his pupils. A curious and very 
unpleasant ferrer, written in 1630, and purporting 
to have been vritten by " The Felloves of New 
Colledge ", some of whom may have been boys under 
him, shows that he was neither a wise disciplinarian 
nor a zcalous and effective teacher. 3 In tlfis latter 
capacity he compares most unfavourably with lais 
successor, John Potcnger (162-58), who was our 
poet's Head Master, and for this reason, if for no 
othcr, must hot be passed over. I shall have occasion 
to speak in another chapter of a strange little book 
called Musae Sacrae, written by an Oxford Wykeham- 
ist namcd Ailrner in 1652. It is dedicated to Potenger, 
and prefaced bv testimonies to the author, some of 
which are also testimonies to Potenger, by other Oxford 
Wykehamists (one of whom is Robert Mathew), the 
author's contcmporaries and friends. Ailmer and 
lais sponsors vie with one another in eulogizing their 
old toaster. Says Richard Glyd :  

Et tu, Vicchamicoe moderator summe juventoe, 
Hinc quantum valeas ostendis in arte docendi. 

Says Mathew, in a veird effusion which he calls a 
farrago qualiscunqu,e : 

x Anna/s, pp. 124-8. 
"- Ibid. p. 316. 
a A transcript of this letter is given in Annals (pp. 17-18), but it is 
incorrect and incomplete. 
« The Richard Glidd of IV.S.p. lB1. 



H.I THE HEAD MASTER 45 

Omnium 7/t'v hoec sit ipsa d/¢/, 
Hoc anno fecisti ut dignus videare 
sChoLarIs MoDb FOTENGERI. 
Qui 
Ut pater Musoe ira meritb fit Patronus, 
Cujus nudo NotINv. armatus, nil est quod in lerris metuas. 
Hic enim Tuus (ait Xpov@p«lql« )  Mecoenas 
De CoeLo POTENtIaSI GaI/.  

Ailmer himself writes in the dedication : 

Ego Deum Opt. Max. in literatorum Repub. & inter 
literatos diu proesis ut velit & POT.xtiam .aas auctior indies 
& amplificatior, votis ardentissimis comprecari non desinam. 

And again : 

Ea utiq; sedulitate efformandis Puerorum animis & ex- 
emplis proeeundo, & proeceptis suadendo, & patrocinio fovendo 
obnixè usq; usq; incumbis; ut jure optimo ter felices se 
proedicent, uno suo tanto ac tali, malignâ adeb in Tempestate, 
Scholarcha fruita Wicchamica Juventus. 

Maligna adeo in tempestate : for Potenger's head- 
mastership covered the years of the civil vars and the 
earlier years of the Commonwealth, a period of visita- 
tions and of penalties, but fortunately the period of 
the vise diplomacy of Warden Harris. The Head 
Master seems to have had in his own person un- 
pleasant experience of the troubles of the time; for 
in 1644, " upon suspicion that he was a Roundhead ", 
x Here are two other seventeenth-eentury ehronograms, both of them 
famous : 
My Day Is Closeà In Immortality 
comrnemorated the death of Queen Elizabeth in the year MDCIII (1(;03). 
ChrIstVs DVX ; ergo trl'MphVs 
was the motto of a meàal struck by Gustavus Adolphus in MDCXVVVVII 
(1632). Vhich is the better chronogram ? Most of us would say, the former ; 
but it breaks, while Gustavus and blathew observe, the chronogrammatist's 
rule that no letter of numerical value must be used without numerical signi- 
fieance. 
 For the play on Potenger's naine see the Introduction to Part I. p. 5. 
For some aceount of his methoàs as a teacher see pp. 801-. 



46 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

he is said to have been robbed of fifteen oxen and 
three hogsheads of beer by Sir William Ogle, 1 and 
in 165(?), upon suspicion that he was a t{oyalist, 
he " was but hardly aequitted " by the Puritan 
Committee of HampshireY 
The year of Potenger's retirement (1658) is, as I 
write, the middIe year of the history of the College ; 
it marks approximateIy, if not preeisely, an era in 
the history of the headmastership, and it is a eon- 
venient date at whieh to end this ehapter. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER I 
TIrE following piece by Christopher Johnson (Themes, fol. 192) 
has been mentioned on p. 42. It was printed by Mr. Ctton 
in The Wykchamist for August 1899. 
Si te forte, puer, de proeeeptore rogabit 
Aut pater aut hospes aut quivis obvius, unum 
Admoneo, memori quod semper mente tenendum est, 
Ne qua seiens de me faeias mendaeia, sive 
Suaserit hoe odium, seu (quoe rarissima cette 
Senlper avis) nostri nimio tenearis arnore. 
Corpore pertenui me diees invalidoque, 
Donnire in lueem ne loedar frigore, Musis 
Ga.udere ; assiduum tamen esse negabis, amare 
Et varias servare vices ; quod pertinet ad te, 
Irasei eelerem si quid peeeaveris, inde 
Placari faeilem ; multis ignoseere rnulta ; 
Quanto perditior quisque est, tanto aerius illi 
Instare. Hoee de me, quoe sunt verissima, diecs. 

x Godwin, Civil War in Hampshire, p. 226. 
2 From some notes scribbled on the backs of old letters by " an anonymous 
defender of SVarden Harris, after the IRestoration "(see History, p. 47). After 
examining these notes I ara inclined to believe that they were written by 
Harris's successor, Warden Burt, who, like Harris, was apparently a trimmer 
(see Hislory, p. 806 ; Annals, p. :48). 



CHAPTER II 

"rn nnD ns'ra (continued) 

JoB POTENGER, as we have seen, rctired in 1653; 
his successor, William Burt, ruled for rive years only; 
and in 1658 a new era, of long headmasterships, 
began. There were but rive Head Mastcrs in 135 
years; the reigns of the first two, Henry Bceston 
(1658-79) and William Harris (1679-1700), occupied 
the remainder of the seventeenth eentury. If is 
recorded of Beeston that he was a lax disciplinarian. 
So far as a special charge against him is eoneerned, 
that he was remiss in the infliction of flogging upon 
" peccant persons ,,,1 a milder generation will forgive 
him ; but Anthony Wood's comment upon his election, 
in 1679, to the wardenship of New Colle'ge--" so 
government will signify nothing hereafter "--points 
fo a real infirmity. Beeston was a sorely strieken 
man; a tabler placed in St. Michael's church in 1675 
records the death of seven of his children, qui omnes 
sesquiennes, proeter Gulielmum qui octuennis, decessere. 2 
He left some fifty commoners behind him in 1679; 
with the succession of a less unfortunate and more 
vigorous Head Master there was for a rime a marked 
increase of numbers, and School was built? But the 
* The charge was ruade after the "serutiny " of 1668. 
 Referring to the death of Mrs. 13eeston in 1690 Anthony Wood wrote : 
" She bath had 23 ehildten by Dr. 13eeston, but ail are dead except thtee "" 
(Wood's Lire and Times, ed. Clark, iii. p. 74). 
 See below, p. 226. 
47 



48 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

prosperity did not last; there were but twenty-eight 
commoners when Harris retired in 1700. An ex- 
planation of the failure that this fact suggests may 
perhaps be found in the addresses which he delivered 
to the boys. These addresses have not been noticed 
by our historians, 1 and I will quote frorn three of 
thcm, prcpared respcctively for the eve of the Easter 
" vacation " and of the Whitsuntidc and Christmas 
holidays of 1695, to illustrate the Harris tone and 
manner. Before the Eastcr vacation, 2 which "is 
but short, and makes very little difference to the rules 
and measurcs which we observe at other times ", 
Harris reminded his hcarers that 

This weeke is called the Holy Weeke, there is a particular 
service appointed for each day, and all in order to prepare 
us for the dutys of the feast that follows. The publick Law 
requires all persons of Age and discretion to receave the 
Sacrament at this time, and the neglect of it is punishable 
by that Law. Certain]y if Mechanicks and ordinary Trades- 
men may not be allowed to excuse themselves from the duty, 
much less, &c. 

Before the Whitsuntide holidays he began with some 
platitudes on liberty, and eontinued : 
This short liberty was designed for your Reereation . . . 
that after a little breathing space you might return with a 
better edge to your buissnesse ; but instead of making the 
true use of it your joy oftentymes overpowers your reason, 
and hurrys you into sueh actions as are not easily attond for : 
either by exeesse, by fighting, quarrelling or some sueh 

x I have ruade use of them in several chapters of this book. The practiee 
of delivering addresses before the holidays was probab/y hot new at IIïnchester. 
VCe learn from the Consuetudinarium (1560) that at Eton on Ascension Day, 
when the Whitsuntide holidays began, Prttceptor priusquam exercitum suura 
dimiserit, pueris e ludo literario omnibus convocatis concionem habere solet, qua 
quemque admonet oïcii sui, ut melius ad bonos raores se comportant, raemores 
turpissimum esse se e literatissimorum hominum collegio redire inanes, dede. 
corantes et Collegii existimationem et Magistri {Etoniana, No. 5, p. 67}. 
z Note that no boys then went home at Easter, and only some at Christmas ; 
see below, pp. 484, 486. 



oH.u THE HEAD MASTER 49 
malicious tricks you expose both yourselves and us to Scan- 
dall; and I seldom fail of meeting some iii Storys at my 
Return. 

Before Christmas he enlarged on the theme of " Idle- 
nesse, the parent of all manner of vice and de- 
bauchery "; here are his final words : 

What liberty is proper for you in order to make this time 
pleasant and easy will not be denyd provided it be not em- 
ployed to ill purposes ; but if I find you take a handle to abuse 
yourselves, either by gameing excesse or any other ill method, 
funem redueam, I will tye you shorter and find you full em- 
ployment .... Those of you that go into the Country ought 
to remember that Piety Relligion and Sobriety are duties in 
all places, and that it will beeome you to reeeave the Saera- 
ment wherever you are. 

Four years later, in what was to be the last of lais 
Christmas addresses, he spoke to the boys still more 
ungenially. They " eannot bear an easy govern- 
ment "; liberty only encourages insolence and folly ; 
the elders set a bad example ; till he finds a reforma- 
tion, he will treat them with more rigour ; he hopes, 
but he elearly does not expeet, that " those who go 
into the Country will so behave themselves as to 
bring baek no ill report at their return ".--What are 
we to say of these and of sueh-like admonitions 
and valedietions ? So far as they deal with matters 
of religion, they are perhaps, in their laek of tact 
and of spirituality, simply eharaeteristie of the period ; 
but even in matters seeular their tone is strangely 
unsympathetie and repellent, as unlike that of Chris- 
topher Johnson as it is unlike that of Dr. Fearon, 
say, or Dr. Burge. In some of them there is shrewd- 
ness, a caustic wit, even a gleam of kindliness; the 
Verney père of the period found in the Head Master, 
as he did in the Warden, "a very fine gentleman" 
E 



50 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT.  

who was " highly civill and obliging-;1 and Harris 
was a generous benefactor to the College. * But it 
is a relief to learn that persuasiveness, a mild sway, 
serenity of countenance, were the " arts " of his 
SUCCeSSOr, 3 
Profcssor Havcrfield, in a balanccd iudgmcnt on 
thc Winchestcr of thc scventcenth ccntury, suggcsts 
that about 1700 thc school was on thc cvc of rcal 
dcvelopmcnt. It "was to increasc ", hc says, " but 
had hot yct donc so. But it had laid a solid founda- 
tion for future faine" 4 Thc foundation may bave 
bccn solid, but thc crcction of thc building was slow ; 
thc cightccnth ccntury is in fact a disappointing cra 
in Wykehamical history. Thcrc wcrc, it is truc, 
short pcriods whcn thc fortuncs of thc school, iudgcd 
by the test of numbcrs, rose, but such incrcasc as vc 
observe in thc thirtics and thc scvcntics of thc ccntury 
was short-livcd ; it was thc fatc both of John Burton 
(172-66) and of Joseph Warton (1766-93) to lcave 
thc school as small a community as thcy found it. 5 
Nor do othcr tests permit a more chccrful cstimatc. 
Yet thc hcadmastcrship undoubtcdly gaincd in dignity 
and importance; Wykchamists may look back vith 
pridc to both Burton and Warton; thcy both add 
intcrcst, Warton adds a vcry spccial charm, to 
Wykchamical annals. To Burton as buildcr I shall 
rcfcr in a moment, but with onc exception I do not 
propose to speak at prcscnt of thc ttcad Mastcrs who 
hcld office bctvccn 1766 and 1866; thcir strongly 
markcd and strangcly contrastcd pcrsonalitics bave 
bccn skctchcd oftcn and admirably. Warton, " one 

 R. T. Warner, Winchester, p. 43. 
 He gave £100 towards the building of School, and £200 to provide the 
scholars with veal (see below, p. 211). 
 The distich upon Thomas Cheyney (1700-24) is quoted below, p. 237. 
Some speeches composed by Harris for delivery ad portas are noticed on 
pp. 402-3.  W.C.p. 82.  See further below, p. 229. 



c.n THE HEAD MASTER 51 

of the most interesting figures that has ever sat in a 
Head Master's chair -,1 of whom "it is safe to prediet 
that never again will there be a Itead Master after 
his pattern ,,,2 requires, not a few lines or a paragraph, 
but a new biography; Henry ]ï)ison Gabell (1810-23), 
a most able teaeher who through a certain eoarseness 
of fibre eould not be a great Head Master, and his 
sueeessor ]ï)avid Williams (18"24-35), we shall meet 
from rime to rime in other ehapters ; George Moberly 
(1836-66) we shall meet eontinually. Of William 
Stanley Goddard (1793-1809) it must here be said 
that before the end of the eighteenth eentury he had 
raised the numbers of the school to the maximum 
then possible, and that he kept them at that maximum 
till he retired. It is well that his portrait should 
make us familiar with a face in which we ean surely 
find the mind's construction, and that the seholarship 
founded in his honour should hand down his clarum 
et venerabile romen to future generations. He dis- 
eovered the secret that the confidence of boys ean only 
be won by trusting them, and there are many proofs 
that he won it. 3 " The honourable compact ", we 
are told, " between Dr. Goddard and the Boys . . 
worked a reformation in the sehool, the objeet of 
every one's observation and praise. Manly reason 
and liberal confidence were reeiproeally ruade the 
eurrent medium of his management; and the effeet 
of it was that every Boy beeame a gentleman and a 
Boy of honour ". Of all benefactors to the sehool 
since the founder Goddard was the most munificent ; 
by his gift in 1834, ten years before his death, of 

 History, p. 390. 
 Mr. Herbert Fisher in W.C.p. 91. 
 See e.g. below, p. 123. 
 G.L.C. pp. 26-7. The writer declares that Goddard's admirable system 
was reversed by Gabell ; and though his rancour towards Gabell must diminish 
Ms ciedit, this particu]ar statement is abundantly confirmed from other sources. 



52 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . , 

£25,000 he put an end to the customary gratuities 
which were paid by the scholars to the Masters ; they 
had caused his sensitive conscience a distress which 
he was determined that future Masters should not 
suffer. 1 It is pleasant to record that the first effec- 
tive attack upon an evil system which lasted at Eton 
and Westminstcr till the Public Schools Act of 1868) 
and was common enough elsewhere, was due to the 
unselfishness of an old Wykehamist, George Thick- 
ncsse (admitted 1726), whose naine is recorded by 
Walcott in his " roll of distinguished Wykehamists ", 
but is hot (I think) elsewhere honoured in Wykehami- 
cal literature. Thicknesse was High Master of St. 
Paul's from 1748 to 1769; " his naine is recited" 
thcre " as a benefactor, after that of Dean Colet ", 
and Pauline tradition dcclares him to have been 
" the second founder " of that great school. 3 
Winchester, too, has had its second founder; 
indeed a claire to that title has been ruade for two 
of its Head Masters. The author of the distich on 
Dr. Burton says of him : 
Exposcunt sedem Muse ; instauratque perenne 
Felici augurio Wykehamus airer Opus ! 
The perenne opus, though its perennitas was only 
secular, was of course Old Commoners. By building 
his " Commoncrs' College " and bequeathing it to the 
school Burton deserved well of Wykehamists. He 
may not have foreseen some of the advantages which 
were to follow from his enterprise, how it would 
increase the Head Master's consequence and authority 
with those "clergymen from the country" who 
I Adanx% pp. 169-70, where we learn that Goddard "had begun saving 
his money for the purpose from an early date". 
2 M. L. p. 536 ; Sargeaunt, pp. 12, 18. For the gratuities at Winchester 
see below, pp. 208-]0. 
a Walcott, p. 427 McDonnell, chap. xviii. 



o n THE HEAD MASTER 53 

restricted his scope and checked the school's develop- 
ment, how it would lead indireetly to the better govern- 
ment of College. He saw quite clearly the evils of 
the haphazard makeshifts for lodging the commoners 
of his rime. In 1759 he wrote fo Lord Bute : 

There has lately been erected contiguous to the College 
a building dedicated to the reception of gentlemens chihlren. 
 . . Such rules and confinement are established as securc 
them from all temptations to Idleness, especially such as has 
an ill tcndency. They are entirely excluded from all com- 
merce with the town and the People of it, who are generally 
the Seducers and Agents of young Gentlemen, and at ail 
rimes are subject fo the Masters eye even in their diversions. 1 

A great gain indeed! Winchester had had enough 
of Peregrine Pickles, whose " vivacity " was only 
checked by such tutors as Mr. Jolter,  and of Frank 
Esmonds, with Tushers for their governors and gaming 
and cock - fighting for their "diversions" "Street 
commoners ", however, long survived Dr. Burton; 3 
some seventy years intervened between the building 
of Commoners' College and that gathering of all 
commoners under its roofs which, paradoxical as it 
may sound, was a gain comparable to their dispersion 
into " Houses " in 1869. 4 
Of Burton and his buildings, however, I shall 
speak fully in other places; meanwhile it is safe 
to say that the claire which the distich makes for 
him is extravagant. The title of George Ridding 

t The letter la given in full by Mr. Herbert Fisher in W.C.p. 90. Sec also 
the somewhat earlier remarks of Thomas Warton on Old Commoners (below, 
p. 78). 
 Smollett's novel was published in 1751.--Sec also a passage on David 
Lord Elcho's lire at Winchester--he came in 1734r--quoted in In Praise of 
Winchesler, p. 169. 
a For " street commouers" sec below, pp. 490-1. 
« The first three Tutors' Houses were of course started by Dr. Moberly 
between 1859 atd 1862 ; sec Chapter XXXIX. 



54 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ii 

(1867-84) to be regarded as a second founder a is 
mueh less disputable. Those Wykehamists who had 
the good fortune to be brought under his influence 
in their boyhood think first of the man and the 
teacher, of lais dignity and distinction, the breadth 
and depth of his mind and sympathies, his unaffected 
originality in thought and speech, lais aversion to 
partieular moulds and patterns, his reserved but 
strong enthusiasm ; and they feel, it may be, a toueh 
of regret that his faine must in the end rest chiefly 
on the more ponderable memorials of his greatness. 
Yet how amazing those memorials are, not only from 
their value and variety, but in view of the circum- 
stanees of his most ereative period ! Here was a man 
teaehing and learning with the utmost zest and 
freshness, as if learning and teaching were ail lais 
life; but in tlaree short years (1867-70), in spire of 
almost every kind of diflïculty and hindrance, he 
organized the sehool anew, gave it half its institutions 
and more than half its equipment, changed its whole 
manner of life and revolutionized its outlook. It is 
most fitting that of ail lais achievements the enlarge- 
ment " of out boundaries " should be specially and 
permanently connected with lais name; z not only 
because the phrase, in its widest sense, admirably 
sums up his work for Winchester, but also beeause 
that enlargement, in its narrowest and most literal 
sense, was, not of course his greatest, but perhaps 
his most characteristic achievement. "I wish we 
 The terre was perhaps first publiely applied to him by Varden Sewell of 
New College in 1887 : " I said Ridding was going to ruin the sehool ; now I 
say he is out Second Founder " (G.R.p. 78). 
"- Over the gare between Meads and "Riddings" there is this inscription, 
unfortunately most mealdy eut : 
PROPAGATOR! FI.I5[ ¢OSTRORVM 
GEOHGIO RIDDING 
POSOERE 
CV5TOS ET SOCI 
,f D CC CC V. 



: cm  THE HEAD MASTER 55 

had more ground ", said Dr. Moberly in 1862 ; "it is 
one of our greatest necessities, but we are bounded 
by rivers ; there is a stream immediately behind the 
mcadow vall, so that we cannot extend the ground 
an inch further in that direction ,,.1 Any one who 
saw the site of " Riddings " or New Field early in 
1868 would, like Dr. Moberly, have pronounced it an 
impossible site for what it was to become; but in 
less than two years it was a splendid playground, 
new in fact as in name, but with an immemorial 
aspect, and ready to be thc scene of what proved to 
be a memorable cricket match. 2 Dr. Ridding " had 
nothing to do with the possibility " of what he deemed 
indispensable and necessary ; its alleged impossibility 
was but an obstacle for his genius or his will to turn 
or to surmount. 
It bas somctimes been suggested that this great 
Hcad Master lacked the historie sense, that he need- 
lessly abolished Wykehamical usages which were 
ancient and picturesque, innocent and even valuable, 
or at least that he allowed them to die ; and thc latter 
statement, at any rate, is not altogether unfoundcd. 
"Born in these walls ", he said of himself, "it has only 
been for short intervals that I have not had my home 
in them "; and it was not for nothing that from his 
infancy onward he had breathed Wykehamical air. 
No one had a deeper love for the ideals and for thc 
nobler traditions and associations of Winchester; 
but then no one had a deeper sense that " the past 
may not supersede the present, nor may associations 
absorb our freedom ". " Catch a noble spirit", he 
said in his farewell sermon, " develop and advance 
its forms, and then let the incrustations of old forms 
1 P.S.C.p. 359. 
 The formation of Riddings is graphically described in G.R. pp. 64-6. 
Eton match was played there in July 1870 ; "Vinchester won (for thc first timc 
since 1859) by one wicket. 



56 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. a 

pass away like the last year's slough" " You can't 
imagine Ridding a Pharisee ", a friend wrote to me; 
he paid no homage to the minutiae of eustom, tte 
would talk of old Winehester usages, of whieh he had 
an unrivalled knowledge, with infinite gusto, but 
there was something whimsieal in his attaehment 
to them. He felt, I think, that Wykehamists had 
long lived a vita obsoleta, whieh they were only be- 
ginning to unlearn; a that the eustoms whieh they 
rightly valued were too elosely linked, by a rigorous 
eonservatism, to others which, if pieturesque, had 
become useless or even harmful; that to be rid of 
the latter it was necessary to let many of the former 
pass away; and he let them pass with no very 
poignant regret. 

During the 260 years which were reviewed in the 
first ehapter the IIead Masters were usually, at the 
rime of their appointment, quite young men--of 
eight, for instance, who were appointed between 
1526 and 1571 not one was yet thirty years old-- 
and during the whole period the average age at 
appointment was seareely over thirty. Early aeees- 
sions ought to mean long reigns; and it is true 
that, as compared with their fleeting Hostiarii, these 
Informatores might almost be ealled, like the Fellows, 
"perennial ". But the average lengh of their tenure 
was only some eight years; they were still young 
men when they retired ; and we naturally ask, ,Vhy 
did they retire so soon ? and what beeame of them ? 
To these questions no eomplete answer ean be 
given. Till the end of the fifteenth eentury no Head 
Masters exeept Waynflete, Ive, and 1Rede seem to have 
oeeupied any eonspieuous position after their re- 
tirement. It has been suggested that some of them 
i See his poem Ad Wiccamicos (W.C.p. 178). 



Clt. II THE HEAD MASTER 57 

may have been appointed on probation, 1 or, in 
accordance with a common practice, for a term 
of years; it is possible that the power of dismissal 
was freely exereised ; but, however that may be, we 
have no reason to think that after leaving Winehcster 
they bettered themselves materially, and they tan 
have been neither old enough nor rich enough  to 
embraee a lire of leisure. It is elear, however, that 
by the middle of the sLxteenth century the oflïee had 
gained in credit and dignity; one or two of the re- 
tiring Head Masters of the period beeame Canons or 
Deans, and between 1501 and 1658 no less than rive 
beeame Wardens of Winehester.--During the second 
260 years of our history the age of Head Masters on 
appointment has been much more mature, and their 
tenure of oflïee much longer; the average age on 
appointment has been about thirty-nine, the average 
length of tenure about twenty years. Some have 
been content on retirement to aeeept that event, 
perhaps in some country parish, as the virtual meta 
of their labours; one--at the very beginning of 
the period-- became Warden of Winchester ; two 
bave beeome Wardens of New College; three bave 
beeome bishops. The last of these faets may 
justify a few words of comment; of the second I 
shall speak more fully, for it brings into notice a 
marrer of importance in the history of both Vyke- 
ham's eo|leges. 
Sinee the foundation of Winehester six of its 
Head Masters have been appointed to bishopries, 
but Dr. Ridding was the first, as Dr. Burge was the 

 At Rugby in early days appointments were ruade on a three years' pro- 
bation (Rouse, Rugby, p. 39). 
t Even about 1565 Christopher Johnson, in an exereise whieh I have hot 
read, "told the boys to ask their fathers what they paid their servants of 
various kinds, and they would find that teaehing was worse paid than hedging 
and ditehing, let alone eooking or game-keeping " (V.H.p. 814). 



58 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

second, to go straight from the Head Master's to a 
bishop's seat. Of the other four Dr. Moberly alone 
earned the latter seat by a successful occupancy of 
the former; a long interval separated the head- 
mastership and the episcopate of Waynflete, of White, 
and of Bilson, and it was during that interval in each 
case that a claim to the higher office was established. 
The fact reminds us of the narrow limits, until quite 
reccnt times, of the Head Master's scope.--More 
remarkable than the paucity, till 1869, of our ex- 
head-master bishops is the contrast between the 
frequency from 1501 to 1658, and the non-existence 
from 1679 to 1872, of ex-head-master ,¥ardens--a 
contrast which is the more surprising when we re- 
member that the status of the Head Master was 
much higher during the later period, and that of the 
last nine Provosts of Eton seven bave been ex-head- 
masters. It can, of course, be plausibly argued 
that, though the wardenship would have been a well- 
earned prize for a successful Head Master, a retiring 
Head Master, and a successful one perhaps paloEicularly, 
would not have been a fitting person to survey, and 
it might be to control, the work of those who followed 
him; but ex-head-masters of Winchester were not 
passed over for that reason. They were passed over 
from 1679 to 1757 because Wardens of New College 
desired the other wardenship, and because it suited 
the Fellows of New College to satisfy their desire. The 
desire seems strange to a reader of the Statutes, for 
under the Statutes the Oxford wardenship is incom- 
parably the more dignified and attractive. The 
Warden of New College was in a sense the Visitor of 
Winchester, and he was the undisputed head of the 
Wykehamical brotherhood; his stipend and his 
allowanees were larger, his state was more kingly, 
than the other Warden's. Yet in the course of less 



o.  THE HEAD MASTER 59 
than eighty years seven Wardens of New Collcge 
were appointed fo be Wardcns of Winchester. 1 Thcy 
did not aire af incrcased dignity, for the relative 
dignity of the two offices rcmained unchanged, nor 
did they step down from humility ; they were rcady 
fo step down bccause, as Mcssrs. Rashdall and Rait 
say bluntly, if had been "easicr for the Wardcn of 
Winchcster to incrcase his emolumcnts at the expense 
of his hclplcss charity-boys and a vcry small number 
of Fcllows than for the Hcad of the great and highly 
organized corporation at Oxford to monopolize the 
increasing value of the Collcge estates; and so in 
process of rime the Winchcster wardcnship had corne 
fo be much more valuablc than the Oxford one " 2 
That thcse appointmcnts wcrc ruade was as discrcdit- 
able to the Warden and Fellows of New Collcge as 
it was to the Warden and Fellows of Winchester 
that they were desired by the persons who seeured 
them; the appointments meant a postponement 
of the well-being of both eolleges to private interests. 
New College suffered because " the Warden of New 
College, depending for a very beneficial promotion 
upon a number of junior Fellows ", was "not likely to 
hold the reins of government as tightly as he ought " ; 
Winchester suffered equally because it was " unlikely 
that the visitatorial power over the Warden of Win- 
ehester " would " be effeetually exereised by one 
t Nicholas in 1679, BrathwaytÇ in 171½, Cobb in 1720, Dobson in 1724, 
Bigg in 17-., Coxed in 1740, Purnell in 1757 ; the naine of $Varden Trafltes 
of New College is wrongly included in the list given in R. and R. p. 209. 
Purnell's appointment was disallowed by Bishop Hoadley as Visitor (R. and 1. 
p. 210 ; Annals, p. 398). 
2 It was stated at the rime of Purnell's appointment that "the wardenship 
of Winchester was worth £700 or £800 a year, against his superior's £300 '" 
(R. and R. p. 209). In an elaborate memorandum draum up by one of the 
Fellows, I think about twenty years earlier, I find the Winchester Warden's 
emoluments estimated at £640 ; another Fellow at a slightly later date de- 
clares "the Warden's aliowances in kind to be by much the Greatest and most 
Ancient Abuse which prevails in the College" 



6O 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

who " looked " upon himself as his heir apparent ,,.i 
The action of Bishop Hoadley, who disallowed Pur- 
nell's appointment in 1757, put an end to this bad 
practice ; 2 and in 1763, when Warden Golding died, 
ve might have expected that a Head Master's turn 
would corne. " What a glorious Ward,,en ", wrote 
Varton, who was then Second Master, would Dr. 
Burton be. t What an honourable and proper retreat 
for his old age!" The glorious appointment, how- 
ever, was not ruade; the wardenship fell to Harry 
Lee, the " vcry idca" of whom was to Warton's 
mind " degrading-.3 On two later occasions the 
claires of Head Masters, if the field had been open, 
might bave secmed irresistible ; but ncither Warton 
in 1789, nor Moberly in 1861, was or had been 
a Fcllow of eithcr college, 4 and they wcrc incligible 
undcr Rubric VI. 

In 1870, just before the present Governing Body 
came into existence, Dr. Moberly expressed the 
opinion that it " would best show how wise it was 
by gctting the best man as Head Master, and thcn 
leaving him to govern the school by himsclf ". That 
is axiomatic to- day, but no one knew better than 
Dr. Moberly that the second part of it had been no 
axiom with the Governing Body which was to be 
x Sec an unsigned letter of 1737, headed " A serious and friendly admoni- 
tion to the Fellows of New College " ; Mr. Kirby quotes from it in .41mals, 
pp. 397-8. 
 It is interesting to note that the visitations of the New College Super- 
visors begin to be searching again in 1764, ; sec below, p. 208. 
* History, p. 881. 
« Moberly becarae a Fellow of Winchester aftetm'ards, in 1866.--No Wyke- 
hamical worthy was ever better suited for the wardenship than Dr. Goddard, 
but he shared the disqualification of Varton and Moberly, and when Hunting- 
ford died, affer being Warden for forty-two years, in 1832, Goddard (who had 
resigned the headmastership in 1809) was seventy-four, tte lived till 1845. 
* Sec The Wykehamist for October 1870. Moberly had said in 1862 : "If 
you put an adequate man at the head of a school of this kind, he ought to be 
suprcme " (P.,S.C.p. 836). 



cH. J THE HEAD MASTER 61 
supcrsedcd in 1871 ; the Wardcn and Fellows of the 
old dispensation had shown how wise they were in 
another way. 1 In many matters of policy and 
finance, and even in the appointment of assistant 
masters to whose cmoluments they did not contribute, 
Moberly " often felt himself thwarted by the Wardcn 
and Fcllows as an official body ,,;2 in matters of 
everyday management and discipline ho had bccn 
subject to the Warden's control. I shall end this 
chaptcr with somc rcmarks on this latter subjection. 
In 1763 Dr. Burton wrote : 
I have expericnced variety of governors. In Wardcn 
Dobson's time [17»4-] we were in the height of glory. In 
Bigg's time [17-t0], a very different man, we just supported 
ourselves. In Coxed's [1740-57] we sank to nothing. In the 
late Warden's [Golding, 1757-63] we began to rise, and had 
he lived, I doubt hot of the event, assisted by Warton's 
character, a Lee's sovereignty will be our co«p de grhce.  
The alternations of prosperity and adversity which 
Burton notes correspond to rises and falls of thc 
number of commoners.  Like othcr writcrs I havc 
regardcd them as depending primarily upon Hcad 
Iasters, but Burton regarded them as depending 
upon Wardcns. « He cannot have been more than 
hall right in so regarding them ; but itis certain that 
Wardens were in the fullest sense the " governors " 
of Head Masters, in small things as in great, till the 
death of Warden Huntingford in 1832. In small 
t The tact and shrewdness of Warden Godfrey Lee deserve recognition in 
this connection. 
 D.D.p. 153. 
* For this allusion to Warton, then Second Master, sec below, p. 78. 
 History, p. 380. 
 In 1724 there were 35 commoners ; in 1730, 87 ; in 1740, 42 ; in 1757, 
28 ; in 1763, 49. Sec L.R.i.p. Ixxii. 
« In 1763 a Fellow of New College regarded " the future prosperity of the 
finest foundation in Europe " as "entirely depending" on the personality 
of the Warden (Let-ter by Mr. Phelps to the Bishop of Winchester, Stowe 
MSS. 799). 



62 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

things as in great; an order, for instance, is still 
extant in which Huntingford prescribed the exact 
rimes and the number of minutes during which "the 
School Court Door towards the Commoners " might 
be left open 1--to keep scholars and commoners apart, 
these minutes were to be as few as possible. The 
order is most instructive. " The Warden ald 
Fcllows ", said Warden Godfrey Lee in 1862, " have 
always claimed a certain kind of authority, rather 
undefined perhaps, over the commoners ,,,2 but 
ordinarily, except when they desired to check the 
increase of their number, they regarded them as 
purely a concern of the Head Master ; even Hunting- 
ford would not have dissented from Warden Lee's 
admission that the Warden (and a fortiori the Fellows) 
had nothing to do with teaching, or discipline, or punish- 
ment, or expulsion, in the case of any commoner. 3 
But his coneern with these and such-like matters in 
the case of the scholars was real and unquestioned, 
and, if scholars and commoners were to be treated as 
one school, his real control of the former necessarily 
involved interferencedirect or indirectwith the 
Head Master's control of the latter;  we have a case 
of such interference in this marrer of the School Court 
Door. There was, in fact, a divided government 
which might have been expected to cause endless 
friction. During the quarter of a century (1836-61} 
vhen Barter was Warden and Moberly Head Master 
such friction vas not noticed; they were intimate 
friends, and Barter was not a man with vhom it was 
possible to quarrel. Harmonious relations were so 

1 Wiser rules were ruade in 1857, hot (be it observed) by Warden Barrer, 
but by Dr. Moberly. 
 P.S.C.p. 330.  Ibid. p. 331. 
« Ibid. p. 335. " The Warden ", says MoberIy, "' is supreme over the 
schoIars, and if special orders are issued for the scholars, the generaI operation 
of the school must, of course, be greatly affected". 



c. THE HEAD MASTER 63 

well maintained that when, in the year after Barter's 
death, it was suggested to his successor that a system 
under which commoners were subjected to one 
authority and scholars to another could hardly be 
a good one, the new Warden, who had for many 
years been College Tutor, could answer, " The ques- 
tion never oecurred to me before ,,!x It had often 
occurred to Dr. Moberly. He could not be induced 
to say straight out that he wished the system, con- 
secrated as it was by custom, tobe discontinued, but 
he admitted freely that it was anomalous and wrong, 
and no one ean read his conversation with the Com- 
missioners without seeing that he chafed under the 
limitations set to his authority, or perhaps without 
thinking that he accepted them too tamely. By tact 
and patience he gradually enlarged the Head 3Iaster's 
seope, but some bold usurpation would not have 
been amiss. 
When Dr. Arnold was appointed Head Master of 
Rugby in 1828, " he from the first maintained that 
in the actual working of the school he must be com- 
pletely independent. On this condition he took the 
post, and any attempt to eontrol his administration he 
felt bound to resist ' as a duty,' he said on one occasion, 
'hot only to himself, but to the toaster of every 
foundation school in England'" 2 He visited Win- 
ehester in the first year of Moberly's headmastership, 
and afterwards wrote to his sister that he " certainly 
did hot desire to change houses ", or, as he implied, 
to change places, " with Moberly-.3 A gap is left 
in the letter as Dean Stanley printed it ; was one of 
Arnold's reasons that he had eomplete independence 
and that Moberly had not? The Dean points out 

1 P.S.C.p. 330. 
 Stanley, Li.fe o.f Arnold, p. 81. The quotation is abridged. 
 Ibid. p. 384. 



6 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE n.,, 

elsevhere that Rugby " by its constitution imposed 
fewer shackles on its head, and offered a more open 
field for alteration " than Winehester or Eton. 1 

i Stanley, Lire of Arnold, p. 77. Soon after his appointment Arnold wrote 
to an old Vykehamist : " I find that my power is perfectly absolute, so that I 
bave no excuse if I do not try to rnake the sehool something like rny beau 
ideal " {p. 190). 



CIIAPTER III 

THE SECOND MASTER 

TI-IE title Hostiarius, which Wykeham willcd that the 
Master's assistant should bear, 1 suggests the puzzling 
question, Why should such an oflïcial be styled a 
"door-keeper" ? The name, Mr. Leach answers, was 
derived from the person who kept the church-door 
in primitive times ; he " was later identified with the 
parish clerk, who often performed the function of an 
elementary teacher ". That Wykeham's Hostiarius 
was actually a door-keeper as well as a teacher is not, 
however, impossible; the person who bore that title 
and was door-keeper at St. Albans School in 1309 may 
have been a teacher and not a schoolboy.---In the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries you could write 
ho«tiarius or ostiarius at your discretion ;  but in later 
rimes at Winchester the presence or absence of the 
aspirate conveniently marked a distinction between the 
Second Master and the boy-official, now defunct for 
nearly fifty years, who kept the door of School.---Hos - 
tiariu.2, from Wykeham's time to ours, has been the 
usual Latin naine for the Second Master, though the 
latinized hypodida«calu« and paedagogu.s have offen 
 llosliarius scholarium vulgariler nuncupandus (Rubric I.); quem hosli- 
arium volumus nuncupari (Rubric XII.). 
2 V.H.p. 281. 
a E.C.p. 242. In V.H. Herts (il. p. 51) Mr. Leach seems to take thls view. 
4 In spite of Wykeham the Second Master is often cailed Ostiarius in the 
early College accounts (e,g. in 1413 and 1421), and even in those of the seven- 
teenth century {e.g. in 1647-8). 5 Sec Chapter VIII. 
65 F 



66 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE T.  

been used as synonyms for it; the former appears 
from time to time in the accounts (e.g., hypodidascalo 
catechizanti pueros), and (abbreviated fo Hyp.) 
designates the Second Master in our earliest Long 
Roll (1653); the latter (abbreviated) is used in all 
subsequent Long Rolls till that of 1805, in which 
Hostiarius takes ifs place.--From hostiarius, through 
huissier, cornes " ushcr ", and Usher was the standing 
English naine for the Second Master till nearly the 
end of the eighteenth century ; if occurs, for instance, 
in a memorandum written by Warden Harry Lee 
vhen Goddard was appointed fo the office in 1784. 
A little later the Warden and FeIlows secm fo have 
rcalized that the word had acquired an unpleasant 
connotation, and they preferrcd fo use its Latin 
equivalent. In 1836 they said " the Lower Master ,,,1 
and even in 1862 Wardcn Godfrey Lee so styled the 
Hostiarits in his evidence betbre the Public School 
Commissioners; Mr. G. W. IIeathcote, the last of 
thc old Fellovs, who died in 1893, said " lower toaster " 
or "undcr toaster" to the last. The first use of 
" Second Master " that I know of occurs in Warton's 
Description of Winchester (c. 1750); the title was 
employed by the Electors and by The Hampshire 
Chronicle in 1793, and among Wykehamists generally 
if was then establishing itself. " Lower Master" 
vas all very well on the lips of the Warden and 
Fe]]ows, for in their view there were " Two Masters " 
and tvo only; but when a third toaster was in fact 
taking classes in School, " Second Master " was in 
fact more appropriate. 
The Hostiarius, like the Informator, was by the 
Statures to be appointed by the Warden and Fellows, 

 " The under Master " appeared in the toast-list of the Bath ,Vykehamist 
Meeting in 1808 (The Wykehanist, October 1907).--At Eton "' lower toaster" 
and at St. Patd's " surmaster " (:sub-magister) are still current. 



. m THE SECOND MASTER 67 

and to be dismissible by them or by the Warden ; 
in ail other respects he was to be " under " the In- 
formator, t His tank was lower than that of the other 
magistri. 2 He was to sit in Hall below the junior 
Fellows and the Chaplains (Rubrie XIV.) ; his stipend 
was but one-third of the Master's (R. XXVI.) ; 3 he 
was allowed but rive yards of eloth eaeh year, while 
the Master and the Fellows had eight, and even the 
Chaplains six; unlike the Master and the Fellows, 
he was to reeeive no 3s. 4d. for fur to trim his gown 
(R. XXVII.). Experienee in teaching was hot re- 
quired of him, as it was of the Master (R. XII.); he 
was hot a member of the " Election Chamber" 
(R. III.); it was hot stipulated that he should, like 
the Master, give long notice, or indeed any notice, of 
an intention to retire (R. XII.). 4 For the rest, he 
was to work under the Master's direction, and to 
represent him in his absence (ibid.)) 
Probably Wykeham eontemplated that a sue- 
cession of young and untried men would aeeept the 
post, and that eaeh of them would serve but a short 
apprentieeship at Winehester; at any rate this is 

z Alterius inslrucoris sub eo [i.e. magisro informaore] (Rubric I.) ; magistro 
informatore et hosliario sub ipso (R. VI.) ; magislro informatore et hostiario sub 
codera (R. XII.). The words sub ipso are often added to the word hostiarius 
in the accounts when payments to the two masters are recorded ; see e.g. 
Winchester College Documents, No. II. 2.--We have a quaint reminder of the 
inferiority of the Hosliarius in the Inventories of the old School (1678-88) ; 
there are "Two Chaires " for the two Masters, but only " 1 Cusheon ". 
* 3lagistri = the official staff of the College. It has this meaning in the 
Tabula Legum, and Mathew tells us that the Fellows were called mag£slri 
(v. 14). George Johnson, a Fellow who died in 1642 (see below, p. 556), is 
described in his wife's epitaph in St. Maurice's church as "' one of the Masters 
of the Colledge ". 
 Wykeham left legacies of 100s. to the Master and 20s. to thc Usher. 
See his will in Lowth, Lire of Wykeham, Appendix XVII. p. xxxwiii. 
 See above, p. 86.4olet's Statutes for St. Paul's require a year's notice 
from the High Master, hall a year's notice from the Surmaster. 
 Wykeham in his Register calls John Seward (the first Hostiarius whose 
narne bas been preserved) the Locum tenens and Vicesgerens of the Ma.ster 
lnformator (Lowth, Appendix X. pp. xiv, xv). 



68 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
what happened for about 260 years from the founda- 
tion of the College. The evidence, such as itis, of 
Mr. Kirby's Winchester Scholars provcs that an Usher 
at the time of his appointment was often surprisingly 
young, x sometimes much under twenty-one, and that 
his tenure of office was usually very brief ; Mr. Chitty 
has discovered, chiefly from the accounts, the names 
of fifty-five Hostiarii who held office before 1653, 
and his list is hot and does not profess tobe complete. 
Even when drest in a little brief authority during the 
Mastcr's absence, the Ushcr " shared the unpopu- 
larity common to deputies ", and he must have been 
anxious to press his fortunes, as soon as possible, in 
other fields--as 3[astcr of some less famous school, 
pcrhaps, or as parson in some country parish. * We 
may not rcly on thc details of the famous story of the 
iconoclastic Usher William Forde; there is, as Mr. 
Kirby says,  "a savour of improbability " about 
thcm, and, as 3Ir. Leach adds, 4 they involve geo- 
graphical difficulties. There undoubtedly was an 
Usher of the naine in 157 or 1548 s and he was 
ieonoelastieally disposed, but how he manifested his 
ieonoelasm does not for the moment eoneern us; 
what does eoneern us is that a Wykehamist who was 
Forde's eontemporary both at Winehester and at 
New College has put on record, as a thing quite 
eredible, that the seholars of " Wykam eolleadge 
 Guido Dobins, for instance, who was elected--when twelve years old, says 
Mr. Kirby (W.S.p. 141)--to a scholarship in 1567, became Hostiarius in 1574. 
Similarly Thomas Borow, adrnitted when ten as a scho]ar in 1516, is described 
(op. cit. p. 107) as " Hostiarius, Eton, 1523". 
2 Some of them became Fel]ows of Winchester, Dobins and WilIiam 
Trussell (op. cit. pp. 12, 157), after a considerable interval ; Thomas Jones 
(pp. 10, 141) was appointed Hostiarius in 1578, and became a Fellow in 
1582. 
a Annals, p. 49. 
« IIistory, p. 255. 
 Not" about 155 or 156 ", as stated by Strype on the authority of John 
Lowthe (see the next note). 



cH.. THE SECOND MASTER 69 
besyde Wynchêster " could give thêir Usher (upon 
serious provocation, no doubt) " a dogges lyff among 
them," and could cry out and rail at him " by sup- 
portacyone of their toaster".  Even under normal 
circumstances, taking one consideration with another, 
an Usher's life was not a happy one either at Win- 
chester or elsewhere. In 1511 Dean Colet askcd 
Erasmus to find a surmaster for St. Paul's " that will 
not give himself airs " ; to vhich Erasmus answercd 
that " when he broached the subject among certain 
Masters of Arts, one said, 'Who would be a school- 
toaster that could live any other way ?'" - The 
normal attitude of Wykehamists towards their 
Hostiarius in the sixteenth ccntury is revealed 
by the following Injunction, issued by Bishop Horne 
in 1571 : 
Item, that what scholar soever commensall or other shall 
at any rime deride or contemptuously despise the Usher, he 
shall by the Schoolmaster upon the Usher's compluit be 
in the presence of the whole school severely corrected and 
after dec|are his fault and ask the Usher open forgiveness. 3 
An Injunction of Archbishop Parker fo Canterbury 
School in 1560 shows how poor a thing an Usher was 
in archiepiseopal eyes : 
Item, that the Ussher of the sayd Schole . . . behave 
himself humblie and obedient towarde the Prebendaries . . . 
and others his superiors, upon paine of deprivacion fro his 
said Usshershippe. a 

i j. B. Wainewright, John White of Winchester, pp. 14-17 (see also pp. 24 
seqq.). John Lowthe, who told the story, and William Forde, of whom he 
told it, were both eleeted scholars of Winchester in I534 (W.S.p. 119). 
 MeDonnell, p. 75 ; Niehols, Epistles of Erasmus, il. pp. 25, 7.--Erasmus 
did not agree with the Masters of Arts. He told a schoolmaster who regarded 
his position as tragic and deplorable that schoolmastering was the noblest 
of occupations ; "to be a schoolmaster is next to being a king" {op. cit. ii. 
p. 235). 
 V.,4. & I. p. 331. « E.C.p. 471. 



70 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ,, 
At Eton fifty years later a mere dioeesan spoke of an 
Usher in a still loftier strain. The post of Hostiarius 
)vas vacant there in 1611, and the Bishop of Lineoln 
had his word to say as Visitor upon a new appoint- 
ment. The Usher, he insisted, must be a layman, 
and here is his reason : 
As for the Usher to be a Presbtfler . . . I marveill that it 
should bee once thought of amongst you, for doo you not 
take ita grosse abasing of our saered funetion that a Priesf 
should either bee or bee entituled an hostiarius ? 1 
Small wonder, when Bishops and Arehbishops wrote 
like that, that Winehester seholars and eommoners, 
with or without " the supportation of their Master", 
should have derided or eontemptuously despised 
their Usher ! The post was nota eareer ; it was only 
a step--a disagreeable step--towards one. That it 
was but a step is well shown by something whieh 
happened at Winehester in 1629. John Imber, who 
had been appointed Hostiarius at twenty-three, fell 
in love at twenty-five; desiring to marry he threw up 
his situation, for its prospeets were nil, 2 and started 
a day-sehool in the town.Mathew in 1647 barely 
alludes to the Usher's existence ; he merely says that 
there were two Masters : 
Sunt duo, cura vage quibus est eommissa iuvente (v. 18). 
During the tvo or three years before he wrote Usher 
had succeeded Usher at short intervals. Christopher 
Taylour, appointed in 16¢¢, held oflîee for a year and 
x Quoted in 31. L. pp. 201-2. The Eton Statutes required (what the Win- 
chester Statures did hot) that the Usher should be a la3maan ; hence the 
Bishop adds : " God's glory is never better rneinteined then where dead men's 
wills are trtfly executed".--In a memorandum drawn up by Varden Bigg 
17--40) it is noted that at Eton "the Hostiarius or Usher is hot considered 
as of rnuch Rank in the Statures. He is expressly directed hot to be in ttoly 
Orders ". 
- No doubt he was hot allowed to marry as Hostiarius. 
s Annals, pp. 124-8 ; Hiatorl] , pp. 330-4. 



o ii THE SECOND MASTER 71 

a quarter; Thomas Fowkes, appointed in 1645, for 
three-quarters of a year ; William Ayliffe, appointed 
in 1646, left Winehester just when Mathew pro- 
eeeded ad Oxon. in 1647.1 
In 1647, however, or very early in 1648, a new 
appointment proved to be the beginning of a new era 
in the history of the seeond-mastership. Owen 
Phillips, who, like most of his predeeessors, entered 
upon the oflàee as a very young man, was destined to 
hold if for more than thirty years (sex et quod excurrit 
lustra), and when he died in harness af fifty-three he 
left grateful memories behind him : ingens in otnnibus 
bonis desiderium sui moriens reliquit. His long and 
useful eareer, eommemorated in Cloisters, 2 raised the 
status of the Hostiarius; we hear no more of brief 
tenures by seholars seareely out of their teens. In 
the hundred years that followed the death of Phillips 
the average tenure of the seeond-mastership was 
fifteen years ; the average age of a Second Master on 
appointment, though if eannot be given with precise 
aceuraey, may be put af about thirty-five. As a 
person of mature age and assured position the Usher 
began fo eount for mueh, and was soon fo assert himself 
aeeordingly. A well-informed correspondent of the 
Master noted in 1682 that the sehool was very fortunate 
in having Mr. Horne (1678-1701) for its Usher. 3 
Christopher Eyre (1719-39) showed initiative by 
organizing a fund, to which he was a generous con- 
tributor, for the benefit of superannuatcs ; and though 
in 1739 there occurred a regrettable incident which 
might well have evoked a new inj unction from another 

x Ayliffe afterwards married a rich widow, and when she died in the prime 
of life, her jointure going with her, killed himself by jumping out of window. 
Mr. Kirby refers the rash act fo 1647 (W.S.p. 175), but if occurred in 1664 
(Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), i. p. liv). 
 Inscriptiones Wiccamicae, p. 85. 
 V.M. iv. p. 219 ; see below, p. 88. 



72 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Bishop Horne--the boys treated the Usher rudely, 
and the Master, perhaps, treated him "unhandsolnely" 
--Eyre showed spirit and asserted his rights; 1 on 
leaving he became a Prebendary of Winchester.-- 
When David Lord Elcho came fo Winchester in 1734 
he found the school divided, like the test of the world, 
into political factions; Burton was a Jacobite, Eyre 
was a " Georgite "; and the difference in politics 
between Informator and Hostiarius continued into the 
rime of Eyre's successor, Samuel Speed (1740-55). 
Speed was a Whig and is described as " a friend " of 
Hoadley, the Whig and latitudinarian Bishop of 
Winchester; that an Usher should be a friend of a 
Bishop is significant. An unfriendly critic noted in 
his journal, which he published afterwards (in 1756), 
that "the school is said to be fallen off", and the 
statement was truc; but we are here concerned only 
with one of his comments on the fact. " If", he xvrote, 
" the case is as represented, that the Master being a 
TORY, and head-usher a WmG, neither party choose fo 
send their sons thither, we must laugh af Whigs and 
Tories, who carry their notions so far"Y That the 
Usher's polities shonld have been represented as affeet- 
ing the fortunes of the sehool is a elear indication 
that the Usher was a person of some eonsequenee. 4 
Meanwhile, though " parties at that tilne ran 
high ", the Tory Master and Whig Usher were sueh 
good friends that " Dr. Burton had long been inclined 
fo resign lais situation, could he bave seeured the 
headmastership for Mr. Speed ".  But he eould not 
 Armais, pp. 892-4, ; llistory, pp. 876-7 ; sec also below, pp. 77, 89. 
 Affairs of Scotland, Memoir by the Hon. Evan Charteris, pp. 8-11 (quoted 
in In lraise of lVinchester, pp. 168-9). 
a llanway's Journal, quoted by H. T. B. in The Wykehamist, July 27, 1901. 
« Some years af-ter his retirement Speed entered, on equal terms, into a 
controversy with the College authorities " about punishing the scholars above 
fourteen with the rod ". 
 XVooll, Biographical Notice of Dr. |Varton, p. 80. 



o. m THE SECOIrD IIASTER 78 
secure it for one who was Dr. Hoadley's friend; 
possibly the Warden and Fellows may have raised 
the fuloEher objection that no Winchester Hostiarius 
had ever been ruade Informator. 1 Be that as it may, 
Burton stayed at Winchester and Speed retired. A 
new precedent, however, was soon tobe created; 
four successive headmasterships of ex-hostiarii--those 
of Warton, Goddard, Gabell, and Williams--cover the 
period from 1766 to 1835. 2 The Warden and Fellows 
may have felt that it was safer to appoint a good man 
whom they had at hand and knew than to search for 
one whom they did hot knowMa sensible policy 
enough, if they really knew the man whom they 
appointed. 3 The last and perhaps the best appoint- 
ment ruade under the old régime was ruade (in 1866) 
in pursuance of that policy. The promoted Hostiarits 
used to say that he owed his promotion to his having 
" two fathers "  and an uncle among the electors, 
who had therefore good reason to think that they knew 
him; but few of them knew George Ridding. 
How far, and from what date, was the rise which 
 It is stated in Adams (p. 465} that Villiam Burt, afterwards tIead Master 
and Warden, was Hostiarius in 1654. But this is a rnistake ; Burt became 
Head lXIaster in 165°,--he is Ludimagistet in the Long Roll for that year ; 
Owen Phillips was llostiarius frorn 1647 or 1648 to 1678 ; Burt seems to hure 
eome straight ftom the rnastership of Thame School to the headmastership. 
hlr. Kirby says in lais «tnnals (p. 863) that William Harris (Head Master, 
1679-1700) was Hostiarius "for a short time under Beeston ". Unless he 
was the rnerest locum leens the statement cannot be teconciled with known 
faets. 
 The list of Hostiarii who bave become boEormatotes may be completed 
by adding the names of Dr. Ridding and Mr. Rendail. 
a Colet gave the under-master at St. Paul's a preferential daim to succeed 
the High hIaster : " Yf the vnder Maister be in litterature and in honest lyff 
acordyng thanne the high 5laisters Rome vacant let hym be chosyn before a 
nother". The Statutes of hlerchant Taylors Schooi (1561) follow tltose of 
St. Paul's in this as in other respects. At Shrewsbury, under the Ordinances 
of 157, the Second Master, if he had served two years and shown himself 
capable, was to succeed the I-Iead Schooimaster " when he giveth over his 
function or dieth in the saine " 
 The Rev. C. I:I. Ridding and Dr. hIobedy, one of whose daughters was 
Dr. Ridding's first wife. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

we have traced in the Usher's status connected with 
his having beeome responsible for the lodging and the 
charge of eommoners ? A discussion of this question 
involves eonsiderations of larger eoneern, but it 
eannot be avoided if we are to understand the Usher's 
history.--Aeeording fo Mr. Kirby an Usher under- 
took the responsibility in the sixteenth eentury, but 
I eannot think that his evidenee warrants lais con- 
clusion. 1 In the seventeenth eentury the eonneetion 
of the Usher, and indeed of the Head Master, with the 
lodging of eommoners, eannot always be preeisely 
deternfined. The latter, we may presume, was in 
theory responsible for most, af any rate, * of the eom- 
moners who lived intra collegium, but the number of 
these, when we ean aseertain if, was small,  and if is 
certain that he often took the responsibility lightly, 
shifting it, probably, upon the Usher. The Founder's 
provision of quarters for the two Masters was seanty, 
and though it had been enlarged, the provision was 
still too scanty when Head Masters began fo marry; 
but there was fortunately a house close at hand to 
which they or their Ushers eould migrate. This was 
the Sistern Spiral, whieh sinee the Reformation had 
beeome a private residenee, belonging to the Dean 
and Chapter ; if was adjacent to College on the west, 
oceupying the site of the masters' and prefeets' 
present Common Rooms. Of this building William 
Trussell, Hostiarius, beeame the tenant in 1613; 
either as the Head Master's representative, or on his 

x Sec the note at the end of this chapter. 
* I insert the qualification because there is some e-idence that Fellows 
occasionally took boarders in their chambers (sec e.g. The Wykeharnis, June 
20, 1893, p. 375), and because it is expressly stated in the Long Roll for 1681 
that three commoners lived with the Varden (apud Dom. Cust.) in that year. 
 Thc names of commensales intra collegiurn are sometimes given in the 
Long Rolls of the years 1653-81 ; their number never exceeds seven. It is 
noticeable that in his Manual of Prayers (1674) Ken speaks of eommoners as 
hot closely packed ; sec the passage quoted on p. 267. 



c. m THE SECOND MASTER 75 

own account, he may have taken boarders there. 
From 1625 to 1674 the tenants were a succession of 
Head Masters--Robinson, Stanley, Burt, and Beeston ;1 
itis a plausible conjecture that they all used it partly 
as a boarding house. Dr. Stanlcy (1627-42), in his 
earlier years at any rate, 2 must bave deserted Collcge 
altogether and made the Spital his home; for " the 
Fellowes of New Colledge ", attacking him in 1630, 
argued that, "though the Schoolem - be not mentioned 
in the stature of pcrnoctation abroad ", 

the warden may require the Schoolern . to lodge within 
the Colledge (though married) sometimes. Other wardens 
have done so, and Bishop Andrewes [1618-26] was very angry 
that it was negleeted) 

It seems certain that neither Warden Harris (16,30-58), 
nor Warden Burt (1658-79), who as Head Master 
had been himself an offender, fclt the same anger as 
Bishop Andrewes ; successive Head Masters occupied 
the Spital, and successive Ushers, perhaps, were more 
or lcss responsible for the discipline of commoncrs 
intra collegiun, till 1674. 
The Spiral passed in that year into other hands, 
and for the following years we have little information 
x A list of " Tenants of the Susterne Spytal " from 1545 onwards is given 
in Adams, p. 465. The naine of Potenger, who was Head Master from 1642 
to 1653, does hot occur in it ; his predecessor, who held the lease from 1629 
to 1654, may bave sublet the premises to him. 
 Probably in his later years also. " Writing, May 8, 1637, to Sir Edward 
Nicholas touching his proposal to send his son John to Winchester School, 
Dr. Matthew Nicholas reeornmends the schoolmaster's bouse as the best place. 
' The rate he takes of his hoarders is £20 a year .... Near the College the 
rates of tabling are very high, unless it be in mean houses ' " (Annals, p. 123 ; 
Mr. Kirby quotes from SIate Papers, DomesIic, ccclv.). Stanley vas in 
possession of the Spiral in 1637, and I presurne that " the schoolmaster's 
house'" is that building ; Mr. Kirby (W.C.p. 51) understands it robe the 
Master's quarters in College. 
a Mr. Kirby, who professes to give the Fellows' letter verbatim, reduces the 
long paragraph from which I quote to hall a line (see above, p. 44). Mr. 
Leach (I'.H.p. 323) incorrectly inserts the words " and usher" between " the 
Schoolm . " and " to lodge" 



76 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

concerning the lodging of commoners extra collegium. 
Thcrc was a large increasc of their numbcr during 
thc scvcntics and cighties, and it may bc conjccturcd 
that onc of thc two Mastcrs or both lodgcd somc of 
them somcwhcrc; 1 but bcsidcs thc gildcd youths 
who livcd outsidc Collcgc undcr thc charge of thcir 
tutors or govcrnors thcrc wcrc othcr " strcct com- 
moncrs " living in privatc houscs vith what Etonians 
call " dames ". In 1720 our acquaintancc thc Hosti- 
arius Christophcr Eyrc, likc lais prcdccessor Trusscll 
a century bcforc, bccamc tenant of thc Spiral. 3 Four 
or rive ycars latcr, on the appointmcnt of Dr. Burton 
to thc hcadmastcrship, thc Wardcn and Fcllows 
passcd this important rcsolution : 
That either Dr. Burton or Mr. Eyre shall constantly reside 
within the Collcge, dividing the time equally between them, 
so long as Mr. Eyre continues usher ; and upon choice of a 
new usher the residcnce shall be apportioned between them 
in such manner as the Wardcn and Socicty may appoint. 
And that they frequently attend the children [i.e. the scholars] 
at meals.  

Evidently they had a misgiving that both Masters 
might negleet the scholars and constantly " pernoctate 
abroad ", and they despaired of pinning down either 
of them to constant residence in College. Burton, 
however, undertook that duty, and set to work to 
make himself comfortable. It is hazardous to attempt 
to speak precisely about the past " disposition " of 
what is now the Second Master's house ; but Burton 
seems to bave taken the quarters assigned to the two 
Masters by the Statures (these quarters correspond 
 From one of Head Master Harris's addresses, delivered in 1695, it would 
appear that commoners were less under his influence than scholars. 
: See below, p. 491. 
a Not of the Sistern Chapel (see below, p. 7.9) as Mr. Kirby says (Armais, 
p. la2). 
' Anals, p. 392. 



r. m THE SECOND MASTER 77 

roughly to the Second Master's present dining-room), 
together with the room or rooms above Fifth Chamber 
(where commoners in collegio had been lodged) and 
perhaps also, as Mr. Kirby says, 1 the room which had 
been built in 1551 as a Fellows' Common Room and 
is occupied to-day by the College tutor--to have taken 
ail these, with some unconsidered space adjoining 
them, and to have converted the whole, in 1727-29, 
into "spacious and elegantly furnished apartments " 2 
for himself and " the ten " or more " young noble- 
men's sons who lived with him-.3 The Usher raised 
no objection. There is every reason to suppose that 
he was well provided with boarders in the Spital-- 
for the number of commoners vas growing--and he 
would bave round even occasional residence in College 
a most tiresome obligation. It was only when he 
quarrelled vith Dr. Burton in 1739 that he alleged lais 
dispossession as a grievance : " Have I not a right 
to the Chambers in the College assigned me by the 
Founder, but possessd by Dr. Burton, without any 
Leave ever Asked, to the best of my memory ; sure 
I am, without Any Rent ever Paid?" To which 
Burton replied, " It is very true I never askt lais 
Leave, since he vas in so good a humor at the rime I 
fitted them up as voluntarily to Offer me the Use of 
them, & I never heard he expected Rent, till now"  
Eyre's successors, Samuel Speed (1740-55) and 
Joseph Warton (1755-65), acquiesced in the loss of 
the Usher's College quarters, but their position vas 
not the same as Eyre's. Early in 1739 Burton had 
aequired the lease of the Spiral and some ground 
t Annals, p. 133.  Description, p. °_4. 
t The words are quoted from a letter published in Political and Social 
Letters of a Lady of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Miss Emily F. D. Osborn 
(London, 1890). Mr. Holgate ealled attention to the letter in The Wykeharnist 
for Match 1895 ; sec also HistorB, p. 375. 
 A Fellow of the College took strong exception (on another -,round than 
Eyre's) to Burton's proeeedings ; sec below, p. 507. 



78 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

adjacent fo if, and he proceeded to erect what was 
known as Commoners' College (Old Commoners), 
a dwelling-bouse, and other buildings. I We find 
these premises oeeupied by Speed, " under the yearly 
rent of eighty pounds ", in 1742. The following 
passage oeeurs in Thomas Warton's Description of 
Winchester, written probably between 1750 and 1760 : 
Contiguous to the College, on the West, is a spaeious 
quadrangular Building, in whieh the young Gentlemen who 
are not on the Foundation, who are ealled Commoners, lire 
in a Collegiate Manner, under the charge of the Second 3laster 
or Ushcr;  a Situation which must be acknowledged to be 
far more convenient for the Purposes of Learning and good 
Discipline than the usual custom of out great Schools, where 
the Youth are boarded in the Town, and are at a distance 
from the constant and immediate inspection of their proper 
Governors. 

In 1755 Joseph Varton vas elected Hostiarius, 
" vith the management and advantages of a boarding- 
house " (i.e. Old Cornmoners) ;8 that the advantages, 
vhich in Speed's later days must have been slender, 4 
were more substantial in Warton's rime is shown by the 
increase of the number of commoners which followed 
his appointment. I have quoted Burton's remark, 
that the School " began to rise " after the death of 
Warden Coxed in 1707 ; he attributed the fise paloEly, 
we saw, to " Warton's character"  

x Sec Appendix IX. 
 In the ex13ansion of the Description known as the Hi«lory and .4ntiquilies 
of Winchester, published in 1778, the words whieh I bave printed in italies are 
ehaned (to suit ehaned eireumstanees} into "' under the immediate charge o¢ 
the Head Master" (Description, p. 67 ; H. e A. i. 13. 171). Adarns makes 
a mistake upon the point (p. 116), thereby falsifying history.--If the date 
assigned by the D.N.B. to the Description {about 1750} is apprordmately 
correct, Commoners" College needed sueh ]udieious advertisement as the book 
a'e it ; the average number of commoners from 1748 to 1752 was barely 
tweive, in 1751 the number was eight. 
s t, Vooli, s Bfographical Notice of Dr. Warton, p. 30. 
a In the year of his retirement there were only tweive commoners. 
 Sec above, p. 61. 



oH m THE SECOND ISTER 79 
In 1766, on Burton's resignation, Warton became 
Hcad Master, but he did not move into College ; ho 
continued to superintend Old Commoners. Thomas 
Collins, who succeeded him as Usher (1766-84), must 
have lived in College at first, but the number of 
commoners continucd to grow and in 1772 ho bccame 
a commoncrs' house-master. He acquired thc lcase 
of the "Sistern Chapel ", which occupied the site of 
thc eastcrn part of thc Hcad Master's prescnt house, 
and we lcarn from one who became a scholar in 1776 
that he lodged some thirty commoners under its roof. 1 
Both the Masters, therefore, were busy with boarders 
outside, and, though they maintained some per- 
functory show of residence in College, 2 the scholars 
were at the rime extrcmely ill-disciplined, and the 
Warden and Fellows viewed the situation with grave 
concern. 
Collins retired in 1784; he was succecdcd by 
William Stanley Goddard (Hostiarius 1784-93), whosc 
appointment marks the beginning of a third cra in 
thc history of thc second-mastcrship ; the thrcads of 
that history will no longer be intertwined with those 
of the history of commoners. There is fortunatcly 
cxtant, in the handwriting of Wardcn Harry Lce 
(1763-89), a memorandum which, though undated, 
was certainly drawn up when Goddard was appointcd. 
Mr.  (the Wardcn vritcs) was this day choscn Usher 
upon the following conditions: riz. That He bonâ ride con- 
stantly reside in College victu et cubili, except in the Christmas 
& Election vacations.---That he take no Boarders into his 
College lodgings.--And that he neither open a Boarding house 
himself, nor have a share directly or indirectly in the profits 
of any House that may hereafter be opened by others for that 
purpose. 

x G.L.C.p. 6 ; see below, p. 491. 
2 An order of the Warden and Fellows issued in 1775 rcfers vagudy to 
"the Masters Lodgings who shall reside in College ", 



80 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. n 

At the same time a "Note was dclivered to Mr. 
", and of this note also we have a copy: 
" the Warden and Fellovs recommend to Mr. G's 
most serious consideration " that part of Rubric XII. 
which prescribes the duties of the Masters towards the 
scholars.--When David Williams was to be sworn 
in as Usher in 1810, Warden Huntingford made a 
memorandum of the ritual to be observed ; inter alia 
" the paper drawn up for Mr. Goddard " (Warden 
Lee's note, probably) was to be read to him ; and 
Williams also received an elaborate document from 
which I may quote one sentence : 
As the Hostiarius is the 3laster vho resides in the College, 
to him is particularly assigncd the Inspection of the Scholars, 
and the Superintendence of all their Concerns. 

The Hostiarius had become the Second Master of to- 
day. 
Af ter lais election to the second-mastership in 1835 
Charles Wordsworth declared that he doubted 
" vhether there is any educational position in England 
which possesses so many recommendations and so 
ïew drawbacks ". 1 What made him think, as others 
bave thought, that the position was so exceptionally 
desirable ? It was hot mainly, though if was partly, 
its emoluments; nor was it that, being appointed 
by the Warden and Fellows, the Hostiarius, in spire 
of the emphatic sub eo of the Statures, « was to a large 
extent independent as regards his official superior; 
nor again was it that he ranked far above other 
masters and was Second Master in ïact as in name; 
the post attracted him chiefly because it was the 
house-mastership (with some tiresome incidents of a 
house-nmstership left out) over Wykeham's scholars, 
and that it housed him handsomely within Wykeham's 
x Annals o.f ny Early Lire, p. 170.  Sec above, p. 67. 



c. THE SECOND MASTER 81 

walls. The " spacious apartments " of Dr. Burton 
had, by this and that annexation, 1 become more 
spaeious still ; the Second Master's bouse was already 
the eharming home that it is to-day, redolent, inside 
and out, of a faseinating if bewildering architectural 
history. 

We have seen that the-history of the second- 
mastership may be divided into three periods of about 
260, 130, 130 years respectively. During the first 
period its holder was a young man, usually a very 
young man, of little consequence, who did hot take 
foot at Winchester. During the second he was a 
more mature person of much longer tenure and of 
steadily growing importance; he began to take 
boarders out of College, and even to establish a kind 
of claim to succeed the Head Master. Since 178J, 
he has been the house-master of College, the Second 
Master as we know him.--It remains to speak briefly 
of an incident of this third period---the raising, 
namely, of the question whether he should hOt be 
abolished. I shall describe elsewhere 2 hov, shortly 
after the constitution of the new Governing Body in 
1871, the dissolution of College became for a rime a 
burning question. That College was threatened meant 
that the second-mastership also was threatened. 3 
That this was so is hot merely ruade probable by the 
ïact that rumours to this effeet vere outrent at the 
time; it may be inferred from the terms of the new 

a We have a record of one such annexation in a 1Resolution of the ,Varden 
and Fellows, dated February 5, 1805 : " Mr. Gabell the Hosiarius having 
applied for permission to use the several rooms over the Masters' Lodgings, 
once occupied by Mr. Langbaine [Fellow 1724-69] and Mr. Williams [Fellow 
1769-1819] such permission is given. It is however understood that the saine 
rooms 3re revocable, whenever any Fellow, or the Society, may think proper ". 
In 1835 the s3me permission was granted, on the saine conditions, to Mr. 
Wordsworth. 
* Sec below, pp. 101-2.  .R.p. 83. 
G 



82 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

Statures approved by the Queen in Couneil in 
November 1873. These Statures provide for a Head 
Master (Clause VIII.) and for Assistant Masters 
(Clause IX.), but make no mention of a Second 
Master ; they only give the Governing Body " power 
to assign . . . sueh emoluments as they may from 
rime to rime think fit to sueh Master or Masters (if 
any) as shall be required to assist in the domestie eare 
and discipline of the Seholars ". It was hot till the 
I2egulations of 1874 were passed that the eontinuanee 
of the old office under its more or less old naine was 

assured.  

NOTE TO CHAPTER III 

I NOTICED briefly on p. 74 a confident assertion of Mr. 
Kirby's which appears to me to be incorrect and to have been 
based on a mistaken interpretation of evidence. As the point 
it raises is of importance in relation to the history both of the 
Second Master and of eommoners I propose to give reasons 
here for that opinion. 
A document in the possession of the College, dated 
September 10, 1597, and described as " The College agree- 
ment upon Mr. Dobyns lodgings", retires that " Guye 
Dobyns Clerke fellowe of the sayed College having on his 
private charge encreased the building of that Angular chamber 
towardes the west, belonging of ordinarie to a fellowe, is cotent 
to yealde to Ben-Jamin Heydon now Scholem . of the sayed 
College the three upper roomes and buildings which are 
ctinued with the building of his ehamber, the rather, to 
discharge himself towardes the College of fourtie poundes, 
which the sayed Guye Dobyns borrowed of the College 
towardes the charge of those his buildinges". The rest of the 

x The appointment of the Second Master was vested in the Head Master 
by the Hegulations of 1874. Wykeham's arrangement, which gave it to the 
Warden and Feilows, was thus superseded by that whieh Colet ordained for 
St. Paul's : «, the surmaister the hye maister shall chose as ofteh as the Rome 
shalbe voyde 



cH.  THE SECOND MASTER 83 
document is concerned with financial details vhich do not 
concern us. 
On the authority (apparently) of this document Mr. 
Kirby wrote a paragraph in his lnnals (p. 128) which contains 
(inter alia) the following statements : 
1. That Guy Dobbins built three rooms in College. 
2. That he built them with the help of a loan of £40 from 
the Warden and Fellows. 
8. That he built them as Usher. 
4. That he built them " to lodge eommoners in " 
5. That under the agreement Hcydon the Head Master 
"had the use of the rooms for his own boarders" 
6. That the rooms were " behind the schoolmaster's 
chamber ''. 
7. That they" mav be identified at a glance as the rieketty- 
looking erections of red brick and tiled [?] behind the second 
master's [present] lodgings looking westwards " 
The first two statements are proved by the document, but 
only the first two. It is most unlikely that Guido Dobins (so 
he sigs his naine) built the rooms as Usher. Mr. Kirby says 
that he was Usher " eleven years (157¢-85)", but that is 
disproved by the fact, shown by the College accounts and 
stated in W.S. (p. 11), that Thomas Jones became Usher 
in 1578. Nov Dobins was eleeted to a seholarship at the 
age of 12 in 1567 (loc. cit.). He-was therefore about 19 
when he became Usher in 157¢ and not more than 23 vhen 
he retired. Is it credible that the Warden and Fellows, 
even supposing that they thought him old enough to take 
boarders, vould have advanced him what was then the large 
sure of £40 for a doubtful building speculation in College ?- 
In 1585, when Dobins vas perhaps 30, he was eleeted to 
the fellovship (IV.S.p. 10) which our document shows that 
he sti]l held in 1597. The presumption is strong, and the 
document almost proves, that he built the three rooms (which 
were a continuation of a chamber " belonging of ordinarie 
to a fellowe ") during his tenure of his fellowship. He had 
good reason at that rime for desiring additional accommoda- 
tion ; the St. Svithun's Parish Register shows that rive children 
were born to him (by a second wife) betveen October 1590 
and August 1596. It was, I conjecture, for his vife and 
children that he built these upper rooms. As his family 



84 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
increased his space in College must bave been still too scanty 
even with these enlargements, and in 1597, when he arranged 
for the transfcr of the three upper rooms to Heydon, he 
became the tcnant of the Sistern Spital.--Mr. Kirby's third 
and fourth statements, then, cannot be accepted. 
His fifth statement, if " had the use of " mcans " used" 
is hot proved by the document. Hcydon was married accord- 
ing to Mr. Kirby (Annals, p. 121), and may have wanted the 
thrce rooms for domestic purposes. 
Thc sixth and seventh statements bave to do with matters 
of topography, and are not relevant to the question discussed 
in Chat)ter III. ; but I may point out that they are incon- 
sistent with one another. If Dobins's three rooms were 
" bchind the schoolmaster's chamber ", they cannot be identi- 
fied with Mr. Kirby's " ricketty-looking erectioas "; those 
crections are behind the chamber which the Statutes assigned 
to the chaplains, 1 and wbich they seem to bave still been 
occupying in 1641. * Whether the erections look ricketty 
I will not discuss, but they cannot bave been built as early 
as 1597 ; Mr. Leach may be right in assigning them to Dr. 
Burton, c. 1727 (History, p. 374). The "schoolmaster's 
chambcr", or lnore strictly the chamber assigned by the 
Statutes to the two masters and, if necessary, to a fellow 
othcrwise unprovidcd for, corresponds roughly to the 
Second Master's present dining-room. Rubric XXXIV. calls 
it " the Upper Angular chamber on the north towards the 
west"; the expression " Angular chamber towards the 
west" is used of Dobins's chamber in our document. Was 
Dobins the odd fellow unprovided for, and was a part of that 
large chamber partitioned off for him ? His three new rooms, 
in that case, cannot be identified; they must bave dis- 
appeared.But in speaking of the topographical history of 
thc vestern side of College inter virtutes habebitur aliqua nescire. 
 In ll'.c.p. 51 Mr. Kirby speaks of Dobins's three rooms as behind the 
ehaplains' ehamber, not (as in Annals) as behind the sehoolmaster's chamber. 
Mr. Kirby's earliest aecount of the marrer (IV.S.p. xiii), though he wrongly 
speaks of two new rooms, is better than lais later aeeounts of it. 
2 See below, p. 440. 



CHAPTER IV 

ASSISTANT IASTERS AND TUTORS 

UNLIKE the Informator and the Hostiarius, the 
Proeceptores, as Winchester Long Rolls always call the 
Assistant Masters, have had a brief and for the most 
part an uneventful history. With one or two excep- 
tions they were neither paid (even in paloE) nor recog- 
nized by the Warden and Fellows of the older dis- 
pensation, in whose eyes there were "thc Two 
Masters" and no more; hence the College records 
pass over them in silence. Their names are not given 
in Long Rolls till 1776, and the part they played in 
the lire of the community till the middle or later 
period of Dr. Moberly's headmastership (1836-66) was 
usually unimportant. That there were assistant 
masters at times when the number of boys to be 
taught was unusually large may be conjectured, but 
by no means with confidence. Mr. Leach's researches 
have discovered that in 1395-6, while Wykeham vas 
still living, a certain Goring, describcd as coadjutor, 
had his meals in Hall; and he finds, " two or three 
rimes repeated in the twelfth week of the fourth terre 
of 1¢16" the entry: "A priest of the Schoolmaster's 
to dinner with the Fellows ". From this evidence Mr. 
Leach concludes that in those early days " there were 
other assistants " than the Usher.  But we cannot 
x I'.H.p. 282. 
85 



86 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

be sure to whom Goring gave what coadjutation ; a and 
if the Schoolmaster's priest was an assistant master 
and not a easual guest, it seems strange that it was 
only in one week and only on two or three days in 
that week that he was given his dinner. There is 
evidenee against the existence of assistant masters in 
112. It appears that in that year some eighty to a 
hundred outsiders, mostly day-boys no doubt, were 
bcing taught in College, and Cardinal Beaufort con- 
dcmned the arrangement; it was contrary to the 
directions of the Statures, and it put too great a strain 
upon the teacher. A single toaster, said the Cardinal, 
was teaching ail these extranei, and such a class was 
mueh too large) I infer with hesitation, for the 
language of the Injunction is not free from difiïeulty, 
that the Sehoolmaster was teaehing the seholars, and 
the Usher the outsiders ; but it is in any case clear 
that no third master was at work. The Statutes 
do not suggest that Wykeham eontemplated the em- 
ployment of sueh a person under any eireumstanees. 
They do suggest that, besides that general super- 
intendence of the studies of younger by older boys of 
whieh I shall speak in the chapter on Prefeets, there 
would be need for " private tuition " whieh the two 
Masters could not give. Wykeham foresaw that his 
own kin, who were to be admitted into College per 
viam specialis prerogative absque diîcultate quaHbet, 
without any test oï their knowledge or abilities, 
might be more baekward at the time oï their admis- 
sion and less promising than their neighbours; and 
he direeted that in that case they should have addi- 
tional instruction. They vere not, hovever, to have 
it ïrom a toaster ; it was to be given by " a priest of 
the ehapel or other elerk, or by a seholar oï the 
a The place of the naine on the lists is against Mr. Leach's conjecture, 
: Armais, pp. 122-3. 



cH.  ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 87 
College" appointed for the purpose, till they reached 
a reasonable standard. Private tuition for foundcr's 
kin was indeed to be a standing institution; a boy- 
tutor, acting under the Head Master's guidance and 
paid 6s. Bd. annually by the College, was to be assigned 
to every consanguineus fundatoris so long as he re- 
maincd in the school, to ensure his better and more 
rapid progress (Rubric II.). ' Meanwhile no more boys 
were to be admitted than the two Mastcrs could tcach 
in School ; admissions beyond that number would, in 
thc language of the Statures, have becn a " burdcn " 
upon the College. 
There were no sub-proeceplores even in the seven- 
teenth century. There are two teachers, vrote 
Mathev in 1647 (v. 13), and the earliest Long Roll, 
that of 1653, which gives much fuller information 
than most Long Rolls, knows of two and of tvo only. 
We are told that in early days at Westminster " the 
monitors were in fact the ushers of the school ,,,2 and 
the saine was the case af Winchester in 1657. Dr. 
Potenger, the retired Head Master, sent his son as a 
commoner in that year; and this younger John 
Potenger bas put it on record that he " did not yet 
goe to school in the College, but was taught, with 
other gentlemen's sons, by a select number of the 
senior boys who were to give account to Dr. Burt the 
schoolmaster, by turns, how we behaved ourselves, 
and what progress we ruade in learning-.3 On the 
appointment of William Harris to the headmastcr- 
ship in 1679 the number of commoners rose quickly, 
so that a larger school-room seemed necessary. * We 
t The consequences of this provision were perhaps hot thoroughly thought 
out. A " C.F." might stay in Collegc till hc was 25, the othcr scholars Icft at 
18 ; a boy of 17 or 18 would hardly bc ydon«us as a tutor for a man of 24.-- 
From the plcasantrics current in th¢ last days of thc Foundcr's kin it may be 
inferred that Wykcham ruade an accurntc forecast of thc intellectual calibre 
of some of them.  Sargeaunt, p. 46. 
a The Wykehami.st, June 20, 1893. « Sec beIow, p. 226. 



88 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
might suppose that a larger staff seemed necessary 
also, and a passage has been quoted to prove that this 
was so. The father of Ralph Verney wrote fo Harris 
in September 1682 : 
William of Wiekham's ffoundation is I Beleive the Best 
Nursery of Learning for young Children in the World, and 
perhaps never was Better provided with abler Teachers than 
nov at this present, yr selfe for a Mastcr, Mr. Home 1 for an 
Usher, and Mr. Terry for a Tutor. 2 
Undoubtedly the words convey the suggestion that 
there was a third toaster at work, but if is a suggestio 
falsi. Mr. Terry was hot, as Mr. Leach naturally 
enough supposed him fo be, 3 an assistant toaster; a 
letter written fo his wife by Mr. Verney when he took 
his son fo Winchester for the first rime in February 
168½ shows that he was a schoolboy. The Head 
Master assured Mr. Verney that Terry was " one of 
the best, if hot the best scholar in the Schoole of his 
standing, though Hee Bee hot yet a Proepositor"; 
Mr. Verney satisfied himself that he was "a solid 
Disereet youth ", gave him a supper at his inn, and 
tipped him " a Guinny "  
We cannot fLx a precise date for the incoming of 
assistant masters either at Eton or at Winchester. 
Af Eton the names of such persons, styled " Ushers ", 
were first recorded in 1698 ; in a list of about 1710 the 
names of seven are given; » there were eight, hot 
 A mistake of the writer or the printer. Benjamin Horne was Hostiariua 
from 1678 to 1701. 
 |'..I. iv. p. 219. 
a |'.II. p. 8. 
« Terry was 15 or 16 at the rime (IV.S.p. 201) ; in the Long Roll drawn 
up a few months earlier lais naine is among the nomina 5 u'* C/asss.--For the 
letter here quoted see R. T. Warner, Bïnchester, pp. 43-4. ,Vhen starting 
his son at sehool Mr. Verney gave the Head Master four guineas, understanding 
that sueh a gift was customary. He had hOt seen the Usher when he wrote, 
but, he says, " I Designe Him 3 Guinnys "'. 
 Austen Leigh, Eton College L/ats, p. xxxiv. There were 350 boys at Eton 
in 1718 (/b/d. p. 367). 



ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 89 

officially recognized, in 1718.1 At Winchester we do 
hot hear of them till a little later. In 1738 one of the 
Fellows, commenting on the " late increase of ex- 
pence " incurred by the scholars, attributed it partly 
to "large batlins" and " extravagant Bills with 
several Tradesmen ", but partly also to " large Pay to 
Tutors " who tan hardly have been schoolboys. In 
the following year the Hostiarius quarrelled with Dr. 
Burton, * and his chief grievance was that " Mr. 
Ashley "  had been installed " by ye Schoolmaster 
into a Seat newly erected in ye School, without ye 
Usher's Consent or Knowledge ". Dr. Burton explains 
to the Warden that he has been obliged fo employ 
Mr. Astley, at his ovn cost, because of the Usher's 
known incompetence ; but, whatever the merits of the 
controversy, we have found a real assistant toaster; 
there were 58 commoners at the rime. In 1755 

there were only 12; but from an allusion, in or 
about that year, fo the " head-usher"4 we may 
infer that there was at least one under-usher or 
assistant master still. About twenty years later, 

though the Long Roll does hot mention him, we have 
proof of more than the mere existence of a sub- 
prceceptor; we have proof that he was lightly 
esteemed and that his position was unenviable. 
" Who ever loved a schoolmaster"? asked a critic 
of Rugby at about the saine rime; " quem Jtzpiter 
odit, pcedagogum fecit ". The question might bave 
been asked, with respect fo their sub-præceptor, by 
Wykehamists in 1774, when " a sort of insurrection " 
a Sir H. Maxwell Lyre in G.P.S.p. 12. ffi See above, pp. 72, 77. 
a It will be seen that the Usher cannot get his rivai's naine correctly. 
 The Wykehamist, June 27, 1901 ; see above, p. 72. 
 Rouse, Rugby, p. 149.--A passage from Goldsmith's lïcar of Wakefield 
(chap. xx.) bas been often quoted: "I have been an usher at a boarding- 
school myself; and may I die by an anodyne necidace, but I had rather be 
an undcr-turnkey in Newgate". The |ïcar of Wakefield was published in 
1766. 



90 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE I.II 
broke out in Old Commoners. "A Mr. Huntingford, 
vho is appointed by the Doetor to be his assistant ,,,1 
had been deputed to " call names in the commoners' 
hall " If was more than the commoners could bear ; 
either he or they must leave the school. * Hunting- 
ford did not leave ; he was one of three sub-proeceplores 
in 1776, when a Long Roll for the first rime recognizes 
the genus; and he continued to be a sub-prceceptor, 
sometimes with, sometimes vithout colleagues, till 
1785, vhen he vent as Head 3Iaster to Varminster 
School. In 1789 he became Warden, and in that 
office he was destined, like the Pope's legate in Brown- 
ing, to " knov "--and to expel--fully " four-and- 
twenty leaders of revolts " ; but, unlike Ogniben, he 
cannot have looked back on these revolts vith much 
complacency. In 1793, and again in 1818, his 
pompous stiffness and tortuous diplomacy served him 
in iii stead; the boys evidently disliked and dis- 
trusted him. It was in 1818 that, when Alexander 
Malet haeked at the Warden-bishop's door with an 
axe, " Huntingford put Iris head out of window, with 
the words, ' Do you know, Sir, that you are assaulting 
a Peer of the Realm ?' " ;  and that, as Dr. Moberly 
 "The Doctor " dcsignated the Hcad Master till 1866.--An carlier refer- 
ente to Huntingford occurs in a letter written by John Bond (a commoner) 
in April 1771 : " Mr. Huntingford [who] as you know allways setts up for a 
great genius, has compos'd a Copy [of a Declamation] for Addington ". For 
Huntingford's friendship for Addington, afterwards Lord Sidmouth, sec 
Adams, p. 140. 
z Sec e.g. Annals, p. 405. It was on this occasion that Dr. Warton, when 
the boys hissed Mm, marie Ms infelicitous comment : " So, gentlemen ; what, 
are you rnetamorphosed into serpents ? "--The foilowing passage, published 
the year before in H. oe .4. (i. p. 179), may be of interest : "" We do but justice 
in stating that we meet with as few disturbances frorn the scholars as ean be 
reasonably expeeted ; they are for the most part polite and weil bred, and do 
no little honour to their present learned and worthy head toaster, Dr. Warton ". 
There had been a riot of some importance in 1770 ; the reasonable expecta- 
tions of 1773 were evidently not pitched high. 
8 The story has been told otherwise. I give it as above from a note marie 
by the Rev. J. H. Copleston in 1893, " after some considerable talk" with lais 
father, who was a prefect in 1818. 



. r ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 91 
(thcn a scholar) aftcrwards rccordcd, " thc Wardcn 
and thc mastcrs hcld a parlcy with thc boys from a 
window, and dircctcd us to writc down our gricvances : 
this was donc at once, thc list unfortunatcly bcginning 
with, ' that you arc ugly' -.1 So far as Huntingford 
is conccrncd, Sir Thomas Lawrcncc's portrait of him 
givcs no support to thc imputation. But all this is a 
digression. 
Thc numbcr of commoncrs, which had becn 109 in 
1776, was 50 in 1784; in 1793, whcn Dr. Warton 
retired, it was only 41; and from 1784 to 1792 no 
Long Roll givcs us thc naine of more than one assistant 
toaster. During Dr. Goddard's most successful head- 
mastership (179,-1809) there werc usually three. 
Much light is thrown upon their status during thc 
time of his successor (1810-24) by some records 
rclating to the rebcllion of 1818, with which (as with 
the outbreak of 1774) a sub-proeceptor had an unhappy 
connection. Thc Supervisors of that year came to 
the conclusion that the rebellion had arisen " from 
the harsh conduct and irritating language too fre- 
quently uscd towards the senior scholars in censuring 
their written exercises, and towards other scholars in 
hcaring thcir ordinary lessons, by a private Assistant 
in the employment of the Head Master; xvhich at 
length created general dissatisfaction, and a spirit of 
resentment in the School" They therefore advised 
and required " that the practice of sending Scholars 
out of the College to attend private Assistants shall 
from the present rime entirely cease". On Dr. 
Gabell's intimating" a wish that the Private Assistant, 
to whom allusion had been ruade, should be introduced 
into the School as a Second Assistant in the School, 
the Warden of Winchester replied that, if permission 
were asked, he should refuse ; for", he added, " I ara 
 D.D.p. 21. 



92 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

confident, that the very moment he puts one foot into 
the School, You will be insulted".x--When Dr. 
Moberly began work at Winchester in 1836, there were 
rive assistant masters; in 1863, with about 170 
commoners, there were nine. The four or rive " extra 
masters" who then appear upon the roll did not 
give the school all their time--the teacher of science, 
indeed, only visited Winchester on Saturdays--and we 
may reckon them as equal at the outside to two regular 
masters. So reckoning them, and adding in the 
Head and Second Masters on the one hand, and the 
scholars on the other, we may say that fifty years ago 
there were 13 masters to about 240 boys, or about 
1 to 18. Specialization of study and other causes 
have altered the proportion; there are now (1913) 
37 mastcrs to 450 boys, or about 1 to 12.--Everybody 
knows that Masters nowadays are in much more 
intimate relations with boys than they used to be. 2 
After noting in his diary the appointment of Mr. 
Hawkins in 1861 Dr. Moberly added: " The young 
tutors arc lively, and we begin work in a fresh lively 
way " ; 3 a new chapter in the social life of Winchcster 
was perhaps just then beginning. 
" Assistant Masters and Tutors ", which takes the 
place of Sub-Prveceptores as a heading in Short Rolls, 
has bccome a distinction of no mcaning; a hundred 
years ago, fifty years ago, it marked a real difference. 
In March 1818 C. Coopcr Hendcrson wrote a dutiful 
letter, crossed and re-crossed, to his mother, giving 
her the fullest particulars of life under Dr. Gabell 
in Old Commoners. 4 He enclosed a neatly written 
x Frorn Warden Huntingford's MS. Annals. 
2 In the word-book of the earlier forties fom whieh I bave often quoted it 
is written : " The Masters bave little to do with the Boys personally, exeept 
to hear them their lessons ". The writer adds that "the Tutors have more ". 
See the next paragraph, s Doe. p. 166. 
t This letter, with another by the saine writer, is now in the Memorial 
Buildings. 



ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 93 

list of Masters, Tutors, Chaplains, " Choircsters ", 
" Collegers ", Commoners ; Gabell Williams and 
Urqhart [s/ci were Masters; Wescomb (Westcombe) 
Williams and Swanton were Tutors. The distinction 
was also sharply drawn by Dr. Moberly when giving 
evidence before the Public School Commissioners in 
1862. A "5Iaster " took a classical form, or rather 
two classical forms, " up to books", and (strictly 
speaking) in School ; a " Tutor " corrected composi- 
tion-no light task in the days of " Vulguses "--and 
(in Henderson's rime, at any rate) put the boys 
through a rehearsal of their construing lessons; he 
was also more or less responsible for discipline. 1 The 
boys clearly thought much less of the tutors than of 
the masters ; - Henderson, for example, on being 
transferred from one tutor to another, condescendingly 
remarked : " Thank God the one I have at present 
is a decent young man called Francis Swanton 
There were no mathematieal masters on the staff in 
1818, and mathematical masters, when they came, 
did not fit neatly into the old classification. Bcfore 
1834, when John Desborough Walford was appointed 
to "the new mathematieal mastership", 4 some few 
boys learnt some little mathematics from an extra 
toaster ; after Mr. Walford's appointment this " writ- 
ing master" took charge of the more backward 
mathematicians,  and suffered some indignities at 
their hands. Of Science Masters and Modern Lan- 
guage Masters, of Music and Drawing Masters, the 

1 There was no College Tutor before 1836 ; when one came in that year, 
he did not lire in College, and the correction of composition was his only duty. 
See below, p. 116. 
* Usually ; but Robert Lowe picked out his tutor, Mr. Edward Wiekham, 
for special gratitude (Patchett Martin, Lire of Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 13). 
 The '" decent young man " of 1818 retained in his old age, as I well 
remember, the keenest interest in the minutest details of the domestic lire of 
the school. 
 See The Wykehamis, February 1877. « See below, p. $20. 



94 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

classification took no account, for there were none on 
the regular staff. George Richardson, who came in 
1867, was the first regular master who taught any 
branch of physical science, for which, as a subject in 
a school curriculum, Dr. Moberly had an aversion 
which the Public School Commissioners entirely failed 
to uproot; 1 Mr. Turner, who came in 1869, was 
(I think) the first member of the staff (and perhaps the 
first Englishman)2 who taught modern languages; 
drawing and music were first assigned to assistant 
masters--to Mr. Macdonald and Dr. Sweetingmin 
1897 and in 1901. 
Dr. Moberly eomplained, almost bitterly, in 1862 
that in appointing masters he had been obliged, out 
of respect to Wykehamieal sent/ment and to the 
prejudiees of the Warden and Fellows, to give the 
preferenee to Wykehamists from New College. " If 
I eould find ", he said, "a fit man at that College I 
felt I must appoint him ; the only excuse that vould 
be felt to be adequate if I brought in another man 
was, that I eould hot find one to suit me at New 
College ,,.8 In fairness to the Warden and Fellows of 
the old régime it must be admitted that in making 
their own appointments they took a broader view 
than Dr. Moberly's language would lead us to expeet. 
It is true that they never appointed any one who was 
hot a Wykehamist to the headmastership after 144, 
or to the seeond-mastership for a very long period 
previously to 1835, but they did hot ahvays confine 
their appointments to New College men; Warton 
eame from Oriel, Goddard from Merton, Wordsworth 
(a Harrovian) from Christ Chureh, Moberly himself 
 P.S.C. pp. 343-6. 
 An old Wykehamist named Belia, originally de Belin, seems to have 
taught Freach at Vinchester in 1821-3 (I. T. in The Wykehamist for Match 
1910) ; but be was perhaps ha]? a Frenchman. 
 P.S.C.p. 336. 



ASSISTANT MASTERS AND TUTORS 95 

from Balliol. 1 Moberly always felt that " his Balliol 
origin " ruade him suspect to " the Society ,,,2 and 
that it therefore behoved him to adhere very closely 
to tradition. But the list of his appointments shows 
that he cast his net for assistant masters in more 
waters than he realized ; he was far less restricted in 
his choice than the contemporary Head Masters of 
Eton. During the forties Dr. Hawtrey, then Head 
Master, offered masterships to two old Etonians 
who were hot Kingsmen; one of the two was 
Goldwin Smith. They acccpted the offer, but at 
the last moment Provost Hodgson--one of the best 
Provosts, it is said, that Eton ever had--refused his 
sanction to the appointments on the ground that 
Eton masterships " formed part of the peculiuln of 
the Kingsmen "  
" The vice of inbreeding ", says the writer of a well- 
known book, " reaches its most dangerous develop- 
ment in the staffing of out English schools -.4 Whether 
the adoption of the system of " cross-fertilization " 
which he commends--a system by which schools of 
different types " might share their different excel- 
lentes "--is a consummation to be desired without 
reserve, may perhaps be doubted; but both Eton 
and Winchester have travelled far since the days 
when the former could reject Goldwin Smith because, 
though an Etonian, he was not a Kingsman, and 
when the latter could, as in the Long Rolls of 1776 
and 1778, bracket its assistant masters as e Collegio 
Novo. The last three Head Masters of Eton were none 
of them Kingsmen; the present and the late Head 

x Of their later appointments Ridding was a fellow of Exeter, Hornby 
{an Etonian) of Brasenose, Awdry of Queen's. They had ail been at Balliol 
as undergraduates. 
 D.D.p. 153. 
a M. L. p. 476.---See also Austen Leigh, Elon Collcge Lisls, pp. xxxiv-vii. 
 Paterson, Across the Bridges, p. 92. 



96 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ,, 

Masters of Winchester were not even Wykehamists. 
Of out assistant masters to-day not more than a 
quaoEer vere Wykehamists; of the ten house-masters 
seven vere neither af Winehester nor af New College 
nor at Oxford. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 

IN accordance vith Rubric XLII. a " true copy " of 
the Statures was formerly kept " in the vestibule of 
the Chapel ", in order that Fellows and Scholars 
might consult it freely quociens opus fuerit. Mathew 
used his opportunities, for he followed the first Rubric 
closely in his accourir of the members of the founda- 
tion (w. 11-24). Ve may notice in particular his 
insistence upon numbers ; there is one Warden, there 
are two Schoolmasters and ten Fellows ; the Chaplains 
constant ordine trino, and the Clerks "' claire for 
themselves the number of three"; that of the 
" Children " is duly limited fo seventy ; it is ordered 
that that of the Quiristers shall be sixteen. If we 
omit the " one " Organist whom he included in his 
list but should not have included--no organist is 
mentioned in any Rubric--there are 105 persons on 

 At Scrutinies e.g. those of 1621 and 1680) attention was called to the 
requirement of the Rubric ; in 1682 the Supervisors were assured that it was 
obeyed. Mr. Kirby (Annals, p. 68) says that "after the Reformation " the 
true copy" was kept in First Chamber ", and he implies that it was kept there 
till about 1788, when it was "' taken away in consequence of the boys writing 
in it". But the official account of the Rebellion of 1793 states : "' On Friday, 
Apri112th, the Varden produced the Copy of the Statutes, which in compliance 
with the Founder's injunction, had till of late years been kept in the Anti- 
Chapel [s/ci for the use of the Society on proper Occasions .... The Warden 
left the Statute Book in the Anti-Chapel". It is now in the Coilege Library. 
Sec also below, pp. 109, 149. 
97 H 



98 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .a 

the foundation, of whom the Children are as two to 
one. 1 
Have these numbers "a religious signifieanee"? 
Nieholas Harpsfield (c. 1550) pointed out--what indeed 
is obvious--that at Winehester, as at New College, 
ille numeru« con«picitur, qui sacrum 70 discipulorum 
numerum eonfieit; and Dr. Milner (1798) "ventured to 
say, after the hint of this author, that the ten fellows 
and the Warden represent the eleven apostles, Judas 
being of course omitted; the seventy seholars and 
the two masters, the seventy-two disciples of our 
Saviour; the three ehaplains and the three inferior 
elerks mark the six faithful deaeons, Nieholas, one of 
tlem, having apostatized, has therefore no represen- 
tative; finally, the sixteen ehoristers represent the 
four great and the twelve minor prophets ". Waleott 
and even Coekerell 3 aeeept ail this without demur, 
and allude, in support of it, to the xvell-known faet 
that in 1518 the founder of St. Paul's fixed the number 
of his " ehildren " at 153 ; of whieh number Adams 
says that " the symbolieal meaning is, of course, 
beyond dispute".* It has, hovever, been disputed; 
vhat seemed so certain is only, learned writers assure 
us, a plausible eonjeeture. Colet nowhere refers to 
the miraeulous draught ; he explained "the noumber 
of a eliij " as " aeordyng to the noumber of the Setys 
in the Seole "; the traditional explanation was first 
a The significance of this fact is diminished by an examination of the 
numbers of the foundation at New College, where there was one Warden, 
seventy Seholars (=probationary and perpetual Fellows), ten Chaplains, 
three Clerks, sixteen Choristers : 100 {hOt 105) in allo Henry VI., though he 
ultimately determined upon seventy seholars, did hot follow "'ykeham in 
the total number of the members of his foundation. 
"- Milner, Hislory of Winchester, ii. p. 155. 
a Waleott, p. 181 ; Coekerell, p. 41.reat interest attaches to Coekerell's 
demonstration {p. 40) of the constant " reeurrenee of the number seven, 'a 
number of perfection ' ", in the design of Wykeham's ehapels at Winehester 
and Oxford, as in cathedrals ai home and abroad. 
« Adams, p. 46. 



o.v THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 99 

put forward by Fuller (the author of Worthies) as late 
as 1660.1 If, however, the famous 153 are no sure 
support to a belief in the religious signifieanee of 
Wykeham's numbers, he was at least well aware that 
numbers had sueh significanee in the minds of earlier 
founders. He borrowed mueh, for instance, as Mr. 
Leaeh has shown,  from the Statures of Queen's ; he 
must therefore have known that Egglesfield " ap- 
pointed a Warden and twelve Fellows ' in imitation of 
the mystery of the eareer of Christ and His Apostles 
on Earth ' " ; and that he provided that the number 
of his sehool-boys should " not exeeed the number of 
the seventy-two disciples of Christ "2 
Pueros numerus septuagesimus arctat. The number 
of the scholars has often, from temporary causes, 
fallen bcloxv 70 it was much beloxv 70 in most of 

the years from 1752 to 
the school were at their 
for some months after 

1761, when the fortunes of 
loxvest, 5 and it stood at 41 
the rebellion of 1793; but 

the restriction of which Mathew speaks vas " duly " 
observed till 1869 ; since 1872, though what remained 
of Wykeham's Statures was practically repealcd by 
the Act of 1868, it has been observed no less duly 
again. Between 1869 and 1872 it was disregardcd. 
As far back as 1818 Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brougham 
had urged the abolition of Wykeham's restriction and, 
1 For discussions of this subject sec Lupton, Life of Colet, p. 165, and 
McI)onnell, p. 89. Sec also below, p. 882. 
 HLçtory, pp. 79-80. 
a The number seventy-two is also, as we bave seen, employed in the specula- 
tions of Milner, who refers to the reading of the Vulgate in Luke x. 1 (seplua- 
gina duos). 
a At Eton before the provostship of Hodgson (1840-52) " the number of 
Collegers had generally been short of the normal seventy .... No humane 
parent of moderate means would knowingly allow his son to undergo the 
rough treatment to which lower boys were subjected in Long Chambcr .... 
At one election there were only two candidates" (M. L. p. 461). 
 In 1758 there were only 11 commoners and 56 scholars. Mr. Leaeh is 
mistaken in thinking that "'in the lowest depths the full number of College 
was always maintained " (History, p. 378). 



100 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

with a view to rnaking its abolition possible, had 
suggested that the value of Winehester fellowships 
should be reduced " to the ordinary value of those of 
Oxford and Carnbridge " ; but it had been answered, 
on behalf of the College, that " the world expeets that 
a Fellow . . of Winehester College should live, not 
indeed in a rnanner surnptuous or rnagnifieent, but 
eertainly in a style suited to lais tank in soeiety ", and 
that an inerease of the nurnber of scholars would be a 
violation of the Founder's eharter. 1 Nothing carne of 
Brougharn's suggestions at the tirne ; but on August 
22, 18M, we find the Warden and Fellows resolving 
" that this College is ready to inerease the nurnber of 
its scholars to one hundred, if the Bishop of Win- 
chester shall deeide that sueh inerease is not un- 
statutable", and if certain guarantees were given. 
The guarantees do not eoncern us; but the terrns in 
which they were demanded show that the proposal 
for inerease came from the Oxford University Com- 
missioners. In 1857 that formidable body, aeting 
under parliamentary authority, issued Ordinanees for 
Winchester College. The Comrnissioners did not 
propose, like Brougharn, to disappoint the world's 
expeetations by requiring future Fellows to live in a 
style unsuited fo their supposed social status; but 
one of their Ordinanees provided for the suppression, 
as vacancies oeeurred, of four of the ten fellowships, 
and for the application of part  of the ernolurnents 
thereof to the rnaintenanee of thirty additional 
scholars. Not all the first four fellowships whieh 
fell vacant, however, were to be suppressed; it was 
left to the diseretion of the Soeiety to leave unfilled 
either the first, third, fifth, and seventh vaeaneies, or 

x A Letter fo the Right lion. Sir Il'm. Scott, 31.P., p. 89. 
* Besides the thirty seholarships twenty exhibitions of the annual value 
£50 were to be ereated with the ineome of the suppressed fellowships. 



oH.v THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 101 
the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth. The former 
alternative was preferred ; but the first vacancy did not 
occur till 1864, and the third not till 1869. It was 
only in this latter year that a first--it proved to be 
also the last--step was taken towards giving effect to 
the Ordinance. The Long Roll for 1868 contains the 
names of 70 scholars, those for 1869 and 1871, of 7 ; 
in that for 1873 the number has fallen back to 70. 
The new Governing Body, having been fully con- 
stituted in November, 1871, proceeded in the follow- 
ing Match to put forward certain proposais for the 
approval of Commissioners appointed under the Public 
Schools Act of 1868. They proposed that the number 
of scholars should " be not less than 70 ", and--what 
is more important for our present purpose--that the 
existing number, 75, should be reduced to 70. The 
Commissioners raised no objections; the number of 
scholars was soon afterwards, as we have seen, brought 
back to Wykeham's number; and nothing further 
was heard of the Ordinance of 1857.1 
Meanwhile another question, of still graver im- 
portance, had been raised. Early in 1872 it became 
matter of common knowledge that among other 
Wykehamical institutions " College itself was 
,, 2 in May 1873 its " rumoured dis- 
threatened ; 
solution" suggested " many solemn and serious " 
(and some frivolous) " thoughts " to the mind of 
correspondent of The Wykehamist, and the editor 
declared in the following July that " lately there had 
been dreadful rumours afloat " upon the subject. 
0bvious and perhaps weighty arguments could be 
urged in support of "dissolution"; many good 
 It may be noticed that the new Statutes, " approved by Her Majesty in 
Council, November 20, 1873 ", did not settle the question finally. Statute III. 
provides that the number of scholars shall be such " as the Governing Body 
ahall from tlme to rime determine ; but . . . hot less than seventy 
 G.R.p. 83. 



102 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

Wykehamists flirted vith the proposal quite unblush- 
ingly. The danger, if the word may be allowed, was 
indeed more aeute than most people realized. In 
February 1872 a motion " that itis desirable that 
Seholarships be heneeforward paid in money and not 
in maintenance " was only defeated ata meeting of 
the Governing Body by the narrow majority of one; 
and when the new Statures were drawn up in 1878 
Stature X. was so worded as not fo preelude the 
dispersion of the seholars into tutors' houses. 1 The 
Statures having been approved by Her Majesty in 
Couneil (November 20, 1873), the Governing Body 
proeeeded to frame Regulations, whieb needed no 
confirmation by a higher authority ; and in Deeember 
1873 a draft regulation providing that " the Scholars 
shall be lodged and boarded in the College, unless the 
Governing Body shall hereafter otherwise determine", 
came up for discussion. It was deeided, again by a 
majority of one, that the final words " unless etc." 
should be onfitted ; and on February 2, 187, when 
the amended Regulations were sealed, the question 
eeased to be one of praetieal polities. Disestablish- 
ment beeame a pious opinion; it is now perhaps a 
forgotten heresy. 
To many matters of interest relating fo the 
seholars I ean only allude. There is the history of 
their gowns, whieh by Rubrie XXVII. were to be 
neither white nor black nor russet nor grey, but had 
by out poet's rime beeome " Cimmerian " (v. 30). 
They were to be talares,  i.e. fo reaeh fo the ankles; 
the long gown beeame the elerieal state. The eouneil 
x Statute X. provides that " the Seholars shali be maintained during their 
residence al ,ç'chool out of the ineome of the College ", with a qualification hot 
relevant to out present purpose. The words " at Sehooi " had been deliber- 
ately substituted for «, in the Coilege ". 
 The Ioga of the Cambridge graduate is required to be talaris by the 
46th Stature of 1570 (see Chr. Wordsworth, Social Lire al the Universitie, 
p. 52). 



c., THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 103 

of London (1342) condemned religious persons vho were 
militari potius quam elerieali habitu induti superiori, 
scilicet brevi seu strieto, 1 and that of York (1367) 
spoke severely of those who wore gowns whieh did not 
even reaeh the knees, ad jaetantiam et suorum corporum 
ostentationem;  the praetiee of leaving the gown 
open in front, n and still more that of tueking it up 
behind, would have been abominable in Wykeham's 
eyes.--More important is the age of eligibility, the 
lower limit of vhieh vas fixed by the Founder at 
eight; it was ten in the earlier days of eompetitive 
examination, but was raised to twelve in 1873; the 
upper limit, set originally (subjeet to two exceptions)  
at twelve, is now fourteen. Then there is the age of 
superannuation, whieh for the seholars generally is 
still, roughly speaking, what it was at first, but 
Wykeham alloved his eonsanguinei to stay at sehool 
till twenty-five, and within living memory many of 
them stayed till over twenty in the hope of ulti- 
mately foreing the reluetant gares of New College? 
The area of seleetion, the mode of seleetion as deter- 
mined by the Statures and travestied afterwards, the 
interferenee of Kings and Bishops with the funetions 
of the " Eleetion Chamber" --these are all subjeets 

i Puflïng of gown-sleeves to the elbow was condemned at the same time. 
As Mr. Leach notes (History, p. 171), it does hOt appear on the brass of the 
Winchester scholar of c. 14<q4 in Headbourne Worthy Church. 
2 Jusserand, La Vie Nomade, pp. 58-4, 265-6. 
a Among Mr. Wrench's papers I find the following note " to illustrate the 
praetice of buttoning up the gown when going to speak to a toaster "" :--" Sec 
Milner, England in Egypt, p. 401 : " To button your coat up to the neck is a 
8ign of respect. It is sometimes amusing to sec the haste with which this 
operation is performed on the approach of an oflïeial superior '" 
i The exceptions are (1) boys exceptionally proficient " in grammar", 
who might be admitted up to seventeen ; and (2), apparently, Founder's Kin. 
 The privileges of Founder's Kin were abolished by the Oxford University 
Commissioners in 1857. The la.st "C.F." (consanguineus fundatoris) was 
E. A. Robinson, who was admitted in 1857 and left in 1868. 
« Sec Annal.s, passim.--In a letter to Archbishop Laud, dated November 
10, 1637, Dr. Gruchy asked that " if possible, 2 or 3 places should be 



104 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

on vhich much might be written ; but I pass to two 
others which the language of our poet suggests for 
discussion. 
He says (v. 8) that the College was founded as 
" a nursing mother for the poor " ; he knew his first 
Rubric and was aware tiret the scholars were to be 
pauperes et indigentes. Now Wykeham enjoined most 
emphatically that the Rubrics should be understood 
in thcir plain and literal sense (juxta planum sensum, 
communem intellectum, et exposicionem gramaticalem et 
litteralem), and a modern reader, on a first reading, 
will feel no doubt about the plain meaning of the 
words in question. On a second reading, and upon 
refleetion, he will feel less certain. The language of 
the Rubrics will seem to him perhaps inconsistent, 
certainly puzzling : he will remember that the precise 
meaning of pauperes et indigentes must vary with 
social conditions, and that the social conditions of 
the age of the Peasant Revolt were very different 
from tlaose of to-day ; he may possibly suspect that, 
in spire of Wykeham's disclaimer, the words may 
have a tinge of technicality in a legal document. If 
he turns to experts in lais perplexity, he vill find if 
stated that by " poor and needy " Wykeham meant 
" the younger and poorer sons of th country gentry " 
and of upper and upper-middle class parents in 
tovns; that by those vords he intended to exclude 
" only the really wealthy".--Nov a mere layman 
who should engage himsclf far in the thorny jungle of 
the interpretation of ambiguous phrases in ancient 
legal documents would hot 'scape a predestinate 
scratched face; I therefore confine rnyself to some 
cautious cornrnents on some of the arguments which 

allowed at XVinchester, Westminster, or Eton, for some poor children of this 
lsle " (Guernsey) " to begin their studies "' (Star, Papers, Domestic, Add. 
1625--9, p. 566). 



. v THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 105 

have been advanced on this once burning question. 
I have relegated them to an appendix, but on one 
point something may be said here. It has been 
suggested that the perplexing words were inserted in 
the Statutes as " a nccessary common form " to meet 
certain legal difficulties. 

The " constitutions " of the legates Otto and Ottobon in 
the thirteen century . . . had forbidden the appropriation 
of churches unless the inmates of the houses to which they 
were to be appropriated were in such stress of poverty that 
they could not otherwise be supported. As usual, the lawyers 
were too strong for the law. The appropriation of churches 
went on apace. The only result of the enactment was that 
in the deed of appropriation words had to be inserted pro- 
testing the poverty of the recipients .... It was necessary 
for Wykeham to protest the poverty of the scholars for whom 
he was appropriating churches and priories. 1 

If that was so, Wykeham protested too much ; was it 
necessary for him to go so very far beyond the mere 
use of the "necessary common form" 9 " Because ", 
he writes, " among the works of mercy Christ com- 
mands us to receive the poor into hospicia, and 
mercifully to cherish them in their need (in sua 
indigencia), we therefore, calling this to mind and 
aiming with our whole heart at following Christ's 
precepts, ordain that all who are to be elected into our 
College at Oxford, after our kin, shall be pauperes et 
indigentes ,,;2 he adds that his Oxford scholars must 
previously have been scholars at Winchester. Was 
all this a mere device of a lawyer to defeat the law ? 
If the Founder's scholars generally were to be " neither 
poor nor rich ", if they were hot to be drawn from the 
humbler classes, if his test aimed at "the exclusion 
of the really wealthy only ", his language was most 
 History, pp. 94-5. 
 From Rubric II. of the New College Statutes. 



106 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr., insincere. I prefer to think that he meant, and meant 
intensely, what he said, in whatever in his rime was 
the plain meaning of his words. 
Itis a relief to turn to something quite uncon- 
troversial. Mathew calls the scholars pueri, vhich 
we must not translate by " boys" " Child " was 
from the first thc correct designation of a Winchester 
scholar, and, as we may learn from v. 28-- 
Nomine seu pueri vociteris sive choristoe - 
puer was its Latin equivalent. In the heading of a 
modern Long Roll (Nomina Mag. Puer. Cho. et Comm.) 
we have a survival, or rather a revival, of this vener- 
al»le " notion". Pueror" (1760) was displaeed by 
Scholar" in 1761; Puer. was replaced, at Mr. L. L. 
Shadwell's suggestion, in 1892. 2 "Children" for 
" Scholars " is common in early educational literature, 
but the vord held its ground at Winchester vith 
much persistency ; it vas freely used throughout the 
seventeenth and survived till far into the eighteenth 
century. In 1660, for instance, Charles II. desired the 
electors to adroit a boy vho "hath spent three years in 
ye Colledge as a commoner . . . into a child's place in 
that Foundac6--n", and in 1687 subscribers to the 
building of School were oflîeially styled " formerly 
child " or " formerly commoner-.3 The last use of 
the word in an unpublished record of Resolutions 
passed by the Warden and Fellows from 1765 onwards 
belongs to 1765. In that year the Society was con- 
cerned xvith the Improvement of the Children's 
Puddings ; in 1768 with the Scholars' Airing and Play- 
i Compare Bishop Ken's " if you are a ehild or a ehorister" in the passage 
quoted on p. 267. 
 See L.R.i. pp. xxv-xxvii, Ixiii ; ii. pp. 91, 94. 
 Armais, pp. 73, 367. We occasionally final the terre " children " used 
of commoners, but hot technically ; e.g. in an " lchnography '" of OId 
Commoners. 



c.v THE SEVENTY SCHOLARS 107 
place ; in 1775 with the blacking of the Boys' Boots. 
The last use I find in ,4nnals--a belated use--is in 
1780, when silver tankards were purchased for the 
"children". 1 In the long official account of thc 
rcbellion of 1793 the word does not occur. 2 
Everybody knows that at Winchestcr nowadays, 
so far from being children, scholars as wcll as com- 
moners are " men ". But this use of " men " is quite 
reccnt. " In my rime ", vrote a commoncr of about 
1830, we always said " the fellows "; Mr. J. F. 
Collier (1843-6) was " taken abaek " when he " saw 
the Winton lads ealled men in print-;3 and Dean 
Wickham, who left in 1851, was sure that " we had 
not yet learnt fo speak of ourselves, in any generie 
or distinctive sense, as ' men'". The Dean eited an 
incident to prove--perhaps it does hot quite prove-- 
that it was only in 1858 or 1859 that " this modernism 
had gained suffieient eurreney fo reaeh for the first 
rime the ttead Master's ear ".4 In those days of 
aloofness there was usually need of a 
mora parvula, dum res 
Nota urbi et populo eontingat çrincipis aurem ; 
but even if in this case the delay was long, the 
"notion " ean hardly even now be more than sixty 
years old. If indeed we eould trust the evidenee 
of Prefeet of I-Iall's book, s if would be still younger ; 
boys were " boys " there till Long ttalf 1867; they 
began fo be " men " in the following Short ttalf, and 
a Annals, p. 415. 
 For the "" Warden's ehiid " and "' Head Master's ehild", who survived 
till about forty years ago, see below, pp. 406-8. 
t The Wy'kehamist, Match 1909. Mr. Collier looked upon the word 
'" notions "" as another " modern heresy"; what we eall a " notion-book '" 
he ealled a " word-book ". See also Tuekweil, p. 121. 
 W.C.p. 99. 
 But we cannot trust it ; its language was till iately rathcr donnish, and 
it admitted new notions with rcluctance. 



108 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  

have never been boys again.--On the other hand Sir 
Algernon West deelared in his Recollections that when 
he was at Eton (1843-50) Wykehamists ahvays ealled 
themselves men, x but he was speaking of what he had 
heard during ericket matches at Lord's; out elevens 
may have ealled themsclves and been ealled by others 
men af a rime when "new men ", "Junior Part men ", 
would have sounded absurd. At a still earlier date 
Etonian erieketers asserted their manhood; for in 
1805, after Eton had beaten Harrow in a match in 
whieh Lord Byron played, " and very badly too", 
a eonmmnieation addressed by the winners to the 
losers eontained the following l)olitesse :-- 
Ye Harrow boys, of erieket you've no knowledge, 
Ye played hot ericket but tbe fool witb men of Eton College3 

t See the Rev. A. H. Cruickshank's letter in The Wykehamist for November 
1900. 
 Thornton, llarrow Scool, p. 289.--Even mdergraduates at the univer- 
sities do hot seem to bave been called men till late in the eighteenth century 
(Chr. Wordsworth, Social Life at the Universities, pp. 92, 637). 



CHAPTER VI 

PREFECTS : TUNDING AND FAGGING 

IN the earlier (as in the latcr) version of the Tabula 
Legum, in Christopher Johnson's Themes (c. 1565), in 
Mathew's poem (16¢7), in the earliest (1653) and ail 
subsequent Long Rolls, prcefectus is the one and only 
word for what we eall a prefect ; 1 but that English 
word was hot, I think, used at Winchester before the 
eighteenth century. Even then its use was infrequent ; 
though both the Informator and Hostiarius wrote 
about " proefects " in 1739, 2 the standing English 
equivalent for prcefectus till about 1800 was a deriva- 
rive not of prceficere but of prceponere  either 
"ploepositor", which the taste and faney of the 
speller  might change into " proepositer", " pre- 
positer ", "propositor ", and the like, or "proepostor" 
with similar variations. Early in the nineteenth 

a The aecounts of 1553-4, however, speak of the prepositus scholw. See 
below, p. 138. 
 See below, p. 11. A passage fxom Tom Warton's dunior o[ 6 Chamber 
is sometimes printed (e.g. by Waleott, p. 107) thus : 
A thousand eares at rimes molest 
The steady prefeet's thoughtfu! breast ; 
but "sage Prepostor '" hot "steady prefeet " is the right reading. See A. A. 
Loeke, In Prai8e of Winclve8ter, p. 170, where the poem is printed from the MS. ; 
also Crmina Wiccamica, i. p. 4. 
a Note Mathew's language in v.  : 
Proefecti eamera tres proEponuntur in una. 
* A seribbler in the seholars' eopy of the Statures (see above, p. 97) having 
(in 1776) written " Proeposters ", some purist altered the word to " Proe- 
positors", with the comment "ean't spell " (W.W.B.p. 42). 
109 



110 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

century "prefect" established itself, X but" proepositor" 
did not absolutely die out; even as late as 1833 
Prefeet of Hall's book quotes a use of the latter by 
Warden Barter, but the eontext suggests that it had 
eeased to be eurrent coin. 2 It still survived--perhaps 
it had been revived by Dr. Fearon--in 1888, when 
applications for extra half-holidays were ruade " with 
the præpostors' duty "  
Preepositor, as a naine for one set over others, is 
of course an abomination. In the Corsuetudinarium 
Etonense (1560) the more correct preepositus is generally 
employed--we read there, for instance, of Scholce 
Proepositi and Cubiculi Proepositi; but the barbarous 
proepositores also oeeurs, though the author, having 
perpetrated it once, fights shy of it afferwards. * Sir 
Edward Creasy, eommenting on the document, did 
not notice the lapse; he said that proepositus as 
applied to a boy was afterwards " anglieized 'proe- 
positor ',» or, as usually eontracted, ' prepostor', to 
avoid indecorous confusion between the designation 
of the head of the College  and that of the youthful 
aiders of the exeeutive".  Winchester, with its 
Custos, had no reason to fear sueh indeeorous eon- 
fission; in talking of preepositors it followed a bad 
lead without exeuse.Preel)ositus, it may be observed, 
1 An old Wykehamist who was admitted in 1776, writing to a eontemporary 
in 1819, talks of ' Proepositors (as they were ealled in our rime)" (G.L,C. 
p. 3). 
 The "Warden's language is stilted. He cannot bring hiraseif to say, 
" Fag#ng " ; he talks of "the Emplo3unent", "the Service", " the Com- 
pulsory Attendanee", " the Fatiguering ", of juniors. 
 See a letter (quoted below, p. 85) from Mr. L. L. Shadwell to The 
Wykehamist (April 1888), with the edit.orial comment : " the formula, it is 
interesting to note, remains". 
 tic substitutes moderatores (Etoniana, No. 5, p. 7I). The Westminster 
Statures, though they follow the Consuetudinarium very closely, shy at 
proepositores. 
» The English "' prepositor '" is used by Richard Cox, Head Master of 
Eton, in 1580. Sec E.C.p. 450. 
 The Provost, who is still Prwpositus.  Eminent Etonians, p. 97. 



,.v PREFECTS : TUNDING AND FAGGING III 

has a third meaning in the Consuetudinarium. Be- 
sides the Provost and what Wykehamists now call a 
prefeet itis also used there of a boy-offieial attaehed 
to a partieular form or elass in the sehool ; from this 
official rather than from the prefect proper the 
modern Eton proepostor has been evolved. 1 
None of the words whieh we have been diseussing 
--neither prefecti, nor proepositi, nor (of course) 
prepositores--oceur in the Statures, but everybody 
knows that Wykeham in some sense instituted the 
offieials whom they denote. The belief that he 
invented sueh officiais is of course untenable ; as Mr. 
Leach has shown, 2 that part of Rubrie XXXIV. to 
whieh Winehester prefects owe their origin is derived, 
though not direetly, from the seventh ehapter of the 
Merton Statures (1274), which had a]ready been 
borrowed verbatim by the founder of Oriel (1329). 
Before providing prefeets (if we may so call them) 
for his sehool at Winehester, Wykeham had already 
provided them for his college at Oxford ; the words of 
the Winchester Rubrie are taken, with one variation 
fo be notieed later, from the eorresponding Rubrie 
(LII.) of the New College Statutes.--That a rcgulation 
ruade for the supervision of the boys af Winchester 
should also be applicable fo the Fellows (older boys or 
men) at New College suggests that Dr. Moberly was 
right when he told the Publie Sehool Commissioners 
that " although William of Wykeham did institute 
something like Prefeetorial authority, yet what he 
designed was not the saine which was subsequently 
introdueed into the sehool "? Dr. Moberly's state- 
ment, the second part of which was very unsueeess- 
a For the present or recent functions of prepostors at Eton sec Wasey 
Sterry, Annals of Eton College, p. 80. 
 Historl , pp. 174-5 ; Y.H.p. 276. 
 For " subsequently introduced "" I shouid prefer to say "' subsequently 
developed" ; we hve no evidencc of the brupt introduction of any change. 



112 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

fully disputed by Adams, 1 may serve as a text for 
the rest of this chapter. We shall see that what 
Wykeham designed was " something like " prefectorial 
authority ; we shall also see that it was by no means 
" the saine " as what that phrase means to-day. 
The famous words of the Winchester Rubric may 
be translated as follows: " We determine, ordain, 
and will that in each of the lower chambers 2 
there shall be at least three scholars, of good character 
and more advanced than the otbers in age, discretion, 
and knowledge, to superintend the studies of their 
chamber-fellows, to act as their diligent overseers, 
and when rcquired to certify truthfully and inform 
the Wardcn, Sub-Warden, and Master Instructor 
concerning their morals and behaviour, and their 
progress in their studies, from rime to rime, as often 
as there shall be cause or neeessity, under the obliga- 
tion of their oath; to the end that such seholars, if 
defeetive in morals, or negligent, or slothful in their 
studies, may reeeive due and suffieient correction and 
punishment aeeording to their faults" 
The words eontain the essence, the root-prineiple, 
of a prefeetorial system. Place boys of very different 
ages together, fo live as one soeiety, and itis human 
nature that, whether you wish it or hot, the older 
will greatly influence the younger. Nature, human or 
other, non nisi parendo vincitur ; Wykeham took the 
natural fact into aeeount and aimed, not at over- 
mastering if, but at regulating it to good ends. He 
gave to the natural influence of older boys the sanction 
of authority, and sought to ensure, so far as regulation 
ean ensure, that it should be exereised responsibly 
and not eaprieiously. That was the Founder's aire 
in the fiffeenth eentury, and itis the aim of sehool- 
masters, at Winehester and elsewhere, in the twentieth. 
 Adams, p. 384. *See be]ow, p. 150. 



.,, PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 113 
--There are moreover two points of close resemblanee, 
in the application of the fundamental prineiple, 
between Wykeham's arrangement and the prefeetorial 
system of College to-day. One is the number of the 
prefeets; there are eighteen prefeets now, in a eom- 
munity of seventy boys, and Wykeham ordained that 
there should be at least eighteenwat least three in 
eaeh of his six ehambers. He arrived at that number, 
I imagine, by a very simple proeess. The ehambers at 
New College lodged three or four Fellows or seholars, 
and following the example set in the Statures of 
Merton he had ordained that in eaeh of these ehambers 
one Fellow, older and wiser than his eompanions, 
should wateh over their morals and studies. At 
Winehester the ehambers were larger than at Oxford, 
and held eleven or twelve boys eaeh. When, there- 
fore, Wykeham adapted the New College Rubrie to 
the conditions of his sehool, he may have asked him- 
self the question, If there is one superintendent in a 
ehamber oeeupied by three or four persons, how many 
should there be in one oeeupied by eleven or twelve ? 
and may have answered it as one of pure arithmetie. 
Meanwhile we must remember that with tvo masters 
only to eighty boys or more--it might be very many 
more ---a large number of older and more advaneed 
boys was required to give the younger and less ad- 
vaneed seholars the individual attention whieh they 
needed in their studies but whieh the masters eould 
hot give. For the purpose of government the propor- 
tion of eighteen prefeets (at least) to fifty-two inferiors 
(at most) is what Dr. Fearon with eomplete approval 
ealls it, a "remarkably strong order".* It is a far larger 
proportion for that purpose than any one would ordain 
de novo ; far larger than ever existed in Commoners, 
or exists in the houses into whieh eommoners have 
a See above, p. 86. * W.C.p. 22. 
I 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

been dispersed. Indeed it would seem that the 
eighteen were felt tobe too many as the prefectorial 
system was developed; the peeuliar arrangement, 
un-known to the Statures and of uneertain date and 
origin, by whieh only ten 1 of the eighteen exereise 
"full power ", points to that conclusion. Dr. Burton, 
it appears, had a nfisgiving on the marrer; he sug- 
gested fo the Usher in conversation that it might be 
a gain if the number of prefeets was redueed to seven. 
tIe suggested this, so he deelares, " purely as marrer of 
Chat in seeming friendship "; but the Usher, having 
afterwards beeome his enemy, found himself " obliged 
by lais Oath " to reveal this iniquitous seheme to 
" demolish eleven prefeets, to whose diseretion ye 
Founder hath left ye Tuition and Care of ye younger 
Children ". Undoubtedly Wykeham's eighteen have 
given College a strong and stable, if not always a 
judicious and eonsiderate, government ; prefeets and 
inferiors have at rimes eombined to rebel against 
Wardens and Head Masters, but it is not reeorded 
that inferiors have rebelled against prefeets.--To the 
other point of resemblanee I have already referred. 
Wykeham's older boys were directed to superintend 
the studies of their schoolfellows, and the same duty 
falls on College prefeets to-day. Its relative im- 
portance is less than it was in the Founder's rime, for 
the ehanged proportion of the number of masters to 
that of boys has ruade that partieular superintendenee 
less imperatively neeessary, * and the development of 
other prefeetorial duties has made it less eonspieuous ; 
but the responsibility has perhaps beeome more 
binding, both by the definite assignment of individual 
pupils to individual tutors, and by the introduction of 

 See below, p. 385. 
2 It is not now found neeessary to utilize ail the eighteen prefects for this 
purpose ; pupi|s are distributed among the ten (?) senior prefects only. 



cH.w PREFECTS : TUNDING AND FAGGING 115 

payment for the tutors' services. With respect to 
this latter incident of the system the fact that pro- 
vision is ruade in the Statutes for the payment of boy- 
tutors under certain very special circumstances 1 
seems to prove that under ordinary circumstances it 
was not intended; I find no clear allusion to such 
payment before the nineteenth century. 2 Allusions to 
the employment of prefects as boy-tutors are not 
infrequent in Wykehamical literature. Mathew, for 
instance, tells us that in 167 when the boys came back 
from afternoon " Hills " the watchful prefect taught 
them their lessons : 

Attamen ad libros, postquam rcdiere, reverttmt, 
Proeîectusque vigil quoe sunt discenda docebit (w. 177-8). 
John Potenger the younger, who entered College as 
a boy of eleven in 1658 and " could hot apprehend 
the quantities of words or the right quantities of 
verse ", was, he says, " frequently told them by my 
tutor" ; he goes on to explain that it was then " the 
method " at Winehester " to have one of the senior 
boys to inspeet " a junior boy's " exereises, and 
prepare them for the usher's or the master's view" 
A eentury later Tom Warton mentions, among the 
eares whieh "molest the sage Prepostor", that 
"pupils every hour perplex " him ; and in 1778, when 
a case of bullying oeeurred in College, the faet that 
one of the aggressors was the victim's tutor was 
deemed to increase the heinousness of his offence. 4 It 
is a striking testimony to the value of this system 
of boy-tutors, instituted by Rubric XXXIV., that 
 In Rubric II. For the employment of older boys as tutors of Founder's 
Kia and of commoters see above, pp. 36-7. 
"- Before 1843 there is no record of payrnents to tutors in Prefect of Hall's 
book ; but T. A. Trollope, who thought the systern very useful, mentions 
{p. 123) that they were ruade in lais time (1820-8). 
 See a very valuable paper on "John Pottinger " in The IVykehamist, 
June 20, 1893.---See also below, pp. 303,305.  Armais, p. 407. 



116 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

more than 450 years after its institution so good a 
judge as Dr. Moberly pronounced an emphatic eulogy 
upon if from every point of view, deploring a recent 
change which had diminished ifs importance. 1 The 
relation between boy-tutor and boy-pupil was in his 
judgment " an excellent relation" ; he only wished if 
was more complete ; he could hot say how much he 
llad lost as Head Master by the weakening of a system 
under which boy dealt with boy.  Even as weakened 
it still works admirably in the sixth century of its 
existence. 
In ifs fundamental principle, then, as well as in 
certain impoloEant particulars, what Wykeham de- 
signcd resemblcs very closely the prefectorial system 
which exists in College to-day; we bave now to sec 
that in othcr ways the two things are by no means the 
same.--It cannot, I think, be maintained that Wyke- 
haro instituted a prefectorial order, though the emerg- 
ence of such an order may seem fo us an inevitable 
consequence of his Rubric. He gave no name, as I 
bave said, to what we call prefects, and there is no 
hint in thc Statures that he intended lais older and 
more discreet boys to act together as one body ; they 
wêrc to act individually and independently. Nowa- 
days, as for a long rime past, common action is 
expected from prefects, and they are distinguished 
from inferiors by the enjoyment of various privileges ; 
they sit togêther, for instance, at special " ends" 
(i.e. tables)  in Hall ; their food is hot quite the saine 
as that of the other boys, and it is served in a some- 
 The change in question was the introduction of a toaster as " College 
Tutor", at the suggestion of Charles Wordsworth, about 1836 ; his duty was 
that whieh John Potenger deseribes. This ooEee was diseontinued, I think, in 
1867. That whieh goes by the same naine to-day was instituted by Regula- 
tions of the new Governing Body in 1874 ; the duty of its holder is to " assist 
the Second Master in the domestie eare and discipline of the Seholars ", not to 
revise their composition. 
 P.S.C. pp. 337-8. a See be]ow, p. 195. 



o. PREFECTS : TUNDING ANI) FAGGING 117 

what different way. Such and such-like distinctions 
are obvious modes of marking grades of dignity, and 
Wykeham used them to mark the grades of the adult 
members of the College; but he did not use them 
among the scholars. The Warden was to be servcd 
"as befits his state " ; the commons of the magistri 
were in normal rimes to cost twelve denarii weekly, 
and those of the clerks of the chapel ten ; those of the 
scholars, older and younger alike, were to cost eight 
(Rubric XIII.). 1 Still more instructive are the 
Founder's rules, quomodo . sedere debeant in mensa 
(Rubric XIV.). The Warden, Sub-Warden, Head 
Master, and senior Fellows were to sit at a table 
apart ; 2 at the other tables, primo et principaliter the 
other Fellows, then the chaplains, then the Hostiarius ; 
but the scholars were to sit " as they came, without 
claiming any upper or lower seat or any special place 
whatsoever".Another point in which Wykcham's 
system differed from ours, his limitation, namely, of 
the sphere of prefectorial authority to chambers, 
need not delay us. It is explained by two considera- 
tions. The first is that a much larger part of the 
scholars' lives was passed in chambers, and that 
superintendence there meant more complete super- 
intendence, in early times than in late. 4 The other is 
that when the boys were not in chambers they were 

1 The only distinction ruade between the schohrs in the matter of food was 
that the younger boys were to have breakfast ; see below, p. 176. 
a For the arrangement of the tables in Hall see ,4nnals, p. 44. There 
was hOt at first a " high table" ; one was introduced, however, says Mr. 
Kirby, "before the year 1437".I find it ordered, after the Scrutiny of 
1621, that in accordance with Rubric XIV. (see above, p. 37} only rive fellows 
should dine ad superiorem rnensam ; the others were to dine ad rnensarn 
collaleralem. 
 Rubric 'L,XVII., conceming the annual allowance of cloth, shold also 
be consulted in this connection.--In Chapel, as there were more stalls than 
there were magistri, the surplus st311s were to be occupied by Founder's kin 
over fifteen and the scolares prot, ectiores (Hubric XXIX.}. 
« See further below, pp. 155-7. 



118 ABOUT WYNCHESTER COLLEGE .  
in Chamber Court or in the other buildings which 
surround it. Besides the scholars, a Warden, ten 
Fcllows, two Masters, and three chaplains lived in 
rooms which looked out into the Court; they took 
their meals in Hall; they attended Chapel ; and they 
must have raked Court, Hall, and Chapcl fore and aft. 1 
It may bc that in School the two Masters were helped 
in maintaining order from the first by an Ostiarius, 
and perhaps by all the eighteen discreet ones, if they 
sat, as the prefects did in Mathew's rime, on seats 
in the window recesses, 
strueta superne 
Ut bene prevideant aliis (vn-. 74-5). 
Elsewhere it was only in chambers that superintend- 
ente by boys was required ; there is therefore a very 
close resemblanee between Wykeham's eighteen and 
vhat we ca]l " prefects in half power ", the formula 
for whose appointment is borrowed in part from the 
language of the Rubrie : 
Praefieio te tuis sociis concameralibus. 
In singulis eameris . . . sint ad minus tres . . . qui aliis suis 
sociis eoneameralibus . . . superintendant. 
I pass to matters of graver consequence. Many 
people who eommend and many who eondemn the 
prefeetorial system as we know it regard its essential 
charaeteristics as these: that prefects have the 
privilege of fagging other boys, and that they have 
the privilege, or the responsibility, of ruling themf 
ruling them, if need be, by very drastie methods. 
Neither of these powers were eonferred by the Statures 
upon Wykeham's older boys, and there is no evidenee 
1 llistory, p. 177.--Vhen the Fellows and even the Masters began to 
'" pernoctate " outside College in defiance of the 1Rubrics, discipline suffered. 
The Fellows, said the Supervisors in 1631, must hot sleep abroad, ne ex eorum 
absetia cholaribus ad rouira enormia de nocte perpetranda, ut aliquoties iam 
accidisse delalum esl, crescal auda¢ia. 



cH.w PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 119 

that the first was exercised by Winchester prefects at 
all, or the second to its full extent, until rimes com- 
paratively recent. They were exercised, probably or 
certainly, before they were conferred; but whether 
that xvas so or not, it is important to discover (if we 
can discover) xvhen they came into being. I xvill 
speak first of the right of rule. 
It is clear from the Rubric that what Wykeham 
instituted was a monitorial rather than, in the full 
sense, a prefectorial system. His older boys were to 
be the guides and philosophers of the younger ; ad- 
vice, example, superintendence, were what they were 
expected to give. Superintendence is divided by no 
well-marked line from a certain measure of control, 
and in Johnson's and in Mathexv's days the prefects 
were more than monitors, more even, perhaps, than a 
monitorial police. They must have been an efficient 
aid to the authorities, for they were numerous, they 
were not only the more discreet but the stronger 
members of the community, and they had the force 
of tradition behind them : their efficiency had caused 
some extension of their functîons to real government. 
Qui proefectus est, says the Tabula, legitime imperato ; 
they had some right to rule, but their right was in- 
eomplete ; they did hot, at any rate, rule with a rod. 
If peeeadilloes were eommitted, they did not deal 
with them; if their authority was flouted, they did 
not assert it ; they reported offenders to the Master. 
Delation, " handing up " (in Wykehamieal phrase), 
was the prefeet's resouree and his duty. If, says 
Johnson, he notiees that boys look about them in 
Chapel, deferat; if he finds that, having leave to go 
out of Sehool, they stay away too long, deferat? A 
x Themes, fol. 141, fol. 150 b. Elsewhere Johnson tells his prefects that, 
though they rnust report grave offences, they should turn a blind eye upon 
trifles. When trifling offences were reported, he remernbered that law does hot 
concern itself de minirnis. 



120 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

roll is extant, signed by a prefect of as late a date 
as 1699, on whieh boys were reported to the Master 
for crossing Chamber Court without a socius, for not 
having pens and paper at hand, for omitting to get 
their hair eut 1--faults whieh, however grave, might 
have been more wisely met by a word of reproof or 
chaff. * In the more serious case of the slighting of a 
prefeet's authority he might, we feel, have been left 
to assert it, with the help, if necessary, of his seventeen 
colleagues ; but he was not encouraged to assert it in 
1647. 

Exemplo monituque schole moderamina servant. 
Si tamen obstiterint rabidi nimiumque protervi (vv. 20-1),-- 

vhat happens ? 

Nomina sunt chartoe, charta est data deinde magistro (v. 22). 

Most modern Wykehamists xvould say that, if milder 
methods failed--they would perhaps omit the 
qualification--, these wanton rebels should have been 
" tunded "; but whether force would have been the 
best remedy or not, it is certain that in 1647 and long 
afterwards its use was not sanctioned by either law or 
custom. Tunding is the naine for a eorporal punish- 
ment inflicted by a prefeet, and legalized by the 
authorities, but neither the punishment, nor the 
legalization, nor (I think) the word, is of any great 
antiquity. It was possible for a Wykehamist in 
1770 and 1771 to write long letters about sehool 

1 Some further comment on this roll will be found on p. 245 ; it is printed 
on p. 247. 
2 The practice of reporting tridal offences sometimes led to undesirable 
consequences. Complaint was made by the Supervisors in 1668 " that ye 
inferiours are forc't to supply the propositours with Ink, paper, and such 
like Implements ", or else "to run the Hazard of beeing accus'd ", i.e. reported 
to the Master for not having their arma scholastica in promptu (see below, 
p. 24,5). 



- PREFECTS : TUNDING AND FAGGING 121 

incidents to a brother and schoolfellow invalided home, t 
and yet neither to use the word nor to hint at the 
thing. Eight years later " the prepositor of the 
hall " was instructed to be " very attentive to the 
attendance of the boys during their meals ", but he 
was hOt to punish, he was to " accuse ", absentees -, 
various other prepositors were to " sec " and to 
"take care " that certain rules were kept, and were 
to be " aeeountable ", " responsible ", " answerable ", 
if they were broken, but there is no hint that they 
were to punish law-breakers. 2 A statement of Mr. 
Kirby's that in 1776 a certain Cattell was "removed" 
from the sehool " for tunding Philip Lys " a seems to 
be incorrect. Cattell, says the Seholars' Register, 
whieh must have been Mr. Kirby's authority, 
lcesionem enormem Philippo Lys intulit crudeliter et 
scepissime. Now the words atrox percussio loesionem 
enormem inferens occur in the Statutes (Rubric XXIV.), 
where they are applied to a brutal assault committed 
upon any member of the College from the Warden 
downwards; such an assault is classed with notable 
theft, manifest perjury, voluntary homicide, and so 
forth. The language, therefore, which the Register 
uses about Cattell would more fitly describe a gross 
piece of bullying than a quasi-judicial, however 
excessive, punishment inflicted by a prefect as such ; 4 
it does not justify Mr. Kirby's employment of the word 
"tunding ", of the meaning of which he had, I think, 
an imperfect knowledge. Meanwhile it is certain 
that tunding as a punishment, though hot as yet 
authorized, crept in before 1790. In a letter, un- 
fortunately not preserved, which was addressed to the 
i The reference is to a collection of ietters written mostly by John Bond, 
a commoner, from Winchester. 
2 Annals, pp. 410-12. s IV.S.p. 265. 
« The Register speaks in the saine terres in 1778 of an offence (described 
in 4nnals, p. 407) which was clearly bullying and hOt tunding. 



122 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .,, 

newly-appointed Warden Huntingïord in that year 
the proepositors must have asserted or implied that 
they were in the habit of tunding inferiors, and must 
have hinted that the punishment, if not authorized, 
ought to be ; is it, they must have asked, authorized 
or not ? The Warden's answer has perhaps been 
destroyed, but a eopy of it, found among Warden 
Barter's papers, was sent to The IVykehamist for 
Match 1876 : 

Custos Proefectis Coll. Winton. 
Etsi minus decorè fecistis, in eo quod nec Latinè nec satis 
modestè 1 seripsistis ad Custodem, questioni tamen breviter 
proposite in paueis respondeo ; Prefeeti eondiseipulos suos, 
qui malè se gerunt, primo moneant; deinde ad magistros, 
ut eorrigantur contumaces, delinquentium nomina deferant. 9 
Valete. 
Die 19 Mens. Oct. A.P. 1790. 

Vhatever Huntingford was not, he was an expert 
on the Iaw and custom of the constitution, and his 
directions may be taken as proof that tunding had hot 
been authorized and as good evidence that ifs intro- 
duction was reeent. But the prsepositors--so I dis- 
eover from a paper in the possession of the College-- 
were surprised and shocked by his pronouncement; 
they elearly, as we shall see, had a bonafide conviction 
that the punishment was not merely authorized, but 
authorized by the Statures. They wrote in hot haste, 
i Huntingford exected boys to approach the throne very humbly. 
During the rebellion of 1793 the prepositors sent him two letters whieh, 
says Adams (p. 145), were " worded respeetfully" and in Latin ; but they 
offended him deeply. '" If ", his answer begins, '" the Seholars are so forgetful 
of their Rank and of good Manners as to insult their Warden by Letters of 
eonsummate arrogance and extreme petulanee .... " He inserted his letter, 
but not those of the prepositors, in the offieial " Statement of the late Pro- 
eeedings ". 
2 Vhen Huntingford revised the Tabula Legum (sec below, p. 237) he 
did not Mter the clause Haec, aut his similia, Mquando deferantur, judieiura 
danus further than by inserting the words qui contra fa,vit after similia. 



. PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 123 

but in reasonably idiomatic Latin, on the very day on 
whieh they had reeeived it, a most emphatie answer to 
the Warden's letter. Having justified or apologized 
for their previous use of English they deelared that the 
Warden's ruling ruade their office a burden and not an 
honour; that it eontraeted, depressed, and annulled 
their authority. For (1) the audaeity and eontumacy 
of inferiors had hitherto been ehecked only by the fear 
of the poena, ut ira dicamus, extemporalis whieh the 
proepositors were now forbidden to infliet; (2) the 
Masters had often negleeted to punish delinquents 
whom (it is implied) the proepositors had " aeeused " ; 
(3) it was not granted to boys of their age to be always 
self-controlled, or omnibus horis sapere; they were 
therefore unwilling to expose themselves to danger, fo 
the danger, apparently, of having their impulsive 
tundings called in question. For all these reasons 
they unanimously and most gladly resigned an office 
whieh had beeome a servitude ; more xvoxoEhy persons 
might perhaps be found to take their places, but none 
who would desire to maintain the dignity of the 
College more diligently and more faithfully.l--Things 
had " grown eleetric "; but the eounsels of the ad- 
mirable Goddard, then Second Master, saved the 
situation? A humble apology, from whieh the date 
and most of the signatures bave been torn away,  
was soon afterwards sent to the Warden : 

Vtt Rv.vEtDmsx--Juvenili quodam ardore nos im- 
pulsos fuisse [confiternur 9.], et nimis decorè fecisse, in eo 
quod Custodi nostro preproperè et immodestè jura nostra 
erepta querebamur. Humiliter ergo de te veniam oramus, 

1 The text of the letter is printed at the end of this chapter. 
 The deaIings of Goddard with the boys during the rebellion of 1793 
eontrast very favourably with those of the Warden and the Head Master. 
a The first three signatures, xvlfich reraain, are those of the three senior 
prefect on the Long 1Roi! of 1790. 



124 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
et te statuta nobis exponere submissâ voce precamur. Gratioe 
nostroe domino Goddard persolvende sunt, quod mirà be- 
nignitate hoc nobis hortari minim dedignatus est. 
There the story ends. The Warden's exposition of 
the Statutes must have convinced the boys that 
tunding was hot contemplated by the Founder, but 
it is possible that they gained their point. The late 
Dr. Edward Huntingford (admitted 1831) told me that 
his father (admitted 1796) remembered tunding (by 
that name) as a punishment inflicted by Prefect of 
Hall upon a junior who bathed during afternoon 
Hills, 1 and it was a common--a far too common-- 
incident of Winchester lire, both in College and in 
Commoners, in the early years of the nineteenth 
century.  There is no doubt that it was fully author- 
ized by the time when Dr. Moberly became Head 
Master; its authorization, therefore, dates from the 
period 1790-1836; it may date, as we have seen, 
from 1790. 
To whatever dangers the institution of tunding 
may be liable, 3 and no one ll deny that such dangers 
are real, it unquestionably tends to prevent or to 
check some serious evils. The right to tund should 
be hedged in by restrictions and kept in the back- 
ground ; but if it is not there as an ultimate or rather 
a penultimate resource you may have anarchy. The 
evils of anarchy are not, perhaps, quite so grave as of 
old; some of its worst incidents in a school, such as 
 "Trench ", which "confines the hill like a girdle ", was still, as in Mathew's 
day, a meta non transilienda during morning and afternoon bill-rimes 
155-6). 
2 A queer story about tunding in Commoners in 1807 is told in 
Wkeiamit for June 1895 (p. 111). V. F. ttook wrote in October 1813: 
"I hate this place more and more every day"; he had been "licked 
yesterday", and had been " licked again to day " (Stephens, Lie o Dean 
Hook, i. p. 8). 
 One of the gravest of these dangers is naïvely noted by the prepositors 
in their second letter. 



o. PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 125 
nagging and bullying, are less natural to boys to-day 
than they were to their great-grandfathcrs. If, how- 
ever, the Flashman of Tom Brown's School Days is 
now an unfamiliar figure, a large part of the credit for 
his disappcarance is due to the most drastic methods 
of prefectorial authority. 1 Under a purely moni- 
torial system the alternative to anarchy is espionage 
and " delation ". It will sometimes under any system 
be a boy's hard duty to report gravc offences to the 
Master, but the monitorial system tends to makc a 
rule of what should be a rarc exception ; it can hardly 
help encouraging--perhaps it encourages it most 
when the monitors arc most conscientious--the kind 
of tale-bemng which makes impossible those frank 
and straightforward relations between boys which are 
among the happiest featttres of the modern public 
school. In the days of Dr. Arnold's greatest pre- 
decessor at Rugby it was the custom to report offenders 
to the Head Master by throving "a sort of letters 
printed by a pen " through his study windov, z That, 
no doubt, was delation at its worst ; but even at its 
best how much less healthy delation ordinarilv is 
than the " good sound thrashing before the whole 
house" which Dr. Arnold commended to his "sturdy 
proepostors" as the best way of dealing with a 
Flashman.3 
It remains to speak of Fagging, which some people 
regard as the very essence, whereas if is but a separable 
 Bullying at Winchester, by prefecta as well as by others, was probably at 
its worst about 1770-90, when tunding mas hot yet authorized (sec, e.g., 
G.L.C.p. 16). T.A. Trollope, who mas at Harrow belote he came to Win- 
ehester in 1820, declared (T. A. T. p. 78) that there was far more bullying at 
Harrow, and attributed the alleged fact to the non-existence at Harrow of 
prefects and tunding. His optimism about Winchester will, however, be 
discounted by readers of his brother Anthony's Autobiography. 
2 Rouse, Rugbj, p. 147. Thomas James, the Head Master in question, 
professed to discourage secret information, but had no objection to these 
"good-natured hints ". 
 Torn Brown's School Days (Golden Treasury edition), p. 199. 



126 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

accident, 1 of the prefectorial system. Professor Free- 
man supposed it tobe of great antiquity ; the prineiple 
of personal service to a lord, he wrote, " lingers on in 
what is undoubtedly a trace of the Teutonie comitatus, 
the fagging of our publie sehools-.2 Wykehamieal 
history gives no support to that confident assertion. 
There is no hint of fagng in the Statures ; it is not 
mentioned, so far as I have diseovered, in Johnson's 
Themes ; it is barely mentioned, if at all, 3 in Mathew's 
poem, or in the notes, now in the Bodleian, of about 
1670. 4 Where older and younger boys lire together, 
something of the kind may be expeeted to erop up ; 
but, as anyoEhing like a systematized institution, 
fagging seems to bave been a late gro¢h at Win- 
ehester. » No doubt boys were required, from the 
earliest rimes, to perform certain so-ealled menial 
tasks, sueh, for instance, as making their beds; but 
these tasks were imposed on, and apparently per- 
formed by, all the boys without distinction. In one of 
the earliest, if hOt the earliest, of ail allusions to 
fagging in our records, the faet that " ye inferiours 
are many rimes fore't to make ye beds of propositours " 
was spoken of as an abuse ; it evoked eomplaint and 
reproof (1668). We may notice in passing that some 
of the duties whieh afterwards fell upon juniors were 
in 167 diseharged by prefeets. The prefeet ealled 
" Domum " when it was rime to start back from Hills 
(v. 164), hot the three juniors who did so most labori- 
ously in the nineteenth century ; a prefect, and not as 
 See Adams, p. 390, where it is argued conclusively that fagging earmot 
be uphe/d on the grotmd that its abolition would impair the prestige of pre- 
fectorial authority. 
2 Grovth of the English Constitution, p. 46. 
 Vv. 235-7. I should hot regard the dut/es of the junior there mentioned 
as fagging proper. 
« See below, p. 301. 
 At Westminster fagging was very onerous in 16660 probab|y more so than 
in the earliest days of the school (Sargeaunt, p. 27). 



,..,nPREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 127 

now a junior, woke his chamber-fellows in the morn- 
ing (v. 88).wMr. Leaeh has suggested that there was 
little room for fagging under the conditions of the 
seventeenth eentury. "Fagging ", he says, "is ehiefly 
eonneeted with gaines, or with meals of supereroga- 
tion", or (he implies) with errands. But no long 
errands, he argues, eould be run when, exeept on their 
way to Hills, boys eould not go outside Middle Gare ; 1 
gaines were as yet unorganized ; and "additional meals 
were almost impossible when merenda or supper was 
supplied by College "." I agree with Mr. Leaeh about 
the errands and the gaines; but, in spire of the 
merenda, whieh at the most was only bread and beer, 3 
there was occasion and opportunity, and there is 
some evidenee, for the additional meals. The meagre 
fare of Fridays and Saturdays, 4 if not of other days, 
must have ruade them weleome and even neeessary; 
the boys reeeived battlings (an allowanee in money), 
then called " battlings on fast days ", in 1620 ; 5 and 
the Supervisors noted in the saine year that they " are 
driven to gct their food elsewhere " at their own cost. 
Clearly, therefore, in the seventeenth century, addi- 
tional meals were hot only not impossible, but were a 
fact. In the eighteenth we find them denounced by 
one of the Fellows ; he speaks of the " luxurious way 
of Eating and Drinking in the Coll." as "a Practice 
which has long been conniv'd at and now obtains to 
too great a degree, and perhaps may deserve some 
Personal Interposition and Activity in the Wardcn " 

 The Rev. G. W. Heathcote (adrnitted 1819) told me in 1899. that he had 
"seen a proclamation in which Warden Htmtingford stated that College 
boys had actually been seen hanging about Outer Gate, and directed that such 
a flagrant offence should be discontinued" 
2 History, p. 278. 
3 See below, p. 198. « See below, p. 178. 
* See passages quoted in W.W.B., s.r. Battlings. In 1674 Bishop Ken 
advised his Philotheus to content himself on the fasting days with his " bare 
allowance, and to lay aside some little matter for the Poor". 



128 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.. 
(c. 1740). 1 It is likely enough that the luxurious way 
of eating and drinking, the meals of supererogation, 
entailed fagging, but perhaps they entailed no very 
excessive amount of it. About 1750 Tom Warton, 
who haunted College chambers, wrote optimistically 
of the junior's life there ; there was fagging and there 
was roughness, but there were compensations. He 
makes his junior say : 
Though many a blow -* imprint my patc 
For sait and trcnchcr brought too late, 

(The junior proceeds to enumerate the compensations 
and continues) 
Yet still with pleasure I shall think on 
The happy junior's hfe at Winton. 
Darker days vere coming when it is diflïcult to 
believe that any one who knew the facts would have 
put such words into a junior's mouth. A description of 
Winchester life written with serenity and moderation 
by one who had been admitted in 1800 contains the 
following passage : 
I was a severely beaten fag; a little faggot-lighting, 
shoe-polishing, bason-cleaning, towel-drying, bread-toasting, 
chocolate-making, gaiter-buttoning varlet. For study or for 
play, I could never command an hour. 3 
Of gaines the writer speaks as an admiring spec- 
tator ; had he been twenty years younger he would 
have recorded the very grievous additional burden 
t Another Fellow, writing in 1766, ealled the Warden's attention to the 
extravagant living of the scholars : if he "' eou'd view the many Expensive 
Bills that are carryed home every Tide, besides others which are suppress'd, 
and wou'd sec what is donc in their Chambers, ye Kitchin, ye Hall, and other 
places . . . 1" Such extravagances "draw after them a train of iii conse- 
quences, & many fil habits, which, 'tis tobe fear'd, may stick upon some of 
the Children, as long as they lire ". 
 In Carmina Wiccamica (i. p. 4} the " notion " con replaces blow. A note 
adds : "' Reverse the word knock, leave the k's out, and you bave the word 
con". a 8tory of a Lire, ii. p. 80. 



 PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING 129 

that they laid upon juniors from about 1820 onwards. 1 
Of cricket-fagging (with punishment for inefficient 
fielding) there was then no end; the writer 2 of a 
letter which I have before me mentions that he was 
kept fagging " on turf "from 10 to 6 on a " remedy ", 
and others add that a junior might have to surfer the 
penalties for shirking " Hills " that such forced service 
might involve. 3 Af a later date Frank Buckland, 
(1839-¢), who ought to have been naturalizing in 
his play-time, confessed that compulsory " watching- 
out " made him hate cricket ever afterwards; and 
Mr. Tuckwel! (1842-8) said the saine. « Football- 
fagging, knovn as " kicking-in ", was hardly less 
severe. " There vas but one game " in College, said 
Dr. Moberly, " and the little boys used to fag out " ; 5 
their only share in football vas, wrote Wordsworth, 
that " they were required to stand, often shivering 
with cold, for an hour or more at a rime on the con- 
fines of the gaine " ; « small wonder that in Chapel 
"the word used to be passed round amongst the fags 
in all seriousness . . . to ' pray for rain' " 7 A regu- 
lation was ruade by Warden Barrer in 1833 which 
restricted " compulsory attendance on any gaine " to 
two hours " on Holydays " ; Dr. Ridding required in 

 See IV.C. pp. 130, 136. 
 The Rev. W. H. W. Bigg Wither (admitted 1822). 
a See a very striking passage in Mansfield (p. 129). 
 G. C. Bompas, Lire of Frank Buckland, p. 15 ; Tuckwell, p. 71.--One of 
the most enthusiastic of Winchester cricketers wrote, over the nom-de-plume 
of "Badger ", to The IVykehamist of Match 1867 : " I hope in two years to 
send a boy to Winchester... I shou]d like that boy to be fagged at cricket, but 
I should llke to feel and know that the fagging is so conducted that the moment 
at which his hour or half-hour of fagging ought to cease should be t-igorously 
0bserved ".--Sir H. Maxwell Lyte says (p. 488 ; see also, p. 411) that '" the 
tyrannical system under which ", at Eton, "lower boys were ruade to "fag ' 
at cricket was finally abollshed in the early part of Hawtrey's reign "'. Hawtrey 
became Head Master in 1834. 
 P.S.C.p. 358. 
e Charles Wordsworth, Annals of my Early Lire, p. 230. 
 Tuckwell, p. 35. 

K 



130 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

1867 that cricket-fagging should be limited to one 
hour on school-days ;  it was "altogether abandoned" 
by the College prefects in 188.  No boy in the school 
has now, I think, more than two hours of it in a week, 
and the reputation of Winchester fielding, which some 
people used to consider to be the justification, as well 
as the effect, of unlimited cricket-fagging, has not 
suffered. Football-fagging was totally abolished, at 
Wordsworth's instance, by the College prefects in 
1843 ; the Prefect of Hall of that year recorded the 
fact " to induce ail succeeding prefects to follow up 
the abolition of a plan, introduced within a few years, 
which was really a hardship to the juniors ". If his 
object has not been fully attained, such " kicking-in " 
as survives is no great hardship ; it does not, at any 
rate, prevent j uniors from playing the gaine them- 
selves. 
Crities of fagging often condemn it on the ground 
that it imposes upon young boys what Bishop Trelawny 
ealled " servile and foui offices " I eannot think that 
there is anything degrading in the performance of 
these misqualified services ; no one is the worse for 
learning fo discharge them handily and neatly. Fag- 
ging is rarelv a hardship to the fag because of the 
quality of the services which it imposes. It is a 
hardship fo him if it imposes services in excessive 
quantity ; if it robs him of all his leisure ; if if con- 
flicts with important duties or with his reasonable 
comfort; if if overburdens him and makes him 
spiritless ; if itis laid capriciously on one boy rather 
than on another. It may be a graver eviI fo the fagger 
than to the fag. tte may be tempted fo disregard 
the convenience and happiness of others; to claire 
" compulsory attendance " at home as well as at 
 Prefect of Hall's book. 
" See the note at the end of this chapter. 



«. v PREFECTS: TUNDING AND FAGGING lB1 

school; to exact services harshly and ungraciously ; 
to forger that the aeeeptanee of sueh services imposes 
upon those who aeeept them some sueh eorresponding 
obligations as it imposed upon the lord of Professor 
Freeman's Teutonic comitatu«. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER VI 

I lmT here (I.) the proepositors' letter of whieh I have 
spoken on p. 128; and (II.) a passage about fagging from 
The Farewell Password (Winchester, 188), Dr. tlidding's last 
sermon as Head Master. 

I 
19. Die: Mens: Oct: 
a.P. 1790 
Quamvis Latinè seribere ad te, vit reverende, nobis injunxit 
tua dignitas, minimè tamen fecimus, qubd apertè magis et dis- 
tinetè proprie gentis ore sententias nostras exponi putabamus. 
Litteris tuis ita, Domine, respondemus--Si câ lege, quam 
proponis, tenenda est auctoritas, inviti tenemus, nec honori sed 
potius oneri nobis esse ducimus. Hâe enim ratione potestas nostra 
eontrahitur, deprimitur, ad nihil redigitur. Hoee enim proe- 
seriptis tuis objicimus--Imprimis, ira eondiscipulorum nostrorum, 
tantum formidine poene, ut ita dicamus, extemporalis cohibitorum, 
audaciam et eontumaciam frangere non possumus; deinde, 
magistri a delinquentibus poenas sumere soepissimè neglexerunt ; 
denique, haud juvenilis oetatis proprium est, animum extemplo 
regere ;--de hâe imbeeillitate nobis liquet; ide6 non periculo 
tanto nosmetipsos exponere volumus, eum in he re horis omnibus 
sapere non nobis eoneeditur. 
Ideireo, Domine, auetoritatem, vel potiùs servitutem omnem 
istam, quoe non definitè Statutorum ordinationibus nobis injun- 
gitur, libentissimè et uno eonsensu in manus vestras resignamus. 
IstA potestate digniores forsitàn invenias, sed eos esse reperiendos, 
qui diligentius et magis fideliter hujus Collegii dignitatem servare 
volunt, et haeten?as servaverunt, negamus. 
P2EFECa'I OtNES. 



132 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .u 
II 

No parting gift could be at ail so grateful to me as the message 
I have receiveà from the College Prefects, that they of themselves 
abandon, in cricket fagging, almost the last remuant of one form of 
tradition, which in bygone generations was counted vitally saereà, 
the privilege of personal fagging. Born out of the natural sub- 
ordination of young to old in the Family, turned into service 
eounted as return for protection and supervision, exaggerateà into 
organised system of servitude, sanetioneà as privilege, claimed as 
right, tradition ruade it at one rime held to be the bulwark of 
authority, at another the only hope of erieket, at another the 
foundation of order and education, and the loyalty of many united 
with less loïty feelings in others, to count the existence of the 
state as resting on this institution. You have yourselves long been 
graduaily turning this in old times very serious service into vanish- 
ing shadows, and restoring the relation to shapes hot far from the 
Family original. I trust that the quingentenary of this family 
will find it again a brotherhood, exhibiting one common bondage 
to that "perfecte vineulum charitatis ",  whieh was the one bond out 
Founder enjoined : a brotherhood of serfice from all ; from the 
elder, of guidanee, assistance, protection ; from the younger, of 
ail the offices which are natural from young to old in every family 
and home ; of a service of freedom and goodwiil, earned and re- 
turned, not enforeed or exacted ; a service of brotherhood repre- 
senting the ideas of civilised states under modern Christian develop- 
ment .... I could hot have a better example of tradition loosed 
when the time and the eall cornes .... 

x The final words of the Statutes. In the sermon as published the printer 
has substituted perpetuoe vinculum eivitatis. 



CHAPTER VII 

COLLEGE OFFICERS 

UNDER the Statures (100) the duties of any one of 
Wykeham's " older and more disereet " boys were 
preeisely the same as those of any other, and these 
duties were eonfined to chambers ; in Mathew's rime 
(1647) there were speeialized prefeets with other 
spheres of influence. Wykehamieal records give us 
little help towards bridging the gulf. Johnson's 
Themes, though they prove that prefeets had authority 
outside chambers in 1565, tell us (I think) nothing 
about what we eall " College Oflîeers-;1 but an 
entry in the aeeounts of 1553-  shows that at least 
one of these offieers existed, and suggests that others 
may have existed, before Johnson beeame Head 
5Iaster. That, so far as I am aware, is ail the early 
Winehester evidenee about them. 
There is, however, early Eton evidence to supple- 
ment it. Henry VI. borrowed from Wykeham the 
provision of I{ubrie XXXIV. for the distribution of 
t The earliest use which I have found of the teehnieal terre '" offieers" 
occurs in a paper eompiled by Warden Nicholas in 1711 (see Annals, p. 384) ; 
it is also used, at about the saine date, in the *' Aeeount " described below 
(p. 178). In a very interesting letter, dated December 16, 1657, Lord Sayc 
aad Sele begged Warden Harris to let his grandson corne home during the 
Christmas eeess ; he hoped that " thear will be no inconvenience in Respect 
of thc oje wch 5,OU out of your favour wear pleased to confer uppon him ; 
some one may exeeute it till he rcturne" The Long Roll for 1657, which 
might have told us what the office was, is mlssing. 
 Sec below, p. 188. 
133 



13¢ ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

the older boys by threes; and, as we know that in 
early days there were eighteen prepositors at Eton 
as at Winehester, we may be sure that the Eton 
eollegers, like the Winehester scholars, were at first 
lodged in six chambers. It was hot till the begirming 
of the sixteenth eentury that this arrangement was 
changed by the building of a " Long Chamber " to 
lodge them all. 1 A few years later, in 1580, the Head 
Master wrote that there were " ij prepositors in the 
body of the Chirche, ij in the qwere ", besides " pre- 
positors in the feld whan they play, for fyghtyng, rent 
clotbes, blev eyes, or siche like ", and " prepositors 
for yll kept hedys, unwasshid facys, fowle clothis & 
sieh other".  In 1560 it appears from the Con- 
suetudinarium, that ail the eighteen prepositors were 
prepositors of something. There was a moderator of 
the Hall, tllere were two moderatores of the "Temple ", 
four of the School, four of the playing-fields (campus), 
four of the Chamber, two of the Oppidans; the 
eighteenth prepositor was the noderator inmundorum 
et sordidorum puerormn qui faciem et manus non 
lavant, etc. This rigidly specialized system of 1560 
was, as we have seen, in the making, though only in 
the making, in 1530; perhaps it was a consequence 
of the building of Long Chamber. It may have been 
thought that the superintendence of that large room 
would be more efficient if a special responsibility was 
fixed in a linfited number of prepositors (the four 
moderatores cubiculi), and that the other prepositors 
would be more useful if they too had particular spheres 
of influence. We cannot, of course, be sure that 

x See I'. H. Bucks, il. pp. 159, 172-3. Mr. Leaeh's demonstration of the 
fact above stated fully satisfied Sir H. Maxwell Lyte (M. L. p. 
 E.C.p. 450. The document also speaks of {1) "' prevy monitors how 
many the Mr wylle " ; 2) "mon3etors for chydyng and for latyn spek-yng yff 
there be iiij or v in a howse" ; {3) " two prepositors in every forme", for 
whom see above, p. 111. 



. ,n COLLEGE OFFICERS 135 

prepositors of this and prepositors of that came into 
existence at Eton precisely in this way, and even if 
wc could, it would hot follow that Eton invented 
thcm. It is not, howcvcr, likely that the idea occurred 
independently to the authoritics of both schools, and 
thc fact that we hcar of " officcrs ", if wc may so call 
them, at Eton twenty years before the earlicst known 
allusion to an oflïcer af Winchester, suggests that it 
occurred first to the Eton authorities. 1 

In 1647, when, thanks fo Mathew, our knowledge 
of College oflïcers becomes clear and full, there were, 
as therc havc evcr sincc bccn, rive officcrs at Win- 
chester ; 2 in 1653 their names are given in our earliest 
Long Roll. There was a Prefect of Hall, a Prefect of 
Tub, a Prefect of School, and there wcre two Prefects 
of Chapel; thcy rankcd thcn, as for nearly two 
ccnturies aftcrwards, in that order. 3 Of thcsc rive 
offices four exist to-day; that of Prefcct of Tub was 
discontinued in 1837-8; but the total numbcr was 
not changed. A Prcfect's Library had been provided 
in 1835 as part of the " additional schoolroom " 
then " much wanted ,,,« and experience had shown 
that it rcquircd a superintcndcnt. Prefcct of Tub 
was thcrefore directcd, somcwhat abruptly, to turn 
a A fresh discovery in the Winchester accounts may any day invalidate 
this provisional conclusion. 
2 In the official account of the Eebellion of 1793 there are two allusions 
to "thefour College oflïcers ", but the names of the usual rive are given in the 
Long Roll of that year. The Roi[ of 1792 mentions only three, omitting, as 
Long Rolls often do, the two Prefects of Chapel. 
 The naine of Prefect of Tub is placed before that of Prefect of Hall on 
a list of officers given in the Long Roll of 1653, but the supremacy of the latter 
offieer at the time is suflïciently established by Mathew's poem and other 
evidence. 
 This library, with the class-rooms annexed, was demolished in 1869 (see 
below, p. 205). Mr. Kirby says, most misleadingly, that "' th school library, 
ealled after Dr. Moberly, was founded in 1834" (Annals, p. 427). Moberly 
Library was of course founded, in honour of Dr. Moberly, after his retirement 
in 1866. It was formally opened in 1870. 



136 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

his thoughts from food for the body to food for the 
mind; he became Prefect of this Library. Another 
alteration was made in 1878. Sehool was then 
praetieally dereliet, and the duties of its Prefeet were 
inconsiderable; whereas the maintenance of order 
in Library (whieh now meant Moberly Library) 
needed, in Dr. Ridding's judgment, additional police. 
He aeeordingly plaeed Sehool under " the general 
superintendenee of Prefeet of Hall", and ehanged 
Prefeet of School into " Junior Prefect of Library ". 
The neeessity of the change was, however, strenuously 
denied, 1 and eonservative instinets were so deeply 
shocked that the old office was revived in 1879. 
Of the rive College offieers Prefeet of Hall was in 
1647 already the chief. He was compared " by them 
of old time ", says Mr. Tuekwell, " to the Great Mogul, 
and the eaptain of a man-of-war ", but by Mathew, 
more appropriately, to " the hundred-eyed Argus" 
(v. 143). He presided, of course, in Hall (v. 220), 
and was there first served at dinner : 

Proefectus quidam, qui nomen sumit ab olla, 
Auloe-proefecto bubuloe eito fereula mittit (vv. 231-2) ; 

if was within lais discretion (so the poet says), but 
its exercise might be unfavourably criticized, to 
provide or not to provide a tire in Hall on a winter 
remedy (vv. 171-4); 3 he was perhaps the person 
who applied for remedies, though he was not entrusted 
with the remedy-ring (w. 140-1); 4 he assembled 
the boys ad portas, called their names, and took them 
on and off Hills (vv. 146 seqq.). A little later (1658) 
we find him lodged, as he seems to have been invari- 
ably lodged since, in speeially eomfortab]e quarters 
in Sixth Chamber; he was plaeed there, say some 

a The Wylcehamist, February 1878. 
-" Tuckwell, p. 55.  See below, p. 381.  See below, p. 339. 



c.- rn COLLEGE OFFICERS 137 

Regulations of 1778, that he might " on School days, 
and in School hours, keep the Court clear of the boys, 
and send them into School" He was to be "very 
attentive to the attendance of the boys during their 
meals"; he was to " take care that the floor" of 
Hall "be not strewed vith saw dust, but be kept 
elean without it-.1 Like Prefeets of Tub and of 
Sehool, he had an extra allowanee of meat and of 
bread, reeeiving seven extra loaves weekly against 
Prefect of Sehool's three; like Prefect of Sehool, he 
was paid fees by both commoners and "ehildren" 
(1711). 2 A letter of the Second Master's (Deeember 
14, 1814) tells us that " the Proepositor of the Hall 
provides Rods, & is at the expense of mending the 
North Windows of the Hall "; the writer doubts 
" whether his Emoluments be adequate to the trouble 
& responsibility of his Office ". As the School grew 
larger, his ineome inereased; as the two Masters 
beeame less orbilian and the boys less misehievous, 
his outgoings diminished ; in 1868-9, just before the 
fees were abolished, he reeeived some £50 from 
eornmoners alone, and his ineome from this and other 
sources a was praetieally net. 
Of the naine, origin, and history of that quaintest 
of Wykehamieal institutions, the Prefeeture of Tub, 
I shall speak in another ehapter. « A lively aeeount 
of its holder at work in his later years may be round 
in the pleasant pages of What I Remember; 5 " he 
saw the meat weighed and had the charge of kitchen " 
in 1880, « and when his office was discontinued--a 
 ,elnnals, pp. 410-12. Wykehamists who knew the dining-hall in Com- 
moners as it was in the early sixties will remember that it was nobody's duty 
to take tare that it was kept elean without saw-dust. 
s ,4nnals, pp. 882-4. 
 Ail the officers are paid small stipends by the College. 
« See below, pp. 190-2. 
 T. A. T., pp. 105-6 ; see also Mansfield, p. 85. 
" The W!tkehamist, April 1890. 



188 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .,, 

reform due, like many other wise reforms, fo the good 
sense of Warden Barrer--" he reeeived a gratuity of 
£20 as compensation " (inadequate compensation, if 
would seem) " for his perquisites ,,.1 The memory of 
the oflïee was for some years aïterwards kept green 
by the name borne by the group of senior prefeets 
who messed together. There was a " Tub Mess " 
in 1780, 2 and Mr. Tuekwell records that about 1848 
he " kept Tub Mess supplied with rhubarb, salads, 
and green peas " from his garden " at Salve Dira 
corner,--there were no trees there then " z 
If the office of Prefeet of Sehool has been shorn of 
most of its emoluments, and of some of its dignity 
and importance, its holder may find eomïort in the 
refleetion that it ean be traeed back fo a remoter 
past than the other oflïees. At the beginning of 
Queen Mary's reign (1553-) sixpenee was paid by 
the Bursars pro libro chartaceo ad usure prepositi 
scholee ad scribendum nomina. This is the earliest 
known allusion to a College officer, and it is one 
of some interest. As lately as 1865-6 if was the 
custom that Prefect of School should annually present 
to the Informator and Hostiarius, in elegantly bound 
little volumes, hand-printed rolls of the school; * 
to such a roll the entry of the Bursars may refer.--In 
Mathew's poem Prefect of School appears only as 
the custodian of the remedy-ring; he holds it aloft 
to show that a remedy has been granted (vv. 140-2).  
 Annals, p. 427,--T. A. Trollope put the value of these perquisites at 
£80 a year. 
 G.L.C.p. 17. 
-" " Reminiscences by an old College man '" in the special " Quingentenary" 
number of The Wykehamis! ; sec also the " Plan of Hall"in Rich, opposite 
p. 10. There were othe» gardens, eultivated by prefects, along the wall whieh 
till 1862 separated Grass Court from the test of meads. 
 The printing of the names was int»usted to a junior ; I was myself 
employed to print one of the rolls. 
 Sec below, p. 39. For the supposed a]lusion to P»efect of Sehool in 
v. 207 sec p. 141. 



cH., COLLEGE OFFICERS 19 

He is the only officer on whom no special duties were 
imposed by the 1Regulations of 1778, but the fact of 
his receiving fees from commoners suggests that he 
was brought into close contact with them. In the 
nineteenth century, so long as School was a sitting- 
room, he was responsible for reasonably good 
behaviour there out of school-hours ; he read prayers 
in School at the end of a school-day ; he was charged 
with the decent maintenance of "its Windows, the 
Cushions of Masters' Seats, the Window Curtains "; 
he paid (in 1814) for the mending of " the South 
Windows of the Hall " ; till gas superseded them, he 
was required to supply " Candles in the School-.1 
In spite of his fees we read that in 1814 " the expences 
of the School are so heavy, that the office is considered 
rather as a Burden than a Benefit ". 
The duties of the two Prefects of Chapel were in 
1647 what they are to-day : 
Nunc duo proefecti, quibus est hoec cura, sagaci 
Prospiciant pueros oeulo, ne forte loquantur, 
Ne propriis careant libris recitentve profanum, 
Ne sine concess venia sit quilibet absens (vv. 53-6).'-" 
It was required further by the 1Regulations of 17ï8 
"that the naine of every boy who shall appear in the 
Chapel without a surpliee at the appointed rimes of 
wearing them shall be earried to the Masters by one 
of the Prepositors of the Chapel"; in 1647 that 
duty was hot ineumbent on them. For on February 
17, 164, the Long Parliament ordered that the 
t From a MS. "Comrnon Place Book relating to College Concerns" corn- 
piled by Arehdeaeon Heatheote (Feliow 1804-29). The faet that Prefeet 
of Sehooi supplied eandles may partly explain why eommoners paid him fees. 
t We bave seen that there were two rnoderatores rempli at Eton in 1560 ; 
the saine offices were instituted at '*Vestrninster in that year. At Shrewsbury 
the Bailiffs' Ordinances in 157 require the scholars to go to their respective 
parish churches on Sundays and holy days ; the schoolrnasters "shall appoint 
veral rnonitors for every church, to note as well their absence as misbehaviour 
In any thing". 



140 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.n 
wearing of surplices " should not be pressed or 
imposed upon any Student or Graduatc whatsoever", 
and threc days later resolvcd " that thc Colleges of 
Winchester, Eton, and Westminster bc added and 
comprehended within thc ordcr . . . concerning the 
imposing upon young scholars thc wearing of sur- 
plices ,,.1 One of thc charges madc against Warden 
Harris (about 1645) was that " he hath preached 
against such as bave takcn away the surplicc", but 
the Warden answered that ignorant persons had 
misinterpreted his sermon; hc was not the man to 
dcfy Parliament. Wearing of surplices was again 
presscd and imposed upon scholars after the Restora- 
tion; a complaint was ruade by the New College 
Supcrvisors to the Bishop in 1661 that the Warden 
(Burt) had not punished a scholar who appeared 
without onc. The scholars wcre " whitc-robed " till 
1872, when Dr. Ridding, desiring that thcy and 
commoncrs, who had previously sat scparately, should 
sit togcther according to school-rank, felt that a sur- 
plice hcre and a surplice there wou]d bave an in- 
congruous effect.--Till vcry recently the Prefects of 
Chapcl werc of lcss account than the othcr officers; 
many Long Rolls which recognize these othcrs ignore 
thcm. - A tradition of some antiquity still imposes 
on the Prcfect of Chapcl " in course " the duties of 
Prefcct of Hall during the absence or illness of the 
latter ; it was in conformity with this tradition that 
Wardcn Barrer ruled in 1838 that " the office of 
Marshalling the Boys and holding Prcfect of Hall's 
stick, when namcs are callcd on, or on the road to or 
from Hills . . . is the duty of the Prefcct of Chapel 
in course ". Prefcct of Hall was occupicd in calling 
 Journals of the House of Commons, ii. pp. 969, 972. 
 See L.R.i.p. lix.--Writing just after the Election of 1770 John Bond 
relis his brother that "' Bingham is Pref : of the School as before ; Eyre of 
the Hall ; Lee of the Tub ". He does hot narae the prcfccts of Chapel. 



c.vn COLLEGE OFFICERS 141 

names ; a deputy Marshal and Stick- bearer was 
therefore needed. 1 
It is stated by some of out historians " that thcre 
was at one rime a " Prefect of Cloisters " ; the author 
of Vykehamica not only speaks of such an oflïcer, 
but gives so detailed an account of his duties as almost 
to persuade us that he existedY The bclief in his 
existence arose, I think, from a misunderstanding 
of a passage in Mathew's poem. Cloisters, xvhen used 
for lessons, required, says Mathew, as School required, 
a preïect 
promptus adire, 
Si star pro foribus pcrcgrinus et ostia pulsat (vv. 208-9). 
This does not mean that there was an oflïcer called 
Prefect of Cloisters ; it means that Cloisters requircd 
an ostiarius or door-keeper.  The Long Roll of 1653 
(which is the earliest we possess) knows the rive 
officers of whom I have spoken; but ncither it, nor 
any later roll, nor any other record which out historians 
have discovered, knoxvs a Prcfect of Cloisters. 

The appointment of College officers is ruade partly 
by selection, partly by school-rank. It bas generally, 
if not quite always, been recognized that the former 
should prevail in the appointment of a Prefect of 
Hall, though even in his case the latter is hot ignored. 
During the greater part of the nineteenth century 
school-rank was the chier, and often practically the 
only, factor in determining the other appointments. 
x ,, Whenever a toaster meets the boys . . . going or returning from 
Hills, or upon Hilis themselves, . . . names are called by the Proefect of Hall. 
Previously to calling names he delivers his stick to another College Proefect, 
who thereupon "marshails" the boys while the names are called, that is, keeps 
them in a compact body" (from a Word-book of about 1845). 
t Walcott, p. 229 ; Adams, pp. 57-8 ; W.W.B.p. -I,2. 
a Having to tind room for his Prefect of Cloisters among the rive oltlcers, 
Adams (p. 57) was driven to ignore Prefect of Schooi. 
 Sec the next chapter. 



142 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

For an earlier period the light thrown by Long Rolls 
on this question of constitutional practice is in- 
sufficient, for before 1757 it was only now and then 
that the titles of officers were added to boys' narnes, 
and (except in 1653) Prefects of Chapel were ignored 
till 1793. So far, however, as it goes, the evidence 
shows that sehool-rank had less to do with the appoint- 
ment of offieers in earlier than in later rimes. In the 
years between 1653 and 1812 for which the evidence 
is decisive the senior prefect was Prefect of Hall only 
2 times out of 58 ; if we include years for which the 
evidence is almost decisive, 1 he was Prefect of Hall 
52 timcs out of 12. Prefect of Tub, who came next 
in dignity, was senior or second-senior prefect only 
19 times out of 59; and when we consider his very 
peculiar functions--I can think of only one of my 
schoolfellows who would have been qualified to dis- 
charge them--we see that selection was in his case 
necessary, unless the office was to be an absolute farce. 
With regard to the other offices it was less imperative, 
but even to them school-rank gave no claire ; many 
Prefects of School and of Chapel stood as low as 
eighth on the list of College prefects, one Prefect of 
School stood ninth. 

x We may perhaps assume that the senior prefect in Sixth Chamber was 
Prefect of Hall even when the fact is not stated ; whenever we have a state- 
ment about the officers, Prefect of Hall is in that chamber. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BIBLE-CLERK AND OSTIARIUS 

BESIDES the rive permanent " College Ofiîcers " two 
othcr oflîcials, drawn from the prcfects in full power, 
were in full activity some sixty years since; they 
were known as Bible-Clerk and Ostiarius, and they 
went into course for a week and for a day respect- 
ively. Their more laborious duties were connected 
with School. Provided with oflîcial " scobs " there 
near the door, 1 they jointly kept order among the 
boys who wcre, or should bave bcen, prcparing their 
lessons or composing thcir tasks ; kcpt it, if nccessary, 
with the hclp of ground-ashcs ; madc incursions from 
timc to rime into Meads and elsewherc, and swept 
loitcrcrs and loafcrs into School; assistcd the Hcad 
and Second 3Iastcrs at " biblings " ; ruade thcmsclvcs 
generally uscful to the Masters gcncrally. Each of 
them had also certain spccial functions. It was the 
duty of the Ostiarius, as his namc implics, to kcep 
the door; to answer the knocks of messengcrs; to 
let no " infcrior " go out of School who had hot both 
obtained his leave and " put up a roll " at the Master's 

a ,, When I first went to Winchester ", wrote a Wykehamist who was 
adraitted in 1839, " the two "iuniors in College ' had to give up their scobs 
to the two places where Bible-Clerk and Ostiaxius sat .... The thoughtful 
kindness of Charles Wordsworth provided two scobs to be appropriated to the 
two officiais ; and he supplied the two inscriptions, vî dol d«-t5o.rl7 and 
r. dal Ovpwp ". For du«/&a (" reader ", i.e. Bible-Clerk) see below, p. 146, 
143 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

feet. 1 It was the duty of the Bible-Clerk to read the 
lessons in Chapel; to submit various lists to the 
Masters ; to act in certain well-defined eireumstances 
as Prefect of Hall's deputy. * The offices were by no 
means sinecures ; but a prefeet was not sorry when 
his turn came tobe in course, for the two officiais 
were free of school-work for their week or day, and 
round some rime for what Mathew ealls their " own 
Muses " (v. 230). 
In the late fifties or early sixties Dr. Moberly 
seems to have thought that the compensation given 
was more than adequate to the funetions imposed; 
he suspended the office of Ostiarius, or rather merged 
it into that of Bible-Clerk, who thenceforth signed 
himself officially " X., B.C. et Ost : ". But in Short 
Hall, 1866, his last term at Winchester, he " restored 
the practice of having an Ostiarius for the day as well 
as a Bible-Clerk on account of the increasing number 
in Commoners ,,,3 and there vas still an Ostiarius 
as well as a Bible-Clerk in the earlier years of Dr. 
Ridding. When, however, in the autumn of 1869, 
the nev class-rooms came into use, and School ceased 
to be a general place for preparation, 4 the Ostiarius 
finally disappeared; but the Bible-Clerk, though 
relieved of his more onerous duties, continued to 
enjoy immunity ïrom school-work (or ïrom much of 
it) till 1885, when Dr. Fearon decided that it had 

x The roll contained the words : A. ostiarii venia potitus tuam pariter 
eeeundi petit. 
z Prefeet of Hall's deputy for most purposes was, and is, the Prefeet of 
Chapel in course [see above, p. 140).---Stature or judge-m3de law provided in 
old days for ail coneeivable emergencies. Thus it was ordained in 1853 tlmt 
"' the duty of taking the Inferiors on to/-Iills during the Assize ,Veek " [when 
Prefect of Hall would wish to avail himself of" Court Leave ") "devolved on 
the Ostiarius for the day". When that oliee was suspended, how was "the 
Ostiarius for the day " to be interpreted ? The point was submitted to the 
Second Master, whose well-eonsidered judgrnent was duly entered in Prefect 
of Hall's book. 
-* Prefect of Hall' book. « Sec below, p. 232. 



¢., BIBLE-CLERK AND OSTIARIUS 145 

eeased to be reasonable that he should " have his 
week for his own Muses ", and praetieally abolished 
the oflîee. 

Lessons at non-choral services are to be read by the Bible- 
Clerk for the week, whose other duties are abolished, exeept 
that he assist at bibling ; the ofiïee of Bible-Clerk also to be 
undertaken by the Sehool Prefeets in their order in Short 
Roll.X 

Sehool Prefects still read the lessons in their order, 
but the assistance mentioned is, I understand, no 
longer required. 

My aecount of the duties, in their last years, 
of two now obsolete officials may seem to have bcen 
unneeessarily detailed, but many of the details whieh 
I have mentioned are of historieal interest; Bible- 
Clerk and O«tiarius (hot neeessarily under those 
names) date from very early rimes, Bible-Clerk 
eertainly, Ostiarius very possibly, from the foundation 
of the College. 
The oflïee of Bible-Clerk, though no naine is there 
given him, was instituted by the Statures, whieh 
provided that one of the seholars should be " deputed" 
by the Master to read " something of sacred scripture " 
in Hall (Rubrie XIV.). This, his original funetion, 
he may, as I shall show elsewhere, 2 have eontinued 
to diseharge till after 1790. Whether he was ealled 
Bible-Clerk from the first is doubtful ; the word does 
hot oeeur, where we should expeet to find it, in 
Chiehele's Statures for All Souls. 3 An interesting 
entry in the Court Minutes and Records of Christ's 
Hospital 4 refers to " the Bible-Clerk, whieh is ment 
 Prefect of Hall's book. By the last clause of the entry commoners were 
for the first time admitted to the oce. 
t See below, p. 189. a Grant Robertson, Ail Souls College, p. 19. 
« Quoted in W.W.B.p. 7. 
L 



146 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
the ehild that shall be the reaer of the ehapters ", but 
its date is 1574. We find the Greek equivalent of 
the name in one of Johnson's Themes 1 (c. 1565): 
Recitationes quoe prandiis institutoe sunt a Groeeis 
appellantur fil, a»o««ç, unde lectores àa,,/ôerTat nomi- 
nantur; Johnson proeeeds to give the Winehester 
readers some excellent adviee whieh in more than 
one way throws light on Wykehamieal history3 An 
allusion in the almost eontemporary Eton Consue- 
tudinarium shows that the Bible-Clerk, known as 
" Bibler " in the following eentury, had af Eton, 
as he probably had also at Winehester, certain fune- 
tions of an exeeutive kind ; on the feast of St. John 
before the Latin gare (May 6) the boys were allowed 
to go to sleep in Sehool after dinner till the Censor 
M uloe and the Anagnostes entered the room and 
shouted Surgite. 3 In Mathew's notice (1647) of the 
Biblio-clericus we find the first known use of the name 
in Wykehamieal literature; he relis us that the 
offieial so ealled read the Bible in Hall, signalled to 
the dominus when the meal was finished, and put 
away the table-linen, but he gives us no other elear 
information about his duties; Bible-Clerk, however, 
was surely one of the two ehildren (vv. 183-4) who 
were " duly summoned " to bare a culprit's baek for 
a Friday flogging.* Probably at the saine date he 
had other duties, or the privilege whieh, as we have 
seen, he enjoyed till 1885-- 
hebdomadam propriis habet ille Camoenis (v. 230) 
would hardly have been earned. At Eton the two 
Sixth form prepostors, who, " if there is an exeeution, 
 Fol. 140 b. * Sec below, pp. 189, 548. 
a Etoniana, No. 5, p. 07.--In ear]y days at Vestminster there was "a 
desire to sleep in school ", and "' leave could be formally obtained to drop the 
head upon the desk". The "notion " for tlfis was "to dot " (Sargeatmt, 
p. 42). * Sec below, p. 327. 



c. vin BIBLE-CLERK AND OSTIARIUS 147 
superintend the details, handing the Head Master 
the birch ", " have the prîvilege of staying out of every 
school during their week of office ,,,1 as they had in 
166, when their other duties were by no means 
light. 2 It is not stated in Thomas James's account 
of Eton in that year that the Colleger Sixth form 
proepostor read the Bible in Hall; a passage quoted 
in the New En£1ish Dictionary shows that the pcrson 
who did that in 1650 was the " Bibler ". When the 
Winchester Bible-Clerk began to read the lessons in 
Chai)el I do not know; the following passage, quoted 
in the Winchester Word-Book, suggests that he may 
have donc so from the very first : 
Secunda feria hoc modo tabula disponitur. In primis 
scribitur puer hebdomadarius ad primam lcctioncm lcgcndam. 3 
The Statures are silcnt, or alrnost silent, about 
happenings in School, and they contain no mention 
of the Ostiarius, but such an official was to be found 
in other schools before our Founder's rime; it was 
ordained at St. Albans in 1309 " that the hostiarius 
or sub-hostiarius shall always sit by the door, and 
shall not allow two or three scholars to go out at the 
same rime and togethcr, except for lawïul and ncces- 
sary cause "  Winchester records tcll us nothing 
of an Ostiarius till c. 1565, whcn Johnson dcvotes one 
of his Themes (fol. ]152} to that official. Should he, 
Johnson asks, be called ostiarius from the nature of 
his duties, or diarius from his term of office ? His 
 Wasey Sterry, Annals o.f Eton College (1898), pp. 80-1.--The privilegc 
may bave been discontinued since Mr. Sterry wrote. 
 Etoniana, No. 7, p. 101.  Ordinal, Vells Cathedral, c. 1220. 
t E.C.p. 242 ; the paragraph preceding that from which I have quoted 
is also important.--For the Winchester distinction between llostiarius and 
Ostiarius, see above, p. 65 ; when one or othcr of these words is used in carly 
documents elsewhere it is not always easy to deterrnine whether what we 
should call an usher, or a boy, is meant. The IIosliarius by whom the Master 
summoned d¢linquents to appear before him at Canterbury in 1311 is ca]led 
"his Usher" by Mr. Leaoh (op. cit. p. 256). 



148 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. 

principal duty, it appears, vas to keep things quiet 
in school, maxime ante ostium inter exeuntes et ineuntes. 
There follows a passage of some interest : si contentio 
sit de symbolo ipse litem comprinat ; alio divertentes 
aut diutius cure symbolo manentes deferat. Instead of 
establishing your right to go out of School by "putting 
up a roll ", you obtained from the Ostiarius a token, 
disputes about wlfich he had to settle. What was 
this token .9 The Eton Consuetudinarium supplies 
an ansver. Ante septimam (horam), it tells us, 
nemini . . . conceditur eoeeundi potestas ; sed ne tunc 
quidem pluribus quam tribus semel, idque cum fuste 
quem in hunc usun habent, egredi est permissum. 1 
The rod, like that of the engine-driver on some single 
lines of rails, gave you leave to put yourself in motion. 
--A writer of hexameters eannot naine the Ostiarius, 
but Mathev alludes to him in an interesting passage 
of whieh I spoke in the last ehapter.  
Bible-Clerk and Ostiarius, in the eighteenth eentury 
as in the nineteenth, aeted together in the diseharge 
of their main duties. Thus the Regulations of 1778 
ordered-- 

That the Bible clerk and ostiarius shall be answerable for 
all offences comnfitted in the School Court on school-days .... 
The Bible clerk and ostiarius are likewise to see that the 
boys constantly return to sehool at one o'cloek, whieh is the 
stated hour in the afternoon on a sehool day ; and that they 
do not loiter elsewhere. 
That no boy presume to go into the College garden. For 
any offence of this kind comnfitted on school days, and within 
school hours, the Bible clerk and ostiarius are responsible.  

There vere many rules, some of them ruade by the 
Masters, others by the boys themselves, relating to the 
order in which the prefects in full power should enter 

x Sec a letter of Mr. J. S. Cotton to The IFy'kehamisl, August 1899. 
 Sec above, p. 141.  Annals, pp. 411-12. 



. , BIBLE-CLERK AND OSTIARIUS 149 

upon their weekly or their daily course; such rules 
may be found scribbled in the copy of the Statutes to 
which the boys formerly had access, or duly recorded 
in Prefect of Hall's book. One of these entries shoxvs 
how great a man Prefect of Hall xvas, for he might 
take his week or day when it suited him ; the others 
are of little or no interest. 



CHAPTER IX 

CHAMBERS 

BOTI the New College and the Winchester Statutes 
eontain Rubries de Disposicione Camerarum. The 
Winehester Rubrie (XXXIV.) provides that the 
seholars shall be lodged in the ground-floor ehambers, 
and though it does not say how many sueh ehambers 
they were to oeeupy, we know that under Wykeham's 
arrangements the number was six. It was still six in 
Mathew's rime (v. 31), and it eontinued to be six till 
1701, when the old Sehool, minus what is now the 
passage, beeame Seventh Chamber; why fourteen 
years passed after the eompletion of the new Sehool 
before this happened we have no evidenee to show. 1 
After 1701 tbere were seven seholars' ehambers, ail on 
the ground floor, for more than a eentury and a half; 
it was not till 1868 or 1869 that the Warden and 
Fellows, to provide accommodation for a first instal- 
ment of additional seholars, * eonverted an upstairs 
room, on the eastern side of Chamber Court, into 
Eighth. The new Governing Body was eonstituted 
in 1871, and soon afterwards the seheme of inerease 

 Mr. Leach (History, p. 362) "strongly suspects " that the old School was 
used during the interva/ to provide accommodation for commoners.--During 
the period of the transformation the language of the College accounts is tm- 
fortunately terse ; solutum X. pro opere ut per billam is a frequent entry. 
But the unusually large expenditure of £41 : ls. between 1699 and 1701 
pro plancis et opere ut per billam may bave been incurred in the new Seventh. 
 See above, p. 101. 
150 



.  CHAMBERS 151 

was abandoned ; in 1873 it was again, as it is still, 
the fact that pueros numerus septuagesimus arctat. 
The process, however, of appropriating additional 
rooms for the scholars, initiated for one purpose, was 
continued for another on which Dr. Ridding's mind 
was set. It was determined that, as opportunity 
offered, their sitting-rooms and bedrooms should be 
made distinct. Much accommodation upstairs was 
allotted by the Statutes to Wykeham's residcnt 
Fellows ; and the non-resident Fellows still made use 
of it in the sixties when summoned to college meetings. 
As their number and their functions i dwindled, their 
visits became rare; the superiores camerve wcre 
available for Dr. Ridding's purpose. They became 
scholars' dormitories; and since 1903, when after 
the death of Warden Lee the last of them 2 was set 
free, all the scholars have slept upstairs. Four of the 
inferiores cameroe are now sitting-rooms pure and 
simple ; the last trace of their having once becn bed- 
rooms as well disappeared in 1911 with the removal-- 
it is to be hoped that the removal will not mean the 
destruction--of that vencrable relic, Prefect of Hall's 
bed. A fifth sitting-room was added in 1906 by the 
conversion to that purpose of an unoccupied space 
behind Sixth, which, or a part of which, was in 
Mathew's time the quiristers' chamber. 3 It is some- 
what remote from Chamber Court; and in thc 
absence, wrote Prefect of Hall, of a convenicnt number 
"the self-evident notion of Thule was adopted for it" 
Another excellent, if not self-evident, " notion " was 
i Under the Public Schools Act of 1868 the Fellows of the old régi»se 
shared ecclesiastical patronage with the new Governing Body. Notice was 
accordingly sent to them of meetings at which such patronage was to be 
exercised, but I understand that they rarely if ever attended them. 
 Exclusive of course of those chambers which now form part of the Second 
llaster's house. 
 Before its re-conversion into a chamber it had been divided into a 
manciple's room and a wood-store. 



152 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
adopted when the room above Third, which tradition 
or Mr. Kirby asserted that Bishop Ken had occupied 
as Fellow, was styled " Ken". The original six 
chambers appear to have been always known by 
numbers only ; our twentieth - ccntury " Ken " and 
" Thulc " rccall thc fact that at New College, as at 
King's, the scholars' chambers " were distinguished 
originally by propcr names " 1 
So much for the number and the position of the 
chambcrs. More important is the in]unction, in the 
Rubric conccrning thcir " disposition ", that in each 
chamber there shall be placed at least three older 
boys to superintend the studies and watch the 
behaviour of their fellows. 2 It is probable that the 
number of these " proepositors " was fixed from the 
first at Wykeham's minimum, and that iii the fifteenth 
century as in the seventeenth-- 
Proefecti octodecim seniores rite vocantur (v. 19) ; 
Proefecti camera tres preponuntur in una (v. 
When a Seventh Chamber was added in 1701, it 
became necessary either to increase their number to 
twenty-one, or to place less than three of them in 
some of the chambers. 3 The former course would 
have been in stricter accordance with the Rubric, but 
the latter was adopted. The Long Roll of 1701 gives 
x Cockerell (p. 27) gives the narnes of the downstairs charnbers at New 
College : the Chamber of Three, the Vine, the Baptist's Head, the Serpent's 
Head, the Crane's Dart, the Conduit, the Vale, the Christopher, etc. Willis 
and Clark, who (rnisinterpreting Cockerell) say that the "Winchester chambers 
had these narnes, give the narnes of charnbers at King's : Lyons Inn, Taylors 
Inn, the Tolebothe, Horsekepers Inn, Colliers Inn, Barbers Inn, Coblers Inn, 
BIockhowse, etc. (Architectural Hislory of the University of Cambridge, i. 
p. 331). 
2 See above, p. 112. 
a Both the rule, three prefects to a charnber, and the limitation of the 
number of prefects to eighteen, had been sometimes disregarded before 1701, 
if the evidence of Long Rolls rnay be trusted. In 1677 four prefects are 
assigned to Sixth, two to First ; in 1688 four to Fourth, two to Fifth. In 
1693 and in 1698 there were. apparently, nineteen prefects. 



cH. x CHAMBERS 153 

three prefects each to First, Second, Fifth, and Sixth, 
two each to Third, Fourth, and Seventh--an odd 
arrangement, for Third and Seventh are the largest 
rooms and lodged the largest number of boys ; but it 
was still maintained in 1721. Ultimately a rough 
proportion was established between the number of 
prefects and the number of inferiors in a chamber; 
for many years belote 1869 there were three prefccts 
in Second, Third, Sixth, and Seventh ; two in First, 
Fourth, and Fifth. 
It was an established custom in the sixties that 
particular chambers should be in the charge of parti- 
cular College officers; thus Prefect of Library was 
always in Fifth, Prefcct of Hall in Sixth, Prcfect of 
School in Sevcnth; I remember being taught that 
this last conncction between officer and chambcr was 
due to Seventh having formerly been School, and that 
it had never been broken since Seventh first became a 
chamber. With one exception, however, such con- 
ncctions were quite recent ; that of Prefcct of School 
with Seventh, for instance, though seemingly sup- 
ported by the fact that fully three-fouloEhs of thc 
"marbles " 1 stated to be those of holdcrs of that 
office are to be round in that chamber, was not the 
rule but the rare exception in the second half of the 
eighteenth century. 2 The only long-standing conncc- 
tion of the kind is that which the motto 
$«l«, placed in Sixth by Charles Wordsworth, scrvcs 
to commemorate. Prefect of Hall was in Sixth in 
1653, the year of Mr. Holgate's earliest Long Roll, 
 Siabs set into the walls of ehambers, reeording the names and dates of 
individual Wykehamists. 
* The Long Rolls of the earlier part of the eighteenth eentury do hot 
enable us to trace the eonnection of offieers with ehambers ; but during the 
f0rty-four years from 1757 to 1800 inclusive (for whieh out information is 
e0mplete) Prefeet of Schooi was only in Seventh twieeless often than in any 
0ther eharnber. In rive years, by a strange arrangement, he was with Prefeet 
of Itail in SixoEh, and therefore hot even the senior prefeet in his ehamber. 



154, ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
and he was still in Sixth in 1672, the only other year 
before 1757 which marks a Prefect of Hall as such. 
Between 1772 and 1803 it was the invariable custom 
that this officer should put his marble, if he put it 
anywhere, in Seventh; 1 but the evidence for his 
occupation of Sixth is continuous from 1757 fo 1914. 
A regulation of the Warden and Fellows, ruade in 
1778, gives a reason for his being there. It orders 
" that the Proepositor of the Hall do on school days, 
and in school hours, keep the Court clear of the boys, 
and send them into school ; as he is placed in Sixth 
Chamber for that purpose ,,.2 Sixth commands an 
excellent view into Seventh Chamber Passage, but 
Chamber Court may be much more conveniently 
watched from First or Second or Fourth or Fifth. 
The last words of the regulation, therefore, are not 
convincing. 3 
" The principal difference ", says Sir H. Maxwell 
Lyre, " between the arrangements of Winehester, and 
those of Eton, consisted in the number of dormitories 
provided for the scholars. At the former place there 
were six, while at the latter there was but one, the 
Long Chamber".4 Etonians will agree with Wyke- 
hamists that the Winchester arrangement was the 
better. » When chambers were both dormitories and 

 That useful little book, lnscriptiones Wiccamicae (1885), notes 69 marbles 
of Aulo Proefecti ; the earliest is dated 1760. Between 1772 and 1803 such 
rnarbles (as stated above) were placed in Seventh only ; between 1804 and 
1817 they were placed in Seventh usually, but sometimes in Sixth ; between 
1818 and 1885 only one such marble was placed in Seventh, and that for an 
obvious famiIy reason. Of the 69 rnarbles 37 are in Seventh and 27 in Sixth. 
a Annals, p. 412. 
 A sinister indication ofthe pre-eminence of Sixth was that it was the scene 
of floggings for the gravest offences--" Sixth Chamber Biblers" or "Sixth 
Charnberings ". 
 M. L. p. 140. 
 See above, p. 99.--1Ir. Lcaeh bas proved that the original arrangement 
at Eton was the saine as at Winchester (see above, p. 134), and bas given good 
reason for supposing that Long Chamber was at first "' considered an im- 
provement" (V. H. Bucks, il. p. 173). 



6. L CHAMBERS 155 

"toy - rooms" 1 it created "small compact groups" 
which under favourable circumstances were a strength 
to the whole community. But the groups were not 
only small and compact; the special feature of the 
Winchester arrangement, as Dean Wickham said, was 
"the careful provision that among the ' inferiors ' in 
a chamber every grade of standing should be repre- 
sented-.2 One old Wykehamist had so profound a 
belief in this system of small compact and carefully 
graded groups that when building a boarding-house in 
1868 he determined that the social lire of lais pupils 
should be based upon it. 3 The Culver House arrange- 
ments of Dr. Fearon were indeed more truly Wyke- 
hamical than those of College itself as Dr. Fearon 
knew them. For the members of each of Wykeham's 
groups spent not only the evening and the night, but 
much of the day also, as socii concamerales, and so did 
those of each of Dr. Fearon's; whereas, when Dr. 
Fearon was in College, chambers were closed from six 
o'clock A.M. till six o'clock P.M., and School was the 
common sitting-room of the whole society. 
The importance of chambers in the lire of the 
scholars has been so great that it may be worth while 
to speak in some detail of the closure to which I have 
referred. The Founder, Charles Wordsworth told 
College prefects, enjoined that seniors should watch 
over juniors in cameris; but that injunction, he 
argued, " was all-sufficient, because the chambers 
were then open, and used as places of private study, 
etc., during the day-.4 That chambers were so open 
and so used in early times is certain. It is implied 
in the language of the Statutes ; it is proved by a 
1 l.e. rooras used in a greater or less deoTee as day-rooms. 
 W.C.p. 99. 
 Sec a paper, sigaed W. A. F., on "The Opening of Culver House " in 
The Wykehamist for Match 1911. 
 Chrisfian Boyhood, i. p. 495. 



156 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.n 

provision in the earlier version of the Tabula Legum 
(In cubiculis . . . interdiu studetor) ; it is suggested 
by some lines in Mathew's poem, 1 and (as Words- 
worth pointed out) by more than one passage in 
Ken's Manual of Prayers (167¢). It is truc that in 
some of his exercises Christopher Johnson seems to 
speak (c. 1565) as if the use of chambers in the day- 
time was unlawful. He is annoyed, he says, by 
cessationes in cubiculis, ubi interdiu non morandum ; 
he lays down as a law for citizens of the Wykehamical 
republic, in cubiculis aut alio quovis loco non morantor ; 2 
he directs that boys qui cubiculum nisi legitime adeunt 
are to be "accused ,,.3 But his language implies that 
the cubicula, though not lawfully accessible at all 
hours, were accessible, and it is, I think, loafing 
instead of studying in chambers that he condemns. 
It seems, indeed, that Wordsworth ante-dated the 
closure which was in force when he held his second- 
mastership (1835- 5). He supposed, plausibly 
enough, that it dated from the opening of School in 
1687. But seventy years later 4 certain draft Regu- 
lations suggest that the Warden and Fellows were 
only then proposing to make chambers inaccessible at 
certain times ; and though they went very far in that 
direction in 1775, s they retraced their steps soon 
afterwards. For in 1778 not only was an order 
issucd which, while forbidding the scholars " to stand 
between Doors, or to loiter in the Courts, or to walk 
on the Sands, or sit on the Bench under the chapel 
wall ", required " that at proper times, and out of 
1 Sec below, p. 159.  Themes, fol. 194.  Ibid. fol. 152 b. 
4 The Regulations of I756, of which we have only a rough draft, forbade 
the boys (l) to go into chambers after early prayers or after Morning Hills or 
Morning School ; (2) to breakfast in chambers ; (3) to light rires there except 
at times appointed by the Schoolmaster or Usher ; but the most important 
clause relating to chambers is printed at the end of this chapter. 
 " That the chambers be Iock'd as they are clean'd, and ail the keys 
carried into yo School, or to yo Masters Lodgings who shall reside in College". 



. = CHAMBERS 157 

school hours, they be kept close to thcir chambcrs " 1 
--not only was that order issued in 1778, but on an 
April afternoon of the saine year a bad case of bully- 
ing oeeurred in Fourth, when (as the vietim's father 
said that his son told him) some of the boys "were 
learning their Books-ehambers-.2 I suggest that the 
elosure, at any rate the eomplete elosure, of ehambers 
during the daytime was put in force, possibly in 
eonsequenee of some later incident of the saine kind, 
between 1778 and 1798. 3 For between 1789 and 1798 
the Tabula Legutn was revised, 4 and in the rule for 
ehambers, interdiu studetor, vespere was substituted 
for interdiu. 
Of life in ehambers, whieh, as lived in the first 
half of the nineteenth eentury, has been pleasantly 
deseribed by Dean Wiekham, Mr. Tuekwell, and 
other writers, Mathew gives a rather austere pieture 
(vv. 84-44; 268-75). Between 5 and 5.30 in the 
morning the " ehildren " put on their elothes, eombed 
their hair, washed their hands and faces, swept their 
ehambers, ruade their beds, sang their psalm, and 
said their prayers. With respect to the prayers, Ken 
advised them a few years later to say them in Chapel 
during that saine half-hour (" between first and 
second peal " ; sec vv. 84-6, 45), so that they might 
"avoid the interruptions of the eommon ehamber ", 
whieh must have been incessant. The sweeping and 
bed-making, whieh were also required of the seholars 
at Eton and af Westminster, 5 are enjoined in the 

i Annals, p. 411. z Ibid. pp. 405-8. 
a Since writing the above sentences I find it recorded that it was ordcred in 
January 1799 that School should be lighted (at ruinous cost to Prefect of 
Sehool) from 4 to 6 on Remedies. This means that it was from that date that 
afternoon "' Books-chambers" began to be held, not in chambers, but in 
Sehool.  See below, p. 237. 
 The Consuetudinarium of 1560 shows this for Eton (Etoniana, No. 5, 
p. 69) ; at Westminster the duties are prescribed by the Statutes of the saine 
year (E.C.p. 506). On August 7, 1646 (when Mathew was a boy at Win- 



158 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

earlier Tabula : Solum cubiculorum verritor ; sternuntor 
leetuli. Some perfunetory sweeping was one of the 
multifarious duties of a junior in n W own sehool-days ; 
but " from the servile and foui oflîee of making their 
own beds and keeping their ehambers elean " the boys 
are said to have been relieved, at the instance of 
Bishop Trelavny, in 1708.1 Trelawny advised the 
appointment of " bed-makers " ; and the quarterly 
payment of a shilling fo " Ye bedmaker " is ineluded 
in a list of " fees ïrom a ehild " dravn up by Warden 
Nieholas in 1711. 2 There were bed-makers in College 
in 1756, a so that, vhen in 1775 an Order (not quoted 
in Annals) vas made " that two able Men be ap- 
pointed to make the Beds, elean the Cbambers, and 
black the Shoes of ail the Boys ", this does hot mean 
that no bed-makers had been appointed before;  
perhaps the blaeking of the shoes was a new require- 
ment to vhieh the existing bed-makers did not feel 
equal. Hands and faces vere vashed, not in ehambers, 
but at the Aquoeduetus  (so the accounts of 166-7 
call it) in Chamber Court, just as at Eton they were 
washed at " the children's pump ,,.« The innovations 
Warden Huntingford would have condemned them 
by that name 7--of laying on water in chambers and 
providing a washing-room (" Moab ") for use in the 

chester), the Eton Provost (Rous) ordained, as a rule " for the Seho]]ers", 
"' that they rise in the Long Charnber at rive of the elocke in the morning, and, 
after a psalme sung and prayers used, sweepe the Chamber, as they were 
formerly wont to doe " (M. L. p. 236). 
x Trelawny's letter to the 'arden and Fellows, dated September 16, 1708, 
is given in Walcott, p. 197. 
2 Armais, p. 383. a Sec the note at the end of this ehapter. 
 Commenting on Trelawny's letter the Public School Commissioners said 
in their Report (1864} : " 'e gather however that no bedmakers were in 
faet appointed till late]y. The Choristers were previously ruade to perform 
the office" (i. p. 138). The Cornmissioners' informant was Warden Godfrey 
Lee (P.S.C.p. 365), who was clearly raistaken. 
 Mathew calls it ductus aqu (v. 284). 
« M. L. p. 140. 7 Sec below, p. 230. 



cH. rx CHAMBERS 159 

daytime were early improvements of Warden Barrer's, 
made in 1887-9 ; when a deputation of Eton collegers 
asked for like eonveniences about 1888, " it was dis- 
missed " (in Huntingfordian style) " with the rebuff, 
' You will be wanting gas and Turkey earpets next' " 1 
Aïter sending off the ehildren to Chapel at 5.30 
Mathew does hot speak of ehambers again till he 
describes the occupations of the evening; but he 
implies that they were used for study in the interval, 
for, having brought the boys down from breakfast 
soon aïter nine he proceeds : 

Rursus ad undecimam pueros schola convocat horam ; 
Interea studiis incumbimus (vv. 221-2) ; 

and where could they do that, if not in chambers ?-- 
After supper itur ab aula ad cameras (v. 268); the 
boys had some further refreshment (merenda) "- a 
little later, studied (probably) for an hour, sang an 
evening psalm at eight, went to chapel, hurried back to 
chambers, slipped into bed ; a prefect read a chapter, 
and all was still. 

Et lecto capite in lecto sibi quisque quiescit (v. 275). 

Wordsworth printed recto capite, missing the mean- 
ing and the word-play; both the manuscripts have 
lecto capite, and the practice of reading a chapter 
of the Bible at night, alike in the poet's rime and 
afterwards, is well attested. Warden Harris spoke of 
it in 1645 --" after they are in bed ", he said, "a 
chapter of the Bible is read by the Prepositor in every 
chamber"; 4 Ken briefly alluded to it in 1674; s 
the Warden and Fellows admonished the proepositors 
in 1756 to be " punctual " in observing it, and they 
i M. L. p. 448.  Sec below, p. 198. 
s For the date see below, p. 250. s Annals, p. 339. 
 Ken's Manual of Prayers, p. 17. 



160 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

repeated the admonition in 1778.1 The Latin psalms 
which Mathew and his contemporaries sang both 
morning and evening were compiled by Hugh Robin- 
son  (Head Master 1613-26), but Latin psalms were 
doubtless sung in chambers, in the morning at any 
rate, as at Eton and Westminster, a before Robinson's 
headmastership. A document of 1539-0 shows that 
at one rime the morning devotions in chambers 
must have been most exacting. It recites that an 
old Wykehamist, William Fleshmonger, Dean of 
Chichester, had lately panelled Hall, floored chambers, 
provided oak bedsteads, given capoe alboe for use in 
Chapcl ; and it declares that in commemoration of 
these benefactions the children will every day for 
ever, at second peal in the morning--the Latin psalm 
was sung at first peal--, form themselves into two 
distinct rows (in duos ordines distinctos)  and sing 
De profundis in alternate verses, adding a prayer for 
the repose of the souls of Fleshmonger and his parents. 5 
The mention of Fleshmonger brings us to the 
subject of the furnishing of chambers. Mr. Kirby 
tells us that sixty-four oak bedsteads, costing a shilling 
cach, " were ordcred at the opening of the College" ; 
he adds that " they seem to have been mere trays to 
hold the strav on which the scholars lay "2 Walcott, 
who knew nothing of these bedsteads, says that "the 
beds in chambers vere ruade of strav bundles, even 
in the sixteenth century ". It is probable that the 

 .4nnals, p. 411. 
2 Wordsworth (pp. 42-6) prints these psalms in full and gives interesting 
proof that they were still used in the rime of Dr. Warton. 
 See below, pp. 168-9. 
« Note Mathew's phrase (v. 41), in classera properan[. 
 The importance of Fleshmonger's benefactions is delightfully described 
in the document, wch I hope Mr. Ch]tty wi]i print. 
« Annals, p. 6. Not all the sixty-four bedsteads were intended, I imagine, 
for the seholars ; see Rubric .CXIV., and below, p. 162. 
 Valcott, p. 196. 



OE  CHAMBERS 161 

Wykehamical notion " clean straw " (for clean sheets) 
is part of the ïoundation on which these statements 
rest. Straw was undoubtedly used in the scholars' 
bedding even at a later tirne than Walcott mentions, 
but Mr. Leach has proved that as early as 1397-9, 
for Founder's kin at any rate, it was " rnerely the 
material sewn into the canvas to rnake a rnattress-.1 
The College provided fresh straw from rime to tirne 
at its own cost; thus in the accounts for 150-5 
there is an itern of xxd. pro i carectate (--cart load) 
straminis pro lectis puerorum, and in those for the 
fourth quarter of 166-7 (Mathew's last terrn at 
Winchester) there is one of 12s. pro bigata (a two- 
horse-cart load) straminis for the sarne purpose. 2 In 
the school-bill of John Hutton for his first term in 
College, ending Christrnas 1620, the following charges 
were ruade : 

For 5 ells and ½ of canvis 0 5 5 
For 30 lb. of flocks 0 15 0 
For a coverlid 0 10 0 
For a payre of blanquetts 0 11 0 
3 yeards of teike for a boulstcr 0 ¢ 0 
For making the bed, boulster, and blanquetts 0 1 2 3 

Hutton was the son of an archbishop ; less wealthy 
parents presumably had their sons' rnattresses rnade 
of the Collegc straw, and paid no sixpence a pound for 
"flocks".--Of Fleshmonger's oak bedsteads sorne 

t History, pp. 169-70. Mr. Leach's items show that the bedding of two 
br0thers, sons of T. Warrener, cost over £2, of which 2d. was for straw. 
A charge of Id. pro stramine ad lecture suum appcars in the expcnses of a 
kinsman of the founder at the Mcrton Coilcge Grammar School c. 1300 {E.C. 
p. 216).--Some interesting information on the use of straw as bedding will be 
f0und in Skeat's The Past al out Doors, p. 139.--The evidence of Eton strongly 
upporta Mr. Leaeh's opinion about the Winehester bedding ; see F.H. Bucks, 
il.p. 162. 
t A payment of 4d. " for strawe for the childrens beddes" at Cippenham 
during rime of plague is entered in the Eton kudit Book for 1563-4, (M. L. 
p. 169). 
z Waicott, p. 167. 
M 



162 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

were burnt in the tire of 1815; x the rest, with one 
exception,  have disappeared in the course of the 
past forty years. We are not informed how many 
bedsteads Fleshmonger gave, but there was hardly 
room in the six ehambers for as many as seventy, and 
items oeeur, in the aeeounts of Mathew's period, 
whieh prove that many of the ehildren then slept on 
truekle-beds : 3 

In 1646-7 : pro duobus funiculis pro lectis duobus Puero- 
rum trusatilibus, 0.3. 0. 
In 1647-8: pro lecto trusatili empto pro 1 ° [? cubiculo] 
Scholarium, 0.6.0. 
In the saine year : pro funiculo pro lecto in 1 ° Scholarium, 
0.1.4. 

Truckle-beds became unnecessary when Seventh 
Chamber vas opened in 1701; they probably dis- 
appeared in that year, and it may be eonjeetured that 
the legs of Fleshmonger's bedsteads were then or 
aïterwards eurtailed.--About the rest of the equipment 
of chambers the College documents reveal very little. 
The annual inventories take no aeeount of ehambers 
at all; the chests and the mysteriously named* 
"toys " (=bureaux) were the property of their 
successive holders till 1818-19, when the "purehase of 

t Armais, p. 425. For the tire in question (which Mr. Kirby misdates) sec 
below, p. 165. 
2 See above, p. 151. 
a There is a reference in 1543-4 to a "trokelbed " in the chamber of the 
Varden of New College ; his servant no doubt slept in it.--A truckle-bed or 
trundle-bed was "a low fiat bed on castors that could be pushed" (hence 
the naine lectus trusalilis) ' underneath a bedstead during the daytime and 
pulled.out again at night". At Vinchester it was pulled out by a cord (funi- 
culus). Servants, children, pupils (as at Winchester juniors) often slept in 
truckle-beds. Skeat (Etymological Diclionary) quotes passages to prove that 
they were used at both Universities. The Statures of Magdalen provide 
that in each chamber sinl duo lecli principales et duo lecti rotales, lrockyl[beddts 
vulgariter nunnpali ; and a writer of 1606 refers to the time " when I was 
at Cambridge and slept in a trundle-bed under my tutor". 
« See, however, the W.W.B. 



c. r CHAMBERS 163 

the Toys and Chests in the chambers " cost the 
College £74 : Ss. 
Chambers were lighted in the evenings, less than 
fifty years ago, by tallow candles --a belated arrange- 
ment, surely. Dean Colet would not tolerate the use 
of tallow candles at St. Paul's in 1518. " In noo 
tyme in the yere ", he wrote, "they shall vse talought 
Candill in noo wyse but allonly wexcandill af the cost 
of theyre ffrendes". 2 The tallow candles of the 
sixteenth century were probably of very dubious 
composition. In the Bailiffs' Ordinances for Shrews- 
bury School (157) it is directed that " no candle shall 
be used in the said school for breeding diseases ", and 
the rule that school-time shall in winter end at .30 
is therefore qualified by the words " if daylight will 
serve thereunto ".--Throughout the night a tall candlc, 
placed in a broad iron candlestick set against the wall 
above the fireplace, gives a dira and flickering light in 
every Collcge chamber ; the candlestick is known as 
a "functure " (sometimes writtcn "functior ")--a 
word which puzzles etymologists. 3 The use of the 
functure-candle in the sixteenth century is proved by 
the following item in the accounts for 1557-8 : 
Item Johanni Dier 4 pro decem duodenis candelarum 
deliberatis [=" delivered "] cameris puerorum et choristarum 
xxs. Item eidem pro 25 duodenis ly wach-light deliberat. 
ad usure puerorum nocte ls. 
I shall note in the next chapter that its by-use for 
what was known till lately as a " scheme" secms 
i Each inferior had bis tallow candle; prefects were supplied witb 
composites. 
2 See some remarks on this provision in Lupton's Life of Dean Colet, p. 173. 
The Statutes of Guildford Scbool (1608), to which Mr. Lupton refers, prescribe 
the use of" clean waxen candles to keep light in the Schoo! during Winter " 
{Carlisle, ii. p. 567). 
3 See, however, W.W.B. pp. 23-4. 
« Mr. Chitty informs me that the firm of John Dyer and Son, Limited, 
was supplying functure-candles to the College in 1913. 



164 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 
to have bccn familiar to the Hcad Master about 
1565.1 
Itis satisfactory to lcarn from the accounts that 
in 1431 a mason was cmploycd to stop cracks in the 
chinancy of Fourth ; thc fact provcs, says Mr. Kirby, 
" that thc chimncys in thc scholars' chambcrs arc 
part of thc Foundcr's design and xvcrc not addcd 
aftcrwards".  Evcn thc Warden's principal room 
(" Elcction Chambcr ") had originally no fircplacc 3; 
the old School had none-- 
Nec schola nostra focum complectitur, attmen omnes 
Phoebeis rdiis halituque calescimus oris (vv. 107-8) ; 
and the identification in Rubric XXXIV. of a certain 
upstairs chamber as camera cure camino suggests that 
the other upstairs chambers had none either. The 
entry of 1431 permits the hope that the children, 
when they corne out of school in winter, warmed by 
the rays of Phcebus or chilled by their absence, may 
bave enjoyed an occasional " half-faggot ". There is 
no more cheerful blaze ; but the supply of faggots in 
3Iathev's rime must have fallen far short of the 
demand. In some minutes of meetings of the Warden 
and Fellovs I find that in 1765 " it was agreed to add 
Eight Guineas to the Children's present allowance, viz. 
£8.8s. 0d., for Faggots in their Chambers" ; and Mr. 
Kirby says that from moneys left by a former scholar, 
John Taylor, " faggots extraordinary " were provided 
after his death in 1777. 4 Even so this method of 
heating vas too intermittent; the Public School 
Commissioners, xvho seem to have seen a half-faggot 
burning, reported in 1864 that the allowance was 
" somewhat scanty ". Some old College men, who 
remember the cheerfulness and forger the scantiness, 
may regret that such a picture as Mr. Heywood 
t Sec below, p. 170.  .4nnals, p. 190. 
 Op. c/t. p. 35. « Op. c/t. p. 389.  Report, i. p. 138. 



. r CHAMBERS 165 

Sumner drew of a faggot-blaze in Seventh 1 is a 
picture of the past ; but the scholars showcd wisdom, 
perhaps, when ata referendum made about 1900 on 
the question " Coals or faggots .9 ,, they voted for 
coals. 
There were rires in Chambers in another and a less 
agreeable sense in 1737 and 1815. 2 Both of them 
put the College to expense, and that of 1815 did 
very serious damage. It broke out " in the Fellow's 
Lodgings over first and second chambers ", or, as The 
Hampshire Chronicle says, " in the Eastern wing of 
the quadrangle of St. Mary's College, near this city ", 
and at first " it threatened destruction to the whole 
of that venerable building". Warden Huntingford 
praised the soldiers who worked the fire-engine from 
the barracks and protected the furniture which was 
lying about in the Court, but he specially noted the 
heroism of "two or three Workmen, who ascended the 
roof from the Court, and literally through tire and 
water, sawed through the beams of the Roof, a little 
before the angle which connects the East and North 
sides of the Quadrangle, thus stopping the com- 
munication of the flames, and, under Providence, 
saving the test of the College".  The Hampshire 
Chronicle, with less discrimination, awarded the 
highest commendation to " the laudable activity " 
and " the unwearied exertions " of " persons of all 
descriptions " who helped in extinguishing the flames. 
Mr. Kirby, viewing the matter from a strictly bur- 
sarial standpoint, has expressed himself differently. 
"The College ", he says, "was invaded by a horde of 
a The Itchen l'alley, Plate XI. 
2 Mr. Kirby says, on Match 24, 173ï and on November 10, 1816 (Armais, 
pp. 394, 425). An '" original note" to a MS. poem of 1738, however, gives the 
year of the first tire as 1737 (The Wykehamist, Match 30. 1909) ; and Warden 
Huntingford (MS. Armais), The Harnpshire Chronicle, and Prefect of Hail's 
book, fix the date of the second tire as Friday, November 10, 1815. 
 From Huntingford's MS. Annals. 



166 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. 

hungry citizens .... No fewer than 257 people re- 
ceived small sums, amounting fo £42.6s., on the plea 
of having helped ,,.1 The tire broke out, says Hunting- 
ford, " at about four o'clock " in the morning, and it 
was not till " about 11 A.." that " the flames were 
got under ". They were, perhaps, at their fiercest 
when Prefeet of Hall ruade this entry in his book: 
" College was burnt November 10th, 1815 at 5  o'clock 
in the morning ". Things were not so bad as that; 
but the room above First suffered most severely; 
" first and second chambers were rendered unin- 
habitable "; the top story above them " was de- 
stroyed, the tire running along the Roof". In the 
subsequent rebuilding the picturesque gables and 
chimneys represented in old drawings z were replaeed 
by the unlovely line which so seriously mars the view 
of College from the Warden's garden. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER IX 

AMONG Orders issued, or proposed to be issued, "at a 
General Meeting of the Warden & Society " held in December 
1756 is the following : 
on Schoo! Days 
" 6) That  t- ge4ma)ae-r-s sha    
wJa, the Chamber Doors be kept Iocked; &   be 
v..-v' io t-he Se ", And, that the Proep. r of the School 
shall hag t-hem oee t-he  i sig-] of 
& at Breakfast-time, shall visit ail the Chambers & lock the 
afterwards deposit the 
Doors, if any be found open; & ] is hke..'.ue t-o  
keys with the Sehoolmaster 
.. ........ as i- t-ho orning " 

 4nnals, p. 9. 
 " 5 " was afterwards changed to "' 8 ". 
 E.g. in Loggan's famous pieture (1675) and in a drawing by S. H. Grimes 
(1777) reproduced in the Victoria llislory of Hampshire, vol. v. (facing p. 20). 



,. x CHAMBERS 167 

With respect to the appointment of bed-makers, of whom 
I have spoken on p. 158, itis notieeable that in the Register 
of Servants and others admitted and sworn from 1682 on- 
wards (see L.R. ii. pp. 336-42) the name of no bed-maker 
(ad slernendos Scholarium leclos Minister) appears before 1817, 
though the names even of Sub-Lioeae are recorded in 1776 
and 1798. 



CHAPTER X 

EARLY RISING 

AT thc fifth hour one of the precpositors of the chamber, 
who are four in number .... thunders forth Surgite. They 
all immediately get up together, and while dressing offer 
prayers, which each begins in turn ; the rest follow in alternate 
vcrses. Whcn the prayers are over they make their beds. 
Then each one sweeps out the dust beneath his own bed into 
the middle of the chamber .... Then they all go doxvn in 
a long line, two and two, to wash their hands. 
At the fifth hour one of the proepositors of the chamber, 
who arc four in number .... is to thunder forth Surgite. 
They are all to gct up immediately, and kneeling down to 
offcr their morning prayers, which each is to begin in turn; 
thc rcst are to follow in altcrnate verses .... When the 
praycrs are over thcy arc to make their beds. Then each 
one is to swecp out the dust beneath his own bed into the 
middle of the chamber .... Thon thcy are all to go down 
in a long line, two and two, to wash thcir hands. 
[At the fifth hour] " S«rgite, are you snoring ? " cries the 
prefcct; " Corne, the bcll is ringing; get up, get up, you 
sluggards!" Get up they must; they put on gowns and 
shoes and breeches, hurry into line, and whcn the bell stops 
ringing begin, half-dressed, to sing a Latin psalm. After- 
vards they must sweep out their chambers and comb their 
hair; make their beds and wash hands and face. 
You would say that these three extracts refer to 
the saine school and the same period; but that is 
not the case. The first describes the practice of 
168 



c. x EARLY RISING 169 
Eton in 1560; the second lays down rules to be 
observed at V¢estminster from 1560 onwards; the 
third is a quotation from Mathew's poem, and describes 
the practice of V¢inchester in 1647.1 Somcthing is 
said in an appendix about the documents from 
which the first two passages are taken, and in the 
chapter on Chambers details of the descriptions are 
discussed. At prescrit we are concerned only with 
the hour of getting up, which, we have seen, was rive 
o'elock at Winchester in 167.  
What was it in the Founder's time? For ordinary 
week-days the Statures do not help us to an answer, 
but they required that on Sundays and holy-days the 
boys should attend martins, from which on other 
days they were excused. The regular rime for 
martins was between four and rive, but the festivitas 
of particular days, or otber reasonable cause, per- 
mitted the Warden or the Saerist 3 to fix them on 
such days for an earlier or a later hour.  It would be 
unduly optimistic to suppose that the tender age of 
many of the seholars seemed a reasonable cause for 
putting martins late, even on the most festive days; 
at Eton in 1560 bedtime on Christmas Day was 
seven o'clock for the delightfully conservative reason 
that in former tiïnes the ehildren had bêen required 
to fise for martins between three and four. 5 We have 
the elearest evidence from Christopber Johnson that 
t Etoniana, No. 5, p. 69 ; E.C.p. 506 ; Mathew, w. 84-44. 
 Certain "IRules for the Schollers" at Eton, dated August 7, 1646, show 
that the hour of rising was then what it had been at Eton in 1560 and what it 
was at Winchester in 1647. Sec the passage quoted from these rules in 
note 5 to p. 157. 
* The annual office of Sacrist, instituted by Wykeham, was held by one 
of the Fellows ; the stipend was 13s. 4d. This official continued to exist 
in the nineteenth century ; in a book of Resolutions of the Warden and 
Fellows Mr. Rashleigh added " Sacrist " to his signature in 1840 and in 
1846. 
 Statim a septinta itur cubitum, quia surgendum erat quondam puer/s, inter 
tertiam et quartarn, ad preces »tatutinas {Etoniana, No. 5, p. 69 ; sec also p. 67). 



172 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 
Even in 1810 the Warden and Fellows told the 
Informator and Hostiarius that they really must go 
to morning ehapel. The growth of numbers, they 
insisted, ruade their presenee neeessary " fo prevent 
improprieties ", and they again employed the rather 
eoarse argument from wages : " if more Attendanee 
is needed" than of old, "the Emoluments are 
greater -.1 
To return to the boys : both in 1560 and in 1647 
they rose (or should have risen) at rive, and went to 
Chapel at 5.30. When, therefore, Archbishop Ban- 
eroft urged upon the Fellows in 1608 that " for the 
weeke of their course " they should " be every day 
present at morning prayer at six of the eloek, soe to 
give good example and eneouragement unto others 
for frequenting the same ", he should, apparently, 
have said " 5.30 " instead of " six ". Chapel was 
till quite reeent rimes the boys' first engagement; 
getting up at rive meant ehapel at 5.30 ; and we have 
positive evidenee that the boys did get up, or should 
bave got up, at rive all the year round till the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, when the humane Bishop 
Trelawny " substituted 6 A.I. for 5 A... as the hour 
of rising during the winter half year ,,.3 At some 
later date the traditional rive o'clock of the unwintry 
months was changed to 5.30; in September 1807 a 
newly admitted commoner told his mother that "we 
get up at half past rive, and go to chapel at six ",* and 
these were still the appointed summer hours in Robert 
Lowe's sehool-days ; boys had to be " down ", he tells 
us, in summer at six, and in winter at 6.45. » Prefect 
i ,, This requirement ", they added, " is no Innovation. It is only reverting 
to the system previous to 1766". 
"- Annals, p. 806.  Plumptre, Lire of Ken, p. 86. 
« From a let-ter quoted by Mr. Hoigate in an article on "' Amoid at Win- 
chester '" (The Wy'kehamist, July 80, 1895). 
* Patchett Martin, Lire of Lord Sherbroo'ke, i. p. 8. 



«,  EARLY RISING 173 
of Hall's book tells us that during " Short Half Year, 
187 " chapel was postponed till seven, but the 
indulgence was exceptional; Lowe's account held 
good till 1862. " Till the present hall year", said 
Dr. Moberly in May of that year, " the rule has been 
to meet in chapel at six bctween Lady Day and 
Michaclmas, and at 6.¢5 during the rest of the year. 
In this half year we have shifted the time to seven 
and 7.30, and I think it probable that we may continue 
this or some such arrangement of hours -.1 In 1867 
Dr. Ridding postponed chapel till after morning 
school; but, subject to the qualification which that 
alteration requires, Dr. Mobcrly's prol»hecy has bccn 
fulfilled; seven (in the most wintry part of winter 
7.30) continues to be the hour of first assembling. 
Dr. Moberly gave a further indication in 1862 of 
the softening of opinion to which his reform of that 
year bears witness. With chapel postponed till seven 
in summer and 7.30 in winter, he still fclt doubtful 
whethcr, when Mr. Du Boulay's house was built-- 
it is "a quarter of a mlle off "--, he would bc able to 
get its members to thc morning service. " We have 
hot", he said, " given up all hope; but at prescnt " 
(meaning, while they were temporarily housed in 
Cheesehill Street) "they do not corne ". Some hardy 
veterans declare that too many of thc changes of the 
past fifty years at Winchester have been of the 
softening sort ; it should reassure thcm to know that 
successive generations at Southgate Hill have made 
light of the quarter of a mlle, and have appeared at 
«arly chapel and early school like other people. 
i P.,ç.C.p. 359.  Ibid. p. 341. 



CHAPTER XI 

BREAKFAST 

THE hour of the scholars' breakfast (ientaendum) in 
1647 was nine o'elock on sehool-days; on remedies 
it must bave been still later, for at nine they were 
only just leaving the top of Hills, where they had 
gone directly after chapel (w. 213, 16). Even on 
school-days the bell of summons must have been as 
eagerly awaited as the " soft and silvery sound--I 
know it well--" of the bêll which meant "beef and 
beer" to Calverley. 
Hoe bene cognotum per tintinnabula tempus (v. 214) ; 

for the boys had left their beds four hours before it 
rang. It is diffieult to believe, but it is true, that 
this long (or even a longer) period of fasting was 
endured fill far into the nineteenth century; in Dr. 
Moberly's sehool-days (1816-22) the seholars got up 
at 5.30 and rarely had breakfast till ten, 1 and we have 
evidence for the saine hours in Commoners as late as 
1825-9. 2 Breakfast-time was put earlier soon after- 
wards, and in 1897 i was fixed, for the College boys, 
at eight on sehool-days and 8.80 on remedies and 
holidays ; but it was hot till getting-up-time was put 
later in 1862 that the interval between them ceased 

l D.D.p. 21. 
2 Patchett Martin, Lire of Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 8. 
174 



ca. = BREAKFAST 175 
fo be unreasonably long. In days when breakfast 
was non-existent, or was a luxury, there was a Norrnan 
or Saxon rule, " Rise at rive, dine at nine",' which 
seems hard doctrine; but the Winchester rule of 
1647, "Rise at rive, breakfast at nine or later ", seerns 
barder doctrine still, especially when we learn what 
the Winchester breakfast was. It was just bread and 
beer (v. 218), so that when twelve o'clock carne the 
boys brought " barking stornachs " to their dinner 
(v. 238). When the bread and beer, supplied by the 
"bread hurler " and " beer hurler ", had been con- 
sumed, " Down ", cried Prefect of Hall, as he did in 
my rime after tea, and down the boys went without 
delay (w. 218-20). An Oxford don of thc cighteenth 
century fulrninated against " Jentacular Conïabula- 
tions"--a consequence, so he declared, of " the 
fashionable vice " of drinking tea and coffee;  but 
Wykeham had graver objections to lingering over 
meals; it led, in his judgment, " to scurrilities and 
evil-speaking, and, what is worse, to detractions and 
strife " 3 
The word ientaculum--the Bursars usually wrote 
jantaclum--appears very often in the College accounts 
of the fifteenth century. A breakfast was given to 
Waynflete, then Provost of Eton, in 1-43, and 
another to many distinguished guests on his enthrone- 
ment as Bishop of Winchester in 14. 4 The 
hospitality offered on such occasions was hot always 
disinterested. In 143 the Bursars naïvely noted 
that some of the guests were entertained pro amicîtiis 
suis habendis in an important rnatter of business; 
and in 1463 a jantaclum was given to a jury pro 
t Though it was added that the observance of the rule would "" make a 
man lire to ninety and nine ", such longevity hardly seems desirable on such 
oenditions. 
 J. R. Green, Ox]orà Studies, pp. 82, 277. 
t Rubric XV.  Armais, pp. 202, 205. 



176 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

favoribus suis habend, against " the unjust indict- 
ment " of a College tenant at the Winchester Assizes. 1 
But whcther the hospitality was disinterested or not, 
thcse and other brcakfasts werc for more or lcss 
distinguishcd visitors, on special occasions; for the 
mcmbers of his socicty, on ordinary days, Wykeham 
was no belicvcr in ientaculum; it was only to the 
youngcr boys that the mcal was ever permitted by 
the Statures ; 2 for ail othcrs prandium and cena were 
enough2 At New Collcge, thcrcfore, no provision 
was madc for brcakfast, though we are allowcd "to 
hope that those who could afford it took a crust of 
brcad and a flagon of becr bcfore going out to thc 
Schools " 4 at six o'clock. Whcn the older boys at 
Winchcstcr bcgan to have breakfast like the younger 
cannot, perhaps, be dctcrmincd; but an allusion in 
Johnson's Themes points toits having bccn a normal 
mcal in normal circumstances bcfore 1565; » Bisbop 
Horne spoke of it as a normal meal a fcw ycars latcr; « 
and in 1593 the Supcrvisors directcd that the School- 
toaster should go into school at 7 and corne out at 9, 
" so that the scholars may have thcir meal at the 

1 Annals, pp. 202,212. Compare the judicious gift of a salt-cellar to Thomas 
Çromwell in the following century : Sol. pro reparacione unius salsarii dat. 
M o Cromwell secretario D-z Regis pro favore suo habendo in causis Collegii 
Vs. Xd. 
 Rubric XIII. : Scolares infra sextum decimura etatis sue annum jantacula 
habeant . . . àiebus et temporibus àebitis et consuetis,--The founder of Queen's 
provided, c. 1340, that his sehoolboys should have breakfast " out of the 
broken meats and victuals of the Fellows '" (V.H.p. 275). 
 A correspondent of The Times (December 6, 1912) writes : " I see it 
asked in Tbe Tiraes, ' How to be FIealthy ? " Never eat more than two meals 
daily. I have never eaten more than two meals ail my life. Sir William 
Jenner told me, if every man only are two, no doctors would be wanted. I 
ara now 92, and never was ill a day in my life". 
« R. and R. p. 58.--An undergraduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, wrote 
to his mother in 1662 : " After we corne from chapel in the morning, whieh is 
towards eight, we go to the Butteries for out breakfast, which is usually rive 
farthings ; an halfepenny Ioafe and butter, and a eize '" (i.e. hall a pint) "of 
beer" (Chr. Wordsworth, Social Lire ai the Universities, p. 121). 
 Themes, fol. 2, * I'..t. & 1. p. 329. 



  BREAKFAST 177 

usual rime, and that neither their bodies be worn out 
by too long a fast, nor their minds by application 
without intermission". 1 Even in 1630, however, 
brcakfast was still a concession--to early rising, and 
no longer only to early years ; for in that year " thc 
Fellowes of New Colledge", when urging that the 
Warden might requirc the two Masters to attend 
morning prayers, pointed out that it was " for this 
cause principally" that they "have a breakfast 
allowed them eucry day, which the fellowes have hot ,,.2 
From another document ve learn that there were 
"no Breakfasts " for the Fellows of New College 
either.--The Winchester authorities, it appears, were 
more generous in the matter of breakfast than those 
of Eton and of Westminster. The Head Master of 
Eton wrote in 1530 that the boys " corne to schole at 
vj of the Clok... at ix they say de proflnàis" 
(cf. v. 216) "& go to brekefaste", returning to 
school "with in a quartcr of an howre ", and Thomas 
James's ylccount of the Eton Discipline, written in 1766, 
tells us that on a whole holiday, after nine o'clock 
"absence ", " the boys are supposed to breakfast "-, 4 
but Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, commenting on this passage, 
says: " From other sources of information we learn 
that the College did not supply breakfast for any 
of the boys; it affected to ignore the need of such 
a meal ,,.5 At Westminster, " by accident or design, 
no hour was assigned for breakfast " in the Statutes, 
and the omission "came at last to provide the 
 Hisory, p. 816. 
 The Head Master, hating early rising iike his predecessor, had shifted 
his rime of attendance at morning school from 7-9 to 8-9.0. Thc Fellows 
0bjected on moe than one ground. The new hours were too short, and 
they "draw breakfast and dinner too neare together". A better ground 
t0 take vould bave been that suggested by the Supervisots of 1593, that 
such hours drev getting up and hreakfast too far apart. 
 E.C.p. 450.  Etoniana, No. 7, p. 99. 
 M. L. p. 309. 
N 



178 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 
Chapter with an excuse for not supplying it " ; even 
in the earlier years of the nineteenth century " the 
Chapter gave the boys no breakfast, and they had to 
pay for it in a boarding house ". 
We bave seen that in 1647 the Winchester ienta- 
culum was partis et potus, bread and beer; but before 
1712 the menez had undergone a thorough revision. 
In or about that year the Sub-Warden and Bursars 
printed a papcr which throws so much light, not only 
on this question of breakfast, but. on the whole 
domestic economy of the College, that Mr. Kirby 
very rightly reprinted it in full. 2 The paper, which is 
stylcd .4n Account of such Alterations as have lately 
been ruade i.n the Commons of the Scholars of Winchester 
College, bcgins with the assertion that its authors, 
" out of their tender Care", had lately " amended 
and enlarged " these commons. But, it appears, 
" some Arts "--the arts, I think, of Warden Nicholas, 
with vhom the Fellows had quarrelledhad been 
used to disparage their "Amendments and Addi- 
tions"; they therefore, "in Vindication of the 
Honour of the Society ", thought proper to describe 
them. " Till lately ", they wrote, the boys had for 
breakfast on rive days of the week " broth sav'd" 
from the beef or mutton of the previous day; on 
Fridays and Saturdays they had " nothing". For 
dinner, both on Fridays and Saturdays, they had no 
meat, a only a pennywoloEh of butter and cheese. 
For supper, on Fridays they had " nothing"; on 
Saturdays, " baked-Pudding ruade up with water" 
and costing 1¼d.--I may notice in passing that the 
seholars' allowanees stand in rather piquant contrast 
to those ruade to the Warden on the same days of 
 Sargeaunt, pp. 88, 281. Sec also P.S.C. pp. 455 seqq. 
2 Armais, pp. 379-81. 
 In T. A. Trollope's rime (1820-8) baked phlm-pudding was sern'ed instead 
of beef at the mid-day meal on Fridays and Saturdays (T. A. T. p. 101). 



. x BREAKFAST 179 

the week. On " fish days " in 1629 the Warden had 
"two lings " ; " in fresh fish, butter and eggs, veekly 
8s.", with " 100 oysters every Friday, and every 
fast day, 100". 1 Fasting, historians tell us, was 
enjoined by Parliament after the Reformation for 
two reasons : beeause due and godly abstinence was 
a means to virtue, and beeause fish-days gave a 
stimulus to the fishing trade. " For these causes 

Fridays, Saturdays " and certain other days " were 
ordered to bc observed in the usual manner-.2 At 
Winchester the two objects of fasting were attained 
by a division of labour; the scholars practised thc 
abstinence, and the Warden gave the stinmlus.--But 
by 1712 all this had been changed ; the Bursars were 
now spending 2d. per week per scholar beyond what 
they had spent " till lately " " Boiled mutton and 
broth " had replaced the watery pudding of Saturday's 
supper; even on Friday there was " boiled mutton 
without broth "; and at breakfast on both days 
there was " sav'd broth " instead of " nothing " 
We must remember that the word " nothing " is not, 
it would seem, tobe taken literally; such was the 
tender eare of the Sub-Warden and Bursars for the 
scholars that they gave them bread and beer, even on 
Fridays and Saturdays, without boasting of their 
bounty or eounting its eost. 
We hear no more in later years of the saved broth 
of the Aceount; the arts of designing persons, or 
some unskilfu]ness on the part of the cooks, or perhaps 
their penchant for perquisites, a may have brought it 
into disfavour and caused its withdrawal. Beforc 
1756 it seems to have become fashionable to absent 
0neself from the official breakfast ; for " the Warden 

I ztnnals, p. 321. 
t 2 & 3 Edward VI. cap. 21 ; Froude's History of England, chap. xxxiv. 
8 See 4nnals, p. 351. 



180 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. 

and Society" drafted an order in that year that 
the scholars, " when they come out of the School, 
or return from Hills, to Breakfast, shall directly go 
into the Hall ; and not Breakfast in their Chambers, 
or elsewhere". In 1766 a wish must have been 
expressed for something more than bread and beer, 
for after the " Election Scrutiny" the Supervisors 
advised the Society " to allow Butter and Cheese to 
the Children for their Breakfasts ". Vhether the 
advice was taken at the rime does hot appear; but 
butter, not ahvays in too clean a condition, 1 was 
supplied with bread and beer for breakfast in the 
early years of the nineteenth century.  Even in the 
forties the meal was very rough and ill-regulated; 
as Mr. Tuckwell, who describes it, says, " the system 
lacked repose ,,.3 Prefects supplemented their com- 
ruons from their own resources, and ruade juniors 
toast and fry; 4 a regulation of Warden Barrer's, 
dated September 15, 1833, that " in Hall no boy is 
tobe so employed as to prevent him from making a 
conffortable meal", was entirely disregarded.--Warden 
Huntingford would never countenance either tea or 
coffee ; " WiIIiam of Wykeham -knew nothing, I 
think, of tea " is quoted as the excuse of a Hostiaris 
for smashing the boys' tea-things when he found 
them in chambers; » and it was not till 1838 that 
tea took the place of beer at breakfast. 6 Even then 

i ,, The fag had to run down to Conduit to clean the butter, which was 
done by battering it against the trencher with a knife under a stream of water" 
(Mansfield, p. 80). 
 See The IVy'kehamist, December 1896. a Tuckwell, pp. 29-31. 
« There was no fagging at breakfast in the sLxoEies, but there was plenty 
of it at tea, when toasted cheese was marie from a recipe which would make the 
fortune of a London tavern. Its makers were known as "brealfast fags". 
6 T. A. T. p. ll0 ; lich, p. 24. 
« As early as 1807 commoners were pro»ided with a cup of mi]k instead of 
beer ; some of them had also " a sixpenny cup of coffee" at their owa expense 
{Tbe lVykebamist, June 1895).--The $¥estminster prospectus of 1818 states : 
" No Tea allowed, except on Sunday mornings " (Carlisle, ii. p. lll). 



«. x, BREAKFAST 181 

it could not be ruade in "hatches ", and the College 
servants could hOt be expected fo make if; if was 
af first supplieà by contract with the College Street 
confectioner, and was made till 1862 in a special 
"tea-room ", which was entered from the south-eastern 
corner of Hall? The room was removed when the 
Tower was rebuilt in 1862-3. 
I have spoken in this chapter of the meagre rare 
of Fridays before 1712, and may here notice a passage 
in our poem which the Account of that year illustrates. 
Mathew tells us that on Fridays Fourth Book read 
Terence, and he continues : 

Comoedo scena paratur, 
Coeta tamen nulla est eomedoni eoena petenti (w. 191-°). 

No supper was cooked in 1647 for the ravenous 
scholar on a Friday, just as, according to the Account 
of 1712, his commons had been " till lately " a penny- 
worth of butter and cheese, with bread and beer 
thrown in. Our poet is fond of playing upon words, E 
but his play upon comedo and comoedus, scena and 
«ama, is not original ; it is borrowed from Robinson's 
Grammaticalia Quoedam :  

Comoedi scenam, eornedones quoerite eoenarn. 

For this tea-room sec further below, pp. 206, 388 (note 3). 
Sec, e.g., w. 158, 190-91, 197, 275. 
p. 21. The Grammaticalia Quidam forma part of the volume which 
eontains the tthetorica brevis. Sec above, p. 5. 



CHAPTER XII 

DINNER 

MATHEW'S description (vv. 224-47) of prandium, which 
I will call dinncr, though in the earlier years of the 
ninctecnth ccntury if was to thcir evening meal that 
the scholars gave that naine,  is dctailed and very 
intcrcsting; it brings to out notice many quaint or 
picturesque usages which survivcd till latcly or still 
survive. I propose fo spcak in this chapter (1) of the 
hour of dinner ; (2) of the prcsence or absence of the 
Warden and other magistri; (3) of tbe saying or 
singing of grace ; (4) of the reading of the Bible before 
the meal or during it ; (5) of " Tub " and Prefect of 
Tub; and, lastly, (6) of some miscellaneous peculi- 
arities in the service. 
1. In his lively essay on The Casuistry of the 
Roman Meals De Quincey remarks that dinner "bas 
travelled through every hour from ten in the moming 
to ten at night " ; but the well-known story at which 
he glances, how our Princess Mary wrecked her royal 
husband's health in 1514 by insisting that he should 
shift his dinner hour from 8 A.. till 12--so the figures 
are usually given, shows tbat the essayist " might 
have pushed the hour hand further back ". A dia- 
t " In the long half year, 1838, the dining hour was altered from 6 o'clock 
fo 1 ".--" In the short hall year, 1838" there follows this eorolIary : "No 
dinners will be allowed to be brought into College " (Prefect of Hall's book). 
 J. R. Green, Oxford Studies, p. 34. 
182 



c. x DINNER 183 

logue in Corderius's Colloquies shows that at about thc 
saine date, at Lyons or Geneva, 8.30 was regarded as 
a somewhat early, 10.30 as a somewhat late, dinner- 
hour by school-boys who had had some breakfast?-- 
The Winchester Statures fix no hours for meals ; but 
Wykeham's rule about breakfast, 2 and the practice of 
0xford colleges in his rime, suggest that 10 is a 
likelier hour for the original prandium than the 12 
of our poet's day ; at Eton both in 1530 a and in 1560 
(hora undecima omnes longo ordine in aulam procedunt, 
says the Consuetudinarium) the hour was 11. « It 
eontinued to be 12 at Winehester till far into the 
eighteenth eentury, and it was 12 at Eton in 1766.  
In 1825 the Winehester mid-day meal, attendanee at 
whieh was hot always enforeed, vas at 12.45 ; dinner 
(so ealled by the boys) was at 6. 
2. The Statutes required that the whole Soeiety, 
ineluding the Warden, should dine and sup in Hall 
(Rubrie XIV.); they only allowed the Warden to 
take his meals in his own rooms (seorsum) in case of 
illness or for other neeessary or reasonable cause. 
Early Wardens may have felt the requirement to be 
irksome; it marked some inïeriority in their status 
to that of the Wardens of New College, who had an 
establishment of their own, with two eooks who 

 The dialogue proceeds as follows : 
C. When will you get your dinner ? 
D. I have dined already. 
C. At what a-Clock ? 
D. At halfanHour pastEiglat. 
C. Do you dine so early then ? . . . 
We do not dine tfll Half an 
Hour after Ten, and some- 
times after Eleven. 
D. O strange ! Why no sooner ? 

Quando vis prandere ? 
Ego jam prandi. 
Quot5 hor ? 
Sesqui-octavà. 
Tare manè igitur prandetis ? . . . 
Non prandemus ante sesquide- 
eimam, interdum ab undecimS. 

Pape I Cur non citius ? 

--Corderius's ,School Colloquies, E»glish and Latin, by Charles Hoole, pp. 15, 16, 
 See above, p. 176. a E.C.p. &50. 
 Under the Bailiffs' Ordinances of 157 for Shrewsbury School " the going 
to dinner of the scholars shall ever be at 11 of the dock". 
 Thomas James's Account of Eton Discipline (Etoniana, No. 7, p. 102). 



18, ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
occasionally dined with the Fellows or the scholars 
they probably found necessary or reasonable cause 
for frcqucnt absence. After the Reformation a fresh 
excuse was soon forthcoming ; Wardcn Bilson (158ï- 
96) had married a wifc. I remember a little book 
which purveycd English history for English nurseries 
in the form of distichs; there was but one distich 
for cach reign, an arrangement which made sclection 
among important incidents imperative, and the author 
of thc distichs sometimcs selccted domestic incidents : 
Bluff Harry the Eighth to six spouses was wedded ; 
One died, one survived, two divoreed, two beheaded. 
Similar distichs were written on the reigns of our 
Wardens; and for that about Bilson, who was a 
person of eonsequence, being one of the very few 
Wardcns of Winchester who beeame bishops, a 
domestie incident was likewise seleeted : 
Magne aule mensis (Bilsone Authore) relietis 
Privatas custos eoepit habere dapes. 
Like Henry VIII.'s marriages, however, Bilson's 
prefercnce for family meals was a marrer of publie 
as well as of private eoneern ; it was " a step towards 
the destruction of the collegiate system ", and an 
earlier step than was taken elsewhere ; at West- 
minster it was not till Osbaldeston's rime (1622-38) 
that " the general dinner in Hall fell into disuse " 
at Eton it was not till 1646-7, the year in whieh 
Mathew's poem was written, a In 1661 the Supervisors 
a R. and. R. p. 53. 
2 ,, CeIibaey had gradually ceased to mark the life of the Prebendaries, 
and they preferred to take their meaIs in theix own houses " (Sargeaunt, 
p. 72). 
a On the authority of the Eton Audit Book for 1646-7 Sir H. Maxwell Lyre 
writes (p. 237) : " A further step . . . was taken at this time, by allowing 
commons to the FelIows in money instead of in kdnd. Thenceforth any of 
them who happened to be in residence took their meals in their private rooms 
instead of in the College Hall ". 



c. x.DINNER 185 

ruade a belated complaint to the Bishop that Warden 
Burt, when admonished to dine and sup in Hall, 
alleged his wife and children as a reason for absence, 
adding that Wardens had absented themselves ever 
since Bilson's rime ; in 1662 they stated in their report 
that the Warden "never 1 dines or sups in Hall except 
at Election "; it appears that in 1668 "the choristers, 
who ought to be waiting in Hall, are so far exempted 
from this duty, that they become appropriated to 
Mr. Warden ".* Attendance in Hall was freely shirked 
by the Fellows also; in 1608 Archbishop Bancroft 
required that " the dyett of the Fellows should not 
be taken but only in the Colledge Hall except it be in 
rime of sicknesse "; in 1617, 1621, 1631, the Supcr- 
visors charged them with dining and supping alibi 
intra Collegium, or taking their commons outside ; in 
1636 Archbishop Laud reminded them, as well as the 
Warden and the Chaplains, of what the Statures 
enjoined in this particular. 3 When, therefore, 
Mathew speaks of a dominus as presiding in Hall 
(v. 242), it is safest to identify that dignitary with 
the Schoolmaster, to whom the same title is given in 
v. 11. 4 
" The Shew of Collegiate Living " by the Fellows 
beeame fainter and fainter in the seventeenth, and 
practieally vanished belote the eighteenth eentury ; 
a monition of Warden Bigg in 1740, that they should 
at least preserve it by sometimes " Dining together 
publie*kly in the Hall", was entirely unsuecessful. 
As residenee beeame more and more infrequent, 
a ,, Never" was perhaps too strong a word, or later Wardens may have 
disregarded the Bilsonian precedent. When a Verney père brought his son 
to Winchester as a commoner in 168½, the Warden and the Head Master, he 
wmte, "ruade us Dine wt them in the Hall" (R. T. Warner, Winchester, p. 43). 
 Armais, p. 351. 
 Ibid. p. 322. 
« In the metrical version of the oider Tabula Legum we find dominus 
ubstituted for preceptor. 



186 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
" the Society " began to regard attendance in Hall as 
though it were a statutory obligation of the School- 
toaster and Usher only; they lectured Goddard, 
Gabcll, and Williams accordingly. In spitc of such 
renfindcrs both masters continued to absent them- 
sclves from meals i till 1837, vhen an annual sure of 
£50 was offered to the Second Master to secure "that 
hc do, either by himself or dcputy, provide that every 
day a Mastcr be present in Hall from the beginning 
to the end of dinner " (which had become scandal- 
ously turbulent) " and witness the Grace at both 
thcsc times " 
3. Gracc before Meat was saià in 1647 by qui- 
cunque solet benedicere mensce . . . novem sociis comi- 
tatus (w. 226-7). The last vords have suggestcd 
that this pcrson vas one of the Fellovs, but it is un- 
likely, as we have scen, that the Fêllovs dined in Hall 
in 1647, at any rate in full numbcrs; and, as the 
Tabula Legum vas a code for the boys to observe, its 
injunction qui mensam consecrat cIare pronunciato 
proves that the grace-saycr vas a boy--cither a 
prcfcct " in course " for thc purpose, or (as I prcfer 
fo think) Prefcct of Hall as nov. His " nine coin- 
panions " were prcsumably the other prefects "in 
full pover " who sat at the same table. Grace vas 
probably said in Latin. It is true that in 1547 
Edward VI.'s eommissioners had required that " all 
graee to be said or sung within the College . . . shall 
be heneeforth said or sung evermore in English", * 
and that in 1571 Bishop Horne had issued a similar 
injunetion, giving as his reason that the elerks, 
quiristers, and servants " do not all understand the 
Latin tongue " ;  but Puritan requirements were not 
likely to be effective without constant Puritan pressure. 
 In T. A. Trollope's rime (1820-8} " no toaster was ever present in hall" 
(T. A. T. p. 106).  Annal, s, p. 263. a V.A. e 1. p. 329. 



«,,. ' DINNER 

187 

When the meal was over the Bible-Clerk, 
Mathew tells us, 
Advenir ad mensam, que dicta est mcnsa rotunda, 
Qua licet of[icio functis icntarc, 

so 

for what purpose we shall see in a moment; mean- 
while, a word must be said about this table. Was it 
round, or was it only "called" so ? was it, in fact, ]ike 
the table whieh now serves the samc purpose, square ? 
In the inventory of 1672 there is an entry : " Item, in 
the Hall, a square table ealled the Round " ; and in 
those of 1651 and 1652 we find that there was in Hall 
"1 new square table for the children".l The notion 
" Round Table " is so characteristic that it shou]d 
never have been allowed to die.--Having reaehed the 
so-ealled Round Table, the Bible-Clerk bowed to the 
doninus; the doninu« nodded; the table linen was 
plaeed in its ehest; graee and a psalm were sung. 
They were sung, very like]y, with the ritual whieh 
was observed daily fifty years ago, when prefeets stood 
in the middle of Hall, while inferiors lined the walls of 
" Dais " and some of them, stationed in the centre, 
sang the .4gimus Tibi gratias with two verses of 
Te de profundis.  The usage was then, however, 
about to beeome infrequent. In October 1867 thc 
Editor of The Wykehamist complained that the grace- 
singers sang abominably, and a year or two later a too 
musical or too unmusieal Prefeet of Hall, no man 
forbidding him, dispensed with graee-singing on week- 
days. Graee is still sung oceasionally on Sundays, 
perhaps two or three rimes in the course of a terre, 
and the old "Eleetion graee " is sung (alas ! with the 
new pronuneiation ") at Domum Dinner. 
4. The Bible-Clerk, to whom I have referred, had, 
a I ara indebted to .Mr. Chitty for this information. 
* For the scene in Hall see the woodcut in Vordsworth, p. 29. 



188 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
as his name implies, another duty.  The Statures 
both of New College (Rubric XVII.) and of Winchester 
(R. XIV.) contain provisions De Lectura Biblie at 
pra,ndium. At New College a chaplain, or, him failing, 
an undergraduate, was to read the Bible; at Winchester 
a scholar appointed for the purpose was to read " the 
Bible, the lives of the saints, the sayings of the wise, or 
aliquid sacre scripture ". The whole company was fo 
listen attentively ; the New College Rubric insists that 
there shall be no interruption per verbositates, fabulas, 
clamores, risus and the like. Mr. Kirby quotes from 
the Winchester accounts of 1491 an item for the bind- 
ing and repair of the Bible used in Hall;  an ambo 
or pulpit " for the reading of the Bible " xvas placed 
in New College Hall in 1540. 3 Visitors fo Beaulieu 
will remember the old pulpit in what is now the parish 
church but was formerly the monks' refectory; 
Bible-reading at meals was universal in monastic and 
collegiate establishments ; " ' Let us keep our eyes 
upon the table, our ears with the reader, and our hearts 
with God', was St. Augustine's injunction to his 
canons ,,.« Nor did the practice cease at the Reforma- 
tion. » The Injunctions of Edward VI. to the Deans 
and Chapters of all Cathedrals provided that "they 
shall have everie daye sure part of holy Scripture 
read in English at ther table in the tyme of ther 
meals to thentent that having communication thereof 
may utterly avoyd all other slaunderouse and un- 
fruitefull talking " ;  his commissioners required that 
x Of the corresponding privilege mentioned in v. 280 (hebdomadam propriis 
habet ille Camoenis) I have spoken in Chapter VIII. 
2 Armais, p. 81. 8 R. and R. p. 143. 
 Dewar, IIampshire, p. 171. 
 At Westminster in the later sixteenth eentury a boy read a ehapter from 
the Old Testament (compare v. 228) at dinner. " For this was afterwards 
substituted the reading of Latin manuseripts, 'to faeilitate the reading of 
such hands ' " [ (Sargeaunt, p. 41). 
a Wi-nchesler Cathedral Documents, i. p. 186. 



cH. x DINNER 189 

" the Bible shall be daily read in English distinctly 
and apertly in the midst of" College " Itall, above 
the hearth, where the tire is made, both at dinner and 
supper";  Johnson gave rules (c. 1565) for the 
readers, in terms which prove, by the way, that the 
use of Latin had been temporarily reinstated; 2 
Bishop tIorne enjoined in 1571 that " at every meal 
a chapter of the New Testament shall be openly with 
a loud voice read in the middle of the hall in English 
to be heard and understood of the whole company" ; 3 
and in the College accounts of 1575 there is an item of 
9d. pro uno testamento Anglico for the purpose.  The 
only changes introduced by the Protestant régime 

were, it will be seen, that the 
the New Testament, and that 
I cannot discover when 

reading was to be from 
it was to be in English. 
the praetice ceased af 

Winchester. The Bible was still read " in the hall 
belote dinner and supper " in 167, s and there is 
reason for thinking that it was still read there in 1790 ; 
in or about that year the Tabula was revised and what 
was deemed obsolete excised, « but recitationes in- 
telligenter et al)te distinguuntor was left standing as a. 
rule in aula. " At present " (i.e. in 1852), wrote 
Walcott, " on the two first days in the election-week 
the Gospel for the preceding and coming Sunday is 
read during dinner-time between the courses, by the 
senior scholar, not superannuate--one on either day"  
The Gospel for the preceding Sunday is read during 
Domum Dinner nowadays by Prefect of Hall. 
5. After prandium the broken meats, says Mathew, 
"are poured into the laps of a crowd of old women " 

x Walcott, p. 151. 
a Themes, fol. 140 b. In capitibus citandisfere a nonnullis peccatur, quibus 
decimum primum, decimum secundum, et similia in usu sunt ; ira autem citari 
debent, caput undecimum, duodecimum, &ec.  V.A. & 1. p. 329. 
« Annals, p. 81.  Ken, Manual of Prayers, p. 17. 
 See below, p. 27.  Walcott, p. 202. 



190 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

(v. 246), and that is still their ultimate destination; 
but in the first instance they are pourcd into "Tub ". 
The tttrba anilis must have been well known to our 
poct, for in return for the fragmenta and occasional 
paymcnts in money the women were rcquired to 
weed the courts. 1 We learn from Mr. Kirby that 
Wardcn Barter constituted a definite order of women 
wceders, and that if was not till about 1885 that 
" ' Smith's wced killcr ' relieved thcm of most of their 
dutics ,,.2 The clatter of the women's tongues and 
knivcs, the incongruous scene which they presented 
during school hours bctwecn lessons, whcn they gossiped 
and wccded in Flint Court, sccmingly unconscious of 
thc crowd of boys, are well remembercd by every older 
old Wykchamist.--Tub, which arrests the attention of 
visitors to Hall, is a receptacle of ancient design, but 
no part of it is ancient; frcqucnt replaccments of 
this part of it and of that are required, and T. A. 
Trollope records that in his time a wholly new tub 
rcplaccd the old onea change, he adds, which 
" diminishcd our confidence in the permanency of 
human institutions gcnerally-.3 $¥as it, as tradition 
asserts, from a predeccssor of this new brokcn- 
meats' tub, or was if from some other tub which 
served a differcnt purpose, that the preefectt,s quidam 
qui nomen sumit ab olla (v. 231) took his naine ? In 
the accounts and inventories both olla and " tub" 
are thc namcs of various receptaclcs ; olla is applied, 
for instance, to a brass pot and to a |eathern beer- 
jack,  and thcre were " tubs " of all sorts and sizes 
and matcrials: "a salte tubb, a flowre tubbe, an 

 As early as 1527 a payment was ruade iiij mulieribus laborantibus in 
quadralo per x dies circa emundacionem eiusdem (.,tnnals, p. 428). 
 Ibid. pp. 818, 428. 
 T. A. T. p. I03. 
« Annals, pp. 161, 227. See also II. C.'s ll'inchester College Documents, 
No. 1 (p. 2). 



c. xn DINNER 191 

oatmeale tubbe, a mustarde seede tubb, a tallow 
tubb " appear in 1582 as items in " an inventory of 
the kitehin implements ". The only olla mentioned 
by our poet is a ehest for table-linen (v. 243), and it is 
perhaps 1 from this ehest that he derived the Prefect's 
naine. In the accounts of 1490-1, under the heading 
Custus Coquine, there is an item of ivd. pro iiij 
circulis pro le tubbe puerorum, in those of 1510-11 
there is one of xiid. pro una nova tubba pro potagio 
puerorum, and the inventory of 1565 includes among 
"the ymplementes of the Kechin " a magna olla enea 
vocala olla puerorum. Mr. Kirby asserted that Pre- 
fect of Tub took his naine from this " children's tub " 
pro potagio (which hc translated by " porridge ") 
because he served out its contents. If his assertion 
was only a guess, it was at least a plausible one ; but 
when Mr. Kirby added that, on porridge being 
superseded, the porridge tub became a tub for broken 
meats, he was, I think, disregarding plausibility in an 
effort to bring himself into line with tradition. There 
was an olla for broken meats, as well as an olla pro 
potagio, in very early times,  and an olla vhich had 
served the latter purpose would hardly have been 
applicable to the former. If you believe that the 
Praefectus Ollae was so called from the children's olla, 
you must break with the tradition which connects his 
 Perhaps ; but it is apparently the Bible-Clerk, hot Prefect of Tub, who 
mappas ponit in olla.--A receptacle for table-linen is described in an early 
fifteenth-century pantry inventory as una longa cista ferro ligata pro mappis 
imponendis cure serrura et clave. 
 From two very early inventories, one of which is that of 9 lien. V., 
12hitty bas discovered that there were, in the panetria {pantry) or botelleria, 
at the rime ij tubbettez (tubbez) unde  pro fragmentis imponendis et j pro cervisia 
«orepta imponenda. In the inventory of 9 Hem V. lhe words unde j pro frag- 
mentis irnponendis were afterwards struck out, and the following words were 
interlineated : Item j Gomer pro fragmentis imponendis cure j pari trestallorum. 
The use of "Gomer" for such a tub, at so early a date, is of great interest to 
a student of "notions ". The word is now (or was till very lately) applied { 1) 
to a pewter dish, and {2) to a high bat. An interesting note on its etymology 
will be round in W.W.B.p. ,04. 



192 A_BOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
naine with the olla pro fragmentis imponendis.l--Our 
poet's allusion to the Prefect of Tub is the earliest, I 
think, in Wykehamical literature ; the only function 
he assigns him is the distribution and supervision of 
the meat supply in Hall : disponit pueris sua fercula 
 . inter prandendun per nensas ambulat (vv. 233, 
235).  This, pcrhaps, was all that was required of 
him in 167. In the cighteenth ccntury and thc carly 
ninctccnth if was his duty and his privilcge fo go into 
thc kitchcn, from which all othcr boys vcre rigorously 
cxcludcd, " for inspection of the commons " (1756), 
" fo rcgulate the commons of the absentccs " (1778), 
for vhich purposes the Wardcn and Fellovs declarcd 
that his prcscnce thcre was " somctimcs nccessary ". 
If can only bave become so when the Fellows or most 
of thcm had ccascd fo rcsidc, and whcn nonc of thcm 
could bc pcrsuadcd fo undcrtakc thc office, instituted 
by thc Foundcr, of " Scncschal of Hall ", on whom thc 
inspection and rcgulation of commons rightly dcvolvcd, 
and who would surely have been better qualified to 
inspect and regulate them. 3 In the nineteenth cen- 
tury Prefeet of Tub had, as we shall see, some very 
valuable lawful perquisites, and early in the eighteenth 
he engaged in some profitable but unlawful traffieking ; 
the authors of the Aeeount deseribed in Chapter XI. 
complain that about 1712 "a certain Officer among 
the Scholars, nominated by the Warden, is knovn to 
have made a very undue Advantage fo himself of 
10/. or 15/. yearly, by Buying of the Scholars such 
soloEs of Lent Diet as they did hot like, at an Under- 
rate ,,.« 
6. Some miscellaneous points in Mathew's de- 
1 Having been puzzled by Mr. Kirby's remarks upon Tub in Annals 
(p. 427) I ealled Mr. Chitty's attention to them. The result of my so doing 
was the diseovery of the interesting entries whieh I have quoted. 
- He was not too great a man to dine with the servants afterwards (v. 234). 
a See below, p. 213. « See also above, p. 138. 



.  DINNER 193 

seription require or justify a few words of comment. 
No meat was supplied at prandium on Fridays and 
Saturdays ; on other week-days there was invariably 
boiled beef; on Sundays the beef was (probably) 
roasted. The supply, which in the following century 
was 40 lbs. on week days and 30 Ibs. on Sundays, was 
divided under Prefect of Tub's superintendence into 
fercula or messes, and each ferculum was subdivided 
by a junior, cultello oequo, into four lumps called 
"dispers ", a disper being the individual's portion? 
There were apparently no vegetables.  In the early 
years of the nineteenth century there were potatoes 
on meat days, and there was pudding on Fridays and 
Saturdays ; otherwise the food, as well as the mode of 
serving it, was almost exactly as in 1647. There was 
still boiled beef four rimes a week, and still toast beef 
on Sundays. But the boiled beef, T. A. Trollope 
declares, was "never eaten"; in defiance of Regu- 
lations 3 boys did hot often in his rime attend the mid- 
day meal ; they reserved themselves for a struggle for 
the less uninviting of the dispers which wcre provided 
in the evening. At cena each boy was served with 
his disper of mutton, but Prefects of Hall and Tub had 
" double dispers " ; the latter had a further allowance 
of "9 coarse dispers for lais trouble", wlfich he sold 
by contract to the manciple.4--Meat was served on 
wooden trenchers, to which Mathew alludes only in 
 "Disper", though often written "dispar", is surely derived from d/so 
pertire. For these dispers, sec further on p. 214 beiow. 
 Sec beiow, p. 212. 
 It was ordered in 1778 " that the Prepositor of the ttali be very attentive 
to the attendance of the boys during their rneais, and accuse "' (sec p. 
"those who shall be absent ". An entry in Prefect of Hall's book, dated 
0etober 18, 1827, states that " at  belote one o'clock every Inferior is obliged 
to attend in Hall ". 
 A sheep reputed to weigh 8 lbs. was eut up into 50 dispers. I bave 
gleaned many facts about the food supply fxorn the "' Cornmon Place 
Book" of Archdeacon Heathcote, to which I bave referred on p. 139 and 
elsewhere. 

O 



194 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .i, 

v. 255, where he says that there was unus qui mundat 
quadras, x In France the tranchoirs of our poet's rime, 
even in great houses, were trenchers of brovn bread, 2 
but wooden trenchers were in general use in England 
both as plates and dishes ; it was noted, more than 
fifty years later, at a grand dinner at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, that " the dishes with few exceptions 
wcre square wooden plattcrs".3 Like knives and forks, 4 
however, plates vere commonly used elsevhere long 
bcfore the Winchester authorities provided thcm, at 
any rate for " infcriors"; evcn when, in 1838, 
infcriors were at last supplied vith them, " they broke 
the plates on thc smallest provocation and clamourcd 
for thc trcnchcrs instead-.5 "Collcge men" still use 
trcnchers for thcir bread and butter, and whcn 
Edward VII., then Prince of Walcs, came to Win- 
chester for thc Quinccntcnary, he too " partook " of 
brcad and butter off a trcncher, which the Warden 
and Fcllows aftcrvards adorned with an inscription 
and still prize.--We note the poet's mention of 
mappae with the hope that at a time vhen fingers 
served for forks the word meant napkins as wel! 
as table-cloths; the former, though later in origin, 

were even more necessary. 6 
extravagant, for "thirty 
napkins " were bought by 
item of 4s. for twclve ells 
lateralibus scholarium occurs 

The hope is not, perhaps, 
three ells lockeram for 
the College in 1672; an 
of table lincn pro mensis 
in the accounts for 1432. 

 Trenehers are also called quadroe in the aecounts for e. g. 1570 (Walcott, 
p. 255). 3If. Kirby says that the first mention of them is ruade in 1416, when 
they vere called disci lignei (Armais, p. 185). 
- Hopkins, An Idler in Old France, c. iii. 
 Chr. Wordsworth, Social Life at lhe UniverMties, p. 122. 
* Sec beiow, p. 214. 
 G.P.S. i ». 331. 
« Hopkins, foc. cit. Montaigne eouid "get on very well without a table- 
cloth, but hot so nicely in default of a crisp white napkin ".--Pepys in 1663 
found fault with a meai at which" we had no napkins nor change of trenchers '" 
( w.W.B.p. ô0). 



,. xn DINNER 195 

In 16¢7 beer was drawn off in the cellar into leathern 
jacks or "gispins ", which were carried into Hall 
(probably) by quiristers; the Supervisors note in 
1668 that, the Warden having appropriated most of 
the quiristers, " the children are forced to fetch their 
own beer".  A gispin, which Mathew calls a piceus 
cantharus (v. 237), having been placed near him, a 
junior filled up jorums for groups of boys to share. 
The arrangement scems to have been the same as 
that described in a Regulation of 1778 : " The Gispins 
of beer arc to be placed in the Hall, as formerly, viz. 
three gispins to supply the six Ends, 2 by placing one 
on the middle of cach of the three forms, so as con- 
veniently to serve two Ends. And the junior boy at 
each End is to pour the beer for the rest ". 
i Annals, p. 351.--The boys drew their own beer in the cellar in T. A. 
Trollope's time and afterwards. 
 Special arrangements ,vere ruade for prefects ; the arrangements here 
deseribed are those for supplying the three tables at whieh inferiore sat and still 
sit. Eaeh of these tables is now called an "End ", but that word has changed 
ifs meaning. In 1830, as in 1778, there were two " Ends '" to each table : see 
the plan in Rieh, opposite p. 10. 



CHAPTER XIII 

BEVERS AND SUPPER : BEER 

ON summer days at half-past three 1 the scholars of 
1647 were given vhat Mathew calls a commessatio. 
A comissatio---for that is the right spelling--means a 
revel of a very riotous kind; when Archbishop 
Cranmer, in an Injunction to the members of Ail 
Souls, urged them to abstain from all compotationibus, 
inguitationibus, eral)ulis, ebrietatibus, ac aliis enormi- 
bus et exeessivis commessationibus, 2 he gave the word 
its proper emphasis. Mathew, who knev its true 
meaning, for it is explained in a Winehester sehool- 
book with whieh he was very well aequainted,  used 
it playfully ; he applied it to " bevers", the mildest 
of all possible revels.  Even the "notion" is now 

a '" Vhen haif the third hour has slipped away " (v. 258) shouid mean 2.80, 
but, as the poet describes the 5.30 ... beii as dixdding thefifth hour into equal 
parts (v. 46), his third hour is no doubt 3-. 
-" Grant Robertson, Ail Souls College, p. 57. 
a Hugh Robinson (sec above, p. 5} writes Esuriens cornedit, seà comes- 
satur asotus, of which '" the hungry man gobbles, the debauched man guzzles" 
is a translation whieh does scant justice to corn'satur. 
 As used in English iiterature the word means a slight repast between 
meais, especiaily between dinner and supper in the afternoon (sec the N.E.D.). 
Its correct Latin equivalent is merenda, as in the Eton Consuetudinarium 
(Etoniana, No. 5, p. 67} ; but in out poem rnerenda is an evening meai. An 
nid Westminster recorded in the early seventeenth century that " from 8 to 9" 
(in the morning) the boys " had rime for bea'r" ; but a|so that "betwixt 8 
and 4 they had a iittle respire, the Mr waiking out and they (in beav r rimes) 
going in order to the Hall, and there fitting themseives for theyr nex¢ taske" 
(Sargeaunt, pp. 279-80). I extraet he fnilowing îrom Charles Hoole's editioa 
(1652) of Corderius's Colloquies (pp. 92-8) : 
196 



c.,, BEVERS AND SUPPER : BEER 197 

obsolete at Winchester, but it lingers on, or lingered 
till recently, elsewhere. At the Bedford Assizes in 
November 1891 a witness who had puzzled Mr. Justice 
Denman by saying that he had called af a farm " for 
bever" explained that by that word he meant " beer 
and bread and cheese ,,.1 Bevers survived at Eton 
till 1890,  at Winchester till about fifty years ago-- 
Mr. Kirby's statement that " afternoon tea replaced 
bever beer " in 1839  is altogether misleading ; if 
he had been more careful about his " nfilestones " 
he would have remembered that to talk of afternoon 
tea as existing in 1839 was an anachronism. Till 
1861 or 1862, when the beginning of afternoon school 
was shifted from two to three o'clock, there was on 
whole school-days in the summer an agreeable break, 
known as bever-time, 4 in the afternoon's work; on 
remedies and hall remedies beer and bread were still 
supplied, at about 3.30, in 1863. Some "half- 

A. Cedo merendam tuam . . . 
Merenda tua parva res est. 

V. Sed vehementer esurio . . . 
quia nihil prandi nisi 
frustum panis, & tres aut 
quatuor juglandes. 

A. Give me your bevcr... 
Your bever is but a srnaH 
matter. 
V. But I ara very hungry . . . 
because I had nothing to 
my dinner, but a piece of 
bread, and three or four 
walnuts. 

In another place Hoole explains " bever " as equiva]ent to "" rnunehin" 
(p. 
 See a lctter from Mr. Edwin H. Freshfield, The Wykehamist, February 
1892. In a " word-book " of about 1845 the word is said to have been still 
in use among the peasantry in Hertfordshire. 
: M. L. p. 150. 
 Annals, p. 427. Mr. Kirby was no doubt thinking of what happened in 
1838, when dinner was shifted from six o'clock to one, and " tea " took its 
p|aceo 
 In their instructions, dated January 1810, to Mr. David Williams, the 
newly elected Hostiarius, the Warden and Fellows to]d him that his afternoon 
sehool-hours shou]d be" from Two to Five, in those Parts of the Year vhen thc 
Boys do hot go out to Bever ; and till hall past Five, when the Boys do go 
out to Bever. Such was the ancient and established Practice". The Con- 
aueIudin«vium of 1560 records that at Eton, from May 6 to August 29, ad horam 
$erliam itur ad merendam, i.e. to bever. 



198 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

quarters " of bread and some "jorums " of beer were 
set out in Hall. A few unoccupied juniors put in an 
appearance ; they sipped the beer, and (to the great 
annoyance of the manciple) threw the bread at one 
another's heads. On one particularly hot day I 
remember that some of us were told to take the 
jorums down into )Ieads, where they were carried round 
to the players in a cricket match--an equivalent of 
that " tea interval " which often, I understand, has 
the saine effect in modern cricket as a judicious 
change of bovling. 
Of supper (cena), which was served in Mathew's 
days soon after rive o'clock, he has little to say. It 
differed, we gather, from dinner in two ways only; 
there vas mutton instead of beef, and one mess ruade 
three portions instead of four. For the test : 
Prandendi mores bene si cognoveris, ipse 
Hune quoque cognoseas (v. 267-8).-- 
After supper the children went to their chambers, and 
prcsently, probably about seven, they had further 
refreshment in Hall. We learn from the Consuetuài- 
arium that the Eton boys hora septima potum dimit- 
tuntur in 1560, and from James's Account of Eton 
Discipline that they attended Hall at seven (supper 
having been served at rive or six) every night in 17ôô.  
Out poet calls this evening refreshment merenda, 
the Account of 1712 calls it " Beavor Beer after 
Supper "; it was no doubt a survival of the " pota- 
tions in Hall at the rime of curfew" of which the 
Founder speaks in his fifteenth Rubric. 

In this and the txvo preeeding ehapters I have 
been ehiefly eoneerned xvith the meals of our poet's 
rime, but a conclusion which the facts suggest, 

 Etoniana, No. 5, p. 71 ; No. 6, p. 102. 



c,,.x BEVERS AND SUPPER : BEER 199 

that the seholars' allowanees were much to seek both 
in quality and in quantity, is suggested equally by 
the history of many periods of the old régime. More 
will be said upon the subjeet in the following ehapter ; 
but the conclusion whieh I have mentioned should not 
be even provisionally aeeepted without an important 
reservation, and I may fitly end the present ehapter 
by showing that, whatever the quality of the College 
beer may have been,  it was lavishly supplied. Two 
preliminary eonsiderations must be borne in mind. 
We must remember that till 1888 the use of tea and 
eoffee was unauthorised, and indeed forbidden, at 
Winehester; and that, therefore, in the early nine- 
teenth eentury as in the seventeenth, beer was set 
before the boys whenever they were likely to be 
thirsty. The other eonsideration is still more obvious. 
We read without surprise that in the reign of Elizabeth 
Dean Nowell gained renown, not only as the author 
of the Latin eateehism, but as the inventor of bottled 
beer, - and that in that of George III. the College and 
the Cathedral authorities at Winehester gave " many 
hogsheads of strong beer" fo eelebrate " the happy 
Restoration of His Majesty's health "; on whieh 
occasion--so The Hampshire Chronicle assures us-- 
"the populace were not remarkably inebriated " 3 
But, although ve know, we hardly realize how modern 
our attitude towards beer-drinking is ; that of Dickens 
and Thackeray, though itis but of yesterday, suggests 
a remote past ; the reek of beer, for instance, which 
pervades the chambers of the admirable Warrington 
seems to us much staler than it really is.mFull allow- 
ance, however, having been ruade for both considera- 
i See below, pp. 212-13, and Rich, p. 24.--The Supervisors stated in 1668 
that "' ye children are many rime8 seru'd with dead and stoop't beer soe that 
they are hot well able to drink itt ". 
 Sargeaunt, p. 4. 
* The Hampshire Chronicle, March 14, 1789. See also Annale, p. 421. 



200 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ,, 

tions, the lavishness of the College about beer was 
truly amazing when eontrasted with its strict measure, 
so far as the seholars were eoneerned, in its supply 
of food. 1 
There is no strong evidence that at any rime 
excessive drinking was a specially Wykehamical 
failing. It is truc that the third Lord Shaftesbury 
told his father in 1689 that there were scarcely any at 
Winchester " that escape ye Mother vice of Drinking, 
the Predominant of ye Place"; but New College, 
he thought, was not really worse than other colleges3 
Whatever impooEance may be attached to Shaftes- 
bury's strictures upon Winchester, they stand, I 
think, almost alone; it was perhaps more often the 
servants than the mcmbers of the College that the 
lavish supply of beer demoralized. Of such lavishness 
the evidenee is abundant, and itis spread over a very 
long period. I select only a few items. In 1620 the 
signifieant order was ruade, after a scrutiny, that 
the Warden should keep the key of " the outer door 
by which entranee is ruade into the cellar ", and the 
allowances of the eighteenth century would pass belief 
if they were not well attested. " A Table of the beer 
brewed yearly in Winchester College " reveals such 
facts as these : that in 1709 eaeh chaplain was deemed 
to consume 70 qumoEs of beer weekly, and each servant 
21 quarts ;  that the latter allowance vas considered 
insuftîcient ; that though allowances were ruade on a 
like scale all round, the total ascertained consumption 
aceounted only for 472 of the 820 hogsheads annually 
brewed. If is a relief to find that each scholar and 
quirister had only three pints daily, and that even 
the three pints were " more than they are observed 
1 So at ,Vestminster in early days " if the food was carefully watched, it 
' snewede ' in Hall of small beer " (Sareaunt, p. 45). 
 R. and R. p. 190. 
t The saine allowance was still ruade in the time of ,¥arden Huntingford. 



cH.m BEVERS AND SUPPER: BEER 201 

to drink -,1 but the scholars, we are told in the Account 
of 1712, made a great waste of beer, " even to the 
value of some Hogsheads Weekly ". In 1739-40 one 
of the Fellows declared that the Warden (who in 1709 
had been content with his 70 hogsheads) " annually 
claires and enjoys One Hundred and four Hogsheads 
of Beer (viz. 2 ev'ry week wheth r He be Absent or 
Present) 1 w h after a more profuse Consumption in 
his Lodgings than can well be imagin'd enables him 
at the end of each year to sell to the Bursars as much 
as, at a very low and moderate valuation, he rcceives 
£20 in money for " ; and another Fellow complained 
that the Warden " is allowed more for his Small Beer 
only than any two Fellows receive for Commons of 
ail kinds ", though indced they receivcd quite enough. 
Small wonder that in 1766 the Supervisors pointcd 
out that " the better management of the Bccr " 
would enable the College to improve the scholars' 
food " without much further expence ". By a wise 
Resolution of April 21, 1808, it was determined that 
thenceforward workmcn employcd as day labourers 
should receive beer-money instead of beer; but 
perhaps they managed to receive both. A quirister's 
daily allowance at about the saine date had gone up 
to two quarts; " the nurse at sick house" enjoyed 
her three, a In T. A. Trollope's time (1820-8) thc 
scholars drew beer for themselves as they pleased; 
he notes "the rather singular fact that, whcreas all 
other supplics to the boys--the bread, the checse, the 
butter, the meat--were accurately measured, the 
beer was given absolutely ad libitum ". Ad libitum, 
however, with a qualification; for by a Regulation 
t Warden Godfrey Lee found in his first year of office (1861) that this 
allowance of beer was stili sent to his bouse from the brewery (The Wykehamist, 
February 1903). 
 Annals, p. 403. Mr Kirhy misdates the supervisors' report,  
 From ,, A Comrnon Place Book of College Concerns" ; see above, p. 1;9. 



202 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.,, 

of 1778 it had been ordered that " the beer that may 
be wanted in the chambers at propcr times is to be 
carried down by the bed-makers, and not by any of 
the boys on any pretence whatsoever", and the 
regulation was still in force. But it merely led to 
waste. The bed-makers, says Trollope, used "to 
carry every evening into each of the seven chambers 
a huge ' nipperkin ' of beer, 'to last ', as I remember 
one of them telling me, 'for ail night '. The supply, 
as far as my recollection goes, was always considerably 
in excess of the consumption ,,.1 
All this happened in the days when beer was the 
only authorized drink. But long aftcr tea had been 
provided at breakfast and in the evening the supply 
of beer was still unstinted. During thc summer 
months of the early sixties juniors were instructed 
to carry down from Hall full jorums, vhich they 
concealed under (and spilt upon) their gowns as a 
forlnal mark of respect for the prohibition above 
mentioned. The liquor was afterwards, by an ad- 
mixture, if I remember rightly, of raisins, rice, and 
sugar, " corrupted into a certain similitude " of the 
bottled beer of commerceY This concoction was 
presunmbly enjoyed by some of the prefects, who, 
hoxvever, were hot observed to drink beer, either as 
corrupted or otherwise, in any alarming quantities. 
Yet so wasteful vas the management then and 
afterwards that it vas ascertained in 1872 that the 
College had been spending £350 a year on " beer for 

x T. A. T. pp. 100, 121 ; see also Annals, p. 411.--Trollope's younger 
brother Anthony told Mr. Allingham that in his rime " we had no tea or eoffee, 
but beer as mueh as you liked--beer at breakfast, beer at dinner, beer at 
supper, beer under your bed " (quoted from Allingham's Varieties in Prose 
in Miss Locke's In Praise of [|'inchester, p. 216). 
2 Mr. Wasey Sterry (Annals ofEton College, p. 281) says that at Eton about 
1820 " the beer was thiek, vile, and new, and only drinkable when converted 
into ' butrtb|e ', whieh was done by bottling with a spoonful of brown sugar 
or a few raisins, and keeping some days" 



cH. xm BEVERS AND SUPPER : BEER 203 

the scholars ". If the Warden and Fellows of old 
rimes are to be charged with niggardliness towards 
them, it may be fairly urged in their defence that they 
spent £5 annually on evej boy's beer, and that only 
a very small fraction of that sure is so spent by their 
Successors. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SOCIETY AND THE CHI1,DREN 

No attempt is made in this book to trace even the 
outlines of what was naturally uppermost in the late 
Bursar's mind when he wrote his Anals--the story 
of the management of the College estates and of the 
administration of its revenues; large parts of that 
subject arc foreign to my purpose and beyond my 
scopc. One part of it, however, cannot fail to arrest 
the attention of every student of the lift of the 
scholars in past times, and I propose in this chapter 
to offcr some observations on the provision made, by 
the Warden and Fcllows of the old régime, for their 
accommodation, their instruction, and their mainten- 
ance. In the words of Warden Bigg it was the 
scholars " for whom, it must be allow'd, the College 
was chiefly intended"; it is by their discharge of 
their duty towards them that the Warden and 
Fellows must be chiefly judged. 
I. In some effective pages Lady Laura Ridding 
has contrasted the additions ruade to the school 
buildings and grounds in 1867-83 with those made 
" in the course of 400 years up to 1844 "; she says 
that during the earlier period " only three provisions 
were added for the benefit of the boys--i.e. Sickhouse, 
School, and Commoners' College " (Dr. Burton's 
" Old Commoners "), and that " none of the three 
204 



c.x,v THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 205 

was the eorporate gift of the Warden and Fellows ,,.t 
The statement is too sweeping. The ]arger part of 
lIeads was " eeded to the seholars " in 1768, and 
though the cession was revoked in 1780, it was renewed 
about 1790;  the Bursars' Meadow (Grass Court) 
was " appropriated to the commoners " in 1839 ; 3 
two class-rooms, a prefects' library, and a spacious 
"Moab " were provided by the College, at a cost of 
£2000 to £8000, between 1883 and 1889 ; « and finally, 
between 1836 and 1842, the College gave over £7000 
and advanced £10,000 toward the building of New 
Commoners? Subject to these important qualifica- 
tions, and to some unimportant qualifications to be 
noted below, Lady Laura's assertions must be accepted 
as correct.---Meanwhile the Wardens possessed them- 
selves of a garden and of pastures and of a roomy 
and most àelightful residence; af all which the 
Fellows, though they too had their garden and their 
pasture, used to grumble in the eightcenth century. 
0ne of them complained (c. 170) that the Warden, 
"by the Contrivance of his Predecessors ", had " the 
Convenience of a very large house for Wife, Servants, 
&c., 6 and at least three parts of the Scite of the 
College appropriated to his pleasure or profit ,,.7 
The complainant's point was hOt, I may observe, that 
these advantages had been secureà at the expense of 
the "children ", but that while the Warden enjoyed 
 G.R.p. 57. "- See Chapter XXIX. 
 Sec below, p. 502. 
* See above, p. 158, and below, p. 281. These buildings may have been 
forgotten from their having been demolished in 1869. 
 See below, p. 494.--Lady Laura Ridding postdates New Commoners, 
assigning the building to 1844 ; and she speaks of it as if the Warden and 
Fellows had taken no part in its erection. 
a What would Wykeham have said to the cubiculum ly nursery i hospitio 
Di Custodis, which occasioned expenditure in 1625 ? (Annals, p. 308.) 
 The Warden was blamed after the scrutiny of 1668 for causing " unwhole- 
aome foggs" by flooding his meadow, regardless of the welfare of the members 
of the Collcge. 



208 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .. for each scholar; we bave a statement to that effect 
from the two Masters themselves in an official letter 
to the Bishop of Winchester. How could such men 
as Dr. Warton and Mr. Collins accept such remunera- 
tion ? It was because the Warden and Fellows had 
allowed a bad custom to become established by 
which what should have corne from the College 
revenues came, in the form of " gTatuities ", from the 
pockets of the children's parents; the Master and 
Usher had long received between them ten guineas 
annually for cvery scholar whose friends could afford, 
and did not refuse, to pay that sure. We find the 
custom defendcd by one of the Fellows in 1740 by 
the amazingly bad açgument that, if parents are 
" eas'd of the Burthen ", they will give their sons 
more pocket-moncy, and that so much of the extra 
pocket-money as is not spent on " indecent and 
unstatuteable Cloaths " will " beget a luxurious way 
of Eating and Drinking ,,.1 Another Fellow wrote 
in 1738: " It mav deserve to be consider'd whether 
a high salary to the 3laster is not an effective way 
to ruin a School. For the greatest encouragement 
to care and diligence arise from an Expectation of 
Reward from each particular Scholar, for want of 
which, in towns where Free Schools are established, 
it is generaly observ'd that ye Free-Boys are least 
regarded ". 
In 1764 the Warden and Supervisors of New 
College, who, since Bishop Hoadlev had (in 1757) 
disallowed the appointment of a Warden of New 
College to the wardenship of Winchester, * had re- 
garded the emoluments of that office less tenderly, 
began to show uneasiness about these gratuities. 
The Winchester Society took alarm ; it offered, early 
a Sec above, p. 127 ; and be]ow, p. 239. 
" Sec above, p. 60. 



6..v THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 209 

in 1765, to forbid them, and "to make a com- 
petent provision " for the Masters, hot, however, 
mainly at its own expense. The eompetent pro- 
vision was to eome partly from certain reeent bene- 
factions, partly from " small annual eontributions 
îrom eaeh scholr", partly from " some Additions 
from the College ". By these means it was proposed 
to pay Dr. Burton £250, and Mr. Warton (then 
Usher) £150. But the Masters " thought proper to 
refuse ", Dr. Burton saying that " the sense of the 
Nation expressed by the Legislature had established 
a larger provision for the little School of Bcdford ". 
When in May 1766 Varton became Master and Mr. 
Collins Usher they accepted office on the old terres, 
after rejecting a renewed offer of £250 and £150 
without gratuities on the ground which they after- 
wards maintained, that such stipends were "in- 
adequate to the Importance, Labour, Trouble, and 
even Dignity of our respective Stations, in so illustrious 
a Seminary ". Four months later the Supervisors 
definitely condemned the gratuities as unstatutablc, 
and the Masters, "left naked and destitute ", were 
compelled to " fly for Refuge and Relief" to the 
Bishop of Winchester, " the true Father, Friend, and 
Protector of thc whole Wiccamical Family ". They 
put before him the best case that could be ruade for 
the gratuities. They pointed out that the Statures 
only enjoined that the Masters should hot " presume 
to exact, demand, or claire anything from any of the 
scholars or their parents and friends " (Rubrie XII.), 
and they deelared that they did hOt exact, demand, 
or claim anything, but only accepted what was 
voluntarily offered. They ruade light of the conten- 
tion that " custom had created a sort of demand " ; 
they insisted that, if the Founder had intended to 
forbid acceptance, he would have added to his exigere, 
P 



210 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ., 

petere, vendicare the word acc{pere. Strange to say 
these arguments prevailed; the Masters round the 
refuge and relief for which they had flown to Bishop 
Thomas; the XVarden and Fellows breathed again; 
the Supervisors were rather curtly snubbed; the 
plain meaning of the Statutes, the truc interests of 
the College, were set at naught, x The action of the 
Supervisors was not indeed without result: notwith- 
standing the Bishop's decision the Masters' stipends 
were raised in 1766 to £150 and £100, vhich sums 
continued till about 1848 to be the contribution of 
the College to their emoluments. But the gratuities 
were paid till about 1835, when, thanks fo the mum- 
ficence of Dr. Goddard, and hot to the awakened 
conscience of the Warden and Fellows, they were 
finally abolished. 2 
III. If the record of the Warden and Fellows in 
respect of the accommodation and teaehing of the 
scholars is such as bas been described, what is it in 
respect of their maintenance ? We have seen in 
Chapter XI. that the Sub-XVarden and Bursars claimed 
in 1712 that voluntarily, and " out of their tender 
Care", the Fellovs had recently " improved and 
enlarged " the commons of a scholar by 2-d. per 
week. In 1818 one of their backers--or perhaps one 
of their own number--thought it worth while to 
point out that " by rubrie 13, breakfasts are not 
allowed to boys aged 15 ; by usage, they are allowed 
to boys of all ages-.3 For the bread and beer and 
the " sav'd broth " of breakfast let the Sub-Warden 
and Bursars have sueh eredit as sueh bounty deserves. 

a My account of the gratuity-controversy of 1764-6 is chiefly based on 
documents copied into a parchrnent vohtme -known as "Cases". 
 See above, p. 52. Goddard's munificence did not take effect till after lais 
death. It was the custom in the early years of the nineteenth century to charge 
the gratuities in the scholars' school-bills with the note '" if added" 
-" Letter fo ,Sir William Scott, p. 85. 



c,,.v THE SOCIETY AN'D THE CHILDREN 211 

But facts force upon us the conclusion that until 
Barter became Warden in 1882 improvements in the 
boarding of the scholars were rarely due to the 
spontaneous liberality of the College, and usually 
either (1) to benefactions of individuals ear-marked 
for the purpose, or (2)to pressure from outside. 
(1) By his will, ruade in 1559, Sir Richard Rede, with 
a contemptuous reference to the " righte slender and 
small " commons of his school-days, left forty shillings 
and an annuity of £3 for their " betteringe -.1 About 
1700 Harris the Head Master gave £200 to vary the 
boys' diet by providing them with " veal in season " "- 
In 1763 Mr. Scott left property vhich produced an 
annual income of £100 for " the better support and 
maintenance of the scholars " 3 and a Resolution was 
, 
accordingly passed in 1765 that " an addition should 
be ruade to the children's Commons at Supper, and 
that 8 shillings should be added towards the Improve- 
ment of their Puddings ; the expenses of both to be 
paid out of the late Rev. Mr. Scott's legacy-.4 It 
does not weaken, it strengthens, the case against the 
Warden and Fellows as a corporate body that two of 
these three benefactors had been Fellows. The 
bequests, it must be added, were not always very 
strictly employed for the purposes for which they 
had been ruade. Part of Mr. Scott's legacy was 
used--or at ail events it was proposed to use it  
at a critical moment to increase the stipends of 
the Masters. (2) Vhen improvements were ruade 
in the boys' diet at the expcnse of the College and hot 
 Annal.s, p, 229, 
2 Warden Bigg speaks of the veal as being " according to Dr. Harris's 
partieular benefaction" The credit of providing it is eommonly assigned 
to another benefaetor, a Anna/s, p. 402. 
 The additional faggots provided in the saine year (see above, p. 1(]4} 
perhaps also came from this legaey. 
 Sec above, p. 209.--Counsel's opinion was taken in 1765 as to the lawful- 
aess of so using it. 



212 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  
from speeial benefaetions, they were usually ruade 
under pressure, sometimes from the Bishop as Visitor, 
more often from the New College Supervisors. It 
was the duty of the latter, under Rubrie III., to 
enquire at their serutiny qualiter in victualibus 
providetur, and to correct what was vrong in that 
particular. There is reason for suspecting that at 
one rime (1679-1757) the scrutinies were not very 
searching ; but it was ordered in 1620 that meat must 
be given to the children " of due weight, I that thev 
nmy not be driven to get food elsewhere at their own 
cost ", and in 1621 that they must be provided with 
better victuals, tare in potu quam in cibo. In 1766 
the College was advised to " allow Butter and Cheese 
to the Children for their Breakfasts,  and Garden 
stuff with their Meat ,,,3 which advice Bishop Thomas 
backed ; and even as late as 1836 such strong repre- 
sentations about commons were ruade that a com- 
mittee vas empowered " to make any new arrange- 
ment whieh seems expedient ".--Two episcopal In- 
junctions advanced, and it is difficult to believe that 
they advanced without good reason, very grave 
charges against melnbers of " the Soeiety ". Bishop 
Horne enjoined in 1571 " that the Bursars have great 
regard for provision of good sweet meat to avoid 
musty bread whereby diseases be often bred among 
the children, and if they buy that which is not good, 
let it be turned back to themselves and better pro- 
vided", « and Archbishop Bancroft in 1608 "that 
neither the Varden nor any Officer or Fellow ... 
obtrude on the Colledge their badde and uncleane 
i The Superisors ' report of 1617 eontains the folIowing: Item curent 
Bursarii ne fercula scholarium ullo rempote minuantur. 
2 Sec above, p. 180. 
 The Superisors added that these allowances " might be ruade without 
much further expence to the College, than what might be saved frora the better 
management of the Beer ". Sec the last chapter, p. 201. 
 I'..4. de 1. p. BB1. 



cH.xv THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 213 

wheat and barley made into malt, growing art their 
parsonages, for such prices as pleaseth themselves ,,.1 
We need not suppose that such nefarious practices 
were common; but itis impossible to acquit the 
Warden and Fellows on another count--that of 
having shown, for at least a century before the reign 
of Warden Barrer, the most culpable indifference or 
carelessness about the manner in which meals were 
served. 2 Warden Bigg told the Fellows in 1739 or 
1740 that the Warden and Fcllows ought to dine 
from time to time in Hall, as dirccted by Rubric XIV., 
"in order " (among other things) " to keep up Order 
and Deccncy among the Children " and " to see their 
Commons serv'd up fairly and regularly " ; he added 
that much might be done " by the care of the Steward, 
if the Fellows would undertake that office, as obliged 
by express Stature, 3 in overlooking their Commons, 
and seeing them sent up in a proper and regular 
Manner ". Bigg's monitions on this, and (us we shall 
sec) on other matters, were disregarded. The evils 
to which he called attention were as rife as ever in 
the early nineteenth century. A junior, as likely as 
hot, might be sent on errands or be fagging in 
chambers when dinner was in progress, * but perhaps 

1 Annals, p. 304. 
2 For an earlier period, sec (e.g.) ibid. p. 351. 
* He refers to the Senescallus aule, whose duties are described in Rubric 
XIV. After scrutinies the Supervisors often suggest that, if there is such a 
person, he does not discharge his duties properly. In 1680 they enjoin 
"firmly" that the Fellows must take the office in weekly course. 
« ,, Dinner", it must be rernernbered, was then at six ; attendance was 
theoretically compulsory ; absent juniors were punishable and punished (sec 
The B'ykehamist for May 1870). A letter (undated) is preserved in -hich Dr. 
Williams relis the Bursar that he has eomplaints from parents of juniors 
"losing their dinner at six o'eloek " ; he has enquired, and finds that they are 
employed in "" sweeping up the Chamber and eleaning the Prepositors' 
Candlesticks" He suggests that the latter task should be assigned to the 
bed-makers : -" Juniors would then be relieved from a task hot less unpleasant 
perhaps than the old grievance of blacking shoes which is now put an end to", 
and would get their dinners regularly. 



214 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

that did not greatly marrer ; the unrelieved sameness 
of the meal, the gross and grossly named x lumps of 
meat known as " dispers "--fare fo which the first 
clause of Nebuchadnezzar's discriminating verdict-- 

It may be eaten, but itis not good-- 

was barely applicable--must have given pause to 
all but the robustest appetites. " No boy ", wrote 
Dr. Moberly, " had meat more than once a week, 
owing to the horrid manner in which it was eut up "3-- 
Neither knives nor forks were as yet provided by the 
College; " Villiam of Wykeham knew nothing, I 
think," s of the latter implements. Forks, for the 
diner's use, were unheard of in England till an old 
Wykehamist deseribed their use in Italy in the earlier 
years of the seventeenth eentury. 4 Even at the 
close of that eentury " the fork had seareely ruade ris 
appearance " at the table of royalty in France, and 
" knives were rare exeept in the hands of the earvers ; 
the eompany fell to work with fingers and teeth-.5 
Both knives and forks, however, were regarded as 
necessaries in English bornes long before they were 
supplied to the boys at Winchester. One of the 
Fellows told Brougham in 1818 that it was " in the 
eontemplation of myself and some of my Brethren" 
to supply them; * it remained in the eontemplati0n 

x Fleshy, Fat Flap, Raek, Cat's Head, etc. 
z D. D., p. 21. See also T. A. T. pp. 102-5 ; Rieh, pp. 10-12 ; Mansfleld, 
pp. 83-8 ; G.P.S. pp. 30-1. "' That infernal dinner hour", says Mansfield. 
Things were no better in Commoners : C. Cooper Henderson told lais mother 
in 1818 that dinner there was " the most uncomfortable, hustling meal you 
ean imagine" 
s See above, p. 180. 
 The entertaining passage about forks in Coryat's Cruditie, is quoteà in 
Armais, p. 295 ; Mr. Kirby adds some interesting information about the use 
of knives and forks at ïnehester. 
* Hop "kins, An ldler in Old France, e. iii. 
« Li.eombe Clarke, ,4 Letter fo H. Brougham, iF,$q., 2I.P., pp. 54-5. [3. 
Cooper Henderson wrote from [2ornmoners in the saine year : " I use my knife 



.xv THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 215 
of the brotherhood for another twenty years. The 
scholars provided their own knives and forks till 
1838, but they so often lost or mislaid them that they 
became " rare articles with the Juniors ", who conse- 
quently " had some difficulty in getting rid of a 
dinner when given to them " 1 " The chances were , 
says Rich, that " we had no knife or fork, and had 
to use our pocket-knives ".* It was argued in 1818 
that knives and forks would certainly be spoilt or 
lost if bought by the College, but that the boys were 
"careful of such articles if bought by themselves ,,.3 
The second statement is refuted by the facts; the 
first had some validity. 4 But even so the Warden 
and Fellows were to blame; they abstained from 
supervision and exerted no influence for refinement 
and good manners. 
The evils described in this chapter had their root, 
of course, in the infirmity of human nature, but they 
are partly explained by the provisions of the Statures. 
Wykeham could not foresee--even with Wycliffism 
confronting him he did not foresee--that at no very 
distant date the elaborate functions for which he 
instituted his ten perpetual priest-fellows would be 
regarded by most Englishmen as part of an outworn 
system, and that for the maimed rites of a reformed 
church the three chaplains, whom he had intended 
merely to reinforce their ten superiors, would amply 
provide. The Reformation came and the chief occu- 
pation of the Fellows was soon gone. There remained 

and fork at dinner always, and find them a great luxury ".--Knives and forks 
are mentioned by one of the Fellows about 174 in a list of the "several 
advantages" supplied by the College to a resident Fellow. 
i Mansfield, p. 88. 
 Letter to Sir IVilliam Seoir, p. 86. 
« ,, For many years ", says the writer, "silver cups, six in number, were 
daily set before the scholars for beer ; but such was the abuse and injury done 
to them, that the battered remnant was withdrawn ". See lso above, p. 194, 
and The Wykehamist for May and June 1907. 



216 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

the secondary duty which Vykeham had assigned 
them, that of advising and, it might be, of controlling 
the Warden in the administration of estates and 
revenues. Having ceased tobe a College of Priests, 
they were only a Board of Directors. As time went 
on they mostly ceased tobe resident, and maintained 
no close connection with the lire of the school ; hold- 
ing College livings x and attending College meetings 
they were attached to Winchester by a " cash-nexus" 
which they secured for a narrow ring of families. * 
There was a second development which the Founder 
did not and could hOt foresee. The revenues with 
which he endowed his College were hot likely, in his 
judgment, to do more--in early years they perhaps 
did less--than meet the expenditure which he directed 
to be incurred. He did not foresee that with future 
benefactions and a vast fise in the value of land 
there would in rime to corne, when ail that expenditure 
had been met, be a large and growing annual surplus. 3 
Time passed, and there the surplus was. The Warden 
and Fellows had provided, or satisfied themselves 
that they had provided, with due allowance for the 
dwindling value of money, for ail the members of the 
foundation on the scale that the Founder had ordained. 
How were they to deal with what was left ? To the 
modern mind the answer is obvious. Either they 
should have enlarged the area over which the Founder's 
benefits extended, or they should have increased the 
amount of these benefits over the whole of the existing 
area, or they should have done both these things. 
The rigidity of the provisions of the Statures * gave 

x In 1862, for instance, seven of the thirteen benefices in the gift of the 
Col|ee were held by Fellows (P.S.C. Report, ii. p. 178). 
2 Sec the note at the end of this chapter. 
a Sec Rubrics XXXIII., XXXV., and AnnaLç, pp. 26, 27, 149. 
« Adndration for the Founder cannot prevent a reader of the Statures from 
regretting that he lacked the foresight which made Dean Colet " leve it hooly 



cn.x,v THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 217 

them an excuse for doing neither. " Vhy hOt inerease 
the nurnber of the scholars ? " asked Brougharn in 
1818. " Because ", if was answered on behalf of the 
College, " the Founder's charter was for a limited 
number; addition to this nurnber would violate his 
charter ,,.x " Why hot, then ", it rnight bave been 
asked, " increase the advantages of all the rnembers 
of the foundation ? " " Bccause ", it would bave been 
answered, " the 3Iasters, the Scholars, and thc test 
of thern, already receive as rnuch as the Statures 
authorize us to give ". The Directors therefore, after 
providing, like a prudent Board, for a reserve fund 
and a " carrv., forward ", disposed of the balance as 
additional rernuneration for the Directors, or, as thev 
would perhaps have preferred to say, as a dividend 
for " the rnernbers of the Society " in the sense in 
which they used that phrase. 
Itis to the lasting honour of Warden Henry Bigg 
(17.ï--40), to whose monitions I have referred, that 
he devoted what were to be the last rnonths of his 
wardenship and of his life to an unselfish and strenuous 
attempt to sweep away the sophistries which deceived 
many good rnen before and after hirn. The Warden 
and Fellows, he had corne to sec quite clearly, though 
created for the school's sake, were existing for their 
own,  and in a series of papers, rive of which have 
been preserved, he appealed to his colleagues to help 
him in correcting what he called " the unlawfullness of 
out proceedings ", and so avoiding what rnight be " the 
heinous crimes " of " Perjury, Breach of Trust, and 

to the dyscrecion and charite " of the governors of St. Paul's " with suych 
other eounse[l as they shall call vnto theme good litterid and lernyd menne 
They to adde and diminish vnto this boke and to supply in it euery defaute, 
And also to declare in it euery obscurite and derkenes as tyme and place and 
iust occasion shall requyre ". Contrast the language of Wykeham's Finis 
conclusio omnium statutorum. 
 Letter to ,Sir William Scolt, pp. 82, 89, 90. See also above, p. 100. 
z Sargeaunt, p. 8. 



218 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE n. tl 

Injustice to our Wards". If We cannot, he tells 
them, justify our present Conduct, let us resolve as 
Honest men, as XVise men, so to regulate out practice 
for the Future, that we may be able to keep a con- 
science void of offenee towards God and towards 
Men. Year by year I bave been endeavouring to 
quiet mvself with those arguments which I bave 
heard advaneed in favour of our present practice; 
their failure to satisfy me, for any long time, makes 
me suspect the veakness of most of them.--We are 
hot absolute Proprietors, we are Trustees; our 
proceedings will never stand the test of an Impartial 
Judgment. We do hot provide for other members of 
the College in a just and equitable proportion; we 
allot to out private uses sums of money which we 
bave no warrant for so allotting; what else are the 
Increments, the Divisions at the end of the Year, the 
Fines themselves ? They are PubIick Money, and 
should be aecounted for as sueh. The allowances of 
the Warden amount in the whole fo one hall of the 
charge of the Children ; the advantages of a resident 
Fellow are more than those of the Schoolmaster, 
Usher, and 3 Chaplains together, though hot allowed 
by one third part so much as the Sehoolmaster alone. 1 
Hence has arisen what in alI reason amounts to a 
Demand of Presents and Gratuitys, directly contrary 
to the Letter and Intention of the Statutes.--I ara 
as willing to give satisfaction to the Fellows in 
retrenching exorbitances in my own allowanee as I 
trust they will be to join with me in doing justice to 
the other members of the College.--So, and so forth, 
wrote the Warden. 2 

1 The total proAsion for a Fellow under the Statutes was £10 : 2 : 11, for 
the Schoolmaster £15 : 2 : 11. 
 I bave summarized the rive papers as far as possible in the Warden's own 
words. He notes many matters of detail which I have omitted, e.g., We do 
hot reside, most of us, even for a part of the year ; we neglect College 



ç. x THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 219 

There are indications that upon some of the 
Fellows the Varden's appeals made a sensible impres- 
sion. The majority hardened their hearts. " Begin 
at home; you are yourself the worst offender ", was 
the sure of what, as the Warden pointed out, was 
their irrelevant answer. Bigg's language was hot 
always tactful ; perhaps he too often struck a pathetic 
note ; but the strength of his case is not less manifest 
than his sincerity. The last of his papers, written 
on June 28, 17¢0, ends with these solemn words : 

Tho', I own, I have hot that Courage & Resolution . . . 
eno' to enable me to withstand my Friends upon this occasion, 
which is the greatest Tryal Iever felt in my whole Lire, Yet 
I cannot but think that I have both Courage to give up freely 
whatever I may be wrongfully possess'd of, and Reso|ution to 
submit fo the hardest Determination against me, if it may 
but tend to the Benefit of the Whole College ; whieh I heartily 
wish and pray to God, may prevail against all private Views 
and Interests whatsoever. 

Within a fev veeks he had passed away, 1 having 
known that sharpest of pains, 7roXXh çbpouou'a p7«ubç 
«pa«,. His naine is hardly mentioned by Wyke- 
hamical historians, * and would perhaps have been 
forgotten but for the often-quoted lines in which a 
poet-laureate has recorded that he " drew the colour 
of his life " from Winchester at the rime " vhen 
Bigg presided ,,.3 

business ; we make no show of collegiate livingin spite of our obligations 
under the Statutes. 
 Obiit variol£ç, writes Huntingford (MS. Armais), but he does hot record 
the day of his death. Bigg's will was proved on August 11,174 ; his successor 
John Coxed was elected a week iater. 
 A few judicious sentences are devoted to him in Annals (pp. 395, 400). 
» Wiiliam Whitehead, To the Re'o. I)r. Lowlh, Wykeham's Biographer. 



220 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

NOTE TO CHAPTER XIV 

I 1608 Archbishop Bancroft found it necessary to enjoin 
upon the Society " that no three of eonsanguinity with the 
Warden or any ])ther of the Fellows shall hereafter be per- 
mitted to be Fellows . . . together " ; the proeess, to whieh 
I have alluded on p. 216, of seeuring fellowships, with the 
ineome attaehed, for a narrow ring of families had evidently 
begun. It is possible that the letter of the Arehbishop's 
injunetion was never thereafter transgressed ; but the proeess 
which it was designed to check was destined to go far, as the 
following memorandum, with which Mr. Chitty bas kindly 
supplied me, will sufficiently show : 
"Wardcn Bigg had been a Winchester Fellow before his 
promotion to the Wardenship of New College, and six months 
after his return to Winchester as Warden the Fellows (as one 
of them said) ' complemented him' by eleeting his brother 
Walter to a fellowship (1730). This Walter Bigg married a 
daughter of John Harris, Warden Harris's grandson, who (like 
that Warden's son Thomas) was also a Fellow. John Harris, 
vho had been elected in 1704 when his ïather-in-law (Edward 
Young) resigned, retircd in 1748 to make room for his son 
Richard Harris. Warden Bigg having died in 1740, his widow 
became wife to Philip Barton, vho was Fellow from 172 to 
1765 ; and in 1748 Charles Blackstone I., whose mother was 
Warden Bigg's sister, obtained a fellowship. Blackstone did 
even better than John Harris; for after resigning in 1783 
in favour of his son Charles Blackstone II., he obtained re- 
election in 1788, and father and son were Fellows together 
until the son's death in 1801. The father died in 180, and in 
1811 a fellowship was given to his nephew Charles Blackstone 
III., who was the youngest son of Sir William Blackstone, the 
Judge, and therefore brother-in-law (as we shall see) to two 
other Fellows. Harry Lee I. vas Warden from 1763 to 1789 ; 
his son Harry Lee II., who married Sir W. Blackstone's 
daughter Philippa, vas Fellow from 1789 to 1838, and was 
father of Harry Lee III., who married a grand-niece of Warden 
Huntingford and was Fellow from 1827 to 1880. The Black- 
stone precedent for father and son was thus improved upon ; 



e.xv THE SOCIETY AND THE CHILDREN 221 
there were no resignations. Daniel Williams, who became 
Fellow in 1781, married Sir W. Blackstone's daughter Sarah, 
and their son David Williams, Head Master from 1824 to 
1835, was father of Henry Blackstone Williams, Fcllow from 
1849 to 1879. Philip Williams, who had been elected Fellow 
in 1769, bclonged to a distinct family ; whcn he resigned his 
fellowship in 1819, he was succeedcd by his son Charles 
Williams. William Howley (afterwards Archbishop of Canter- 
bury), who became Fellow in 1793, was nephew to Samuel 
Gauntlett, who vacated his fellowship in 1794. John Penrose 
Cumming, Fellow from 1800 to 1810, was uncle to George 
Cumming Rashleigh, Fe]low from 1829 to 1874, and a]so to 
Andrew Quicke, Fellow from 1832 to 1864. Gilbert Heathcote 
(Fcl]ow 1804-29} was fathcr of Gilbert Wall Heathcote 
(Fellow 1838-93) .... '" 
When Wardcn Huntingford had securcd the c]cction of one 
of his nephews to a fellowship in 1814, he provided himse]f 
with a large note-book which I have belote me. He described 
it on the flv-leaf as " Wiccamical Annals Cmmencing in 
June 1814", and he commenced his Wiccamical Annals with 
the entry : '" June 23 d. By the Blessing of God ! and by the 
favour of friends, Henry Huntingford, LL.B. of New Col]cge 
in Oxford was Elected and Admitted a Fel]ow of Winchester 
ClIege " 1 
The Warden and Fellows -knew their Statutes most 
thoroughly, and eould alvays quote them, or explain them 
away, when their privileges were attaeked. What did they 
make of the words of the eighth Rubrie whieh bound them 
by the obligation of an oath to make their eleetions to fellow- 
ships cessantibus mnore, odio, favore, partialitate et affeccione 
sinistris quibuscunque ? 

t The Warden was an excellent uncle. He became Bishop of Hereford in 
1815, and (as he notes in his Armais) his nephew Henry became a Prebendary 
of Hereford Cathedral in 1817, and Rector of Hampton Bishop in the Hereford 
dioeese in 1822. 



CHAPTER XV 

OLD AND NEW SCHOOL : CLASS-ROOMS 

EvEItY Wykehamist knows that Seventh Chamber, 
with the space now occupied by Seventh Chamber 
Passage, was for about three centuries the one and 
only school-room, and that the Founder intended it to 
be so. He ordained, in Rubric XXXIV., that 
" schools for the scholars be held in perpetuity in the 
great house below the hall", and he declared, in 
Rubric XLIII., that there must therefore be no 
dancing in Hall, no singing, no clamour, no inordinate 
noise, no spilling of water, beer, or other liquors, for 
all such practices might disturb annoy or damage the 
scholars in " the grammatical schools " 1 below. The 
placing of Hall upstairs--it is, says Wykeham, in 
modum solarii « desuper terrain elevata et edificataPis a 
 An early Head Master, Richard Darcy (1418-24), retired infirmitate 
detentus qua non poterat in scolis laborare ; before coming to Winchester he 
had been magister scolarum grammaticalium at Gioucester (The Headmastev's 
Shields, by H. C. p. 2, where, however, scolariura is printed). The old Schooi 
at Winchester is called " The Grammar Schoole" in the Inventories (1678-88) 
which take account of it. The plural is constantIy used for a schooi both as an 
institution and as a room. " In the twelfth century, and until the reign of 
Henry VIII., a grammar schooi was commonly, and until about 1450, almost 
invariabIy spoken of in the plurai .... The reason I do hot pretend to 
assign " (Leach, St. Paul's School belote Colet, p. 192). 
 Solariura=an upper room, as more exposed to the sun ; the word is used 
of the room above Chantry in the accounts.--Similar ianguage is empioyed 
in the New College Statutes ; but the space below New College Hall is assigned 
to chambers, some of them for "' the priests and other ministrants of the 
chapei". Sec Rubrics LII. and LXIII. 
222 



c.xv OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS 223 
point, we may note in passing, in which the Winchester 
arrangements agree with those of the statelier college 
buildings at Oxford ; at New College, at Magdalen, at 
Christ Church, Hall and Kitchen, as at Winchester, 
are on different levels. 
The floor-space of the original School was about 
1300 square feet, and, if we suppose that Wykeham 
intended that eighty boys and no more--the seventy 
scholars and the ten filii nobilium et valencium perso- 
nature of Rubric XVI.--should be taught there, some 
16 square feet were allowed per pupil. If seems 
that the quiristers were not in early days regularly 
taught in School, whatever may have been the arrange- 
ment for them later; 1 but besides the scholars and 
thefilii nobilium day-boys from the town were taught 
in the earliest times, says Mr. Kirby, " along with the 
scholars" We know that there were eighty to a 
hundred such boys in 1412, and there is every reason 
to believe that there were also day-boys--in what 
numbers we cannot say--two centuries later3 Mr. 
Kirby thinks that " the old school-room was just 
large enough to hold them ail ", scholars, commoners, 
and these others. Large enough, perhaps, in a sense ; 
but if is not surprising to find Christopher Johnson 
complaining of the offensive atmosphere. 3 In 1682, 
when rather fewer boys 4 were taught in School than 
in 1412, the Bishop of Winchester was impressed by 
"the many and great inconveniences to which the 
eloseness and straitness of their present school in 
proportion to their number must necessarily subject 
them" 5 
If the dimensions of Sehool were too small in view 
of the purpose whieh it had to serve, its position, 
i See Chapter XXXVI. * See below, p. 279. 
s Mr. J. S. Cotton in The Wykehamst, August 1899. 
4 Seventy scholars and some eighty extranei. 
» See Annals, pp. 46, 122, 124, 868. 



224 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Mathew assures us, was altogether admirable. 
CockereII, commending the Iov-pitched roofs " con- 
spicuous in alI Wykeham's works " and particularly 
af New ColIege, quotes the provcrb Dove non entra il 
sole, entra il medico. 1 School had three doubIe vin- 
dovs, all facing south ; and the arrangement, as the 
poet points out, secured that in vinter, when the sun 
was lov, ifs occupants gained the full bcncfit of the 
rays of Phoebus, there being no buildings fo intercept 
them. This was the more important because, unlike 
the scholars' chambcrs, 2 " our school contains no 
fireplace " ; the rays of Phoebus and the breath of his 
mouth 3 supplied whatever warmth was supplied af 
all (vv. 102-9). 
The old School is the only part of the College 
buildings vhich our poet describes (w. 70-101). 
Of the four oaken posts which, he says, support the 
ceiIing, only one remains ; at the position of the other 
thrce we can only guess. Wherever placed, these 
posts must have been a hindrance to both eyc and ear. 
The cistae, vhich on the announcement of a remedy 
were shut with a resounding bang (v. 142), must surely 
have been smaIler than those with whieh the older 
generations of living Wykehamists were familiar. 
They were already known as " scobs " in Mathew's 
sehool-days ; as early as 1580 a Fellow of the College 
bequeathed to a relative " alI my Bookes whiche 
shalbe founde in a scobbe in my Studye ,,,4 and in 
1620 a seholar, "at his entranee into the ColIedge ", was 
charged 3s. 6d. " for a scobb to hold his books 
There were " ehaires " for the two Masters, and below 
the Aut Disce rose a rostrum, or pulpit for deelama- 
1 Coekerell, p. 26.  See above, p. 164. 
» I agree with Mr. Leaeh (Hixtory, p. 124) in rejeeting the usua! interpreta- 
tion of halilu oris in v. 108. 
« The Wykehamist, Oetober 1907. 
 SValcott, p. 167. 



o..w OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS .'225 

tions. On the north wall was-a totiu« mundi tabula ; 
such 3 map, if Robinson's geographic31 introduction 
fo his Synopsis of .4noient History  was to be ruade 
intelligible, was a necessary piece of school-equipment. 
Of the Tabula Legum, vhich was placed on thc eastern 
wall, I shall speak in the next chapter. The Aut 
Disce, which faced it, is claborately explained by out 
poet, and both the Magdalen and the Winchester 
3ISS. give pictures of its emblems, which were not 
quite the same as those of its successor. A quondam 
rod-maker may perhaps say that the rod of the older 
Aut Disce is a singularly unvorkmanlike production 
ifs ink-horn and pen-case, attached by strings to 
girdle, have bcen rcplaccd by an unmistakable ink- 
stand and pcn, with a mistakable something else 
which Mr. Hardy calls "an unmeaning appendage" 
The tiers of seats in the windows, from vhich in 
lathev's rime the eighteen preïects watched their 
schoolfellows, no doubt suggested the senior, middle, 
and junior rows on which boys sat when "up to 
books" in the present School ; to vhich we have nov 
to turn out attention. 

The number of commoners, which was 26 in 1653 
and 53 in 1679, rose fo 79 in the next two years. 
Possibly, as Mr. Leach suggestsp " the frequent visits 
of the Court, and the intended palace, ruade the 
golden youth floek to Winchester School, just as the 
propinquity of Windsor 3ttraeted them fo Eton ", 
but I detect no very aristocratie ring in the names of 
 See above, p. 7.ln the Inventmries of 1678-88 (the furniture of School 
does nog seem to have been inventoried till the room was about to he dis- 
mantled) we read that " the Grammar Sehoole " contained "Two chaires, 
1 cusheon, 1 mapp ". " Scobs" (like "toys " and ehests in chamhers) were 
hot the property of the College. 
 This Synopsis forms part of the little volume published in 1616 (see ahove, 
p. 
a llistorg, p. 363. 

Q 



226 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

the newcomers ; it may be that pupils were attracted 
by the appointment in 1679 of a younger and pre- 
sumably more vigorous Hcad Master. 1 Whatever 
the cause of the increase, it made thc provision of 
additional school-places necessary ; and the newly 
appointed Warden, John Nicholas, appealed to Wyke- 
hamists to help him in building a more commodious 
School. A list of the " benefactors " whom he en- 
listed is still extant. It is headed by the name of 
George Morley, the aged Bishop of Winchestcr, whose 
scnse of the urgeney of the Warden's undertaking 
may have been quiekened by his having, or having 
lately had, a young namesake and relative in College. 2 
Thc Bishop gave to the work, whieh he did not live 
to see eompleted, ten pounds and forty oaks. The 
other beneïactors were nmstly, as we should expeet, 
former " ehildren " or former eommoners ; among the 
former " ehildren " were Bishops Ken and Turner. 
A very few non-Wykehamists, ineluding the Head 
Master's mother and two sisters of tbe Warden, 
brougbt up the total number of the bencfactors to 
seventy-one. 3 But the cost of the building was 
£2600, « and the subscriptions (including the Bishop's 
oaks, valued at £70) amounted only to £1123 ; Nieholas 
" carried through his design "--so the writer of the 
list informs us--by paying the balance. "The Found- 
ation was laid Sept. 1688, finish t June the llth, 
1687." 

x In 1679 (see above, p. 47) Villiam Harris suceeeded Henry Beeston, 
who became Warden of New College. Under Bceston's rule at Winchester 
the numbers had risen, but ver)', slowly. 
2 The naine of George Morley of Farnham appears in the roll ad ttïnton. 
of 1677 ; he left in 1682 {W.S.p. 201). 
a The arms of the more generous or wealthy benefaetors rnay be seen in 
the comice of the ceiling. 
« Upper School at Eton was rebuilt by subscription in 1689-9 at a eost 
of £2800 (M. L. pp. 274, 276). Mr. Leach (['.H. Bucks. ii. p. 199) gives the 
dage as 1694-5. 



c.xv OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROO3IS 227 
The new School was arranged, furnished, and 
decorated in the most conservative spirit, with a map 
of the world, a Tabula Legum, an l ut Disce, triple tiers 
of seats for the boys and two thrones for the Masters, 1 
most of them, if not all, in the saine relative positions 
as before. According to 3Ir. Leach there was no 
rostrum,  but in a rough draft of some Resolutions of 
1756 there is an erascd order that " the Preepositor of 
the School shall bang " the keys of chambcrs " over 
the Pulpit in sight of the Schoolmastcr " ; from which 
we may perhaps infer, hot only that there was a 
rostrum in the new School, but that it occupied the 
saine position there (under the .lut Disce) as it had in 
the old.  Conservatism went still furthcr : thcre had 
been no fireplace in the old School, and there was 
therefore (until 178 ) none in the new--a fact which 
even our optimistic poct would have found it difficult 
fo commend. :For it is an important differcnce 
between the arrangements of the old School and the 
new that the rays of Phcebus are admitted into 
the latter much lcss frecly than they wcre into the 
former; the prescnt School is chiefly lighted from 
the north. The reason for this dccidcd and apparcntly 
injudicious break with the past is gcnerally under- 
stood to have been that it was decided to place a Ball 
 A third and a fourth rnaster's seats were added later ; that of a third 
toaster probably in 1739 (see above, p. 89). 
 llistory, p. 12.. 
 In Wooll's Biographical Notice of Dr. Warto, p. 4, tlere is an allusion to 
"the rostrum, then "(i.e.e. 1739) "usually introduced into the Sehool". 
Unfortunately the furniture of the new School vas never included in thc 
Inventories. 
« See Amals, pp. 6$ {note ), 89. Fireplace, ehimney, store, and even 
eoals, were paid for, hOt from the ordinary College revenues, but from " money 
bequeathed by Dr. Taylor for the improvement of the seholars' eommons "' 
IMr. Kirby always ealled this most generous benefaetor Dr. Taylor ; but he is 
deseribed in his epitaph ,as a Master of Arts. Mr. Kirby also ealls two portraits 
in Hall those of Taylor's fe and daughter ; they are those of his mother 
and sister. Taylor's great munificence to the College was perhaps largely 
due to his being unmarried.) 



 °-28 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Cour'c, such as now exists, against the back of School ; x 
it would of course have been absurd to place a long 
line of windows along the wall of a tennis court or 
rives' cour'c. But as there is no Ball Cour'c against the 
baek of Sehool in Godson's elaborate plan of 1750, 
and as it was resolved by the Warden and Fellows in 
1768 that " the present Ball Court " should be ruade 
inaccessible, and that " a nev Ball ComoE " should " be 
ruade behind the Sehool", the comparative vindow- 
lessness, and the positive ugliness, of the baek of 
Sehool must be otherwise explained. We must 
remember that. when School was built, Meads 
were seetuded ; the baek of the buitding was for most 
people the baek of eversoEhing. 2 This being so, it 
eould hardly be expeeted that an arehiteet of"the 
debased Italian sehool", when eonstrueting his south 
wall, would order his goings by the Lamp of Saerifiee. 

By building School, with its floor-space of about 
2700 square feet, a Warden Nieholas provided hot only 
for the reeent inerease of numbers, but for a eon- 
siderable further inerease. 3Iany years, however, were 
to pass before sueh further inerease came. It is true 
that the number of eommoners reaehed 86 in 1693, 
but by the last year of the eentury, vhen Harris 
vetired, it had gone baek to 28, and it n'as not till 
1730 that it was again as large as in 181. The periods 
of prosperity and adversity during the eighteenth 
eentury are very well marked, and their alternation, 
l Aeeording to Mr. Kirby "' ' lqall Cour ' in the rear of School was ruade 
in 1688 " (Annals, p. 368). 
 See further in Chapter .XXIX. 
a As against 1300 square feet, the area of the old School, whieh was 45 ft. 
6 in. long and 28 ft. I0 in. wide ; the height trom the present floor to the eeiling 
is 15 ft. 3 in. (Annals, p. 4ô). The area of the original School at Eton was 
1680 sq uare feet ; it was 70 feet long by 24 feet broad ( I'.H. Burks, ii. p. 16). 
The interior of the present School at Winchester is about 77 feet long, 35 wide, 
and abou 27 feet high to the bottom of the comice. 



oo 
«..x OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS ..9 

which was briefly discussed by Mr. Holgate, 1 deserves 
careful study. Two observations on 3Ir. Holgate's 
figures may here be hazarded. Tbey point to the 
conclusion that very long headmasterships may be 
undesirable. Dr. Burton (172-65), having in his 
earlier years brought up the number of eommoners to 
123, left it at 39 ; Dr. Warton (1766-93), after bring- 
ing it up to 116, left it at 41. For our present purpose 
it is more important to note that Nicholas' provision 
of further school-spaee met with mueh the saine 
fortune as afterwards befell BmoEon's provision of 
further lodging-spaee. Botb these improvements were 
necessary conditions to the progress of Wincbester, 
and both ultimately promoted it, but the immediate 
result of both was disappointing ; tbe school, indced, 
reached its nadir soon af ter the building of Old 
Commoners. It was only at rare intervals during the 
eighteenth century that the accommodation of School 
was not more than adequate to requiremcnts ; it was 
not til! the unbrokenly prosperous hcadmastership of 
Dr. Goddard (1793-1809), who left more than 130 
comnmners behind him, that the building, like old 
Commoners, must have bcgun to seem too "strait and 
close " for its purpose.  Two documents are extant 
which suggcst that when Goddard retired the 
Warden and Fellows viewed the late increase of 
commoners with serious misgivings. In one of them 
they impressed upon Dr. Gabell, before confirming his 
appointment as Goddard's successor, that " they 
conceive it indispensable that the Number of 
Commoners should not exceed One Hundred and 
ThioEy "; in the other they sought to curb the zeal 
which they had noticed in the Masters for the interests 
of these commoners by a very plain reminder that the 
 L.R.i. pp. lxxii-vi.--See further above, p. 50. 
z Sec also above, p. 51. 



280 ABOUT WINCItESTER COLLEGE .n 
scholars were what mattered. * The giving of the 
reminder was compatible with a belief, acted upon 
and avowed, that the scholars themselves were but 
an "adjunct" to "a College of dignitaries'; 
commoners were but an adjunct to that adjunct. 
The dignitaries foresaw, perhaps, that if this body of 
"unstatutable " outsiders, too large in their judg- 
ment already, should become still larger, extensive 
and expensive schemes for further school-accommo- 
dation might be forced upon them, and that the " no 
innovation " spirit which prevailed throughout Hunt- 
ingford's long wardenship " (lï89-1832) would be 
seriously disturbed. 
Even with 130 commoners the accommodation of 
School, as a room both for preparation and for teach- 
ing, nmst bave been inadequate in 1809, though in 
those days of large classes and few educational sub- 
jects it may have seelned less inadequate than we 
should think. A plan of School and its arrangements 
in the later years of Warden Hmtingford is given in 
Rich's book ; 3 it enables a later generation to realize 
the conditions under whieh Roundell Palmer and lfis 
eontemporaries " learned the useful lesson of working 
amid distractions ". To approach Huntingford with a 
schcme for providing more space for teaching would 
have bccn quite useless ; it was only after the election 
of Warden Barrer (1832-61) that the necessity of 
such provision, together with the claires of at least 
one other subject than the classics, was adnfitted 
by the Vardens and Fellows. They resolved in 1833 
" that additional school room is much wanted ", and 

1 The reminder is quoted below, p. 501. The subjeet of the growth of 
commoners is discussed more fully in Chapter XL. 
 T. A. Trollope says of I-Iuntingford, who was still Varden in his school- 
days, that " the dicum, ' No Inovation ' (with the " a ' pronouneed as in 
 father '), was said to be continual]y the ru]e of his conduct" (T. A. T. p. 1297. 
a Faeing p. 5. 



cH.xv OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS 81 
authorizcd " an cxpcnsc not cxcccding £1200 in pro- 
viding it ". Thc sum namcd can hardly havc bccn 
excccdcd in providing thc mcan annexe which was 
happily rcmovcd from thc wcst end of School in 1869. 
It containcd a library for Collcgc prcfccts--thcy had 
had nonc beforc, and School had bcen thc scholars' 
only day-room--, a fair-sizcd class-room for Fourth 
Book, and, more important still, a larger room whcre 
in 188- Mr. Walford, the holder of " thc new mathe- 
matical mastership ", was installcd? That thc pro- 
vision of this new building was soon round to bc only 
an allcviation of thc difficulties which it was intended 
to rcmovc may be gathercd from Dcan Wickham's 
description of what went on in School "about 1850 ,,.3 
In thc carlier and still more in thc later sixties, when 
the numbers wcrc rising rapidly and the claires of 
modern subjects, with thc advisability of smallcr 
classes, wcrc incrcasingly insistent, thc straitness of 
school accommodation was again most acutely felt. 
Election Chambcr, which in T. A. Trollopc's timc 
(1820-8) was "ncvcr opcncd or used savc for Election", 4 
had alrcady lost " its character of mystery " by 
becoming thc Collegc tutor's class-room, and thc 
Warden's gallcry had bccn invaded by examinccs; 
thc Gcrman toaster sharcd a small room in Commoncrs 
with thc hairdresser; anothcr mcan room in thc 
samc building was set apart for a second mathe- 
matical toaster; a third--or was it thc saine ?was 
used for thc Saturday visits of a science lecturcr, whosc 
rneagrc apparatus was stored in so damp a cupboard 
that his cxperiments usually brokc down. Prcfccts' 
Library bccamc at certain hours thc class-room of thc 
x See above, p. 93 ; and below, p. 320. 
 Class-rooms were, it seems, unknown till a still later date at many other 
great schools. At St. Paui's tiil 1853, at ,Vestminstcr tiil 186], ail the teaching 
went on in one room. Sec McDonnell, p. 402. 
- W.C. pp. 105-8. « T. A. T. p. 97. 



'2.32 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  
Sixth Book tutor, and was sometimes used by Dr. 
Moberly himself ; a new division-toaster had to teach 
in Organ Room; even the chambers sacred to the 
Fellows were appropriated at rimes by teachers of 
" the school attached to the College ". It was on the 
absolute necessity of securing further teaching-space 
that Dr. Ridding relied to justify to patriotic com- 
moners their proposed dispersion into Houses. 
In the summer holidays of 1869 the Head Master's 
builders set to work to convert " New Commoners " 
to its present uses, beautifying it, so far as beautifica- 
tion was possible, after Butterfield's plans. The new 
c|ass-rooms thus provided became available for teach- 
ing in the course of the autumn, and Moberly Library 
was forlnally opened, in Dr. Moberly's presenee, on 
Domum Day, 1870; it was hot ready for readers till 
the spring of 1871. Sehool, exeept as a day-room for 
the seholars, was little used between 1870 and 1885; 
in 1875, on the ereation of a new Senior Part division, 
it became for a few years a elass-room, into which a 
conservative Prefect of School would find his way at 
the end of school-time, to read the Thanksgiving for 
the Founder. In 1880, suflïcient day-accommodation 
having been provided in College, the room was 
partially dismantled ; its forms and scobs and tables 
began to disappear, and we find in The Wykehamist 
(June 1880) a rather melancholy picture of its derelict 
condition. " Such a fine room ", writes the Editor, 
" deserves a better fate than to be converted at the 
will of a dozen juniors into an extempore canvas, 1 
Fives Court, or Cricket Field ". Glee Club, deseloEing 
College Hall,  began to give its concerts in Sehool in 
the saine year; its occupation of the room became 

x l.e. football ground. 
 It is most unfortunate that there are now no occasions wbieh take 
eommoners, in the ordinary course of sehool life, into College Hall. 



c..v OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS 233 

assured for an indefinite period in 1885 by the erection 
for ifs performers of a permanent platform, upon which 
in 1886 the present organ was placed.--The provision 
of still more elass-rooms by an extension of the 
western wing of New Commoners, and the construc- 
tion of the large block of science buildings in what 
was once Dr. Ridding's botanical garden, belong to 
very recent history. 

At the foot of the list of the benefactions by which 
School was built stand in quaint combination tbe 
words Summa totius operis, Cui det Deus ,'Eternitatem, 
Amen, £2599 : 18 : 9. Are we to echo the compiler's 
parenthetical prayer ? I bave heard more than one 
good Wykehamist avow that, if School were burnt 
down, he vould hOt be inconsolable. It must be 
admitted that vhen ve look north from 3leads or 
Riddings the unadorned and unsightly back of 
School blocks out the long line of Wykeham's noblest 
buildings most provokingly. It must also be ad- 
rnitted that when ve approach it, as ve vere meant 
to approach it, from Seventh Chamber Passage, its 
façade is much too close upon us. But admirers of 
the exterior of the building will qualify their admira- 
tion by no further admissions, and will be satisfied 
with no expressions of faint praise; fo them " its 
portico has some merit" (Mr. Hardy), " it is possibly 
a handsome building " (Professor Haverfield), are 
hardly more acceptable than Mr. Kirby's dovnright 
" few buildings are uglier." As to the interior, we 
cannot deny that the arrangement of 1885, by vhich 
an audience faces a high-raised platform at the east 
end of the room, is inconsistent with the architect's 
design ; x but ifs dignity as the architect left if, and 
x In a notice of the first Glee Club concert held in School, The Wykehamisl 
remarked (October 1880) : " School, being a classical building, bas its a[tar 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

its fitness for the purpose for which he planned it, are 
rarely disputed. Professor Haverfield admits that 
the interior is " stately " ; Mr. Hardy, that " it had a 
dignified appearance "; Mr. Kirby, that it is or was 
well suited toits purpose ; and George III. on entering 
School on 1778 admired " the just proportions and 
elcgance of the roof ".l--Adams denounced exterior 
and interior alike with the fervour of the Gothic 
revivalists of his generation; 2 the more catholic 
taste of these later days inclines most of us to recog- 
nize, with Mr. Leach, n that " the building is both 
inside and out a magnificent specimen of its style and 
rime", and even to boast, in the words of a writer to 
whom he refers, that itis or was " the handsomest in 
the Kingdom ,,.4 
Was it the work of Wren ? There exists, so far 
as I am aware, no doeumentary evidence at the 
College or elsewhere to support an affirmative answer. 
Sehool " is not mentioned among Wren's works in the 
Parentalia, nor are any designs for it in the collection 
of his plans preserved at All Souls College ". But 
Wren was at vork at Winchester when the plans for 
School must bave been drawn, and when the building 
was in progress. Charles II.'s preparations for his 
palace were begun, with Wren as architect, in 1682, 
and its centre and wings were constructed in the years 
immediately following ;  School, it will be remembered, 
was begun in 1688 and finished in 1687. This syn- 

or foeus necessarily in the middle, so turning its two wings into head and foot 
destroyed its own character."--The incongruity of the arrangement of 1885 
has been accentuated by a subsequent enlargement of the platform. 
 W.C. pp. 32, 81 ; Armais, pp. 364, ,13. 
2 Adarns, pp. 91-5.  Hislory, p. 361. 
« Carlisle, ii. p. 461. 
' The statements in the earlier part of this paragraph are borrowed or 
abridged from Mr. I,each. See his Hislory, p. 363 ; his paper in !'.H. (v. p. 18) ; 
and especially his letter to The IFykehamist, November 1900. The Parentalia, 
lives of Iris ancestors, was written by Wren's son. 



c,.x OLD & NEW SCHOOL: CLASS-ROOMS '2.35 

chronism, and the general character of School, led 
two modern arehitects of eminence--Mr. F. C. Pen- 
rose  (in the Dictionary of National Biography) and 
Mr. Reginald Blomfield (in his tIistory of Renaissance 
Architecture) to state positivcly that Wren was the 
architeet of School. Mr. Blomfield, however, allows 
me to say that, having examined the building elosely 
in the summer of 1913, he has corne to the conclusion 
that, though it is in Wren's manner, there is nothing 
speeific about it to lcad to a confident conclusion that 
Wren designed it. " There are ", he adds, "many 
buildings assigncd to Wren on no better authority 
than this, and I bave an uncomfortable feeling that 
several good mcn at the end of the sevcnteenth 
century have never got the credit of their work" 
a Mr. Penrose was an old ,Vykehamist and was Architect and Surveyor 
of St. Paul's Cathedral. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TAB UL.4 L£G UM 

Wn.N Mathev said that the eastern wall of the old 
School shoved forth " what thou, o Quintilian, 
requirest to be done " (v. 78), he did not mean that 
" the axioms of Quintilian", or " some quotations 
from Quintilian",a were inscribed upon it; he meant 
that it bore the Vykehamical Tabula Legum. Of 
that ïamous code there is extant a metrieal version, 
vith whieh Mathew vas well aequainted--vhieh, 
indeed, he a]most eertainly eomposed."- It is intro- 
dueed by the couplet 
Sex hic Rubrieis quidam depinxit Apelles 
Quales sint leges, Quintiliane, seholoe ; 
and it ends with an expansion of the judieium àamus 
of the Tabula into the full pentameter 
Juditium dabimus, Quintilianus ait. 
Our poet remembered (for he borrowed from) a line 
in whieh 3IaoEial addressed Quintilian as vagae 
moàerator summe iuventae,  and his. aseription of the 
Tabula to Quinti]ian means that it was written, not 
by the great Roman rhetorieian and teaeher, but by 
x Adams, p. 84 ; Annals, p. 46.  See below, pp. 523-4. 
a lIartial ii. 90. 1 ; compare v. 13. In one of the pieces prefixed to 
Aiimer's z'llustr Sacroe (see above, p. 44) Mathew's Head Master, John Potenger, 
is cailcd Wicchamicce oderalor summe iuventce. 
236 



«. x TABULA LEGUM °.37 

some English teacher and controller of the inconstant 
sons of Wykeham. 1 I have suggested in an appendix 
that this teacher and controller may have been 
Christopher Johnson, Head Master from 1561 to 1571. 
In Mathew's school-days the Tabula (as we have 
seen) adorned the eastern, as the .4ut Disce adorned 
the western, " wall of the old School; forty years 
later (in 1687) they were reproduced on a larger scale 
and placed on the corresponding walls of the new 
School, where they continued to face one another for 
two centuries. The Aut Disce looks eastwards still, 
but it faces an organ ; the transformation of School 
into a conceloE-room in 1885-6 unfortunatcly required 
the removal of the Tabula to its present inconspicuous 
position on the noloEh wall over the door.wMeanwhile 
the Tabula of which the poet spoke and which he or 
another turned into hexameters was not the saine as 
the Tabula of to-day. It escaped revision in 1687, 
but it was not so fortunate at a later date which we 
tan fix within certain limits. The compiler of The 
History and .4nliquilies of llïnchesler (1773)  knew 
the old eode only; Milner in his Hi«tory of Win- 
che«ter (1798) printed a revised version. The eredit 
or the diseredit of the revision is assigned by tradition 
to Huntingford, 4 who beeame Warden in 1789. Both 
the unrevised and the revised editions were given in 
full by Wordsworth, 5 and may be round in other 
books.  A eomparison of the two will show that the 
 Mr. J. S. Cotton in The Wykehamist for July 1899.--In the distich upon 
Thomas Cheyney (Head Master 1700-24) the name Quintilian was again given, 
by way of compliment, to a Head Master : 
Suadela, et mite imperium, vultusque serenus I 
He tibi erant artes, Quintiliane sagax. 
See Mr. Holgate in The Wykehamis! for October 1899.  v. 79. 
a A reference to the metrical version (bclow, pp. 523-4) will show that in 
1773 the Tabula was as in 1647. 
« Walcott, p. 235.  Wordsworth, pp. 22-5. 
« E.g. in Mansfield, between p. 102 and p. 103. The account given iu 
Annals (p. 365) is inaccurate and incomplete. 



238 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. ,, 

reviser aimed at making the code fit the circumstances 
of lais rime, and that with this objeet (now and then 
without it) he (1) repealed, (2) added, and (3) adapted. 
1. He repealed the instructions to make beds and 
sweep out ehambers, for from these " servile and fou] 
offices " the seholars had been formally relieved in 
the eighteenth eentury.l--The older legislator, like 
othcr early educationalists, had prescribed the use of 
Latin in conversation ; " Christopher Johnson (c. 1565) 
vondered what Wykeham vould say if he came to life 
again and heard his scholars talking English ; 3 and we 
learn from a document still extant that in 1639, at the 
instigation, clearly, of Warden Harris, eighteen Win- 
chestcr scholars, memores antiqui moris & disciplinae 
huius loci, memores Legum Poedagogicarum, bound 
thcmselves most solcmnly to talk Latin only for the 
ncxt cight months " in School, in Hall, in chambers, 
in every place where they were accustomed to meet 
and to converse" By the last quarter of the 
eightecnth century Latin had ceased to be "the 
spoken language of diplomacy " * and perhaps of 
scholarship; the reviser therefore erased Palrium 
sermonem fl«gito" Latinum exerceto as out of date. 
Pcrhaps the strangest law in the earlier Tabula is 
that which ïorbids a boy to look out of a chamber- 
window ; it is a crime (piaculum). A crime ? Why, 
in 1778 "the proepositor of the Hall" had been re- 

t See above, p. 158. 
*- See below, p. 04. The Head Master of Eton wrote in 1530 that, "yff 
there be iiij or v in a howse ", there were "rnon3oEors . . . for latyn spealdng" ; 
a penalty for speaking English is mentioned in the Eon Consueudinarium 
(1560) and in the Westminster Statutes of the sarne year (E.C. pp. 450, 516 ; 
Etoniana, No. 5, p. 71).--Dr. Rashdall (Universities of Europe, ii. p. 627) 
says that abroad there was " a widely spread system of spies, called lupi, 
who were secretly appointed . . . to inform against trulgarisantes, as the 
offenders were called who persisted in the use of their mother-tongue .... 
There is no express evidence in any English Co|lege Statures ofa corresponding 
practice, but it appears in the seventeenth-century Statures of Harrow 
School " a Themes, fol. 153. « .4nnals, p. 825. 



.. x TYlBULA LEGUM 239 

minded that he was placed in Sixth Chamber preeisely 
that he might take note of what went on in Chamber 
Court. 1 The reviser saw the absurdity of the law, 
and for that irrelevant reason he tampered with his 
aneient doeument.--Dressiness and untidiness are 
both of them eommon af sehools, and we read of 
both at Winchester. In one of the short addresses that 
William Harris (Head Master, 1679-1700) delivered 
before the holidays he wondered why the boys should 
be so fond of their " painted Breeehes and fine Cloaths 
... when we see every Shoomaker and Taylors 
Apprentiee in the saine habitt"; in another he 
would have them know that their " fine wasteoats 
and breeehes have given offenee to severall persons in 
this Soeiety "; and one of the Fellows argued in 
1740 that if the boys had more pocket-money it 
would "furnish them with indecent and unstatuteable 
Cloaths ".* Smartness in dress, however, though con- 
demned by the Fellow as " unstatutcable ", is con- 
demncd neither by the earlier nor by the later Tabula. 
To the opposite fault of untidiness, which is casuallv 
condcmned in the Statutes (Rubric XX.), we have 
occasional references in Wykehamical literaturc. 
Johnson, for instance, tells his pupils of a visitor to 
Winchestcr who has inspected them carefully, and, 
having completed his inspection, 

" Hic est, hic," ait ille, " Wycamensis 
Grex notissimus ? " Esse non ncgavi. 
" Cur ergo ", inquit, " habcnt malus lacernas ? " 
Respondi, " quia sunt mali puelli" 
"' Nil est tritius his," ait, " lacernis .... " 

i See above, p. 137. 
2 See above, p. 208.---Christopher Johnson has much to say about the 
vearing of frills, furs, silk and velvet borders, and so forth, by Wykehamists 
of the Elizabethan age ; see Thenw_.s, fol. 153 ; I'.H.p. 314. Bishop Home 
vigorously denotmced the wearing of" excessive or gay apparel" 'hether by 
"claild or commeusall " (1571 ; V.A. oe 1. pp. 328-9). 



240 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P.  

and Johnson's moral is 

Hoc ne soepius accidat, puclli, 
Comparate togas recentiores. 1 
" Care ought to be taken ", wrote another visitor in 
1756, but at Winehester, he implied, it was hot taken, 
" that boys should not appear in rags; it is apt to 
give them a eareless turn of thought, with regard 
to one of the csscntial duties of life". The older 
Tabula denouneed torn elothes and unstitehed govns ; 
why did the reviser strike out the denuneiation ? 
Pcrhaps his taste was offended by the bathos of the 
transition from naiora fo leviora delicta, as the Founder 
called them. A mendaciis . . et fuoEis abstineto : 
togam c«eterasque vestes nec dissuito nec lacerato.  " If 
once a man ", said De Quineey, "indulges himself in 
murder, very soon he cornes to think little of robbing ; 
and from robbing he cornes next fo drinking and 
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to ineivility and 
proerastination" 
2. The reviser added prohibitions of certain prae- 
tiees, hOt beeause they had previously been lawful-- 
one or two of them are expressly forbidden in the 
Statutesbut beeause, presumably, they had beeome 
too frequent. Ne quis fenestras saxis pilisque petito : 
,dificium neve inscribendo neve insculpendo deformato. 
 . Intra termi.tos apud montera proescriptos quisque 
se contineto. . . Extra collegium absque venia exeuntes 
tertia vice expellimus. Thc insertion of thc sinister statc- 
ment of fact, Fe»iis exactis nemo domi impune moratur, 
 Themes, fol. 150 b. The piece is an adaptation of one of Martial's 
epigrams (ri. 82).--In another place (fol. 125) Johnson calls upon the boys 
(on the eve, apparently, of Election), for the dignity of the sehool, in studiis 
diligentiam, in corporis ornatu mundiciem, in uoribus denique honestatem et 
nodestiam. exhiber'e. 
 Hanway's Journal, quoted by H. T. R. in The Wykehamist, June 27, 1901. 
 It may be observed that the author of the metrieal version reversed the 
order of the two clauses. 



aH xw TABULA LEGUM 241 

suggests that the difiïculty of ensuring punctual 
return after the holidays may hot have been serious 
at Winchcstcr whcn the code was first compiled. It 
was felt at Eton before 1560; thc Consuetudînarium 
tclls us that boys wcre flogged if they did hot put in 
an appearancc on the evc of Corpus Christi Day, when 
the Whitsuntide holidays ended. 1 We first hear of 
the difiïculty at Winchcster during the hcadmaster- 
ship of William Harris, who notes more than once 
that boys often came back four or rive days latc, in 
spire of warnings and punishments; he cautions 
them against " feigning littlc evasions or excuses 
... Lame Horses, Sickncsse, or such like, which 
seldom or never are truc ", and adds that Mr. Warden 
will use " othcr arguments" 2 
3. One or two adaptatio»s of the Tabula to changed 
circumstances may also be noticed. Thc altcration of 
the rule about chambers from Noctu dormilor : in- 
terdiu studetor to l'espere studetor : ocla qz«ies esto is 
significant ; if is due to that closing of chambers in 
the day-time which I have discussed clsewhcre. --- 
Both " Quintilian " and the reviser insist on mani- 
festations of respect for the College authorities and 
for persons of quality (honestiores); but Quintilian 
requires you fo bend your knee to them, as vcll as to 
take off your bat (genua flectuntor : capita aperiu,tor),  
the reviser dispenses with the gcnuflexion. From 
Mathew's language in vv. 28-9 
Xomine seu pueri vociteris sire choriste, 
Non caput obtcgitur pileo crassoque galero 

i Etoaiana, No. 5, p. 67. 
t ,, A " Warden's Bibler' ", says a word-book of c. 1845, "' was 9 euts ; it 
is now disused" 
 See above, pp. I55-7. 
 Compare Erasmus, Colloquia, i. p. 86 (ed. Tauchnitz) : Si quem praeter- 
ibis nalu grandem, mag£ffratum, sacerdotcm, doclorcm, auI alioqui virum graz,em, 
rnenento aperire caput, nec pigeat inflectere genou. 
R 



242 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. n 

it might be inferred that the boys' heads were never 
covercd, but the earlicr Tabula, like the later, shows 
that hats vere at any rate vorn on the way to Hills ; 
you cannot take off what is not on. Hatlessness was 
only required within the precincts, but if was still 
rcquired there in 1756 and in 1778.; thc draft Regu- 
lations of the former year forbade boys ever to wcar 
their hats " in the College "; if vas ordcred in 1778 
" that no boy be seen with a bat, except when going to 
Hills, or fo Meads at the season, or when he bas leave 
fo go out of College ,,.x If will be observed that vhile 
this prohibition is slightly relaxed by the reviser of 
the Tabula, he enjoins uncovering twice, hot once 
only as Quintilian had done; the reason being that 
the old section In .1trio, Oppido, ad Montes is split up 
into tvoIn .4trio and In Oppido ad Montera.  The 
later Tabula brings more dcfinitely before our minds 
the vexed question, Why is it the custom that Inferiom 
should hot wear bats in Chamber Court ? a The 
traditional answer is that they thcreby show reverence 
for the statue of the Virgin over Middle Gare; and 
" An Inquiring Junior " cnquired, in The Wyke- 
hamist for October 1874, why, " as the worship of that 
statue has been abolished ", he " should surfer the 
periodical inconvenicnce " which the custom involved. 
He vas answered, in the next number of the paper, 
by no less a person than Dr. Hook, the Dean of 
Chichester. Ever3¢hing in the Dean's letter is most 
interesting. He quotes a decision, given by Arch- 
bishop Abbot as Visitor of Ail Souls, on a question 
that had arisen in that College concerning interpreta- 
1 See bclow, p. 368. 
 Notice, Sth disapproval, that the reviser changes .'tlontes into Montera. 
The plural was uscd of St. Catherine's Hill by Christopher Jolmson about 1565 
and by Mathew in w. 138, 169. 
s ,, In Short Half Year 1848, the old standing fuie of taking off bats, whi]e 
going through Middle Court .... wlfich by degrees had fallen into disuse, 
was re4ved by the Warden's especial desire " (Prefect of Hall's book). 



c. x,, TA BULA LEGUM 243 

tion of statutes. The Archbishop, backed by an 
opinion of certain learned counsel, declared that " it 
is a part of debita reverentia unto thc Warden to be 
uncovercd in his presence . . . within the precincts 
ofthc College. Lambcth, May 16th, 1615".a Hardly 
lcss instructive is a reminiscence of the Dean's own. 
"When ", he says, "the writer entered Christ Church, 
0xford, in 1817, no ont except Doctors in Divinity or 
Law, hot even the Tutors, wore their caps when the 
Dean was in the Quadrangle. Whcn the Doctor's 
dcgree was conferred on Sir Robert Pecl. and the wholc 
Housc attended the great statesman to the theatre, 
the procession was headcd by thc Dean with his cap 
on his head ; walking by his side was Sir Robert Pcel 
with his cap in lais hand. On returning Sir R. Peel, 
now a Doctor, walkcd by the side of the Dean wearing 
his cap". Dr. Hook's opinion, that respect for 
Collcge authoritics, and not revcrence for the Virgin, 
gave rise to the custom of which our junior com- 
plained, was also thc opinion of the reviser of the 
Tabula; for bis rule about removing bats in Atrio is 
ne çuis operto capite coram magistris 2 incedito. 
So much for the reviser's alterations; among 
clauses common to both editions of the Tabula some- 
thing should at lcast be said of that which requires 
that boys shall go about in pairs: Sociati otaries in- 
cedunto. There is no such requirement in the Win- 
chester Statutes, but the omission is an accident, for 
Wykeham enjoins the practice with some particular- 
ity in the ïuller Statutes of New Collcgc; "- walking 
 Sec also R. and R. p. 141. 
 Magistri of course includes, indeed it probably means chiefly, the Warden 
and F¢llows ; sec ahove, p. 67. In thc Eton Consuetudinarium also magistri 
meas the Fellows.  
t Rubric XXIII. ; the rule was common to many Oxford coileges. Mr. 
Buchan in lais Brasenose College writes (p. 43} : " I bave heard old members 
of the Coll¢ge say that in their rime it was a stringent piece of ctiquette that 
uadergraduates should walk out of the College in pairs and afin-in-afin" 



244 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. 

alone in the Middle Ages was sometimes dangerous 
and never good form. 1 In the sLxteenth century 
going soeiati was still enforced, hot only at Winchester, 
but at Eon and at Westminster also. Thus in 1530 
the Head Master of Eon noted, as part of" the order" 
of his sehool, that "whan they go home ij. and ij. in 
order ", there was " a monitor to se that they do soe 
tyll they corne at their hostise dote";  the Eton 
Consuetudinarium and the Vestminster Statures of 
1560 show that the boys went or vere to go in pairs 
to the pump, to the hall, in and out of school; s 
that the practiee was enjoined at Winchester about 
1565 is proved by Johnson's Themes.  What makes 
the rcquiremcnt in a special sense Wykehamical is 
not that Wykcham ruade it, nor that it was and is 
obcyed by Wykehamistsïor it is an instinct of 
human nature to desire companionship-, but that it 
retained at Winchestcr longcr and more fully than 
elsewherc the force of a timc-honoured tradition and 
even of a legal obligation. It was still ordered by 
the authoritics in 1756 " that the boys behave them- 
selves orderly in the Court, never crossing it without 
a socius", and in 1778 "that no one appear without 
a socius in thc Court". Even to-day the need of a 
socus is hot quite the same thing as the need of a 
companion. 
Some valuable evidence of the importance of the 
socius-law is supplied by a document which I have 
been foloEunate enough to find among some papers 
lent me by the Bursar ; the document is also interest- 
ing for other reasons, and I print it in full at the end 

x See R. and R. p. 62.  E.C.p. 450. 
 Etouiana, No. 5, pp. 69-70 ; E.C. pp. 506, 510. At Westminster boys 
who went out of College, even th leave, were to be severely beaten if they 
went s/ne comite ,nodesto (ibid. p. 522). 
 Themes, fol. 152 b ; fol. 194 : ad scholam bini accedunlo ; binl si quo erit 
abeundum discedunto. 



cH. ,,n TABULA LEGUM 245 
of this chaptcr. William Harris the Head Master was 
parsimonious in his use of stationery ; he wrote some 
of his addresses on the unused pages of old lettcrs, 
and he wrote one of them on the back of a " roll of 
accused persons ". This last address, among others, 
has been preserved, and the old roll has thus corne 
down to us. No date is given ; but the names upon 
the roll, and the contents of the address, show that 
both were vritten not long before the Christmas 
holidays of 1699. The roll contains the names of 
three classes of offenders : those who arma scholastica 
in promptu o habent ; those vho insociati atrium 
transibant ; those who comas alunt. Among ineidental 
points of intercst we may note that. when the roll was 
written prefects did hot deal with trifling offences, but 
repooEed them;  that the namcs of rive quiristers 
occur among those of scholars and commoners, 
quiristcrs having been at the rime, as I shall show 
elsewhere,  a real part of the school ; and finally that 
the Founder's ecclesiastical objection to long hair a 
was not forgotten 150 years and more after the 
Reforrnation. Archbishop Laud required of all the 
Fellows of All Souls in 1633 " that they use hot long, 
indecent hair"; an old Wykehamist wrote from 
0xford in 1635 : 

The Vice Chancellor spoke to me very courteously when 
I came to be matriculated, he could not find fault with my 
Haire, because I had eut itt belote I went to him ; 

and again, a littlc latcr, during a visit of Charles I. 
to Oxford : 

 Sec above, p. 119. 
 Sec below, pp. 460-1. 
t Rubrie XVII. : inhibenIes insuper omnibus et singulis . . . ne comam 
nutriant sire barbam. See 13uchan, Brasenose College, p. 4,3. 
' Grant Robertson, Ail Souls College, p. 107. 



246 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr.n 

Thcre is a Proctor for every house during the king's con- 
tinuance in Oxford, and the cheifest thing that they will 
endeavour to amend is the wearinge of long haire. The 
Principal [of Magdalen Hall] protestcd that aftcr this day he 
would turn out his house whomesoever he round with haire 
longer than the tips of his eares. 1 

But this is a digression; the Tabula is silent about 
long hair. The impoloEance of Harris's roll for the 
present purpose is that it proves that the rules of that 
code, even such of them as were not concerned with 
rcligion or morals, were not neglected or deemed musty 
at the end of thc sevcnteenth century, but were 
rigorously cnforced. 
3lathew borrows some exprcssions from the Tabula, 
Plebei for " Inferiors " (v. 150) and arma scholastica 
(v. 98) ; to the latter, however, he gives a new mean- 
ing.--Of the mctrical version, which represents the 
earlier prose edition very faithfidly, nothing further 
need be said, but one who remelnbers the shifts to 
which he was reduced in composing his own verse- 
tasks must spare a word of sympathy, even at the 
end of a long chaptcr, for a composer who, having to 
make a hexameter out of Nemini molestus esto: 
orthographice scribito, is driven to write 
Ncmo gravis sociis ; sed quisque orthographus esto. 

x I'.3I. i. pp. 159, 161: " It is eurious to find the king's al-rival given 
as the reason for enforcing shortness of hair, hieh is eommonly supposed to 
bave been the badge of Puritanism" 



o.. x T.4BULA LEGUM 247 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XVI 

TuE following " roll of accused persons " was handed to 
the Hcad Master, Dr. William Harris, in the autumn of 1699. 
Nor[bourn ?] 
Davenport jr 
Young 
Arma scholastica in promptu non habcnt. 
Trimnel 
Roberts 
Franklyn 
Somcrvile 

Edmonds 
Evans 
Dummer 
Crompton 
Prince 
Culme 
Egerton 
Hersent 

Insociati atrium transibant. 

Parsons in 
Andrevs co : 
Sone 
Holdsworth 
Norris 
Jones 
Midleton 
Moyce 

Comas alunt. 

" Andrevs co:" was a quirister. 
fo distinguish him from an 
in Sixth Book. 

ALLEN. 
Hc is called "co:" 
" Andrews " who xvas a 
scn. , scholar 



CHAPTER XVII 

SUNDAYS 

FOR the modern Winchester Sunday a very special 
charactcr has been claimed: " the naaxilnum of 
freedom ; the maxilnum of enjoyment ; no school ; 
no lessons ; long hours for walks, for friendship, for 
study of art and literature ,,.x The reality, it may 
be, falls short of the ideal, but there is at least the 
maximum of freedom and no school. Dr. Ridding 
abolished Sunday lessons in 1867. Yet this same 
Head Master, who ruade Sunday a day of complete 
rest, was soon afterwards branded, in a widely-circu- 
lated skit upon the Masters, as " breaker of the 
Sabbath laws". Fifty boys had shirked morning 
chapel one Sunday. He had summoned them and 
told theln all to a'ite out 100 lines of Virgil there and 
then. They had protested against his " utter pro- 
fanitv ,,.3 How would these eclectic sabbatarians 
have spoken, how should we speak to-day, of a Head 
Master who set his lower forms, not by way of imposi- 
tion but as their regular Sunday task, what John 
Twvchener set them in 1530 ? 
The Fourthe forme--An englysh of an epistle to be made 
in latyn dyverse wayes & sometyme Tullies paradoxes to be 
construyd. 

Dr. Fearon, Sunday 3lornings al ll'inchester, p. ri. 
 G.R.p. 103. 
248 



c- xv,, SUbïDAYS 249 

The Thred forme--A dialoge of lucyanc or a fable of Esope 
to be seid without booke and eonstrued. 
The Fyrst forme--A fabull of Aesope.' 

Seventeen years later things were very different, 
for though we are told, apropos of an incident at New 
College in 1566, that " the full-blown Sabbatarianism 
which we associate with Puritanism dates only from 
the elosing years of the century ", an Edward VI. 
Sunday at Winchester was more than buddingly 
sabbatarian. There was no " profanity " in 15¢7, 
no Cicero or ,ZEsop or Lucian; but the day would 
hardly have suited Dr. Ridding's eritics better than 
the Sunday of 1530. The boys were required to 
"exereise themselves holie " in reading the New 
Testament in English or Latin, knowing that they 
would from rime to rime be diligently examined " of 
their exercise in that behalf"; they had before them 
the prospect that " from henceforth " the Varden, in 
person or by proxy, would " for the space of one 
hour " read to them the Proverbs of Solomon, the 
Book of Eeelesiastes, and then the said Proverbs 
again ; and further that he, or his sufficient deputy, 
would expound to them some part of Erasnms's 
Calechism, proving every article by the Scriptures, 
and " exercising them therein ".a The minimum of 
freedom and of enjoyment had perhaps been secured ; 
even Bishop Horne, in the early years of Elizabeth, 
laid a less grievous burden on the shoulders of the 
"ehildren". He was more eoneerned with the 
Fellows. He required that they should diligently 
 Sec Twychener's statement in E.C. pp. 448-50. The Sundav work of 
the Second Form is hot deserihed, and the first page of the statenent being 
Iost we cannot tell how the Seventh and Sixth were employed ; the Fifth did 
the saine work " as the other hic formys" (sec e.g. below, p. 256). 
 R. and R. p. 116. 
s Injunctions of Edward VI.'s Commissioners, printed in Annals {pp. 
262-4) frora Wilkins's Concilia. 



250 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

resort every Sunday to the cathedral church to hear 
the sermon, and there continue till the end of the said 
sermon (1562); and, nine years later, that the Sub- 
warden, who must till then have been remiss, should 
do the saine, " without reading of any book " while 
the sermon was being prcached (1571). He enjoined 
further that " all and singular the Fellows shall resort 
to the divinity lecture . . . in such sort as they may 
be round to have profited when they shall hereafter 
be examined from rime to rime " But the children 
did hot get off altogcther. They were to be taught the 
Catechism--after 1571, that of Dean Nowell (see vv. 
195-6)-every Sundav till they could say it by heart.  
Mathew (167) tells us little about Sunday; but 
vc are fortunately able to supplement that little 
from an almost contemporary statement by oErden 
ttarris3 " Each day of the week", says Mathew, 
" bas its spccial business ", and when Sunday comes 
Si |ux Solis adcst, ct templum concio sacrat, 
Scribc notas, scriptasquc tuo committe libello (vv. 119-20}. 
We should hot infer from v. 119, as has been inferred,  
that the Sunday concio was " occasional ", for Harris 
expressly says that " the Fellows preach by turns 
every Lord's day in the forenoone". It is easier, 

however, to bring boys to a 
them listen. In Corderius's 
assures lais ludima£ister that 
 I'.A. oe I. pp. 132, 827. 

sermon than to make 
Colloquies a sehoolboy 
he has been to the 

- This statement is of great importance for Wykehamicai history, and I 
bave often ruade use of it. It is printed in Annals, pp. 837-9, where Mr. 
Kirby says that the "Waràen submitteà it to the Parliamentary Commissioners 
in January 16. But this is most unlikely. The statement is not dated, 
but it gives the names of the Fellows, the two Masters, and (Mr. Kirby did hot 
notice this) the Seholars ; and the names show that it was drawn np (perhaps 
for the wisitation of the Hampshire Committee) in the antumn of 1645. 
a Annal., p. 388 ; HLtory, p. 269. 
« Compare the poet's use of s/in w. 41, 169, 259, 262. The preaching of 
the sermon was " occasional " in the saine sense as the coming of Sunday. 



e. x,.SUN)AYS 251 
sermon, but admits that he cannot remembcr a word 
of it. " Vhat " (thc dialogue proceeds) " havc )-ou 
deserved then ? " " Stripes." " ¥ou have dcscrvcd 
indccd, and that good store." "I ingcniously 
(ingenue) confess it." 1 Attention was sccurcd at 
Winchcster and af Eton bv anothcr mcthod. At 
Winchestcr the boys wcre " appointcd to take notes 
of thc forcnooncs sermon, and to give account thcrcof 
to the Schoolemaster in writing ". Af Eton notes of 
both the morning and the evening sermon were 
required by Provost Rous (164:-165) from " those 
who canne write ,,.2 The practiee of taking notes of 
serinons came in probably with that of preaching 
them to boys, at the advent of the Reformation. It 
was enjoined (with a differenee) in the Vestminster 
Statures of 1560. " In the afternoon " of a Saint's 
Day " the three highest forms shall show up to the 
Head Master in Latin verse, the Fourth and Third 
in Latin prose, and the Second and First in English, 
a summary of the sermon preaehed the saine day in 
the morning "? At Winchestcr, besidcs the scrmons, 
there were also in 1647 lecturee catecheticee; the 
childrcn, writes Harris, " for their instruction in 
religion have a Catechisme lecture every Lords day 
in the afternoone ; and before it bcgins the Usher is 
appointed to spend half an hour in particular exanfina- 
tion of them, what thev remember of the former 
lecture" The College accounts show that forty-three 
catechetical lectures were delivered by the Warden 
or a Fellow in 16¢-5, thirty-nine in 1645-6,  and 
 From tIoole's translation (1652). Corderius was Calvin's sehoolmaster ; 
his Colloquies long enoyed great faine. We read in The Rig end the Book 
(Book VIII. line 8} of an Italian boy of eight years old who (in 1608} " chews 
Corderius with lais morning crust ". 
 Wasey Sterry, Ammls of Eton College, p. 13l. 
a E.C.p..519. 
« Mathew may bave attended most (if hot ail) of these 82 lectures, but he 
does hot speak of them.An epitaph in Cloisters records that Wil|iam Wither 



52 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT.  

that the lecturer received 6s. 8d. per lecture; the 
unfortunate Usher, for his harder duty, had to be 
satisfied with 6s. 8d. per quarter.--Sermons, note- 
taking, and catechizing notwithstanding, Sunday was 
to the Vykehamists of 1647 " a day blanched in their 
annals" ; 1 the Fourth form, says Mathew, when 
bored fo tears by Ovid's Tristia on Saturday, might 
take comfort from the reflection that the lux aurea 
Solis was at hand (vv. 200-2). 
Of a Winchester Sunday in the eighteenth century 
our knowledge is scanty. We hear of "choir services" 
in Chapel at eight and rive about 1750, 8 and of 
" prayers " there at eight, eleven, and rive in 1778. 3 
The boys also went to the Cathedral for a sermon 
or perhaps two serinons. « There were no Sunday ser- 
ruons in Chapel. The chaplains seem to have preached 
there occasionally--on the Founder's commemoration 
days, on the anniversary of Gunpowder Plot; it 
was to these chaplains' serinons, which were still 
preaehed in the nineteenth eentury, that Lord Sel- 
borne referred when he said in his measured way that 
the serinons preaehed in Chapel " were perhaps 
rather below our mark ".» The Fellows, who rarely 
resided,  took no real part in the religious instruction 
of the school, but one of them might preaeh on a 

(Fellow 162°--56) spent more than thirty years in College, preaching the 
Gospel, catechizing the boys, fulfilling the duties of the bursarship and other 
offices. (It appears from the accounts that he gave 21 of the 43 lectures of 
1644--5.) All this did not prevent him from being a vigilant parish-priest at 
Dummer (lnscripliones Wiccanice, p. 55). 
 Mr. Tuckwell (p. 116) applies Tennyson's phrase to the Stmday of his 
time. Robert Lowe, on the other hand, described a Winchester Sunday as 
"' a particularly miserable day " (Patchett Martin, Lire of Lord Sherbroo'e, 
i. p. 8). 
- Description, p. 26.  Annals, p. 410. * See below, p. 268. 
 lemorials of Lord Selborne, i. p. 99. 
« As Warden Bigg eomplained in 1740 ; see above, p. 218. About 1780 
Mr. Bowles regretted " that there is now no Resident Fellow within the 
College" ; one of his eolleagues, however, oeeupied the bouse in College Street 
htely oecupied by the Bursar. 



o.- SUNq)AYS 253 

Saint's Day. John Bond, a commoner, w-rote to his 
brother in 1771 that a Mr. Purnell, who had been a 
Fellow for more than eleven years, " preach'd for the 
first Time he ever preached at Collcge last Monday ", 
June 24, St. John Baptist's Day; " but it was not " 
(Bond added) " without great tokens of fear and 
Terror". The reading of catcchetical lectures was 
shifted on to the Usher ; other pastoral duties, as at 
Eton, werc assigned to the older boys. On an Eton 
Sunday in 1776 the collcgers went into School in the 
morning, and " the fifth form Prepostor repeats the 
Morning Prayers " " At two o'Clock the whole School 
gathers & the Prcpostors mark their names & one 
of the fifth form boys is ordered to rcad four or rive 
pages in the '3ole Duty of Man";I just as at 
Winchester in 1756 " the Proepositor in Course" was 
directed " to take care that the Vhole Duty of 3Ian 
is regularly read in his Chambcr on Sundays and at 
the other usual rimes ".- " 
The Head Masters of the eighteenth and of thc 
early nineteenth century preached never or seldom ; 
but Warton, Goddard (probably), Gabell, and Williams 
read and expounded Grotius De Veritate to the older 
boys on Sunday evenings. Yhen Warton died in 
1800 a ga'ateful pupil wrote : 
Still from lais Chair I hear the Critic sage 
Illustrate Truth from Grotius' eogent Page ;  

and a well-informed writer of 1818 has put on record 
that 

The following Religious Instruction is observed at Win- 
ehester College : 

x Eloniana, No. 7, p. 101. See also E.C.p. 540. 
 From a draft Resolution of the Warden and Fellows. 
 Philip Williams ; see the MS. Cannina Wiccamica (i. p. 239), now in 
the College Library. 



254 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. 
Prayers regularly Morning and Evening in Chapel. 
Cateehetieal Lectures regularly used. 
Upper Boys reeeive the Saerament once a month. 
(;rotius read and explained every Sunday Evening. x 
The De Veritate Iesson, whieh was oeeasional only 
under Dr. Williams  (1824-35), vas dropped by his 
suceessor, but " Grotius " or " Grotius Time " beeame 
a " notion "; it was the naine in the forties for the 
school hour on sumlner Sunday evenings when the 
Greek Testament vas taught? Meanwhile, till 1835, 
the rcligious instruction of the Head Master was prac- 
tieally corfined to the Grotius lessou. "The Duties of 
catechizing every Sunday and of reading a Monthly 
Sacramental Lecture " were " incunlbent on the Hos- 
tiarius ".* We are told by Christopher WordswooEh, 
Bishop of Lincoln, that vhen Gabell (1810-2) did 
preach, "especially before Confirmation, the effect was 
wonderful ", but that he preached " very seldom "; 
Dr. Moberly, another pupil of Gabell's, declared that 
" there never was a sermon " in lais time, and that 
his " prcparation for Confirmation vas nil ". Of 
x Carlisle, ii. p. 467. At Westminster in 1818 the Sixth form had 
Grotius lesson every Monday, explained at large " (ibid. ii. p. 112). 
" Lord Selborne (1825-30) spoke of lessons in "' Grotius, or some other 
Latin a-iter on the evidences of the ¢Shristian Religion " (31emorials, i. p. 100). 
 From the excellent word-book of about 1845 to which I have often 
referred. Mansfield gives an inaeeurate accourir of this " notion " (p. 213). 
« So David Wi!liams, Gabeli's sueeessor as Second 51aster (and afterwards 
as Head Maste), was informed by the Warden and Fellows in 1810.--Paynents 
to the tlostiarius of £1 : 6 : 8 for eateehizing, and of £10 : 7 (from Mr. Taylor's 
benefaction) for the Monthly Sacramental Lecture, appear annually in the 
aceounts til11873, long after the Hosliarius had eeased to lecture or to eateelfize. 
 Lire of Christopher l|'ordsworth, p. 17. 
ç P.S.C.p. 355 ; D.D.p. 22. The infrequent sermons of Gabell to whieh 
"Vordsworth referred were probably, like those of Williarns, addresses in 
Schooi ; Moberly was speaking of serinons in Chapel. Wordsworth (loe. cil.) 
added that Gabeii '" taught us fo regard the Greek Testament as ' the best 
of books ' ".--The Rev. 3. G. Copleston wrote to me in 1893 : "" Gabeii, how- 
ever great his faults were, was a most impressive teacher hem. con.", but it 
was his impressiveness as a teacher of Horaee that Mr. Copleston specially 
recalled. (Gabell's enthusiastic admiration for "the noble sentiments '" of 
Horaee was shared by lais contelnporary Orbilius, Dr. Keate.) 



o. xv- SUNDAYS 255 

Gabell's successor, Dr. Williams, Bishop Wordsvorth 
said that, "when he began to give a sermon in School, 
he showed his modest distrust of his own powers by 
reading the serinons of Dr. Sumner "; he recalls a 
Head Master of Eton who " never had the courage to 
preach one sermon, though he composed hot a few-.1 
T. A. Trollope, who was at Winchester under both 
Gabell and Williams, wrote : " For about three weeks 
at Easter Time the lower classes read the Greek 
Testament . . . and the upper classes read LooEh's 
Proelections on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews .... 
I do hot remember aught else in the way of religious 
instruction-.2 He did hot remember Grotius. 
The succession of Barrer to the vardenship in 
1832 introduces a new era. Huntingford, who, as 
Bishop of Hereford, regularly ordained candidates 
from his diocese in Chapel, never preaehed sermons 
there, as Varden of Winchester, to Winehcster boys. 
Barrer, reversing in this as in other ways the " no 
innovation " policy of his predecessor, introduced a 
chapel sermon on Sundays in 1833. It was often 
preached by Dr. Moberly, whose headmastership 
began a little later. A year or two earlier another 
famous Wykehamical Head Master, Dr. Arnold, 
began to preach to the boys at Rugby. On lais 
appointment in 1827 he had round that in Rugby 
chapel sermons were preached by the chaplain only; 
he seized the occasion of the office falling vacant to 
secure it for himself,  and he used his pulpit for that 
upraising, rousing, reviving, succouring, which vas 
his work and lais life.  The preaching of Head 
Masters at public schools practically began with these 
two great pastors. Moberly's serinons, says Mr. 
 Wasey Sterry, .4nnal of Eton College, p. 146. 
 T. A. T. p. I7. 
» Stanley, Lire of Dr. Arnold, p. 126 ; Rouse, Rugby, pp. 230-1. 
a Matthew Arnold's Rugby Chapel. 



256 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

Tuckwell, whose judgments are never merely con- 
ventional, were " beyond all praise -.1 His Greek 
Testament lectures also, the saine writer adds, were 
"a rare treat ", but they were delivered under difficult 
conditions; his elass was far too large, consisting of 
some eighty boys perhaps, and vhat suited Sixth 
Book was too hard for Senior :PaloE.  " It is a lesson ", 
he told the Public School Commissioners in 1862, " for 
the seniors only. The lower boys listen to it, and 
are liable to be asked questions "2 The liability, 
however, was hardly serious enough to make them 
listen attentivelv. " Remissions " of this lesson be- 
came rather frequent in Moberly's latest years; and 
all Sunday lessons, as we saw at starting, were 
abolished by his successor in 1867. 
Scarcely anything has so far been said of the 
attendance of the school on Sundays at Cathedral; 
but that is a large subject which requires a chapter 
to itself. 

1 Every old Wykehamist who remembers Dr. Moberly's preaching agrees 
with Mr. Tuckwe]l's description of it (p. 135). 
2 Six-th Book and Senior Part, when taken as one elass, as they often were 
for many other purposes till about 1862, were known as " Pulpiteers". The 
arrangement is of some antiquity ; Joseph Godwin (admitted 1648 ; see below, 
p. 01) said that "the two upper formes joyne in one when they [do] lessons 
or take Theme" 
 P.S.C.p. 348. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SUNDAYS : ATTENDANCE AT CATHEDRAL 

TttE attendance of the school at the Cathedral on 
Sundays is a rime-honoured practice, which some 
writers have spoken of as instituted by the Founder 
himself. Thus Roundell Palmer wrote about 1843 
that Wykeham's eye beheld his scholars 

two and two their eomely order keep 
Along the Minster's sacred aisles, 

and that, though ¢50 years had passed since the 
foundation of the College, 

Still to their Sabbath worship they troop by Wykeham's tomb. 1 

It is most unlikely, however, that the school went to 
Cathedral for " Sabbath worship " beïore the Refor- 
mation. When the seholars vere still housed on the 
slope oï St. Giles's Hill, the Founder direeted that on 
Sundays and holy days they should attend martins 
vespers and other hours and masses at the parish 
ehureh of St. John,  and when thev had their oua 
Chapel their presenee was required there on sueh davs 
in primis et secundis vesperis, matutinis, missis, proces- 
sionibus et aliis horis canonicis (Rubrie XXIX.). There 
 Wordsworth, pp. I08, 114. 
 From Wykeham's Register ; Lowth, Life of IVy'keham, Appendix X. 
p. xiv. 
257 S 



258 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P*. ,, 
is no reason to think that these obligations were 
relaxed before the sixteenth century. It was in the 
reign of Edward ri., probably, that the boys were 
first sent to Cathedral. 
The Statures of Vinchester and of New College, 
while they regulated " the machinery of devotion " 
most minutcly, ruade no propulsion for " instruction 
in thc principles of the Christian religion -.1 Though 
it was a main part of Vykeham's purpose in the 
foundation of his eolleges ut ferventius ac frequentius 
Chï'istus evangelizetur  by the men they were to train, 
there is no referenee to sermons in the Vinehester 
Rubrics, and if was only on the Feast of the Annuneia- 
tion that a sermon was required at New College 
(Rubrie XLIII.). As Vycliffe " laid stress on the 
neeessity for more preaehing, and again more preach- 
ing ", exalting it above the Saeraments, the Bishops 
regardcd it " with more and more eoolness-.3 With 
the Reformation, of course, there came a change in 
the oflîcial attitude. Henry VIII., who was no 
consistent believer in the open Bible (for Bible- 
reading too often led " to sinister interpretation of 
Scripture "), declared in The hïng's Book (15¢3) that 
" blessed are those who hear the word of God ", and 
that preaching was " the ehief and principal oflïee 
to which priests and bishops be called ". In his 
Statures for the Dean and Chapter of Winehester 
(15¢4) he required that eaeh of the twelve Canons 
should preaeh in the Cathedral at least four rimes a 
year, " so that there might be a sermon praetieally 
every Lord's day "; and in 1547 his son's Corn- 
missioners, finding that some of the Canons " neeleet 
i R. and Il. p. 56. * The New College econd Rubric. 
 G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffc, pp. 127-8. 
« Dixon, Histor9 of the Church of England, il. p. 320. 
 "rite Injunction of Edward VI. to the Dean and Chapter required that 
these serinons should be preached " betwene raattins and masse ". 



o.x-m ATTENDANCE AT CATHEDRAL 259 
to preache ther serinons at ther fumes as by ther 
statures they are bound to do ", enjoined that whencver 
they showed such ncglcct they should "forfeyt 
twenty shillings ,,.1 Edward VI.'s adviscrs were of 
course convinced of the value of prcaching--if they 
could ensure thc soundness of the doctrines preachcd. 2 
That they did not insist on sermons in parish churchcs 
more than once a quarter (1547)s was due, perhaps, 
partly to their uncertainty on that point, partly to 
a doubt of the capacity of the parish clcrgy. Now it 
is, strangely enough, thc fact that thc Commissioncrs 
who visitcd Winchcstcr Collcge in 1547, though thcy 
rigorously prescribcd catcchizing and so forth, were 
altogether silent about prcaching. What is the ex- 
planation ? Probably the Fcllows, fearing an injunc- 
tion to thcm to preach in Chapcl, may bave sought 
to avert it by sending the scholars on Sundays to 
listen to thc Canons. « The Commissioncrs wcre 
satisfied, pcrhaps, with that method of " calling 
upon " the boys " to hcar serinons ", and foreborc to 
lay upon the Fellows a burdcn which many of them 
may have been ill qualified to bear.Vhether thcse 
conjectures hit the exact truth or not, the subsequcnt 
history of the attendance of thc school at Cathcdral 
stmngly supports the opinion that the hcaring of 
serinons was its original raison d'être. 
The Injunctions of Bishop Hornc (1562 and 1571) 
 Winchester Cathedral Documents, i. pp. 126, 180. 
ffi A provision of 2 Edw. VI. limited the right of preaching to such persons 
as were licensed by the Ird Protector and the Archbishop of Canterbury 
(Willdns, Concilia, iv. p. 4). 
a Injunction of 1 Edw. VI. "to ail and singular lais lo,-ing subjects "" 
{Wilkins, op. ci. iv. p. 30).A Shrewsbury Ordinance of 157} required that 
the seholars shou]d " resort to their parish church every Sunday and holy day 
to hear divine service at morning and evening prayer "', but that "' where there 
is a sermon in any one church, they shall ail resort thither to the hearing 
thereof". 
t This is substantially Mr. Kirby's conclusion, but he does hot arrive at 
it by quite the saine route. See Annals, p. 388. 



260 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

make it clear that the boys heard sermons at Cathedral 
in the early years of Elizabeth; it was only on holy 
days that the famous Puritan required that sermons 
should be preaehed in " the College quire", tIe 
enjoined that on Sundays the Schoolmaster and 
Usher should " diligently attend and keep the scholars 
together.., at the sermons", and the context 
shows that the Cathedral serinons were meant. 1 That 
the Fellows, at any rate, still attended in the following 
reign is proved by an item in the accounts for 1607: 
pro serâ ad subsellium sociorum in eccl. Cath. lVinton 
iijs iiijd. ;2 they had a pew of their own into vhich 
thcy did not wish others to intrude. But though we 
may bc sure that the scholars also went fo Cathedral 
regularly till the rime of the Civil War, they certainly 
did hot go during Mathew's later school-days; for 
hot only does the information supplied by ,Varden 
Harris establish an alibi,  but after October 1655 
Cathedral was no longer a place of worship. ]ïaen 
the garrison surrcndered to Cromwell disasters fell 
both upon the building and upon "the sweet 
Cathedralists"; « the Dean and the Canons dis- 
appcared, " the stately services ceased, and silence 
reigned in the Close ". In 165¢ reports were current 
that " Trinity Church "--so the Cathedral was then 
called--was to be demolished, but a humble petition 
from inhabitants of the city and county saved it; a 
list--a very short listf subscribers towards the 
cost of urgent repairs is extant. On the Restoration 
of Charles II. the new chapter promptly put the 
restoration of the building in hand ;  and we may be 

a I'.A. e I. pp. 132, 325-7, 331. 
 Annals, p. 388. 
a See above, pp. 250-1. 
« The phrase occurs in an aceount of the havoe wrought by Waller's troops 
in 1642. See Winchester Cathedral Documents, i. p. xxiv. 
 Op. cit., ii. pp. xi-xxiii, xxviii-xxx ; 97-8 ; 160. 



. xvm ATTENDANCE AT CATHEDRAL 261 

sure that the attendance of the school was soon after- 
wards resumed. Some fifty years later we have a 
statement, from the hand of Warden Nicholas (1711), 
of fees paid by "" children " and commoners. One 
of the items is an annual 2d. for " Church Money " ; 1 
" Church " then and aïterwards was a usual designa- 
tion of the Cathedral, and " Church Money " (for 
keeping the boys' places, says Mr. Kirby) was annually 
paid to " the clerks of the Cathedral " till 1840. 2 
The school must therefore have gone to Cathedral 
regularly in 1711. We have some interesting evidence 
that it did so (on State holidays) in 1718, when 
certain " persons of undoubted credit " informed the 
Secretary of Stte that on the anniversary of George 
I.'s accessîon many of the boys " came into the 
Church in the middle of Divine Service, in a very 
extraordinary and indecent nmnner". With the 
alleged indecency of their behviour, due (so far as 
true) to their Jacobite sympathies, we are not now 
coneerned; but part of the explanation furnished 
to Mr. Secretary Craggs by Warden Brathwayte is im- 
portant for out purpose. " On the rirst of August ", 
wrote the Warden, " we had the full form of prayer 
in out own Chapel ; and when we bave so, the Boys 
do hot go to the Cathedral till toward sermon rime, 
which they did then-.3 "When therefore we read 
tlmt in 1778 there were prayers in chapel on Sundays 
at eight, eleven, and rive, the fact does hot preclude-- 
on the contrary, it suggests--the presence of the boys 
 Armais, pp. 383-4. 
-" The year is fixed by Prefect of Hall's book. Another payment, called 
Mat Money, was ruade by Prefect of IIall to the Cathcdral vergers till 1869. 
3 From Warden IItmtingford's MS. Wiccmical Armais. llr. Kirby, who 
prints much of Warden Brathwayte's letter {Armais, pp. 387-8), omits its very 
sensible conclusion : "' I cannot think it for his llajesty's Service, to talk of 
Royal Visitations, and even Dragoons, upon every Childish trifle, which 
despised, would die of itself like other Little Follies ". At the Assizes in Match 
171, the grand jury had presented the College for disaffection : see Armais, 
p- 386. 



262 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  

at the Cathedral sermons.--In the early years of the 
nineteenth century, besides going thrice to Chapel, 
they went twice to the Cathedral on Sundays, arriving 
in the morning at the beginning of the Communion 
Service, so as to be in good rime for the sermon which 
followed it. 1 In March 1819 the choir was placed 
under repair, and for more than a year afterwards 
" the Boys did not go to the Cathedral". In his 
manuscript Annals Warden Huntingford details the 
arrangements which were ruade for Chapel attendance 
instead. It appears from his account that " there was 
no sermon either on Sundays or on Ascension Day or on 
the State holidays when the Boys used to go to the 
Cathedral". The sermonless Sundays had continued for 
eleven months, when in February 1820 " it was con- 
sidered, whether it was not expedient to provide that a 
Sermon should be preached every Sunday to the Boys, 
it being probable that the Cathedral would not for a 
long time be open. Some difficulties, however, pre- 
senting themselves, the idea was relinquished ". At 
the nature of these difficulties we can make a shrewd 
guess.--We saw in the last chapter that Warden 
Barter introduced a Chapel sermon on Sundavs in 
1833; it was preached, as it is still preached, at the 
beginning of the rive o'clock service, and afternoon 
attendance at Cathedral ceased, s Attendance at the 

1 T. A. T. pp. 137, 14]. They attendcd at the who]e Cathedral service 
a little ]ater, and the eleven o'clock Chapel service was dropped. 
- Huatingford's MS. Wicearnical Annals: '" Tenporary Service in the 
Chapel "'. 
 The question is often asked, Why does the sermon corne first in the 
Chapel service on Sunday afternoon ? The arrangement probably arose 
frorn the ïact that the Cathedra] sermon had preceded the Chape] ser'ice ; but 
it was rnaintained for reasons of convenience. The organist and the singing 
rnen in College were often on the Cathedral staff also ; sorne at least of the 
Cathedra] quiristers a]so sang in Chapel in the thirties {see below, p. 464). 
As the Chapel service began at rive and the Cathedxal service was barely over 
by that hour, Barter's arrangement gave these musicians a breathing-space ; 
they carne in after the sermon. 



o.xvm ATTENDANCE AT CATHEDRAL 263 

morning service and sermon continued till 1890, but 
with the increase of the numbers of the school, and 
of the demand of citizens for seats, it had become 
impossible for the whole school to be accommodated. 
From 1874 onwards only the seniors had attended ; 
for the resta service in Chapel, with sermon, had been 
provided. 
The author of tt/'ykehamica says that in his school- 
days (1831-5) the behaviour of Wykehamists at 
Cathedral was not worthy of them, 1 and manv of 
the published reminiscences of the early ninetecnth 
century tell the same tale. * The fault did not lie 
wholly with the boys, from whom too much was 
expected. Till about 1833 they spent on Sundays 
" two hours in Chapel", wrote Lord Sherbrooke, 
"and nearly three in Cathedral ";" no wonder if 
many of them were listless or worse. The serinons 
of the Deans and Canons in the morning were of 
varying quality, but even Lord Selborne admitted 
that they were " above our mark ,,.« Those of the 
Minor Canons in the afternoon seem to have been 
much belowit; Dean l-look (1812-17)used to watch 
for the ludierous blunders whieh at least one of 
them perpetrated.  Apropos of sueh blunders Dean 
Stephens spoke of " the stuff sometimes tolerated in 
our eathedral pulpits t the beginning of this " (the 
nineteenth) " eentury "; but in the middle of that 
eentury the morning serinons, if only oecasionally 

x Adams, pp. 316-18. 
- T. A. T. i. pp. 137 sqq. ; Rieh, e. ri. ; l'uekwell, pp. 117-18. 
a Lire of Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 8. 
* Memorials of Lord Selborne, i. p. 99. 
 " What is impossible tan never be and very seldom cornes to pass " ; 
"0 tempora ; o mores ! What rimes we lire in : iittle girls and boys run about 
the streets cursing and swearing belote they tan either waik or talk "(Stephens, 
LiSe of Dean Hook, i. p. 18).---Some delightfui verses by Tom Warton deseribe 
the preaching of a minor canon of the eighteenth eentury (A. A. Locke, In 
Praise of Winchester, pp. 140-1). 



264 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE -' 
" stuff ", were hot always tolerated by the boys. 
" The preaching canons ", Mr. Tuckwell, who left in 
1848, says bluntly, " were a queer lot ,,,1 and even in 
the sixties the extreme old age and the personal 
oddities of some of the preachers ruade heir preaching 
ineffective. But to many Wykehamists attendance 
at Cathcdral was a bright spot in their lives. There 
was the purely secular pleasure of going beyond their 
narrow bounds and seeing unfamiliar faces; on 
occasion there were the stately processions of the 
Judges of Assize ; but there was also the impressive- 
ness of the building and its associations. Wyke- 
hamists, and especially perhaps the writers of Wyke- 
hamical rcminiscences, have their full share of British 
reserve about things which appeal to their hearts; 
but olle of thcm, speaking of the twenties, recorded, 
what others felt, that the Cathedral and its services 
brought him "a heavenly revelation, as if I had 
reccived thc gift of a new scnsc ,,,« and a latcr Wyke- 
hamist speaks of" the scnse of awe, of uplifting glory " 
which they gave him as a child. 
In 1886 thc morning service at Cathcdral was 
lenrt.hened, and cven before that date, sincc 1874, 
most of the boys had preferred the Chapel service. 
In thc autumn of 1890 3 a change was ruade upon the 
wisdom of which ail Wykchamists arc agrccd. Attend- 
ance at thc ordinary service was discontinucd, and 
Dr. Fearon arranged with thc Dcan and Chaptcr that 
on the afternoon of the second Sunday in each month 
the boys should have a Cathedral service of their 
own. He thus ruade it possible for the whole school 
to worship together, but he did much more. He 
converted an institution which had its origin, perhaps, 
 Tuckwell, p. 117. He excepts, of course, Archdeacon Samuel Wilber- 
force. 
 tlemorials of Lord Selbore, i. p. 88. 
 The IVykehamist, October 1890. 



c. xvm ATTENDANCE AT CATHEDRAL 265 

in mere slackness on the part of the Fellows of 1547, 
and whieh to most or many of the boys had beeome 
irksome, into one which is to present Wykehamists a 
valued privilcge, and to old Vykehamists a happy 
memory. 



CHAPTER XIX 

IAM LUCIS'- GOING CIRCUM 

ABOUT fifty years ago, on the last morning of Cloister 
Time, there were morning prayers in Chapel for the 
scholars ; and on leaving Chapel, led by the Second 
Master and the two Election Grace singers, they sang 
the beautiful hymn lam Lucis to Bishop's beautiful 
tune, walking in procession round " Sands " till they 
reached Sixth Chamber. Having received their 
journey-money in Sixth they went off to a " last 
breakfast " at the George (or, in earlier rimes, at the 
White Hart), and so to their trains and their bornes. 1 
In the twenties and thirties the saine thing seems to 
have happencd beforc the Christmas holidays also; 
the late Mr. G. W. Huntingford told me that he had 
a distinct recollection of Mr. C. H. Ridding (Second 
Master 1824-35) appearing in Chamber Court on such 
an occasion "in the dusk of a winter morning with 
his cocked hat on ". It is a pity that Mr. Ridding's 
more famous son, who said of himself in another 
connection that he had hot "a processional mind",3 
allowed the processional hymn to be dropped in 1863, 
 Mansfield, p. 183 ; Tuckwell, p. 94. For some details I am indebted to 
Archdeacon Fearon. 
 Mr. Huntingford explained : " In those days the Head and Second 
Masters wore eoeked hats " (but they were on the point of giving them up) 
"hot "fore and aft', but across like Napoleon ". The use of the eocked hat 
was at least as old a the rime of Dr. Goddard's headmastership. The Masters 
and the Fellows wore trencher-caps only with the surplice. See Rich, pp. 6, 
7 ; T. A. T. pp. 115, 117. - G.R.p. 61. 
266 



o.xx IAM LUCIS: GOING CIRCUM 267 

when he in his turn became Second Master; the 
usage was then at least 100 years old, 1 and xvas 
understood, rightly or wrongly, to be a survival from 
an older usage called " Going Circum". What that 
precisely was no one professed to know; but the 
naine excited, and it excites, curiosity. 
Allusions to Going Circum are scanty in Wyke- 
hamical literature; I have round three places only 
in which it is noticed as an existing institution. 
l. In Robert Mathew's poem, 1647 : 
Campanella sonat, si quinta advenerit hora ; 
Cure superis dcdimus sacris gratesque precesque, 
Ilicet ire licet circum, licet ire prccandum. 
Coena parata vocat (vv. 262-5). 
2. In Thomas Ken's Manual of Prayers, 1674 
(written while the author was a resident Fellow) : 
If you are a commoner, you may say your praycrs in your 
own chamber ; but if you are a child or a chorister, then, to 
avoid the interruptions of the common chamber, go into the 
chapel, between first and second peal, in the morning, to say 
your morning prayers, and to say your evening prayers when 
you go Circum (p. 7 ; sec also, p. 2). 
8. In Regulations of the Warden and Fellows, 
ruade Septembcr 9, 1778 (.Jnnals, p. 410) : 
Ordered.That the Prepositor in course in each Chamber 
shall every morning enquire of the Inferiors whether they have 
between Pcals gone circun, as it is usually called ; and that 
they produce a witness of the saine, otherwise their names 
shall be carried to one of the Masters. 

The seventeenth-century passages, it will have been 
notieed, speak of Going Circum as an evening prae- 
tiee, and Ken's language shows clearly that it was hot 
in his rime a morning praetice also; but in 1778 
 It is mentioned as a well-established institution in the Ode fo Whitsuntide 
published in George ttuddesford's Sabnagundi, and there ascribed to Thomas 
Warton, unior. 



268 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . Il 

it was observed, apparently, in thc morning. Not 
one of the three passages suggests that if was, as its 
naine suggests, processional. 1 Its object is said tobe 
private prayer, for which a procession is unsuitable. 
But tradition, as well as the name, strongly 
favours a processional origin. " Near the entrance " 
(o Cloisters), vrote Thomas Warton about 1750, " we 
perceive, in the Eastern wall a Door Way now 
closed up, by which the Society formerly passed from 
the Chapel, through a corresponding one in the opposite 
Wall, for cclebrating the Procession called the Circum, 
in vhich they evcry morning circuited the College" 2 
A still more definite, but much less valuable, statement 
to the same effect is made bv Walcott. s Now if, 
without necessarily acccpting the details wlfich these 
vriters give us, we accept the tradition that Going 
Circum was " formerly " a procession, then, knoving 
as we do that the procession vas no longer made in 
1647, we may conjecturally refer its discontinuance to 
the Reformation period. But if the procession was 
ruade belote the Reformation, to vhat date should we 
refer its origin ? The Winchester Statutes speak of 
" processions " as pmoE of the ritual routine of Sundays 
and holy days (Rubric XXIX.), but they do not 
speak of any daily procession circum. In the New 
College Statutes, hovever, the Founder enjoins that 
singulis diebus per annum . . . circa claustrum Collegii 
Processiones fiant solennes (Rubric XLII.). It may 
well be that what vas enjoined at New College was 
done at Winchester in Wykeham's own time. 

Mr. Hardy has called my attention to some re- 
Adams (p. 86) purs much into Mathew's lines which is hot there, when he 
interprets them thus : " At rive, the bell again rang, and the whole Society, 
Warden, Fellows, Masters, Chaplains, Clerks, Scholars, and Choristcrs, went 
circum ' " 
Description, p. 4'L s Waleott, p. 215. 



«.,,.,, IAM LUCIS: GOING CIRCUM 269 

marks of Dr. Mobedy which give some support to the 
hypothetieal conclusion whieh I bave drawn. " Thc 
expression 'going Circum' is now ", Dr. Moberly 
wrote in 1889,1 " quite obsolete and forgotten. If 
appears, however, that in the school-days of the oldest 
living Wykehamists the small passage leading fo the 
chapel and eloisters of the eollege was open to the 
boys, with a bench round if placed close fo the walls. 
If was the praetiee of the boys, on eoming out of school 
af six o'cloek, 2 fo go into this passage, and stooping or 
kneeling down by the bench, to say their short private 
prayers; and this praetiee was still ealled 'going 
Circum '. Possibly, in former rimes, the boys may 
have walked in proeession round the cloisters af ter 
sehool-time, singing one of the old Church hymns still 
extant among them, and when this usage came fo be 
considered popish, they may have been eonfined to the 
dark entrance-passage, and their separate prayers ".-- 
The "oldest living Wykehamists" of 1889 would bave 
been at school about 1770-80, i.e. at about the rime 
of the Regulation of 1778. 2 To Wykehamists of thc 
succeeding generation Going Circum, even in its later 
form, was apparently unknown, and the Regulation 
itself, perhaps, suggests that the Warden and Fellows 
were secking, not by the wisest of methods, to give 
vitality to a moribund institution. If was obsolete 
and nearly forgotten before Dr. Moberly came to 
Winchester as a boy in 1816; Mr. Leach's memory 
must have played him false when he asserted a that 
in 1865 the Head Master used to tell his pupils that 
"the curious relic of Roman Catholic times in going 
circum" survived in his own school-days. 
 Sec his biographical mernoir of Bishop Ken, prefixed as an introduction 
to Ken»s 3lanual of Prayers ; I quote frorn pp. xv, xvi. 
z If will have been noticed that Dr. Moberly's "oldest living ,Vyke- 
hamists " spoke, like Mathew and Ken, of going circum in the evening. 
a I:.H.p. 336. 



CHAPTER XX 

SCtIOOL-DAYS : BOOKS-CttAMBERS 

IN 1647, Tucsdays and Thursdays being normally 
" rcmcdies," thcre wcre only four" school-days" in the 
wcck; but thcy were school-days with a vengeance. 
The boys, says Mathew, were callcd at 5 and vere in 
Chapcl at 5.30; at 6 a bcll summoncd them " to the 
lcarncd Muses " ; they meditated them in School till 
9 ; at 9 they had breakfast, and afterwards " applied 
thcmselves to thcir studics "--let us hope, inter- 
mittcntly--in chambers till 11 ; ïrom 11 to 12, though 
they did not all go "up to books ", they were in School 
again. Having dincd at 12 they went to vork once 
more, staying in School, with an interval in the 
SUlnmcr for " bevers", till 5. Then, after circum- 
going and supper, they seem to havc studied in 
chambers till 8.1 At 8 came Chapel, and after Chapel 
bed.--¥e havc also a school-day rime-table for 
1825-9. Boys were " down ", ve learn from Robert 
Lowe, for Chapel at 6; what they did immediate|y 
after it hc does not say; they werc in School from 
7.30 to 10, and aïter breakïasting at 10, from 11 to 12. 
From 12 to 1 they played ; at 1 they dined. From 2 
to 6 (with a " bevers " interval in summer) they were 
 Mathew is vague upon this point (w. 268-9), but the faet of evening 
study in chambers about his rime is established by the ]3odleian notes. 
Sec below, p. 303. In the course of the evening they went to Hall for a meresda 
(see above, p. 198). 
270 



. xx SCHOOL-DAYS : BOOKS-CHAMBERS 271 
again in School. Supper was at 6; therc was " toy- 
timc" (Lowc does not use the word) till 8.30, and bcd- 
time followed.' 
What strikcs one most in these tiret-tables is thcir 
close rcscmblancc. In both of them thcrc is the saine 
unduly short " middle school " bctwecn breakfast and 
dinncr; in both there are the samc intolcrably long 
school-hours beforc brcakfast and in the aftcrnoon. 
It was rcscrved for Dr. Mobcrly to reform thcse vicious 
arrangements, tic came as Hcad Mastcr in 1836, and 
by about 1840 he had rcduccd thc lcngth of " morning 
school " from two and a hall hours to an hour, and 
had incrcascd that of" middlc school" from an hour to 
two and a half hours; in 1847 hc knockcd anothcr 
half-hour off thc former, and addcd it to thc latter. 
Thc ïour-hour " afternoon school ", vith ifs summcr 
break for bcvers, he Icft almost untouchcd till 1863, 
but he scems to havc grantcd a somewhat extcndcd 
bevcr-time throughout the ycar before 1860 ; in 1;63 
the aïternoon school-hours became 3 to 6. For more 
than twenty years thesc arrangements were main- 
tained. Exccpt for ont unimportant modification, 2 
Dr. Ridding Icft thcm as ho found them; but subsc- 
quent Head Masters have wiscly dcvclopcd Moberly's 
policy by still further Icngthcning middle and shortcn- 
ing afternoon school. Thc following table shows thc 
cffect of thcsc changes. 3 
 Patchett .Martin, Life of Lord Serbrooke, i. p. 8. 
z l)r. Ridding put morning school before morning chapel. 
a The Saturday hours, owing chiefly to the aftemoon chapel service, were 
somewhat different from those of the other school-days ; I bave hot taken 
accourir of these diffcrences bore. 

[TBLE 



272 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

1647 
1829 
1866 
I918 

Morning 
Sehool. 

6-9 
7.80-10 
7.80-8 
7-7.45 

Middle 
Schooi. 

11-12 
11-12 
9-12 
9.15-12.45 

Afternoon 
Sehooi. 
1-5  
2-6 1 
3-6 
4-6 

Total Hours. 

8 
r½ 
6½ 
6t 

These school-hours, some of which were of course 
hours for preparation not spent " up to books ", were 
in Mathew's time and till 1869 ail spent, by the 
seholars at any rate, in Sehool or class-rooms, and 
during them one at least of the Masters would always 
be in Sehool. 
In 1680 the Fellows of New Collcge asserted that 
the Head Master was bound to be in School from 7 to 
9 and from 2 to 5 ; but, they added, he shirked many 
of these hours2 He continued to do so when Joseph 
Godwin 4 (admitted 1648) was at Winchester : " the 
Upper Master", says Godwin, " has an easy place of 
it . . . he is but one hour in the morning and 2 in the 
afternoon at School ". " The Usher ", we learn from 
 With ¼ hour for bevers in summer ; the break was in Mathew's rime at 
3.30 {v. 258), in iater rimes at 4.45. 
 There was an hour between chape] and morning sehooi whieh was in- 
tended for preparation ; in Mr. Tuekweli's rime (184o,-8) it was otherwise 
empioyed (p. 29). 
a ,, As the use of ]are hath beene from three tili fiue, and from eight till 
half an howre past nine, is too short "'. See above, p. 171.Seven o'doek for 
the Sehooimaster, six for the Usher, wêre the normal hours of first appearanee 
in English sehoois during the six-teenth eentury. In 1530 the Eton fourth 
form had "* a verbe providyd ageyne vij of ye CIok when the Seholem r eom3oEh 
in " (E.C.p. 448) ; in 1541 it was ordained for Grammar Sehools of Cathedrals 
of the New Foundation, ante horam diei septimam Archididascolus [sic] 
scholam ingrediatur . . . hipodidascolus marie hora sexta scholam ingredialur 
(ibid. pp. 468, 466) ; in 1560 the Eton Consuetudinarium says that hora sexla 
ingreditur hypodidascalus, and that at seven the fourth form ab hypodidascalo 
ad ludimagistri pariera se confert ; ingreditur scholam ludimagister (Etoniana, 
No. 5, p. 69. The Eton practice was to be foliowed at Westminster (E.C. 
pp. 506-8).  Sec beiow, p. 301. 
» C. Cooper Hênderson wrote in 1818 that at middle school the Second and 
Third tMasters only attended, '" Gabell thinking it no joke ". 



. xx SCHOOL-DAYS : BOOKS-CHAMBERS 273 

the same informant, was "a drudge ". What his hours 
were we are not told, but we may safely assume that 
among them, as at Eton in 1560,  were those during 
which his superior did not attend. In the instructions 
given to Mr. Williams in 1810 the 11-12 hour, when 
the Informator was absent, was specially mentioned 
as one of the school-hours of the Hostiarius. 

I need not speak of the rime-table of what are 
nowadays called halï-remedies. Till the nineteenth 
eentury half-and-half days were abnormal; normal 
days were one thing or the other--remedies or sehool- 
days. But on remedies, as well as on sehool-days, 
hours of study were appointed whieh were not teehni- 
eally sehool-hours, and during which no toaster was 
present; prefeets were responsible for order and (in 
College at any rate) for sueh teaehing as was needed. 
These hours of study were eontemplated by the 
Statutes--Wykeham's embryo prefeets were, as we 
have seen, created ehiefly in view of them ; they were 
enforeed by the Tabula Legum.  On every day, 
whether remedy or sehool-day, there was an hour or 
more of sueh study in the evening; on school-days 
(though not till after Mathew's rime) there was an 
hour of it after morning ehapel ; on remedies, as we 
shall see, there were many hours of it in the morning 
and the afternoon. These last aequired the name 
"Books-ehambers ", at what date I cannot diseover ; 
the earliest use of that slovenly compound whieh I 
have notieed was made in 1778, when a seholar's 
father wrote that on a remedy afternoon his son was 
in Fourth Chamber, "to learn (as he ealls it) his 

a Etoniana, No. 5, p. 70. 
i An injunetion of Bishop Itorne seems to imply that the to Masters were 
fo teaeh the boys in ehambers, i.e. during these hours of study (V.A. e 1. 
p. 31) ; but ttorne was hot a Wykehamiit. 
T 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

books-chambers ,,.x A little later in the same year the 
Wardcn and Fcllows ordaincd that (on rcmcdics) 

the hours for books-chambers are from Ten to three 
quarters past Eleven in the forenoon and from hall past 
Three 2 to three-quarters past Five in the afternoon, bever 
time excepted, when studying hours begin at Four. 

From January 1799 if not earlier the afternoon 
studying hours in question were spent by the scholars, 
not in chambcrs, but in School;  chambcrs wcr¢ 
perhaps madc inaccessible fo thcm in thc morning 
somc ton ycars beforc that date. If " notions " werc 
used with terminological exactitude thc terre " books- 
chambers " vould havc bccomc obsolctc from the 
end of the eighteenth ccntury, or would bave been 
applied only fo thc cvcning hours of study ; but ncither 
of thesc things happencd. Wc find Warden ]3arter 
distinguishing in 1833 bctwccn thc morning and 
afternoon " books-chambcrs " and thc cvcning hour 
which he called " chamber timc " 4 and ordinary 
mortals " toy-timc " ; and in 1847 thc Second Master 
wrotc that " books- chambcrs " on remcdies in 
" Common Timc " wcrc from 9 fo 11.45 and from  
fo 6, whilc " toy-timc " (on all days) was from 7.30 
fo 8.45.5--Commoners spcnt ail thcse hours " in their 
hall" e and af their "toys ", and uscd fo call them 
i Annals, p. 407 ; see above, p. 157. Perhaps the father had hot got the 
" notion " quite right. 
2 l.e. on the return from Afternoon I-Iills. Compare w. 177-8 : 
Attamen ad libros, postquam rediere, revertunt, 
Proefectusque »qgil quoe sunt discenda doeebit. 
--Reference is made in a document printed on pp. 340-1 to a grim incident of 
the rnorning books-chambers called " books-charnber lines ". 
8 Sec above, p. 157, note 2. 
 Prefect of Hall's book, September 14, 1833. 
' lbid., entry of 1847. " Cornmon Tirne " then included " Short Hall". 
"' Books-chamber tirne", said the Second Master, "begins at 10 and is over 
 after 11 during Easter tirne, during Cloister Time at 11. Evening" (i.e. 
afternoon) " books-charnbers are from 5 to 6 o'clock ". 
« Adarns, p. 417. 



c. xx SCHOOL-DAYS : BOOKS-CHAMBERS 275 

ail " toys " or " toy-times " ; 1 but in the forties 
they generally preferred the purely College " notion " 
books-chambers for the morning and afternoon study- 
ing hours) The distinction between books-chambers 
and toy-time is still observed in College, but I have 
heard the former name applied indiscriminately by 
many commoners to ail preparation hours. 
The evening toy-time is a Wykehamical institution 
of great antiquity and importance ; it dates, probably, 
from the foundation of the College, and ability to 
maintain quiet and good order during its course is a 
primary and indispensable qualification for a prefect. 
It has been, and I suppose it is, at toy-time chiefly 
that the College boy-tutor discharges those duties 
towards his pupils by which Wykeham set such store. 
Here is a passage about the evening hour of study 
at Eton, written in 1560 : 

At the sixth hour [in the evening after supper] those in 
the highest form who are appointed by the Schoolmaster to 
tech the other forms set themselves to the tasks assigned 
them, and practise those committed to their trust in explain- 
ing their lessons and turning sentences from the vernacular 
into Latin. z 

The words were written of Eton, but they were per- 
haps literally true of Winchester at the rime. Much 
has been changed since then ; the tasks assigned to 
the prefects in College are nowadays less definite; 
but the tradition still has force. 

IV.IV.B.p. 60. 
From the word-book of c. 1845 to whieh I bave often referred. 
Etoniana, No. 5, p. 70. The saine duty was enjoined in Eizabeth's 
Statutes for Westminster, but it was enjoined on two boys only, and was to 
oecupy them only for half an hour (E.C.p. 514). 



CHAPTER XXI 

FOR]IS OR BOOKS 

IN 1571 Bishop Horne enjoined upon the School- 
toaster and Usher that they should expound Nowell's 
eateehism to the seholars " in their several forms or 
books " ;  and both these words are found in Wyke- 
hamieal literature, before and after 1571, as equivalents 
of what Long Rolls and our poet call classes. 2 In his 
Yulgaria, published in 1519, William Horman, Head 
Master successively of Eton (1484-94) and of Win- 
chcster (1495-1501), translated duco classen by " I ara 
prepositer of my boke "; and Edward Stanley 
(Head Master of Winchester 1627-43) promised in 
1637 that whcnever John Nicholas went to Winchestcr 
he should be "in the Fifth Book ,,.« On the other hand 
John Twychener (Head Master 1525-31) described 
the work of the different Winchester " formes"" » 
and Warden Harris wrote in 1645 s that the children 
" are instructed according to the severall formes 
wherein they are placed ". It does not ïollow that 
 V.A. dz I. p. 827. 
2 Both classes and ordines were freely used for school "' classes" in the 
Latin of the sixteenth century ; we find both words in the Statutes of Canter- 
bury (1541--E.C. pp. 464-8) and of Westminster (1560--b/à. pp. 506-14) as 
well as in the Eton Consueludinarium (1560--Eloniana, No. 5, pp. 60-71). 
a See above, p. 89. We bave no other evidence for the e.xistence at 
*,Vinchester of the Eton institution of the "' proepostor '" of a form, nor for the 
use at Eton of the Vinchester terre "book ". If Horman's phrase is hot 
evidence for one of these things or for both, it was a jumble intelligible at 
neither school. 
4 Armais, p. 123. 6 E.C.p. 448. « See above, p. 250. 
276 



" 277 
.  FORMS OR BOOKS " 

" form " was an admissible synonym for " book " 
when Wykehamist spoke to Wykehamist; both 
Twyehener and Harris were explaining Winehester 
ways to outsiders.--Why either of these names were 
given to a sehool elass is by no means certain. The 
New English Dictionary deelares that " there appears 
tobe no ground " for the eommon belief that " form " 
when so used means a number of boys sitting on the 
saine form or beneh, and suggests that it simply 
means grade or tank. The use of " book "for" elass" 
is praetieally eonfined to Winehester 1 and eoneerns 
a Wykchamieal writer more nearly. Waleott, dis- 
eussing a passage in the Statures of Chiehester Cathe- 
dral in whieh rows of seats seemed to him tobe ealled 
books, asserted that at Winehester the rows of seats 
in Sehool were aetually so ealled. 2 If this were so, we 
eould af least bring " books " into line with the usual 
explanation of "forms ";  but the assertion is only, 
I think, a very questionable inferenee from the phrase 
"to go up fo books " (i.e. to go before a master for 
a lesson), in whieh phrase " books " is perhaps used 
literally and needs no explanation. « I prefer to aeeept 
provisionally the theory of Adams, that a " book " 
was originally the liber or register of a elass, and that 
the name was afterwards transferred to the elass 
itself; that instead of saying, "I ara in the book of 

I The W.W.B. quoes an Irish use of it. 
- See also Adams, p. 95, and the plan of school in Rich (opposite p. 5). 
T. A. Trollope, who thought that " books ""oews ", admitted (in a let-ter 
penes me) that it was orùy so used in sueh phrases as " up to books "' and " up 
at books ". 
a The question, why should a row or bench be called a book, wouId still be 
manswered. 
 Mr. Wreneh, however, suggested a reeondite explanation which brings 
to out notice another interesting Wykehamieal use of "books ". The Eton 
Consuaudinarium aaya that after supper thc boys dicata eodem die à praeceptore 
recitant et oràinant (Etoniana, No. 5, p. 70). Were these recitationes much the 
saine as the ancient lectionum a cwna repetitiones, quas Wiccamici materna 
iiagua Libros dicunt, to which Mr. Wrench referred (W.W.B.p. 10) ? 



278 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE - 
the fifth c]ass ", it was convcnient to say, "I ara in the 
fifth book -.1 
Thc school rank of a contemporary of Mathcw's 
could bc dcscribccl vcry simply and clcarly. Thc poct 
writcs : 
In classes pucros secuit revercnda vetustas. 
Scxta locum primum, scd classis Quinta sccundum 
Occul0at, et Quarte concessa est tertia sedes ; 
Ultima que scquitur vocitata est Quarta-secunda (vv. 114-17). 
A boy was in Sixth, or Fifth, or Fourth, or Sccond- 
FomoEh Book, and thcrc was no more to bc said. A 
Vykehamist of to-clay may bc in " Fifth Book, Scnior 
Part, Junior Division (a), Parallcl Division " ; and as 
if all that verc hOt cnough, " Short Roll " may 
dcscribc his position more fully by putting against his 
naine thc symbols "jxflC3* " I shall not try to 
cxplain thcsc complcxities, having oftcn tricd and 
failcd vhcn it was my duty to try. I shall spcak 
only of thc historie " books ", ancl chiefly of those 
questions about thcm which Mathcw's lincs suggcst, 
why no First, Second, and Third, and why no Scvcnth 
and Eighth ? 3 
Mr. Kirby, following Adams, rightly took for 
grantcd that thc lowcr books must once havc cxistcd. 4 
Thcy had ccascd to cxist bcforc thc date of Mathcw's 
potin, which Mr. Kirby, mislccl by Wordsworth, 
supposccl to havc bccn writtcn " about thc ycar 
1553 ". Ho conjccturcd that thcir disappcarancc was 
 Adams, p. 343 ; see also L.R.i.p. xxxv. 
u "They cali their classes thus : The second-fourth ; the 4th ; the 5th ; 
& sixth " (Bodleian Notes, see below, p. 301). 
a Of the puzzling et in the name of that Secunda et Quarta Classis which 
appeared in Long Rolis frorn 1675 to 1799 (except in that of 1729) even llr. 
Hoigate couid suggest " no reasonable ex2alanation " (L.R.i.p.x.x5v) ; ofthe 
Secunda Classis which appeared in them once or twice in the eighteenth century, 
and has appeared annually from 1800 to the present rime, sometifing will be 
said in the chapter on Quiristcrs. 
« IIi.C.p. 54 ; Adams, p. 343.  See above, p. 3. 



o6 xxI "FORMS OR BOOKS " 279 

caused by a disappearance of town day-boys, who 
"would naturally be in the lower classes, inasmuch as 
the instruction most of them required was more of a 
commercial than a liberal character ". Now we know 
of two occasions when town day-boys disappcared, 
eitlacr wlaolly or in part. One was in 1412, whcn 
Cardinal Beaufort, on learning that some eighty or a 
hundrcd extranei were being taught in the school 
classes, issued what Mr. Kirby calls " a fulmination ", 
dirccting that only ten extranei, the Foundcr's filii 
nobilium et valencium personarum (Rubric XVI.), 
should thereafter be admitted. 1 The othcr was in 
1629, when a very compctcnt Ushcr, forccd by 
marriage to give up his situation, started a school of 
his own in the town and carricd all or most of the 
town day-boys off with him. 2 Mr. Kirby's belicf 
that the lower forms had ceased to exist before 1553 
precludcd him from supposing tlaat whut happencd in 
1629 was the cause of their disappcarance ; if, there- 
fore, a disappearance of town day-boys was the cause 
of the disappearance of the lowcr forms, these lowcr 
forms, he concluded, must have disappcared in 1412. 
Mr. Kirby so argued and concluded in 1892 and in 
1893, but it was soon to bc shown that his argument 
was based on an unwarranted assumption, and that 
his conclusion was at variance with fact. Mr. Cotton 
proved in 1899 that Mathew's poem was not written 
before 1642; 3 it was therefore possible to refcr the 
disappearance of the lower forms to 1629. Mr. Leach 
proved in 1903 that thc lowcr forms certainly cxistcd 
in 1530, and almost certainly in 1565 ; it was thcrcfore 
impossible to refer their disappearance (or, at any rate, 
their final disappearance) to 1412. That they ccr- 
tainly existed in 1530 was proved by a document 
which Mr. Leach was the first to interpret corrcctly ; 
 See above, p. 86.  See above, p. 70. s See above, p. 5. 



280 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 

it gives an account, written by the Schoolmaster and 
Usher of that year, of the Winchester curricuhlm, 
and it tells us in detail vhat the work of these lower 
forms then was. a That they almost certainly existed 
about 1565 was most ingeniously argued from the 
contents of Johnson's Themes, which show that the 
Head Master was at the rime teaching Sixth, Fifth, 
and Fourth Books; if there had been no Third, 
Second, or First, there would have been no occupa- 
tion for the Usher3--It may be further pointed out 
that there is evidence that the lower forms had dis- 
appeared before 1637. I have already referred to a 
promise given in that year that a certain boy who 
was soon to corne to Winchester should be placed " in 
the Fifth Book " ; the value of the promise was that, 
being so placed, he would be under the Head Master 
" in teaching-.3 The inference is that he would not 
have been under him if placed lower; Fourth Book 
must therefore have passed into the Usher's charge. 4 
Why had it so passed ? Because, I think, the classes 
under it no longer existed. In the earliest Long 
Roll, that of 1653, there are 29 scholars in the two 
divisions of Fourth Book, while there are 41 in 
Sixth and Fifth together. The 26 commoners of 
that year are not assigned to their classes by the roll, 
but, if we may judge from later rolls of the seven- 
teenth century by which they are so assigned, a large 
majority of them must have been in Fourth or Second- 

x V.H. pp. 296-300 ; E.C.p. 449. 
2 !-.H. pp. 310-11.--Note the distribution of classes in the Statures of 1541 
for Canterbury and other grammar schools of the cathedrals of the new 
foundation : Omnis scholasticorum numerus n quinque aut sex ordines seu 
classes distribuantur. Horum inferiores tres instituat Hipodiàascolus [sic] : 
superiores autem Archididascolus instituat (E.C. p. 464). 
a Annals, p. 123. 
« It had eertainly so passed in the rime of Joseph Godwin {admitted 1648), 
-ho after giving the names of the four classes then existing added : "The 
Upper Master hath.but 2 formes & theUsher as nmny ". 



CH. XXI 

" FORMS OR BOOKS " 

281 

Fourth. With the Schoolmaster, then, teaching Sixth 
and Fifth, and the Usher teaching Fourth and Second- 
Fourth, the boys would have been about equally 
distributed between them.--The conclusion of the 
whole marrer is, that the lower forms disappeared 
between 1565 and 1637 ; and that the precise date of 
their disappearance may probably have been 1629. x 
The document by which Mr. Leach established the 
existence of the lower forms in 1530 proves also the 
existence of a Seventh Form at Winchester in that 
year. 2 A companion document proves the saine 
thing for Eton, 3 and we have evidcnce for a Seventh 
Form there thirty years later in the Consuetudinarium; 4 
the document of 1530 is, I believe, the only evidcnce 
for a Seventh Form at Winchester. Mr. Austen 
Lcigh suggests that at both schools seven was prob- 
ably " the original number of forms . . . as it would 
be the simple and obvious way of grouping the seventy 
scholars -.5 When was the Seventh Form abolished ? 
At Winchester celoEainly before 167--Mathev's poem 
proves that; at Eton certainly before 1678, for it is 
absent from the first Eton list, which belongs to that 
year. "A likely time", says Mr. Austen Leigh, 
" would perhaps be during the Civil Wars, when a 
great many of the bigger boys may have gone off to 
fight". In some lines published in 1662 an Oxford 
man records that he xvent to Oxford " intent to study 
learned science ", but, he continues, 

My years had hot amounted full eighteen 
Till I in fight wounded three rimes had bcen, 

t The Second and First Forms eontinued fo exist at Eton till 1869-70. At 
Westminster" in the prescrit ", i.e. the nineteenth, "" century the prevalence 
of preparatory schools caused the disappearanee of the three lowest forms " 
(Sargeaunt, p. 41). 
a E.C.p. 448. z lbid. p. 4,51. 
t Etoniana, No. 5, p. 70.  Eton Collee Lisfç, p. xxiv. 



282 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. n 

Three times in sieges close had been immured, 
Thrce times imprisonment's restraints endurcd. 
In those sad rimes these verses rude wcre writ.  

That some, at least, of the bigger boys at Eton 
went off to fight is evidenced by the fact that four 
Comptons, sons of Lord Northampton, fought af 
Edgehill ; they were all Etonians, "the three younger 
being all under twenty ".s We have no such evidence 
concerning Winchester. A well-informed writer, per- 
haps the Warden, wrote, soon after the Restoration, 
of " the innate and usuall Loialty " of the College, 
"" of which in these wars there were more in Field 
armes and more slaine for the King then of double 
the number and proportion of Schollars in any other 
houses-;3 but he does not say that their loyalty 
impelled any of these seholars to eurtail their sehool- 
days. Of the seholars proper the youngest who is 
mentioned in the notes to Winchester Scholars as hav- 
ing fought in the civil wars was born in 1620 or 1621 
--his years " amounted full " twenty-one belote the 
King ereeted his standard ; « and the familiar letters of 
Warden Harris show that a would-be reeruit from 
among the " ehildren " would have met with little 
encouragement from that lover of peace. Quid tu 
faeias, the Warden would have said, inter strietos 
-militmn enses et bombardas ? Nobis omnino pro pace 
pugnandum alque contendendurn est.  Commoners were 
probably very few in 1642, and if a few of these few 
went off to the wars, the fact would not account for 
the disappearance of the highest class.--A Seventh 
Form, which was appointed for Westminster, in 
t Firth, Crornwels Army, p. 20. 
 Vasey Sterry, Annals of Eton College, p. 120. 
a From notes scribbled on the back and fly-leaf of a let-ter written to Warden 
Harris by Nicholas Love " the regicide " ; they may bave been written by 
Warden Burt. See above, p. 46. 
* ||'.S.p. 175. s Sec below, pp. 563, 559. 



"FORMS OR BOOKS " 
imitation of Eton, by the Statures of 1560, still 
survives there; at Harrow, under thc Founder's 
Regulations of 1571, the highest form was thc Fifth, 
but below the First there was what he callcd " the 
Pctties " ; 1 at St. Paul's there is still an Eighth. 
Of early arrangements af Winchestcr for promoting 
boys from one class to another wc learn nothing from 
Mathcw's poem or from elsewhcre ; but the Grammar 
School Statures of 1541 and following years describe 
what may have been a usual arrangement. The 
Schoolmaster is there directed to visit his whole flock 
once, twice, or three rimes every week, and fo ascer- 
tain the progress and test the abilities of the scholars ; 
those whom he finds to be fit and industrious he is 
bidden to call up, af least three rimes a year, fo the 
higher forms ; and in the case of those boys who are 
cntrusted fo the Usher's care, his tests are fo be 
applied in the presence of, and his promotions are fo 
be ruade after consultation with, the Usher. 2 It will 
be observed that promotion was not by seniority a but 
by merit (ut quisque dignus habebitur) ; that the measure 
of merit was not marks ; that a boy might " raise lais 
remove ", as now af Winchester, thrce rimes a year ; 
x Similarly at Cuckfield School, about 1530, " the children first beginning 
the grammar" were below the First Form and were called "' the Babies" 
(V.H. Bucks, ii. pp. 176-7). 
-" Leach, Early Education in Worcester, p. 146 ; E.C.p. 468.--The following 
passage occurs in Thomas James's Account of Eton Discipline in 1766 : "Vhen 
boys are removed from one form to another, we bave a custom of trying them 
in the books they bave already learned, & in such sort of exercises as they bave 
been used to make. If their tryal is satisfactory they are advanced with 
glory, if otherwise kept back to their shame .... If Boys gain their Removes 
with honour, we bave a good custom of rewarding each with a Shilling, if high 
in school 2s. 6d."--but we put the sure "to the Father's accomat" (Etoniana, 
No. 8, pp. 114-15). 
a Seniority settled promotion out of " Senior Part "' at Winchester till 
1854. (See D.D.p. 168, on the happy results of substituting merit.) Dr. 
Fearon tells me that Dr. Moberly fomad difficulties at first when he changed 
the system ; the seniors resented the idea of losing places to their juniors, and 
told them to be dumb when questions which they could answer came their 
way. 



284 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . II 

that there were Head Master's examinations, not 
twice or three rimes a year (we call that at Winchester 
" monthly "), but once, twice, or three times a week. 

Connected xvith the Winchester classes is the official 
known as classicus, whom Mathew mentioncd as re- 
porting to the master the boys who were tarde with 
their " tasks " : 

Protinus ostcndunt pueri sua pensa magistro ; 
Si tamen omittant, dat nomina elassieus horum (w. 260-1). 

To collcct tasks is one of the duties of the classicus 
to-day; but he has forgottcn that he ought also to 
report the boys whose tasks are not forthcoming. It 
is also his business to know what the coming lesson is 
to bc, whcre the last lesson left off, and so forth ; but 
these duties were more exacting when scholars and 
commoners alike prepared their work in School.  The 
poet's line suggests that he corresponds to the Eton 
"proepostor of a form "." This latter personage, how- 
ever, at least in Horman's tilne, duxit classera ; 3 the 
classicus is the junior scholar in it, and was formerly 
in each week the boy who had the lowest marks in the 
week before. 4 Perhaps the Eton custos, 5 who in spite 
of his imposing title had the humblcst position in his 
form, may have discharged the humbler duties of the 
Winchester classicus. 

t Walcott (p. 236) speaks of " iazy dullards importuning some fagging 
classicus to inform them of the day's iesson or task". The word-book of c. 
1845 says that it is a duty of the classicus "to look the boys over whcn they 
are up to Books and see that they are ail there ". 
-" So says the author of the word-book just quoted. 
a See above, p. 276.  Mansfield, p. 105. 
 For the custos, see E.C.p. 450 ; Etoniana, No. 5, p. 71 ; M.L. pp. 139-40 
(where an explanation of the naine is suggested). 



CHAPTER XXII 

AUTHORS READ : INTRODUCTION OF GREEK 

WE lcarn from Ilarrison's Description of England 
that about 1577, at the grcat collcgiate schools of 
Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, boys were " well 
entered in the knowledge of the Latine and Greeke 
toongs and rules of versifieing" before proceeding, 
after examination by " apposers ", to " certeine 
especiall houses in each universitie"; a and the 
statement, though suggesting that the portals of New 
College and Christ Church, of Trinity and King's, 
were opened more widcly to the scholars of those 
schools than was ever in fact the case, gives what 
continued for more than 250 years afterwards fo be a 
sufficicntly correct account of an Eton, Winchestcr, 
or Westminster education. It opcns out a wide 
field of enquiry, parts of which I shall not attempt to 
a See Hallarn, Literature of Europe, Part II. c. i. § 45, note. The passage 
from Harrison is quoted more fu[ly by Miss Locke, In Praise of Winchester, 
p. 149.--I take the following from a Descriptio Oxoniensis Academioe by 
Nieholas Fiezherbert ; the book was published a¢ Rorne in 1602 and bas been 
reprinted in Plurnmer's Eliabethan Oxford. Ad Academiam non procedun! 
nisi qui in gymnaz'iis scholisque publieis, per otaries Angliae prot, incias, immo 
oppida ferme, disseminatis (inter quas habentur insigniores l'uintoniensis, 
Etonensis, Dunelmensis, Londinensis), grammaticoe, poeticoe, latinoeque linguoe 
proeeepta inbiberint (Piummer, p. 17).--For the coupling together of Eton, 
Winehester, and Westrninster, see tire Bodleian notes (Hasol. MSS. D 191, fol. 
9), where an informant is quoted as saying that "' Westminster Winchester and 
Eaton schollers think none sehollers but thernselves "" ; V.M. iv. p. °17. 
" Suceess to the three great Seminarys : Westminster, Eatin, and Vinton " 
was one of the toasts at the Wykehamist Dinner in th¢ eighteenth eentury 
(The iVykehamist, May 1889). 
285 



286 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE -,, 

traverse. I shall say something in another chapter 
of the training given at Winchester in the rules of 
versifying, and of some other means adopted there in 
the past for entering boys in the knowledge of Greek 
and Latin. In the present chapter I propose to 
speak, firstly, of the choice of classical authors which 
was made for that purpose in the sixteenth century 
at Winchester and other schools of the same rank, 
laying special emphasis on the introduction of Greek ; 
and, secondly, of the Winchester curriculum of 167 
as described by Mathew. 
I. Dean Colet, the most interesting, in some ways, 
of all school-founders, made in 1518 a rather quaint 
selection of Latin authors fo be read at St. Paul's. 
He was greatly concerned to " vtterly abbanysh and 
Exclude oute of this scole " all books which he con- 
sidered either linguistically or morally impure, ail 
that "more ratheyr may be callid blotterature thenne 
litterature ". His "chyldren" were to learn "the 
varay Romayne tong " of " Tully and Salust and 
Virgill and Terence ", and there is evidence that in 
his own life-time they learnt it from *hose authors. 
But it appears from his Statutes that this was not 
what he intended; he meant his boys, after starting 
with Erasmus, to learn the very tongue of Virgil 
and Cicero from certain Christian writers of the 
fourth and fifth centuries--from Proba, Lactantius, 
Prudentius, Sedulius, Mantuanus, and Juvencus, the 
last of whom wrote a paraphrase of the Gospels in 
hexameters, while the first pieced lines of Virgil 
together to forma Life of Christ.l--The earliest 

 See the chapter in Colet's Statutes on "" Vhat shalbe taught" (Lupton, 
Lire of Colet, p. 279), and McDonnell, pp. 43-5.--Mr. Leach gives cornplete and 
most interesting proof that '" the boo "ks prescribed by Colet in 1518 were still 
read at St. Paul's in 1618, and gave the mind of Milton its bent towards the 
subjects of which they treated, and many hints in thcir treatment" (Milton 
as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster, pp. 13-19). 



oa. xx,, AUTHORS READ 287 

detailed account of the authors read and the methods 
of teaching pursued at Winchester was written tw¢lve 
years later (in 1530), when the Schoolmaster and 
Usher supplied the authorities of Saffron Walden 
School with an elaborate statement of their " ordre 
and use of techyng gramer". The statcment has 
unfortunately corne down to us incomplete, the first 
page having disappeared, 1 and we can therefore say 
no more of the work of the seventh and sixth forms 
than that they read Sallust and Ovid's 3Ietamorphoses. 
These books also found a place in the work of the 
fifth form, with Virgil (Eclogues} and Cicero (Letters}. 
The fourth form made some acquaintance with 
Terence and with the 3Ietamorphoses ; it also " some- 
tyme " construed "Tullies paradoxes" /Esop's 
fables and Lucian's dialogues (in Latin), with Cato, 
appear in the programme of the lower forms.2--The 
" order " of Eton, communicated to Saffron Walden 
by Cox the Schoolmaster in the saine year, bas corne 
down to us entire; we bave also information of 
"the form and usage taught " at Eton two or three 
years earlier from the " form " laid down for Cuckfield 
School in Sussex2 Cox, who was a newcomer in 
1530, appears to have banished Ovid, whose epistles 
had been read in the time of his predecessor; but 
Terence, Sallust, the Eclogues, Cicero's Letters were 
read in 1530 at Eton as at Winchester. Horace and 

 E.C. pp. 48-50. 
2 .ZEsop, Lucian, and Cato, though absent from the (;ontemporary Eton 
statement, appea thirty years |ater in the Consue$udinaium. "' Cato "= 
the Disticha de Moribus ad filium of Dionysius Cato, an author of unknown 
date. It was in general use in schools in the sixteenth century and later. 
John Lyon (e. 1590) ecommended it as the earliest reading book for Harrow 
boys after the Psalter (Dr. Rashdall in Howson and Walke¢, Harr 5'chool, 
p. 15). The examiner of Christ's Hospital in ]711 mentioned with approva| 
the work of "the classes which read Corderius " (see above, p. 251) "and 
Cato" (Pearce, Annals of Chris's llospial, p. 81). 
 Carlisle, ii. pp. 594-7 ; Mr. Leach's account of the document (V.H. Bucks, 
ii. pp. 176-8) corrects errors and adds useful information. 



288 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE -,, 

the zEneid appear in the Eton programme for the 
seventh and sixth forms, and, if the Winchester 
programme vere complete, we may infer from the 
general agreement of the two programmes that 
these authors would appear in it as well. Both at 
Eton, hovever, and at Winchester the reading of 
authors was subsidiary. The verb " with vulgars 
on the same", "latynes" four times a week, the 
parvula of Stanbridge, the " eight parts " of Lily, 
the "gendcrs and heteroclites of Whittington ", "rulys 
drawne out of despauterius", endless rendering of 
endless rulcs versifical and grammatical 1--such pro- 
poedeutics vere the staple of the Latin teaching at 
both schools. 
Of Greek authors, and even of Greek grammar, 
there is nota hint in these curricula. 2 We might 
conclude that Greek had not been taught either at 
Eton or at Winehester belote 1580; but, so far as 
Eton is coneerned, there is good evidenee against 
such a conclusion. Sir Thomas Pope, the founder of 
Trinity College, Oxford, wrote in 1556 that when he 
" vas a young scholler at Eton " (c. 1520) " the Greke 
tongue was growing apace ", and though Hallam has 
suggested that Pope implied no more than that 
"Greek was beginning to be studied in England ", the 
narrower interpretation is more natural. 3 Again, 
the Yulgaria of William Horman « contains many 
references to Greek which imply that it was a subject 
of study among boys ; the book was published in 
1519, and its author had been Vice-Provost of Eton 
since 1503. If Greek was studied at Eton, as may 

1 ,, Yea, I do wishe", wrote Ascharn about 1565, "that ail rules for yong 
scholers were shorter than they be " (Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 110). 
2 Sec especially the " Eton Time-Table, 1530" {E.C.p. 451). 
a Warton, Lire of Sir Thomas Pope, p. 226 ; Hallam, Literature of Europe, 
Part I. c. v. § " ; V.H. Bucks, il. p. 171 ; Histor!t, p. 229. 
« Sec above, pp. 38-9. 



e.x INTRODUCTION OF GREEK 289 
be inferred from Pope and Horman, during the years 
preceding 1520, it is likely enough that it was also 
studied at Winchester during these saine ycars. But 
we have not any direct evidence to that cffect. Mr. 
Lcach indced claires that Horman's refcrences to 
Greek, somc of vhich he quotes, " appcar to indicate " 
that Grcek study flourished at Winchcstcr vhcn 
Horman was Hcad Master therc. 1 But Horman's 
Winchcstcr headmastcrship ended in 1501, and during 
the cightecn years that clapsed before thc publica- 
tion of the Yulgaria his school expcricnce was 
Eton expericnce. 2 Undoubtcdly somc carly English 
Grecists, of whom Archbishop Warham was one, wcre 
Wykehamists, and it has bcen argued that Warham 
and the rest " almost certainly lcarnt thcir Grcck 
at Winchester-.3 From whom did Warham learn 
his? William Grocyn, "thc first English Grecist", 
wcnt fo New College in 1467, thc year in which 
Warham was admittcd to Winchestcr. He learnt the 
rudiments of Greck, thcre is reason to bclicvc, from 
Cornelio Vitclli, who, according to Polydorc Virgil, 
came fo Oxford il 1488; 4 vhether the date is 
preeisely correct does hot eoneern us. Af ter learning 
the rudiments at Oxford Groeyn pursued his Greek 
studies in Italy; on his return " he beeame," as 
Mr. Leaeh says, " the first English teacher of Greek 
in Oxford, in 1¢91 ".» We ean hardly bclieve that 
an English sehoolmaster was teaching Greek at 
Winehester twenty years before the first English 
Greeist was teaehing if af Oxford.--" There ean 
1 Hislory, p. 229. 
 Note for instance Horman's frequent references to the Thames : " Thc 
tems is hye "" The teins is rysen "--'" The teins is over the bankis "'--" Thc 
Teins is sore rysen above the bankis ". 
a Lcach, St. PauFs School before Colel, p. 208. 
« Hallam, Literature of Europe, Part I. e. iii. § 128. 
a Leach, loc. cit.--There is some reason for thinking that Grocyn may 
have taught Greek at Oxford rather earlier (see R. and R. p. 94). 
U 



290 ABOUT WlNCHESTER COLLEGE .  
hardly be a doubt ", says Mr. Leach, "that the school 
of Grocyn, Chandler, 1 Warham, oflïcially visited by 
the two latter, took the lead in the introduction of 
Greek into the curriculum of schools ". If is a more 
or lcss plausible conjecture, but if is unsupported by 
evidence. Greek must, I think, have been taught af 
St. Paul's, as af Eton, af a rime when we can only 
say that if may bave been taught af Winchester. 
When Colet founded or refounded his school in 1510-12 
he had little Grcek himself, but if vas "a deficiency 
which he aftervards ruade strenuous efforts fo repair" ; 3 
strenue grcecatur, Erasmus wrote of him in 1516. 
His Statures of 1518 direct that his High 3Iaster shall 
be " lernyd in greke yf suyche may be gotten "; he 
desired that his scholars should be taught "all way in 
good litterature both laten and grcke ". Mr. Leach is 
inclined fo infer from the words " yf suyche may be 
gotten " that Colet vas not confident that Greek 
would be a permanent part of the St. Paul's curri- 
culum. Very likcly he vas not; but for the rime af 
any rate he had secured a High Master vho could 
teach if--no less a person than William Lily, who 
had studied Greek af Rhodes and at Rome, and (as 
Sir Richard Jcbb said) " was among the pioneers of 
Greek study in England ". That having got his 
Grecian he did not set him fo teach Greek, I cannot 
believe. "No wonder ", wrote More to Colet, " your 
sehool raises a storm, for if is like the wooden horse 
in which armed Greeks were hidden for the ruin of 
barbarous Troy "? Erasmus wrote in his De Pro- 
1 Thomas Chandler, Warden of Winchester (1450-5) and afterwards of 
New College (145a-75). See R. and R. p. 93. 
 Ilislory, p. 229. 
 Sir R. C. Jebb in the Cambridge aIodern History, i. pp. 580, 582. 
« Quoted in J. R. Green's Short History of the English People, p. 805. 
Polydore Virgil, More's eontemporary, said with less point of Wykeham's 
foundations : inde, velut ex equo Trojano, viii omni rempote excellentes prodeunt 
(quoted in LooEh's Lire of Wykeham, p. 178). Among compliments paid to 



¢. xx INTRODUCTION OF GREEK 291 

nunciatione (1528) that, incredible as it might seem, 
it was true that English boys were chatting (garrirent) 
in Greek and disporting, not infelicitously, in Greek 
epigrams. 1 In view of lais full knowlcdge and high 
opinion of St. Paul's--he called if "the best of schools" 
in one of his letters 2--I should conjecture that one 
of the places where boys chatted in Greek ,vas Colct's 
equus Trojanus. There cannot, I think, be a doubt 
that Greek was taught at St. Paul's during Lily's 
highmastership (i.e. bcfore 1522) as wcll as during 
that of his son-in-law who succeeded him. s There is 
a strong case, as we have seen, for supposing that it 
was taught at Eton bcfore 1519; that it was taught 
at Winchcster about the saine time is probable, but 
in the absence of evidcnce unccrtain. Until such 
evidence is forthcoming Winchcstcr must be content, 
in this marrer of early Greck, to claire the credit of 
having taught Latin to the great " first English 
Grecist" who looks out upon Mcads from the Mcmorial 
Buildings. Pcrhaps some day--absit omen--the dis- 
pute about Greek betwecn the advocates of great 
schools may be, Which took the lead in dropping it ? 

Potenger, Mathew's Head Master, by old Winchester pupils in 1652 was the 
following : Testes ac monumenta er«dilionis Tuoe innumeri illi, qui e Schola Tua 
taruam ee euo Trojano on modo Groeci, sed hurnanioribus omne en litvris 
imbuti prodiere (Ailmer, Musee Sacroe, Dedieation). 
z De Pronunciatione, p. 48 ; quoted by Hallam, Part I. c. v. § 
t Ep. viii. 43 ; quoted in Nichols, Letters of Erasmus, il. p. 89. 
a Some further evidence will be round in McDonneli, c. iv. Mr. McDonell 
talks of the » ex-treme rashness " of Mr. Leach's claire for Winchester, but he 
appears to overlook part of Mr. Leach's case, and to ignore the fact that apart 
from direct evidence there are probabilities. In disputing the validity of 
Mr. Leach's argument from Horman's l'ulgorio, he does hot sec that Iris 
criticism, however damaging to the Winchester daim, merely gives that claire 
to Eton ; Horman's references must still cause hesitation in accepting "' the 
very well-established tradition that St. Paul's was the first public school at 
which Greek was taught in England " (p. 48).---On the authority of Knight's 
Li.fe o.f Colet {1724) Warton wrote in his Li]e o] Sir T. Pope, p. 189 : " In 1509 
Lillye, the famous grammarian who had studied Greek at Rhodes . . . was 
the first teacher of Greek at any public school in England. This was at Saint 
Paurs sehoo| in London, then newly established ". 



292 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE *.  
That Greek should be taught in English schools was 
often, during the first half of the sixteenth century, 
only an aspiration; even after Elizabcth's accession 
Colet's doubt "yf suyche may be gotten " is echoed 
in the Statutcs of Mcrchant Taylors (1561). It is 
truc that in 1541 the Statures of the Grammar Schools 
of thc New Foundation required that a Hcad Mastcr 
should be Latine et Grece doctus--an Usher needed 
only to be Latine doetus 1--and that the seholars, 
whatever they did in earnest or in play, should use 
no language exeept Latin or Greek; but Greek is 
altogether absent ïrom their eurrieulum. 2 Before 
about 1560 few English boys ean have qualified 
themselves at sehool to reap the advantages of a 
study of whieh Dean Gaisïord said that it " not only 
elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads not un- 
frequently to positions of eonsiderable emolument -.3 
For the year 1560 we have ïull information about 
Eton studies in the Consuetudinarium, and the 
Statures of that year lay dovn a programme for 
Westminster; for Winehester we have only a few 
stray hints a little earlier or a little later.--At Eton 
we find a marked advanee on 1530. The great Latin 
writers are mueh more in evidenee ; Catullus, Luean, 
Martial, Coesar, Cieero's Offees and Friendship appear 
upon the list, but Livy is still an absentee and Sallust 
bas been shelved. More important still, Greek, " the 
studie of whieh ", when Sir Thomas Pope wrote in 
1556, was " now a late mueh deeaid ", has ruade a 
reappearanee, perhaps in eonsequenee of Elizabeth's 
accession, but it is a shy reappearanee; Greek 
Grammar, " or something else at the teaeher's disere- 
tion ", is taught to the highest forms in the aïternoon 
z Even Colet does hOt require Greek as a qualification for his submag, ister. 
 E.C. pp. 452-69 ; especially pp. 458, 468. 
* The last words of a Christmas sermon preaehed at Oxford in the thirties ; 
see Tuekwell, Reminiscences of O,rford, p. 129. 



oH. xx AUTHORS READ 293 
four rimes a week.--Elizabeth's nev Statutes for 
Westminster shov that its hours, forms, discipline, 
were to be simply those of Eton; it is only the 
curriculum of Eton that was not copied slavishly.  
The Latin authors prescribed were indeed not very 
different, though Livy ousted Cicero from the pro- 
gramme of the seventh and sixth forms; it is more 
interesting to find that at both schools it was for these 
highest forms that Coesar's Commenlarie« were ap- 
pointed. But while Greek Grammar was all the 
Greek that Eton eould doubtfu]ly provide, even for 
ifs seventh form, the fourth form was to learn Greek 
at Westminster, and even to tackle " the Greek 
dialogues of Lueian"; the fifth was to read " Plut- 
areh in Greek " and Isoerates; Homer (four days a 
week) and Demosthenes were appointed for the sixth 
and seventh. Hebrew took a more important place 
in the Westminster programme than Greek at Eton. 3 
Whether Elizabeth's seheme beeame a realized ideal 
at once is perhaps not quite certain.---At Winehester 
our seantier evidenee shows that progress had been 
even more marked than at Eton between 1530 and 
about 1560. The allusions in Johnson's Tlemes 
shows that his pupils ruade aequaintanee with Livy, 
Plautus, Juvenal, and were trained in the humaner 
letters, not merely in formalities and pedantries. 
0ne of Johnson's exereises is in Greek, and his 
Latin exereises eontain many quotations from Greek 
 Eloniana, No. 5, p. 70.  See Appendix ¥I. 
3 Hebrew Gamma, with a lesson from the P«alms, was appoiated la 1560 
for the Westminster seventh form (E.C.p. 512). A hundred years later 
Charles Hoole declared (ibid. p. 533) that Westminster scholars were "able to 
raake oratioas and verses in Hebrew, Arabick, or other Oriental Tongues " ! 
In a paper printed by Mr. McDonnell (p. 271) it is stated than in 1697 tIcbrew 
was taught at St. Paul's, " as at Westminster, Eton, Winchester, the chiefest 
schools in England ". A letter from Wadea Harris to his son John (see 
below, p. 560) seems to imply that it was aot taught at Winchester about 1640 ; 
Mathew does hot allude to it in 1647. 
* See, however, Sargeaunt, p. 40. 



294 ABOUT VINCHESTER COLLEGE 
literature; lais question, Vhat effect has the poetic 
chorus upon you ? 1 suggests that they had ruade 
some way in their Greek studies. In 1552, when 
congratulatory verses were addressed to Edward VI. 
by Winchester scholars, one of their effusions was in 
Greek iambics which Mr. Leach calls very creditable. 
I agree; for their author, Thomas Stapleton, had 
bcen admitted to Winchester, at twelve years old, 
only some two years before, 2 and had perhaps taught 
himsclf Greek verse-writing. But lais iambics, how- 
evcr creditable, do hot reach a high standard, as may 
be seen from what Canon Smith pronounces to be 
"a favourable specimen of the author's method".3 
Whcn Elizabeth visited Winchester soon after John- 
son's retirement, 4 anaong the 'erses composed for the 
occasion by Scholares Wichamici were three short 
pieces in Greek elegiacs, which, if not always correct, 
show some command of mette, and doubtless gave 
more pleasure to the illustrious Grecian at whose feet 
thcy were laid than the rattling facility of the Latin 
versifiers.  One of these Greek pieces was written by 
1 I am indebted to Mr. Leach (I'.H.p. 311) for the above-quoted question, 
upon which I did hot light when examining the MS. 
: According to the statement in W.S.p. 129. 
- ll'.C.p. 67. 
 Johnson retired in 1571 ; the date of the visit in question was September 
1574 (sec H. C. in The Wyk«hamis! for July 1912), hot 1570 as stated by 
Walcott (p. 157. Some of the sets of verses were uritten by boys admitted 
to the sehool in 1573.--Mr. McDonneil (p. 48) regards the îewness of the sers 
of Greek verses in 1552 and 1574 as e-idence of the relative Greeklessness of 
,Vinchester ; but I ara told that rrhen the St. Paul's boys presenteà -erses to 
Elizabeth (in 1559 or 1569) ail their verses were in Latin. 
 Bodleian Library, Rawl. MSS. Poet. 187. There are 48 sers oîverses in the 
collection, ail of thern (except perhaps the first and last) written by boys who 
were scllolars at the time. Of the 45 Latin pieces 38 are in elegiacs, 2 in hexa- 
meters, 2 in iambic senarii, 1 in sapphics, 1 in anapæstic dimeters, 1 in couplets 
of the iambic senarius and dimeter (tlle metre of Horace's first ten epodes). 
I add for comparison (1) Canon Smith's " îavourable specimen " of Stapleton's 
iarnbies (1552), and (2) the elegiacs of the boy who calls hirrtself Td««po, and 
whom Mr. Kirby eails Tucker (1574). 



o xx AUTHORS READ 295 

a boy of fifteen; he afterwards became Dean of 
Lichfield.l--At Shrewsbury in 157 the Bailiffs' Ordin- 
anees preseribed a good list of Latin books in prose 
and verse, and " for Greek, the Greek Grammar of 
Cleonard, the Greek Testament, Isocrates, and Demos- 
thenes, or Xenophofi's Cyrus" ; both the Chief Sehool- 
toaster and the Second Master were to be " learned 
in the Greek tongue ". In 1590 the founder of Harrow, 
John Lyon, drew up a list of Greek authors, ineluding 
Hesiod and some historians and orators, to be read 
in his highest forms.2--All out evidenee shows that 
teachers of Latin were improving thcir methods, 
and that " the Greke tongue was growing apaee " 
at the " chiefest schools of England " in the latter 
half of the sixteenth eentury, when Elizabeth was 
Queen. 
II. I pass to the seventeenth eentury--to the 
eurrieulum whieh Mathew deseribes as that of Win- 
ehester in 1647. The purport of his lines (w. 121-,B,B ; 
185-202) may be shown in tabular form. It will be 
remembered that Tuesdays and Thursdays were hot 
sehool-days. 

I ara hot responsible for the sigm of (1), nor for the accentuation of either 
(1) or (2).The other Greek pieces of 1574 are #ven by Walcott, p. 
 SOe W.8. p. 145. 
z . McDonneH (p. 49) forgets Mstnsr when he says that the Harrow 
Status are the earliest in wch the direions for the study of Greek are 
peeise. 

[TABLE 



296 1. , 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
AUTHORS READ AT WINCH-ESTER IN 1647.  

! 
Clas. Mondays. Wednesdays. [ Fridays. Satttrdays. 
VI. Homer. 

Vo 

Martial. 
Robinson's Rhe- 
4ca Brevis. 

As VI., with 
Cicero's Tus- 
culan Disputa- 
tim added. 

As Mondays, 
with Virgil's 

.neidor Cicero 
added. 

As VI. 

Horace's Odes, 
or perhaps 
his Satires or 
Epistles. 
Theognis. 

Ox-id's 31etamor- 
phoses. 
Terence. 

I 
Cicero's Offices. , As Mondays. 
Ovid's Fasti. I 

IV. 2 Not stated. 

Nowii's Cate- 
chism (in Greek). 

Musaeus. 
Hesiod. 
Virgi]. 
As VI. 

NowelFs Cae- 
chi.m (in Latin 
Oxàd's Tristia. 

Ovid's THstia [?]. As Mondays. 
Erasmus's Col-' 
loquies. 
I 

Nowelrs Cate-[ 
chism 0n Latin). 
Oxid's Fasti. 

Some details of this table may perhaps call for a 
few words of explanation or comment.--Of Robinson's 
Short Rhetoric I have spoken elsewhere. 2 Our poet 
" gathers flowers " from it, or from other short 
treatises bound up with it, in var. 61, 191-2.--From 
the Metamorphoses of Ovid, again, though Mathew 
is no great stitcher of tags, he borrows here and there 
(e.g. in w. 109, 216, 283). Canon Cruickshank has 
lately reminded us, in a delightful paper upon Ovid 
the Artist, that that poem deserves more admiration 
than most of us give it. It appears in all the curricula, 
with one exception, of which I bave taken account ; 
and the poems of Ovid generally were read freely, 
perhaps too freely, at Winchester throughout the 
seventeenth century. A " sett of Oxids", costing 
x My table does not always agree with those given by Mr. Leach (History, 
p. 273 ; I'.H.p. 33). Most of the differences are due fo the fact that he had 
only the Winchester MS. to go by ; it is often very faulty in w-. 185-202.-- 
On some points explanations are offered in my paraphrase of the poem. 
 Sec above, p. 5. 



c. xx.AUTHORS READ 297 

Ss. 4d., 1 appears in a school account of 1620 to xvhich 
I shall presently refer. Even the De Arte Amandi 
is said to have been a Winchester school-book about 
1670.  Greek poems in elegiacs were also read in 
1647 ; but why did the Head Master arrange that his 
boys should make acquaintance with the most charm- 
ing of Greek metres in Theognis ? and why of all 
possible epithets did Mathew apply " bland " to that 
harsh writer's poems (v. 188)? ---Nowell was, as 
Mathexv calls him, an eminent "divine" (v. 195) ; some 
writers have supposed that he drafted the "Catechism 
for Children" which appeared in Edward VI.'s Prayer 
Book of 1549 and is nearly identical with the first 
part of the Church Catechism of to-day. His Large 
Catechism, written in Latin, was published in 1563 and 
appointed to be read at the universities ; it was trans- 
lated into Greek by the author's nephcw William 
Whitaker, Master of St. John's, and many abridgments 
appeared later. « Bishop Horne enjoined in 1571 that 
the Winchester Masters should read and expound to 
the scholars "the Catechism lately set forth by Mr. 
Alexander Nowell Dean of Powles ", and that '' nonc 
shall go to the New College in Oxford but such as can 
say" it;  a Wykehamist was charged 3s. Bd. about 
1620 " for inke, a Psalter, a Nowell, and grammar ". 
A selection from the Colloquies of Erasmus makes an 
excellent school-book for beginners; the book was 
in general use for a long period; it was appointed 
for the second form at Westminster in 1560, and for 
 The saine boy was charged 10d. for the .letamorphoses only. See Walcott, 
pp. 166, 169. 
 See a paper on John Norris of Bemerton in The Wykehamist for May 1894. 
 The Winchester MS., perhaps by a slip, substitutes docla for blanda. 
« Blunt, The Annotated Book of Comrtmn Prayer, p. 428 ; D.N.B. 
« V.A. de I. pp. 827-8.--Joseph Godwin (admitted 1648 ; see below, p. 801) 
repeats and supplements what Mathew (w, 193-6) says about Nowell : '" On 
Saturday morning they read Noweli's catechism, the Latine boys " (i.e. the 
Fourth and Second-Fourth forms) "in Latine & the Greek in Greek, the Master 
cxpotmding as a Sermon ". 



298 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 
)Iusecum " (ov«eo,). The Hero and Leander of 
Musaeus is " generally thought to have been the first 
work from the press established at Venice by Aldus 
Manutius"; Aldo, " as appears from the preface, 
identified its author with the pre-Homeric bard of 
]egcnd ".- The eldcr Scaliger ranked Musaeus above 
Homer, and the poem, as expanded in an English 
form by Marlowe and Chapman, long enjoyed un- 
boundcd popularity.--I have explained Mathew's 
lines about Terence (w. 190-2) on p. 181. 
A gencral survey of t.lac table reveals some points 
of interest. (1) No Greek teaching is appointed for 
the forms below the fifth. To be taught a little 
Greek grammar would, we should have thought, be 
a nccessary preliminary to reading such authors as 
Hesiod and Theognis; and ve might guess that, 
though Mathev does not say so, the fourth form at 
Winchester learnt Greek Grammar in 1647 as it did 
at Westminster in 15602 But John Hutton, whose 
school accounts for 1620-1 are in many ways instruc- 
tive, had already been some rime at Winchester before 
he became the owner, in the Midsummer quarter of 
1621, of "a Tusc. Quest." and "a Lucan", "a 
Cambden " {i.e. a Greek Grammar)4 and "a Greek 
Test."; he had already, in the Michaelmas quarter 
1 I'.H.p. 890.--Perhaps the famous Arma scbolastica in promptu semper 
habeto was inserted in the Tabula Legura from a hint in the Colloquies ; see 
below, p. 546. 
z Hallam, Literature of Europe, Part I. c. iii. § 114 ; Il. v. § 73 ; II. vii. § 19 ; 
Cambridge hlodern History, i. p. 562. 
z Hoole's New Discovery, written in 1687, subsequently enlarged, and 
published in 1660, explains " how to enter the Scholars of the fourth Form 
upon Greek in an easy way " (E.C.p. 581). 
a William Camden was Head Master of Westminster from 1593 to 1599. 
I-Ils elementary Greek Grammar took the place of the prolix Grammar of 
Cleonard, which as we have seen was also appointed to be used at Shrewsbury 
in 157} {see Sargeaunt, p. 52). 



oz. xx= AUTHORS READ 299 

of 1620, been charged for a " Tullies offices ". Noxv 
Lucan would hardly have been read below the fifth 
form; and in Mathew's time, and probably in 
Hutton's also, the Ojïces were read in the fifth, and 
the Tusculans in the fourth. I-Iutton, then, appears 
to have bought his Greek Granmmr and Greek 
Testament when he bought his fifth-form Latin 
school-books, and therefore to have begun the study 
of Greek only on reaching that form. (2) It will 
also be observed that nearly all the authors read are 
poets. Of Roman 1 vriters of Latin prose Cicero 
alone appears upon the list. There is no Livy and 
no Cesar, and Sallust, who is included in the (earlier) 
Eton, the Winchester, and the Westminster curricula 
of the sLxteenth century, is also passed over--in 
deference, pcrhaps, to the masterly criticism of him, 
as "not very fitte for yong men to learne out of him ", 
which Ascham quoted as that of the great Sir John 
Cheke.  No Greek vriter of Greek prose is men- 
tioned; the Winchester scholars of 16Jï heard that 
noble instrument played, not, as the Westminster boys 
had done, by Demosthenes and Isocrates, or even by 
Plutarch and Lucian, but by William Whitaker, and 
he played upon it an adaptation of his uncle's Cale- 
chism! (3) The list of Latin poets is fairly repre- 
sentative; that of Greek poets is less so, for, while 
it includes I-Iomer, Hesiod, Theognis, Musaeus, it 
excludes ail the dramatists. John Potenger the I-Iead 
Master must, I think, have wished to teach his boys 
to write Greek hexameters and elegiacs, and ruade his 
choice of Greek poets accordingly. In 1652 John 
Ailmer, an Oxford Wykehamist still under tventy, 
published his remarkable little book called Musee Sacree, 3 

i The Colloqules of Erasmus, as we have seen, was also read. 
 Scholemaster {ed. Arberh pp. 154-9. 
 Sce abovc, p. 



a00 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,T. n 
which is a translation of Lamentations, Daniel, and 
Jonah into Greek hexameters. It is prefaced, after 
the manner of the rime, x by a series of testimonia de 
authore written by contemporaries and friends, of 
whom Mathew is perhaps the most effusive. Eight 
of these testimonies are in Greek verse, and ail the 
eight are in elegiacs * or hexameters. The book is 
dedicated to Potenger, prcelustrissimce scholoe lVin- 
toniensis moderatori prudentissimo, to whom Mathew 
and others assign a large share of the credit of their 
friend's prodigious feat. Remembering Potenger's 
choice of Greek poets we may say of Ailmer in a 
narrower sense than that which Mathew's words were 
intended to convey: Ne mire'ris, Lector ; e Schola 
prodiit llïcchamica lVintoniensi. 3 
x Compare the Testimonia prefixed to Milton's Latin poems, mostly written, 
as the title-page oftheedition of 1645explains, before he was twenty. Milton's 
words about these testimonia might well bave been echoed by Ailmer : HOec 
quoe sequuntur de Authore testimonia, tametsi ipse intelligebat non tare de se quam 
supra se esse dicta, eo quod prceclaro ingenio /ri, nec non amici, ira fere soient 
laudare ut omnia suis potius virtutibus quam veritati congruentia nimis cupide 
affingant, noluit tamen, etc. 
2 Hoole shows how to help boys of the fifth form fo make Greek verses as 
they read Theognis (E.C.p. 582). 
 Potenger must of course bave taught Iris pupils t write Greek verses. 
The boast of ,Valter Savage Landor that he and another were the first boys at 
Rugby, or ai any school, to do Greek verses (Rouse, Rugby, p. 188) refers to a 
revival only. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA : INTRODUCTION OF 
MATHEMATICS 

ABOUT 1670 some inquisitive person--he may have 
been Anthony Wood, the indefatigable Oxford 
historian--jotted down facts, collected from various 
informants, about Winchester  and othcr schools ; 
his chier Wykehamical informant was one Joseph 
Godwin, an old acquaintance whom Vood described 
as "squint-ey'd and purblind ",z but who was clear- 
sighted in matters educational. As Godwin went to 
Winchester in 1648, and thus narrowly missed being 
Mathew's schoolfellow, his recollections are valuable 
as illustrating and supplementing Mathew's poem; 
he had much to say on many matters, and particu- 
larly on those methods of entering boys in Latin 
and Greek of which I spoke in the last chaptcr. 
The notes are miscellanea, unsifted and unsorted; 
I have extracted most of those which relate to 
education, 3 and have arranged them in groups. 
I. In the afternoon they read Virgil or ttesiod [vv. 132, 
198] thus : one boy reads in Latine to such a stop 
and gives the English in grosse hot verbatim, so as 

1 The notes are preserved at the Bodleian (Rawlinson MSS. D. 191}. 
Leach called my attention to thern. 
 See the passage quoted in L.R. il. p. 333. 
a Referenee bas been ruade elsewhere to many of the others. 
301 

Mr. 



302 

ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
the Master sees he understands it; then another 
does the like till the Master bid them stop. 
They read Virgil by themselves, x 
At Christmas and such rimes they learne for Task 
abundance of Homer exactly. 
They tume Virgil into English verses & Hesiod into 
Latine .... 
They pickt up Latin rules as they learnt them in 
Authors. 
They use no word books, nor janua linguarum, but 
classick authors. They were allowed Dictionaryes 
and Lexicons. 
If they be askt anv rule for anything and cannot tell, 
they shall not be told nor whipt by the Master, 
onely they tell one-another against another rime. 
They read their Gramars but once a quarter in a 
fortnights rime, twenty leaves in a morning & make 
no exercise at that rime nights, but after the part 
is said they fall to their usual authors. 
He is of Mr. Fulman's 2 mind that rime is lost in 
making Latine 3 much af first; but reading the 
classick authors and then boyes will be able of 
themselves to do it. 
They lnade no Latine at Winchester till they had 
learned high classick authors. 
II. They speake Latine everywhere. 
They had a Founders Kin or Wardens kinsman that 
had no skill in Latine and in one year understood 
and spake Latine well, conversing with schollars. 
III. None goe to Winchester schoole that are not fit to 
be in 2Esop's fables, Ovid's de Tristibus, etc. None 
in Cato there. 4 

x This note comes, not from Godwin, but from another informant, " Mr. 
Babb ", either Bernard Babb (elected 1657)or his brother Thomas (eleeted 
1664). 
2 Mr. Fulman (not, I think, a Wykehamist) was another of the writer's 
informants. 
 " To make a Latine "=breuem phrasim Anglicanam latinam lace're 
(E.C. p. 466). 
« For Cato see above, p. 287. 



EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 303 
Erasmus, Ovid de Tristibus, was the lowest book 
they learnt in the lowest form in the School. 1 
They ruade verses every night except Friday in their 
chamber at night on a theme given by the Pre- 
positor and hot shewed to the Master. 
The Prepositors take the exercise and examine it ere 
the Master hath it. 
12 yeares is a good age to corne thither and they 
must be gone at 19. 
Mr. Godwin will teach his sonne himself till 12 years 
of age, & thon will not wait any fricnds assistance 
to lose time, but give £20 2 to let him in. He will 
ask his sonne how many parts of speech & carcs 
not for his nameing them, which he will make him 
doe when he cornes to an Author. And ask him 
[hov] many declensions & call for an example of 
each & his vork is donc. 
Mr. Godvin vould teach his child Greek early. 
IV. One night they made prose another verse. 
Sunday night they went for a theme which was 
showed on 5Iunday in the afternoon or on Tuesday 
morning by nine of clock. 
They are [? have] Martial mornings [v. 123] & vary 
upon some verse given by the Master and make 
many Latine verses upon one of Martials ex tempore. 
They used no turning or [?] verses nor scanning nor 
nonsense verses. 
After Lectures the 3laster gives them a them [sic] & 
valkes 2 or  turnes whiles the upper schollars 
speak many verse, & if any one misse the next 
speaks, till the last gives ¢ verses at least and he 
that missed produces his & the upper schollars 
more than they did at first. 

a Compare w. 129-B0 : 
Tristibus ast Elegis lugeret Quarta-secunda, 
Ni cito Colloquium dederit dilectus Erasmus. 
This note (iike the next) cornes from Mr. Babb. 
 Another note states : "' £20 brings them into Winchester ". Nominations 
appear to bave still been bought and sold, in spite of condenmations of the 
pmctice by Bishop Home and Archbishop Bancroft ; see below, p. 400. 



304 ABOUT_WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  
Once a quarter they had a . . . triall, viz. how they 
profit, thus. The Master gives a theme (most 
commonly for verse exercise) which must be ruade 
presently without pen, ink, or papcr, & 3 of the 
compositors are svorne to place those that do 
eminently so many places higher in the formes as 
they see cause & the boys deserve. The Master does 
it not himself lest he should seem partial. (Joseph 
Godwin got eleven places at once !) 'Tis their 
emulacion that makes them schollars. 
They said Repetition sometimes. 
Af Winchester thcy must once in 3 weekes show 9 
leaves of Collections out of bookes of their own 
chuseing (unlesse the Master see cause to alter 
them) one 3 weekes in verse and another verse 
[? prose] besidcs the ordinary exercise. And the 
Master wrote his naine & the day of the moneth 
at the bottome at every 3 wcekes end that thcy 
might goe on. 
I nust pass quic -kly over the notes of the first three 
groups. Group I., with its insistcnce on thc reading 
of thc " high classick authors ", its indifïerence to 
grammatical preliminaries, its postponemcnt of thc 
vriting of " latynes ", its disbelicf in whipping as an 
cducational stimulus, shovs the influence of Ascham's 
Scholemas'ter ; 1 but wc sav in the last chaptcr that a 
rcal advance towards the wise ncthods which wcrc 
followed " vhen Harris presided and vhen Potengcr 
taught " had been ruade at Winchester a century 
bcforc Godwin's school-days. Ascham vould have 
commendcd, though with some rcscrve, the use of Latin 
in conversation, to which the notes of Group II. 
testify ; its use by the proepositors, as encouraged or 
enforced by Warden Harris,  he would indeed havc 
commcnded unreservedly, but he feared that very 
 Scholemaster (ed. Arber), p. 25 (" Making of Lattines marreth Children ") 
and elsewhere ; see also above, p. 28. 
 See above, p. 288. 



cH. _xm EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 305 
early Latin speaking might bring a boy to an "euill 
choice of wordes " and a "crooked framing of 
sentences " which would hurt and hinder him " all 
the daies of his lire afterward ".1 I mav call attention 
to Godwin's remarks, under Group III., about the agc 
of entering and of leaving Winchester ; but it is more 
important to note his mention of the Wykehamical 
practice by which the composition of youngcr boys 
was revised by boy-tutors and shown to the 3Iasters 
pro forma if at all. The practice was continued in 
College till the earlier, and to some extent to the latest 
days of Dr. )Ioberly (1866) and even later. 
Group IV. requircs a fuller notice. 3Iathew (or a 
more skilful poct whose lines he appropriates), con» 
menting on the alternatives aut disce aut discecle, 
suggests that boys may be prompted to choose the 
latter by the grave pensorum pondus, " the heavy 
burden of Tasks " (v. 89); two ccnturies later com- 
position was still regarded as one of the two " chief 
subjects of study " at Winchester." The composition 
in question was chiefly that of Latin verse, which to 
most boys was still a heavy burden indeed ; no lines 
in Mathew's poern appeal more poignantly to-day to 
the average elderly old Wykehamist than those in 
which he says of himself and his contemporaries : 
Scrutarnur cerebri rimas, ne forte lateret 
Carmen proposito quod iungat et hoereat apte (w. 66-7). 
If the carmen was there, it lay hid rnost obstinately 
in the brains of most of us. Yet we were required, 
even while still in " Junior Part ", to produee eaeh 
week three " vulguses " or epigrarns and a quasi- 
t 8cholemaster, pp. 28-9. Aseham quotes the words of Cieero " in like 
matt¢r ", loquendo male loqui discunt. 
 From the elaborat¢ word-book quoted elsewhere. Its author's other 
chier subj¢ct of study is Divinity. 
X 



806 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr. n 

original hexameter " verse-task "; when we reached 
Middle Part and Horace, there was a " metre-task " 
as well. The authorities assumed, often without 
reason, that boys when they came to Winchester were 
sufficiently familiar with " rules versificall ", and had 
only to apply them with the help of their inventive 
faculty (which was in most cases quite undeveloped) ; 
that they had passed the stage of those " nonsense 
verses " vhich were still prescribed for many boys-- 
and those not the youngest--in the Lower School at 
Eton.  The tri-weeldy vulguses 2 were, I think, 
what most of us hated most. Only a few--a very 
few--had a gift for writing them ; some, without the 
giït, had facility ; some, who had neither the gift nor 
the facility, were not without determination. Many 
again had neither gift nor facility nor determination, 
but had scruples; they tried to concoct something, 
with as tittte trouble as possible, which was more or 
less their own; but this fourth class tended to sink 
into a fifth, that of those who persuaded or coerced more 
facile but not too gifted hands to write new vutguses 
for them, or brought forth from a treasure things old. 3 
1 At Eton from 1698 or earlier there were subdivisions of the Third Form 
ealled " Sense ", " Nonsense ", " Scan and Prove ", " Prosodia " ; their work 
was described by Thomas James in 1766 (Etoniana, No. 8, p. 117) ; the ftrst 
two did hot disappear till 1860. .Mr. Austen Leigh quo/es an amusing passage 
from a letter written in 1785 by an Etonian's mother : "" Richard . . . writes 
me an excellent le/ter saying he has been sent up three rimes for good for 
making nonsense verses and that now he is pu/into sense. I believe one must 
be an Etonian to understand this language " (Eton College L/s[s, p. 
 Mr. Leach regards the word " ,ndgus " as a corruption ; " it should " 
(he says) "be vulgars from vulgaria or books of common words and phrases" 
(II'.II'.B.p. 62), such as that of Horman to which I have referred on p. 88. 
He rnay be right ; but the passages which he quotes give no evidenee of the 
change of meaning. In the Eton Consuetudinarium vulgaria and carmina are 
distinguished ; we are told that on Ail Souls" Day the I-Iead Master aube! 
vulgaria confiei et carmina de resurrectionis gloria, de animorum beatitudine, et 
spe mmortalitatis (Etoniana, No. 5, p. 68). 
 One of my schoolfellows was the possessor of a bandbox full of old 
v-ulguses ; such was his disinelination to verse-making on his own aeeount 
that he would seareh it through and through to find something whieh would 
fit the theme, however iii. 



cH xxm EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 307 
The compulsory vulgus was a bad institution, none 
the less so because the masters looked with some 
indulgence on the malpractices which it caused. It 
is recorded of a well-known and kindly commoner 
tutor that he summoned to his study a boy who had 
put his naine to a too familiar perennial, and ad- 
dressed him in these terms : "I suppose you think 
that vulguses improve with keeping, like port ; bg the 
bye, bave a glass ? " 
The vulgus was " imported to Rugby " by Dr. 
Arnold, but the author of Tom Brown " always undcr- 
stood " that it was imported " more for the sake of 
the lines which were learnt by heart with it than for 
its own intrinsic value ".* That vas surely a wrong 
understanding of the matter. The vulgus and the 
learning of lines--which culminated in what Wvke- 
hamists called "Standing-up"--were connected by 
no indissoluble rie. You tan get toast pig vithout 
burning your farmstead, and Arnold could have 
imported Standing-up vithout importing the vulgus ; 
he imported both because he believed in both. If the 
composition of vulguses was an end in itself, the 
learning of Latin poetry vas no doubt a means (the 
best means) to that end, but its chier value is " in- 
trinsic ", and so Arnold thought. * The case for 
Standing-up was that it supplied the mind, at a 
rime when the memory is most retentive, with 
perennial sources of refreshment and delight. 3 It may 
have done so af too great cost--the process was 
laborious ; but its results are perhaps undervalucd. 
Mathew gives no hint that in the seventeenth 
a Tom Brown's School Days (Golden Treasury edition), p. 26. 
2 Matthew Arnold is said fo ha-e been sent fo Winchester for a year 
(1836-7) that he might bave the experience of a Standing-up. 
s ,, It is only in boyhood that one bas the opportunity, or perhaps the 
faeulty, of learning much poetry by heart, and I would give a good dcal now 
to have had rny own mind eharged from boyhood with Virl and Words- 
vorth " (T. R. Glover, Virgil, second edition, p. xi). 



308 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ." 

ccntury Wykchamists lcarnt vast quantities of Latin 
poetry by hcart ; Godwin only says that " they bave 
rcpctition somctimcs -.1 I know of no dcfinite allusions 
to Standing-up, though there are hints of its existence, 
beforc the beginning of the ninetecnth century, when 
portentous numbers of lines are said to have been 
learnt--by boys, be it remembered, in "Middle 
Part ". Thc future Dr. Arnold wrote to his mother in 
1808 that, being " 8th Senior of 3Iiddle Part of the 
5th " (and just turned thirteen), he was about to 
" say without book 3000 lines of Homer ", and he 
claimcd to bave said " 16,000 Latin lines " ; * Lord 
Sclborne remembered that in his time (1825-30) one 
boy took up the whole .:Eneid and another the whole 
Iliad; a Mr. Tuckwcll (182-8) dcclared that " the 
largcst achicvement on record " (16,000 lines) " was 
by Algcrnon Bathurst " (clccted in 1832); that of 
Henry Furncaux (clccted in 18¢1--12,800 lines) is 
better attested. 4 Even these Vykehamical feats were 
perhaps surpassed by a pupil of Arnold's at Rugby; 
he died last year, and an obituary notice of him stated 
that " he learnt the larger part of the classics by 
heart, and quite possibly he could have repeated the 
whole of them"! So soon do records of feats of 
memory become mere legend. 
The notes of Group IV. mention two special kinds 
of task of which something must be said. One of 
them was known as a " Varying ". That term was 
perhaps first applied to the rewriting, in various ways, 

 A note in Group I. may mean that they learnt " abundance of Homer 
by heart. 
"- From an article by Mr. Holgate in The 1Vykehamist for July 80, 1895. 
 .llemorials of Lord Selborne, i. p. 103. 
« Tuckwell, pp. 97-8.--Numbers given in this conneetion are subject 
to discount. Arnold wrote that his 3000 fines of Homer " reckoned for 
15,000 Latin "; and in the sixties at any rate portions of SVordsworth's 
Greek Grarnmar were reckoned as equivalent to Latin lines according to 
prescribed scale. 



ca. xa EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 809 

of a given Latin prose sentence ; a but al Winchester 
il came to mean a vulgus eomposed in elass, without 
the help of books and (in Godwin's lime) " without 
pens, ink, or paper", on a given theme. " An old 
pupil of Dr. Williams (1824-35) described how, when 
Sixth Book and Senior Part were " up to books " as 
one class, a the seniors af ter construing, perhaps, some 
famous episode in Virgil would bc set some line from 
il as the thcmc for a varying, which they composed 
while the Head Master questioned thc juniors ; that 
process over (after " walking 2 or 3 turnes ", says 
Godwin) he came back to the seniors, cach of whom 
read out his varying.* " Little of an epigrammatic 
nature ", says T. A. Trollopc, 5 " was achieved ", but 
facility was acquired. Varyings were ordinarily the 
last part of the examination for New Collcgc scholar- 
ships;  Warden Huntingford mentions as a thing 
quite exceptional, that in 1818, owing to the electors 
having spent much lime in squabbles about the recent 
rebellion, the cxamination was confined to construing 
Greek and Latin authors, and that " the excrcise 
called 'Varying' was hot required".7 There were 
varyings, without pen and papcr, al the election of 
1848 8 and in subsequcnt elections till about 1855, 
when the cxamination was remodelled. 
The other special task which Godwin mentioned 
in Group IV., but to which he gave no naine, was 
" Gatherings " (" Gags " for short). In the sevcn- 
 Dis¢anl oralionem infinilis modis variare, al vel sic landem Laliae iingue 
]acultate.m (quantum pueris salis est) assequantur (Canterbury Statures of 1541 : 
E.C. p. 468). 
 We read in the Eton Con.¢ueludinarium 1560) that on Fridays the Head 
Master proposed a therne " to be varied " by the seventh and sixth forms in 
verses, by the fifth form in prose. Such va .ryings wele hot ruade extempore, 
as al Winchester ; they were shown up on Saturdays (Eloniana, No. 5, p. 71 ). 
s Sec above, p. 256. « The |Vykehamisl, June 20, 1893. 
* T. A. T. p. 118.  Mansfield, p. 241. 
 From Huntingford's MS. Wieearmeal Armais. 
 Tuekwdl, p. 95. 



310 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE »7.  

teenth century the boys copied out extracts of poetry 
or prose, choosing their authors for themselves, and 
showed their " gathering-books " once in three weeks 
to the Head Master. In 1771 Sixth Book " did 
Barton's Plutarch for Gatherings ,,,1 whatever that may 
mean. Before the nineteenth century gatherings had 
become something more than the culling and copying 
of elegant extracts, though even that has its value. 
Lord Selborne spoke of the gatherings of c. 1830 as 
an interesting cxercise, which " led us to search for 
information on the subjects of which we had been 
reading", and dcscribcd them as " English notes 
compiled or collected by ourselves on certain portions 
of our school lessons, the choice of manner and marrer 
being left entirely to our own taste and discretion ".'- 
It was to such " exercises in criticism " that Dr. 
Arnold rcferred when he wrote to an old Wyke- 
hamist during his first year at Rugby: "I mcan to 
bring in something like 'gatherings' before itis 
long -.3 Many Wykehamists of the thirties and fortics 
have described the gatherings of their rime. For 
Sixth Book and Scnior Part they continued to be 
what Lord Selborne said : they were shown up some 
eight timcs a ycar, and wcre produced to the examiners 
at Election. For younger boys they were abridg- 
ments or analyses of some portion of an ancicnt 
history-book; if one which I have seen is a fair 
specimen, they were about as valuable an exercise as 
the abridgments or analyses whieh young boys make 
to-day. Gatherings beeame something of a farce in 
the fifties, and, like varyings, were diseontinued 
before 1860. From aletter written in 1770 it appears 
that boys set some store by their gathering-books, 

i From an unpublished letter by John Bond. 
2 51envorials of Lord Seborne, i. p. 102. 
a Stanley, Life of ,Arnold, p. 190. 



,,. xm EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 311 

which ata later date were " invariably bound in a 
peculiar manner, with vermilion leather back and 
vellum corners" 1 

We learn nothing from Godwin about declama- 
tion, one of the processes by which Wykehamists were 
in his rime "entered in the knowledge of the Latine 
toong". Aseham notes in his Scholemaster (1570) that 
it is one of "six wayes appointed by the best learned 
men for the learning of ronges and encreaee of elo- 
quenee ", but he regards it as "titrer for the vniversities 
rather than for Grammar seholes " ; z he dwells fully 
on the other rive ways, but forgets to comment on this 
sLxth way. Deelamations were instituted in 1541 for 
the highest forms at grammar schools of eathedrals 
of the new foundation, ut vel contentionis studio 
docti eaadant. 3 At Eton in 1560 boys appointed by 
the Head Master deelaimed, ingenii exercendi gratia, 
on a fictam thema, " inveighing one against another ", 
on Saturday afternoons; « the saine practice was 
enjoined by the Westminster Statures of the saine 
year, with the addition that the declaimers should be 
"two or three ", and that the whole College should be 
present3 Disputations on logic and rhetorie, or on 
the prineiples of grammar, belong to a very early 
period in the history of English edueation, 6 but there 
is no allusion to any kind of deelamation in the 
"order vsyd " at Eton in 1530; the deelamations 
with whieh we are concerned may have been intro- 
dueed there between 1530 and 1560. 
When they were introdueed at Winehester cannot 
be determined within sueh narrow limits. I have 
i From the word-book of c. 185. 
 Scholemaster, p. 92. a E.C.p. 468. 
4 Etoniana, No. 5, p. 71.  E.C.p. 516. 
e See e.g. Leach, St. Paul's before Cola, p. 195 ; 2)lilton as Schoolboy and 
Schoolmaster, p. 4. 



812 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

noticed no allusion to them in Johnson's Themes 
(c. 1565); but one of the purposes which they were 
designed to serve was served in his time, both at 
Eton 1 and at Winchester, by the acting of plays ; he 
speaks to his pupils of its value as teaching "oratory 
and pronunciation ,,.3 Plays were employed for the 
same purpose at other schools in the sixteenth century ; 
thus at Shrexvsbury the Bailiffs' Ordinances (157) 
required that the scholars of the highest form should 
"declaim and play one act of a comedy" on Thursdays. 
It is likely enough that deelamations proper were 
practised at Winehester, as at Eton and Westminster, 
in the sixteenth century; when Bishop Bilson, as 
Visitor of New College, required (1599) " two under- 
graduates or Baehelor Artists to deelaim in Latin for 
half an hour each once a week before the assembled 
Society on some moral or politieal theme to be seleeted 
by the Warden ,,,8 he was probably requiring a thing 
with which he had been familiar at Winehester as 
Head Master (1571-9). Mathew's verses, however, 
are the earliest Winchester evidenee for the practiee. 
we are 

From the pulpit in school, says the poet, 
vont to declaim " : 

Hic agimus lites, hic arma scholastica forti 
(Nedum sanguinea) dextra vibramus in hostes ; 
Hoc nostrum bellum magis est mulieribus aptum, 
Non etcnim manibus, sed linguis utimur acres (v'. 98-101). 
It appears that hands as well as tongues were 
sometimes used in the declamatory combats at Eton, 
and that an Eton mother did not therefore regard 
them as not " fit for women " ; in the early eighteenth 
century, after such a combat, " Thomas Morell 
knocked William Battie's head against the wall of 
the Chapel, and was in turn paid out ' with a swinging 
 Eloniana, No. 5, p. 68.  Themes, fol. 88. See V.H.p. 312. 
a R. and R. p. 142. 



,-,. xm EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANEA 313 
slap on thc face' from his adversary's mothcr" 1 
Thc dcclamations wcrc in Latin. John Potcngcr thc 
youngcr, who bccame a Winchcster scholar in 1658, 
dcclarcd that " declaiming is onc of thc best cxcrciscs 
a man can apply himsclf to, and Livy's orations best 
for dcclaiming-;2 a declatnatio, in thc handwriting 
of William Harris, Hcad Mastcr from 1679 to 1700, 
is cxtant, in which, if I rcmcmbcr rightly, a Roman 
scnator, cribbing frccly from Livy, dcnounccs thc 
madncss of thc Saguntincs. Itis statcd in a paper 
quotcd by Mr. McDonnell that in 1697 oratory was 
taught at Winchcstcr, as at Eton and Wcstminstcr ; 3 
at Southampton School, vhcrc Wykchamical influence 
was strong, dcclamations wcrc cnjoined by statutcs of 
1674-5. 4 When " School " was completcd in 1687, 
a rostrum (as I have shown) was includcd in its 
fumiturc.  
Wykchamists uscd thc word "declamations" 
somcwhat looscly in thc cightccnth ccntury. It was 
applicd, for instance, to thc orations ad Portas of 
which I shall spcak in anothcr chaptcr. John Bond 
told his brothcr in 1771 that his " Dcclamation 
Thcmc " was " Ostracism ", but did not suggcst that 
anothcr orator would dcclaim against him; thc 
thcmc of one of his schoolfcllows was " An Ode to 
Summcr"; anothcr (Addington, aftcrwards Lord 
Sidmouth) was to dcclaim on " thc Valcy [sic] of 
Tempe " --his " dcclamation " was to be composcd 
by thc commoncr tutorY Onc grcat purposc of 
 M. L. p. 282.  The l|'l'l¢ehamist, June 20, 1893. 
a McDonnell, p. 271. « I'.H.p. 390.  See above, p. 227. 
t In 1770 Jolm Bond wrote : " Out Declamation Theme came down last 
Saturday. The Theme is dulce et decorum est pro patria mori : which I suppose 
you will say is a Cornmon hack. Wood Rodbard myself and Methuen dcclaim 
on it "--ail, let us hopc, on the saine side. 
 See abo-¢e, p. 00. The declamations ad Portas were not always com- 
posed by the declaimers in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth 
centuries (see e.g. below, p. 402}, whatever may be the practice in the twentieth. 



814 ABOUT WINCHESTE1R COLLEGE . 
dcclamations, thc dcvclopment of a power of arguing 
and pcrsuading, had, it sccms, bccn forgottcn; you 
do hot bccomc a forciblc dcbatcr by rcciting odcs to 
summcr, or othcr pcoplc's vcrscs about Tempe. At 
Eton in 1766 " dcclamations " werc sharply distin- 
guishcd from " spccchcs ,,,1 but unfortunatcly Thomas 
Jamcs tcils us lcss about thc former than about thc 
latter. Mcanwhilc at Winchestcr dcclamations in thc 
older scnsc, if thcy had dicd out, wcrc rcvivcd in thc 
early ninctccnth century; Lord Sclborne (1825-30) 
dcscribcd them in languagc which would suit thc 
dcclamations of thc sixtccnth ccntury quitc wcil : 

Three boys were appointed, two to maintain or contradict, 
and the third to leave in doubt, a thesis proposed to them, 
in Latin prose of their own composition, whieh they reeited 
publiely in the sehool. 2 

" A dull performance ", he added, " it almost alvays 
was " ; even when young seholars eould and did talk 
Latin, Sir John Cheke wisely " deuised to haue de- 
clamaeions, and other sueh exereizes, sometimes in the 
vniversities eomposed in English -.3 Set deelamations, 
though in English, would perhaps be voted a bore at 
Winchester to-day; eertainly they would train boys 
less effeetively in the -kind of publie speaking whieh our 
rimes demand than the give and take, and the less 
measured oratory, of a debating soeiety. 
Deelamations were supplanted, I think in the early 
forties, by " Speaking ", whieh led up to the quasi- 
publie display ealled " Commoner Speaking "--a mis- 
nomer, by the way, for seholars as well as eommoners 
took part in it. Mr. Tuekwell in 1848 reeited Horaee's 
Ibam forte via sacra, but ail the other speakers, twenty- 

 Etoniana, No. 7, p. 106. 
 31emorils of Lord Se/borne, i. p. 102. 
 Collecanea (Oxford Historieai Society), i. p. 275. 



INTRODUCTION OF MATHEMATICS 315 

two in number, selected passages from English poetry. 1 
In June 1862 Dr. Moberly wrote that the Commoner 
Speaking of that year " was a glorious anniversary " ; 
many ladies attended it, and " the boys eovered them- 
selves with no end of glory ". But the glorious 
anniversary was not, I think, eelebrated again. 

The classics, with some smatterings of divinity, 
geography, and history eonveyed through the medium 
of Latin, maintained an almost eomplete monopoly 
at Winehester till the nineteenth eentury. The teaeh- 
ing of modern languages there has hot been traeed 
further baek than 1821, 3 from whieh year onwards 
there was at any rate some one to teaeh Freneh to 
boys who wished to learn it. Mathematieal teaehing 
of a kind was given earlier, but as an optional extra, 
and not by a regular toaster ; neither at Winehester 
nor at other sehools of the saine elass was ita real part 
of the eurrieulum even eighty years ago. In 3lathew's 
poem (1647) the subjeet is not mentioned. Even 
Milton in his Tractate on Education (1644) dismissed 
arithmetie and geometry to odd hours ; they were to 
be taught " even playing, as the old manner was" 4 
At Westminster under Busby (1638-95) they were 
taught through Latin, but only, it would seem, to boys 
who had a taste for them; » neither through Latin, 
nor " playing ", nor otherwise were they taught at 
Winchester at that rime. Samuel (afterwards Sir 
Samuel) Morland, who left the sehool about the rime 
when Mathew entered it, beeame a mathematieian and 
a seientist of eminenee, but Winehester ignored the 
bent of his genius; even at Cambridge, where he 

1 Tuckwell, p. 99. I D.D.p. 168. 
ffi See a letter by I. T. in The Wykehamist, March 1910. 
« Leach, Milton as Schooboy and Schoolmaster, p. 21. 
 Sargeaunt, pp. 121-2. 



816 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
proceeded in 1644 or 1645,1 mathematical studies were 
discouraged as base and mcchanical, " the business of 
traders, merchants, seamen, carpenters or the like, 
and pcrhaps some almanack makers in London 
In the eighteenth century they still occupied a most 
humble place, xvhcn they occupied any place, in public- 
school cducation; the teaching of mathematics was 
a by-product of a xvriting toaster. The new scheme 
devised for Rugby in 1777 providcd for the appoint- 
ment of a person " to teach writing and arithmetic in 
all its branches ", but the stipend of this " writing 
master " was to be but half that of the " usher or 
ushers ". Speaking of Eton in 1766, Thomas James 
(afterwards Head Master of Rugby) nmde the handsome 
admission that arithmetie and geography are " indis- 
pensably neeessary in making a seholar ", but what 
followed is less handsome : " it will not be amiss if 
some attention is paid to these sciences on a Holyday 
or half Holyday ". James proeeeded to reeommend a 
method of teaehing arithmetie, and deelared that, if it 
was adopted, "by the rime they are qualified for the 
books of the fifth form" boys "will be perfeet nmsters 
of Vulgar Arithmetie "; at a later stage, again on 
holidays, they " may begin to learn Algebra & if 
they stay long go through part of Euelid ; by whieh 
means they will [go] to College eompleat seholars-.3 
The toaster who was to make them perfeet masters 
and eomplete seholars was at Eton (as at Rugby) 
styled " writing toaster "; he was elassed till 1886 
with other " extra masters " who taught Freneh, 

x Morland was a sizar of Magdalene College, Cambridge, not (as is stated 
in W.'. p. 178) a seholar of Magdalen College, Oxford. Some interesting, 
generally unfavourable, notiees of him may be found in Pepys's IMary. Pepys 
ealls atention to his ' late invention for easting up sums of £. s. d. ; whieh is 
very pretty, but hOt very useful" (Match 14, 166). 
- Mullinger, University of Cambridge, ii. p. 403 ; iii. p. 510. 
a Etoniana, No. 7, pp. 99-100. 



c. xm INTRODUCTION OF MATHEMATICS 317 
drawing, dancing, fencing, x but in 1829 he was dc- 
scribcd as toaster of "Writing, Arithmctic and Mathe- 
matics -.2 At Wcstminstcr under Vinccnt (1788-1802) 
"a boy who chose to surrcndcr his half-holidays was 
allowed to learn the clemcnts of the science of numbcrs; 
the teachcr of the subjcct was the vriting toaster, and 
it would seem that he paid more attention to caligraphy 
than to arithmctic-.3 At Winchcster thcrc was a 
writing toaster in 1790, and pcrhaps much carlicr; 
his dutics, like those of his fellow at Eton, in- 
cludcd thc copying of school lists; 4 he was clerk 
as wcll as tcachcr. He taught what mathcmatics 
wcre taught at all, so that whcn Mr. Bowcr, thc first 
Winchcstcr writing toaster whose naine is known, dicd 
in 1848, he was describcd on his tombstone as " latc 
mathcmatical toaster of Winchestcr Co]lege-.5 It 
was pcrhaps too proud a titlc ; ho was mathematical 
toaster to a more handfu] (ho round them a hand- 
ful) of boys.--An intcresting little book publishcd in 
180 professes to describe the subscqucnt fortuncs 
of a Winchcstcr scholar who was expclled for partici- 
pation in thc rcbcllion of 1793. The ex-scholar 
became waiter at an inn, but before accepting that 
situation he had tried to obtain cmployment as a 
tcachcr at various " acadcmics " At one of thcsc, 
he says, 
I was told I could be engaged as a writing-master and 
teacher of arithmetic.., but having never paid much 
attention to those branches of education at college [i.e. at 

a Austen Leigh, Eton College Lists, p..xliv. 
 Etoniana, No. 5, p. 76. The corarnent, under the year 1829, that " from 
this year we may date the introduction of the study of mathematics" seerns 
to be incorrect.---The naine of the Winchester writing toaster was never ven 
on Long Rolls. 
 Sargeaunt, pp. 212-13. 
 Etoniana, No. 5, p. 75 ; L.R.i. pp. xv, xvi. See also below, p. 395. 
 See a letter in The Wykehamist, November 1906. 



818 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. n 
Winchester] I was far from being qualified to instruct others 
therein. 1 
Early in the nineteenth century we find in Carlisle's 
Endowed Grammar 8chools (1818) that the claires of 
mathematics were hot wholly unrecognized. Of West- 
minster, indeed, the vriter can only say that " the 
other parts of education [parts other than the classics], 
such as French, Arithmetic, Mathematics, etc., are hot 
taught in this School ", but at St. Paul's " some of the 
Mercers' Company " conceived 
That if might be of importance to afford them [the boys] 
the advantage of IVriting, learning Accompts, and the lower 
branches of the Mathematics. But [the writer adds] that is 
a measure which has hOt been put in praetiee, nor is such a 
scheme determined upon. 3 
And at Harrow there was already 
A Mathematical Lecture weekly, whieh was introdueed 
by Dr. Butler on his Accession, who is admirably qualified 
for it, having been Senior Wrangler. 4 
That mathematies might be taught effeetively it was 
necessary to take three steps : (1) to appoint qualified 
teachers ; (2) to make the subjeet a real part of the 
eurrieulum; (3) to allow it to influence promotion. 
During the half-eentury that followed 1818 these steps 
were taken one by one, usually though hot always in 
the above-mentioned order. The first step was taken, 
rather haltingly, at St. Paul's in 1885, when the under- 
usher was " deputed to teaeh mathematies to eighth 
and seventh forms on two afternoons in the week, 
attendanee at his classes being purely optional -.5 At 
Harrow a qualified toaster was appointed as early as 
x .4 Tour through some of lhe Soulhern Counties of England, by Peregrine 
Project and Timothy .Type, p. 101. 
* Crlisle, il. p. 109.  lbid. p. 93. 
« lbid. p. 147.  McDomaell, p. J89. 



ch. xx INTRODUCTION OF MATHEMATICS 319 
1819, but the subject was hot compulsory till 1887.  
At Rugby ail thc boys were learning arithmetic, from 
writing masters, in 1820 ; under Dr. Arnold (appointed 
1827) the teachers were the classical assistant masters ; 
under Dr. Tait (appointed 1842) they wcre matbc- 
matical specialists.  At Eton the naine of a " Mathe- 
matical Master, Rev. Mr. Hawtrcy ", who had been 
Eleventh Vrangler, appears on the school list of 1886. 
Hc was not, like the writing masters who preccdcd 
him, a mcre " extra toaster ", nor again was he an 
"assistant master " ; 3 he was something betwecn the 
two. It was not till 1851, whcn mathematics wcre 
incorporated into the work of the school, that he 
ranked with the classical assistants ; the othcr teachcrs 
of mathematics continued to hold an infcrior position 
for ncarly twenty years more. They wcre not 
allowed to wear academical dress in chapcl till 1861 ; 
the Public School Commissioners round in 1862 that 
they had no authority whatevcr out of school ;  they 
had to wait for full recognition till Dr. Hornby bccame 
Hcad Mastr in 18687 Meanwhile at Eton, as at 
ncarly all the schools upon which the Public Scbool 
Commissioners reportcd, tbe third stcp whicb I bave 
mentioned had been taken before 1862 ; " marks ", 
they found, " are given for mathematies which affect 
more or less a boy's fise . . in the School "  
At Winehester tbere was hot, strictly speaking, a 
x P.S.C. Report, p. 214.  Ibid. pp. 246-7.  Etoniana, No. 5, p. 76. 
 P.S.C. Report, p. 81.--Vhen Mr. Hale went to Eton as assistant to Mr. 
Hawtrey in 1850 mathematical assistants might hOt wear aeademical dress even 
in sehool ; the boys were allowed to " cap " them, but apparently did hOt do 
sa (P.S.C.p. 230). The well-known story of  teacher of mathematics who 
asked whether he might wear a gown, and whether the boys might cap him, 
and received for answer that the first was as/te plesed and the second as lhey 
pleased, was told both at Winchester and at Rugby. The answers, if given 
very suavely, suited Dr. Moberly ; if hot so suavely, they suited Dr. Temple. 
But there is reason to believe that they were ruade by, or vented for, a 
Head Master of Etou. 
 M. L. pp. 529-30. « P.S.C. Report, p. 15. 



320 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr.  

mathcmatical master till 183. Mr. Bower, the 
writing toaster, is represented by Edward Rich (1829- 
1834) as busily touting for writing pupils, 1 and T. A. 
Trollope (1820-28) says of him : 
The only purpose his presence in school appcared to serve 
was to mend pens and make up the weekly account of marks3 
As we have seen, however, he also taught a few boys to 
do sums. Robert Lowe, Trollope's contemporary, "had 
a great desire to learn mathematics ", but could not 
satisfy it, for he found that Bower " had not pursued 
his studios bcyond the Fourth Book of Euclid ,,.3 
Bower, however, was soon to be superseded.  Barter 
bccame Warden in 1832; in the following year he 
persuaded the Fellows to build a mathematical class- 
room, and in 1835 John Desborough Walford, whom 
all Wykehanfists of four decades regarded with affec- 
tion, came to Winchester as " the new Mathematical 
Master". A letter to the Warden, written three 
years later, contains an interesting allusion to these 
events : 

I ara told the Mathematical School works admirably in the 
way I expeeted for those minds whieh take the study readily. 
Some nauseate it so much as to be a]most ineapab|e of digest- 
ing it. Has the Master authority enough to eommand 
attention ? eertainly ail the writing and arithmetie masters I 
remember had not. 

The writer must have been reassured by the Warden's 
answer ; ho was thc Dr. Philip Duncan who in 1841 
foundcd thc Duncan Mathematical prizes.Soon 

 Rich, pp. 32-5. * T. A. T. p. 125. 
 Patchett .Martin, Lift of Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 13. 
« There continued, however, to be a writing toaster fil] 1875 ; he acted as 
assistant to Mr. Walford in lais class-room. Set above, p. 93. 
» I extract the abo'e passage from a letter, dated January 29, 1837, in 
which Dr. Duncan promised the Warden a contribution towards the building 
of New Commoners. 



cH. x. INTRODUCTION OF MATHEMATICS 321 
after Mr. Walford's installation mathematics became 
compulsory, but ]Ir. Tuckwell says that in the forties, 
"the subject hot counting in the school marks, no one 
could be expected to care for it-.1 It counted to 
some extent, at Winchester as elsewhere, before 1862,  
and more decisively from 18662 
 Tuckwell, p. 99. 2 P.S.C. Report, p. 15. 
 I temembet the consternation, real or feigned, with which the announce- 
ment that marks were tobe given for ordinary mathematical lessons was 
received by a Senior Part division in 1866. 

Y 



CHAPTER XXIV 

BIBLING AND THE BIBLING ROD 

ON the approach of one of those examinations in 
" notions " which loomed rather luridly beforc the 
minds of " new men " some fifty years ago a shrewd 
junior dctermined that when in doubt about the 
meaning of a notion he would say that it was a mode 
of torture or an instrument of punishment. A host 
of notions of the kind x were current at the time, 
though the things which they denoted were mostly 
obsolete; and our junior declared that by sticking 
to his determination he passed the ordeal without 
discredit. About the most ancient of Wykehamical 
instruments of punishment he tan hardly have been 
driven to guesswork; his curiosity must have been 
aroused by the presentment of the " bibling rod " in 
thc lut Disce ;  and " bibling " was still an occasional 
incident, as the present writer has reason to remember. 
For it was at one rime one of lais dutics to bind the 
four apple twigs into the grooves of their long handle 
when a bibling was expected. 
The notion "bibling" (or "bibler", as they still 
said in the forties) is, I think, recent ; I have found no 

x Many of them deface the pages of W.W.B. 
 At a somewhat earlier date txvo actual rods were always in evidence 
during sehool hours ; they were propped on the seat at the Head Master's 
right hand, that he might, as Dr. Goddard said, bave lais arma scholastica in 
promptu. See Waleott, p. 232 ; Adams, p. 249. 
322 



c. xx BIBLING AND THE BIBLING ROD 828 
use of it before the twenties of the nineteenth century. 
In the published recollections of the two Trollopes, 
who left in 1828 and in 1829 or 1880 respectively, we 
read only of " scourgings ,,,1 but in some unpublished 
notes of the elder brother " biblers " also are men- 
tioned. The two things were very different. "A 
bibler was supposed to imply an {in some degree) 
moral offence ", a scourging implied nothing of the 
kind; the comparative frequency of biblers and of 
scourgings {" often vulgarized into ' scrubbings ' "} 2 
was, T. A. Trollope supposed, as "one to a thousand" 
A bibler may have been so called because the services 
of the Bible-Clerk (with those of the Ostiarius) were 
requisitioned at its infliction ; s at the minor function 
of a scrubbing those of " any two volunteers who 
chanced to be at hand " sufficed. As flagellation 
became rarer, scrubbings were discontinued; but 
biblings remained. 
The words " bibler" and " bibling " seem, as I 
bave said, to be modernisms, but the instrument 
employed in the process was of great antiquity. 
Christopher Johnson wrote about 1565 : 
Si laus est, inventa quidem custode Bakero 
Ex quadripartito vimine flagra ferunt ; 
to which a later hand has subjoined: Jo. Bakerus 
certu»t genus virgarum excogitavit, quibus etiamnu 
ceedu-ntur Wiccac,ici. If tradition was right in assert- 
ing that the quadripartite rod was excogitated by 
Baker, it was some 400 years old when it fell into 
a T. A. T. p. 114 ; Anthony Trollope's Autobiography, chap.i. Mr. Kirby 
says in W.S. (p. 308) that the famous novelist, v;ho was elected ad i$'inton, in 
1826, |eft for ]iarrow in 1827. But he was more of a ,,'ykehamist than that ; 
was at Winchester, he tells us, " something over three years". 
 Edward Rich (admitted 1829) said tlaat in his rime " scourging "' was said 
only by the masters, and that the boys talked of a" scrubbing " or a " bibler " 
(Rich, p. 8). 
a For a similar practice at Eton sec above, pp. 146-7. 



324 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

disuse about 1867 ; for Baker was Warden from 1454 
to 1487. 
¥e hear very little about flogging in early days at 
Winchester. x The practice was so universal that it 
was taken for granted rather than enjoined in the 
Statures ; Wykcham, indeed, was more concerned to 
regulate than to enforce it. * The story of the scholar's 
apt quotation (Infandum, regina, iubes renovare 
dolorem) in answer to Elizabeth's too curious question 
is now somewhat discredited; when she visited 
Winchester in 1574 the use of the rod may have been 
somewhat infrequent, for Christopher Johnson, who 
had recently resigned the mastership, had been no 
Orbilius. 3 It must bave been often employed in 
Mathew's rime (1644-7) by Potenger, the Master 
Qui quadripartita bene corrigit omnia xirga (v. 23), 
as it was by his predecessor ; * but it vas not employed 
indiscriminately. Joseph Godwin (admitted 1648) 
told his friend 5 that a boy vho could not produce a 
grammatical rule when asked for it was not whipped, « 
1 Some delightfu] passages, i]]ustrating its use in England long before 
Vinehester College was founded, will be found in the Colloquy of Aelfric, "' a 
seho]ar and elerk of Winehester" (E.C. pp. xvi, 39, 47).--Flogging was in 
constant use af the universities in Wykeham's time, and survived there in the 
eighteenth eentury ; Charles Blaekstone, a Fellow of Vinehester, wrote in 
1770 that he had himself witnessed " a smart Flagellation " inflieted upon a 
scho]ar of C.C.C. betveen 1726 and 1730 (A ttcply lo lhe Consideralions about 
Punishing the Scholars of Fïnchesler College, above Fourteen, by lhe Rod, p. 17). 
2 Rubric XII: ac adhibita semper cautela, quod in casligando modurn 
nequaquam eaecedal. 
a Allusions to flogging in Johnson's Themes are mostly of the following 
kind: Si quando.., asperius vobiscura delinquentibua agere ¢onstitui, 
naturalis illa lenitas quoe in me est a ,ehementiori castigationis cupiditate nonnun- 
quam revocavil. 
 See Clause 7 of the attack on Head Master Stanley, printed (somewhat 
ineorreetly in Annals, pp. 317-18.--In 1668 the Supervisors reported that 
Head Master Beeston flogged too little : "Ye Roles of persons aecus'd are 
rnany times hot soe rnueh taken notice of as they ought to bee, punishment 
not beeing oftimes inflieted on peceant persons ". 
 See above, p. 301. 
« It rnay perhaps be inferred that whipplng for one's book was eommon 
enough elserehere. 



or,.xn, BIBLING AND THE BIBLING ROD 325 
that in fact no one was "whipt for his book"; 
flogging was a punishment " for misdcmeanours ". 
That it was not necessary for the misdemeanours to be 
heinous, however, is proved by his saying that boys 
were " sure to be whipt" if they did not play " on 
Hills".l Floggings were reserved for one day in the 
wcek, for "bloody" Friday (vv. 180-2); Mr. Lcach 
argues that the rcservation makcs it " extremcly 
probable " that thcy werc " not nearly so frequent as 
aftcrwards -.2 They werc not so frequent, perhaps, as 
they were only eighty ycars ago; 3 but it is rash to 
argue from rcservation to rarity. « At Eton, and at 
Westminstcr in imitation of Eton, floggings wcrc 
rescrved for Fridays in 1560.  But thc Wcstminstcr 
Statures of that year ordaincd thcm for what we should 
regard as not very scrious crimes; a boy was to be 
beaten acerbissime for leaving the company of his 
fellows, for going outsidc the school gatcs without 
leave, or even with leave if unattended by a cornes 
modestus; a monitor who had been negligent in 
the discharge of monitorial duties was to be beaten 
aspere as an example to others2 At Eton the Friday 
floggings caused terror in 1563 ; " diverse Scholars of 
Eaton", says Ascham, "be runne awaie from the 
Schole, for feare of beating ", thereby giving occasion 
for the conversation out of which The Scholemaster 
grew. 7 The reservation of Fridays, therefore, did not 
mean that the schools of Busby and Keate were 
unworthy in the sixteenth century of their subsequent 
reputation, or that in the seventeenth floggings were 
 On "accusation ", no doubt, by the proepositor. It is implied in one of 
Johnson's Themes (fol. 133 b) that loafing on Hills was an offence which the 
[Iaster ptmished. 
2 History, po 278. n Sec below, p. 328. 
2 Monday was hanging-day at Tyburn a hundred years ago, yet "a score or 
more" of felons--men, women, and children--were hanged each week. 
« Sec below, p. 551.  E.C. pp. 522, 493. 
 The Scbolemaster, A Preface to the Reader (pp. 17-24, ed. Arber). 



326 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  

rare at Winchester. 1 Be that as it may, the reserva- 
tion was unkind. The poignancy of pains, as of 
pleasures, lies in anticipation; an arrangement by 
which punishment may corne, pede claudo, a week 
af ter the detection of an offence increases its severity. 
The incidents of a bibling, so far as Mathew 
describes them, were in 1647, with one important 
exception, almost precisely what they vere 200 years 
later ; he leaves some gaps--one of them deliberately, 
with the happiest effect--, but we can fill them up 
from a knovledge of the later practice. If a boy was 
protervus or had "sinned ", his name vas vritten on a 
roll by a prefect (probably the Bible-Clerk as after- 
wards) and the roll was handed to the master (v. 22). 
In later times it contained the words X. jussu tuo (or, 
it might be, jussu domini A.) detuli, but in Mathew's 
time the formula cannot have been quite the same, 
for boys, though doubtless their names were often 
"ordered" by a toaster, were often "accused" * by a 
prefect, and the ground of accusation was stated on 
the roll. This latter statement was hot made in the 
latest days of bibling, but it was still made in its 
penultimate days. The late Mr. Edmund Morshead 
told me that his father, who came to Winchester in 
1824, remembered a roll on which was written : X. pro 
utendo ir.trumento pulvere nitrato repleto jussu tuo 
detuli. 3 It is recorded again that in 1848 a big 
commoner misbehaved while going on Hills, and that, 
when Prefect of Hall proposed to " tund " him and 

1 When we find identical practices of a peculiar kJnd existing in early days 
both at Eton and at Winchester, it is often sale to infer that Eton borrowed 
such practices from Winchester at starting. If we may make such an infer- 
ente here, the lux Ver/s was already sanguinolenta at SVinchester in 1440. 
 This use of "accuse" was common to Eton, SVestminster, and Win- 
chester. See below, p. 551 ; and Armais, pp. 351, 410 (the word was still in 
use at Winchester in 1778) ; also History, p. 178. I bave spoken further of 
accusations in Chapter VI. 
a X. had been after rabbits during hill-time and had met the Head Master. 



¢. xrav BIBLING AND THE BIBLING ROD 327 
told him in due form to "stand round" for the 
purpose, he refused. Thus confronted with the diffi- 
culty which the Watchman foresees in Much Ado 
(" how, if a' will not stand ? ") the prefect did not let 
the culprit go, thanking God he was rid of a knave ; 
he referred the case to the Head Master. In all such 
matters Dr. Moberly was a stickler for precedent; 
having ordered the culprit's naine he directed that 
the roll should contain "a proper statement of the 
offence ", and it was drawn up thus : X., quia in Via 
ad Motem contra auctoritatem meam se gessit, detuli 
tuo jussu.--A bibling roll having been presented, the 
bibling followed. At the end of school-time the 
toaster rose from his seat, donned his cap or cocked- 
hat,* and pronounced the formula, " X., Bible-Clerk 
and Ostiarius!" X. advanced and knclt at " senior 
row"; the Bible-Clerk presented the rod to the 
Master, and with the Ostiarius proceeded to act as 
the poet describes : 
pucriquc duo, qui rite vocantur, 
Demittent ligulas manibusque ligamina solvent (vv. 183-$). 
The poet veils the sequel, but what happcned was this. 
They bared a few inches of the culprit's back ; the rod 
was applied rive (at a later date, six) rimes; the 
nmster flung it on the ground, removed his head-gear, 
and stalked out of school with more than his wonted 
majesty. 
A pcculiar feature of the Winchester flogging 
system of a hundred years ago must not be left 
unnoticed. The writer of an acrimonious letter in 
1819 declares that after the rebellion of the previous 
year Dr. Gabell, having flogged an innocent boy by 
1 See" Rerniniseenees by an Old College Man" in the special Quincentenary 
number of The Wykehamist (July 1893). The author was the Rev. V. Tuckwell, 
who was the Prefect of Hall of the story. 
 See above, p. 266. 



328 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

inadvertence, ruade amends "by giving him Five 
Tickets of Remission from future punishment ". The 
writer makes merry, fairly enough (but it is acid 

merriment), at Gabell's expense, and then proceeds, 
in a second letter, to spoil his case. He says that in 
his and Gabell's school-days, forty years before, Mr. 
Collins the Hostiarius had a way of giving a virtuous 
boy " a reward ticket (at the saine rime one of safety) 
which likewise exempted him, by producing it when 
next called upon to be flogged, from that ceremony ". 
He commends 3If. Collins, whose method he regards 
as " very different " from Dr. Gabell's; the latter, 
he argues, "would goad on the ticket-holder to delin- 
quency and crime", while the formerwas " an en- 
couragement of desert" ; Collins's ticket was, he says, 
what its superscription called it, a decus et tutamen. 1 
I will not waste words on the writer's reasoning, nor 
need I dwell on the proof which these incidents supply 
of the prevalence of flogging; even for the reign of 
the amiable Dr. Williams (1824-35) we have abundant 
evidence of that unpleasant fact. T. A. Trollope 
" remembered " that he had been " scourged" rive 
rimes in one day; 2 his brother Anthony often ruade 
the saine boast, though " not quite sure whether 
the boast is true";3 and a commoner who came 
to Winchester about 1800 told the author of Wyke- 
hamica that "on the first day of his arrival there were 
198 boys in the school, and 275 names reported for 
flogging ! "4 That was surely an exaggeration ; but 
Dr. Moberly told the Public School Commissioners 
1 G.L.C. pp. 12, 24-5.--Wooll says of Collins (llosliarius, 1766-83): 
" He strictly and impartially inflicted those punishments productive only of 
present pain and degradation ; but was feelingly averse to thc more serious 
penalties, by which future prospects in life are affected" (Biographical 'otice 
of Dr. IVarton, p. 46).--For the granting of exemption-tickets by prcfects see 
Adams, pp. 404-5. 2 T. A. T. p. 107. 
3 Anthony Trollope's Autobiography, chap. i. 
4 Adams, p. 267. 



o. xxrv BIBLING AND THE BIBLING ROD 8.°9 
deliberately that in his boyhood there might be twenty 
fioggings a day, and all for slight offences. 
" When Dr. Moberly", wrote ont of his early 
pupils, " succeeded Dr. Williams in 1886, he saw that 
flogging as a constant punishment was out of date " ; 
in 1862 Moberly could say that the twenty floggings a 
day had been reduced to ten or twentv a year. 1 They 
have since been reduced still further; the modern 
Wykehamist must either learn or leave ; if there is a 
sors terlia, it is not often caedi.2--But besides his 
aversion to flogging as part of the day's routine, Dr. 
Moberly had a strong objection to the Wykehamieal 
mode of administering it. "I do not like the publieity 
of it ", he told the Commissioners ; "I do not approve 
of it as administered . . . it is neither severe enough, 
nor is it nil-.3 On its inseverity flogger and flogged 
were agreed. Moberly, xvhose artistic biblings were 
deservedly admired, said that "it was a chance if the 
boy was always hit " ; 4 his pupils said the saine, and 
one of them, who spoke from experienee, described a 
bib]ing as, at worst, "a mere titillation of the epi- 
dermis" That its publieity was objeetionable will 
hardly be disputed ; modern sentiment eondemns such 
exhibitions. The last publie bibling at Winehester 
was in 1866 or 18ôTabout a year, by the way, before 
the last publie execution in England. 
1 P.S.C.p. 356. 
 A correspondent of the Editor of The WykehamLs! (Apri| 1897) was rather 
unreasonab|y indignant with Wesley Col|ege, Dublin, for having taken as a 
motto to inscribe upon its gare : Aut discite, aut discediIe ; tertia sors hic zmlla 
est. 
a P.S.C.p. 356. Dr. Moberly wcnt on to say : *' I bave rathcr brokcn 
through the tradition .... I bave occasionally takcn boys into anothcr room, 
and l]ogged them with an ordinary birch-rod ". Even in the lalmy days of 
bibling a flcgging which was intended to be a scrious disgracc was hot inflicted 
publicly in school ; it was called, from the place of its int|iction, a " sixth- 
chambering ". 
« Sce also T. A. T. p. 115. 



CHAPTER XXV 

REMEDIES AND THE REMEDY-RING 

THE author of IVykehmnica has recorded that in his 
time the precise meaning of the Winchester notion 
" remedy" was a matter of dispute; 1 he mentions 
two palpably false derivations of the word, one of 
which he umvisely accepted as true. Some people, he 
says, " expound it as res media, a compound as it were 
of a holiday and a school-day, there being no lessons 
to be said in school . . . and there being lessons to be 
learned during lock-up times". This derivation was 
fathered in the sixties on Dr. Moberly, and a writer in 
The Wykehamist declares that that admirable scholar 
" taught " it. * Some of lais pupils, it vould seem, 
interpreted the Head Master's playfulness seriously. 
Dr. Moberly always contended that remedies were for 
work as well as for play, and it was precisely in lais 
manner to invent a whimsical derivation to support 
lais contention. 0thers again, says Adams, derive 
" remedy " from remissionis dies; he thinks that 
" the continual use of ' remission'" (or "remi-") "in 
Wykehamical speech" is decisively in favour of this 
etymology, which Wykehamists generally accepted 
so absolutely that for some thirty years " remiday" 
was the received spelling of the word. 3 Now that a 
a Adams, p. 289.  The Wykehamist, February 1870. 
3 In Prefect of Hall's book " remiday " first appears, I think, in 1873 ; 
"' remedy" reappears in 1903. Even so high an authority as Mr. L. L. 
330 



c. v REMEDIES AN-D TttE REMEDY-RING 881 

remedy was in fact a day of remissions rather than an 
out-and-out holiday, and that it might be so defined, 
may be eoneeded ; when the Warden and Fellows, long 
before " remiday " found aeeeptanee, spoke of " Dies 
Remissionis or Remedies ,,,1 they spoke with perfect 
propriety. But a definition is not a derivation, and 
the claires of remiday do not nowadays deserve serious 
discussion; they reeeived their coup de grâce in the 
Winchester Word-Book. The evidence that a remedy 
is a remedy is abundant and eonelusive; of the 
passages eolleeted by Mr. Wreneh I will only quote 
one, an extraet ruade by Mr. Leaeh from the Chapter 
Register of Southwell Minster (18) : 

Magister grammaticalis non attendit debitis horis doc- 
trinm suorum scolarium in scola ; et quam pluries indiscrete 
dat remedium suis scolaribus diebus ferialibus, quod quasi ad 
tempus nichfl addiscunt, expendendo bona suorum parentum 
frustra et inaniter. 

To which I may add the ingenious distich which an 
anonymous writer composed for lVarden Love (1613- 
1630) at Winchester : 

Das eadem ludis puerorum, Love, libello 
Quae dederat quondam nonfina Naso suo. 

An explanation is appended : Remediun Amoris. 
From the naine we pass to the thing, and may 
conveniently begin by noticing a well-known passage 
in the Statutes of St. Paul's. " I will ", wrote Colet, 
"they shall haue noo remedies ; yff the Maister 
grauntith eny remedies, he shall forïett xls. tociens 
quociens, Except the kyng or a archebisshopp or a 
bisshopp presente in his owne persone in the Scole 

Shadwell wrote "remiday " in The Wykehamist (April 1888)---tmless indeed 
the Editor edited lais spelling. 
i They so expressed themselves in a letter to the lnformalor and Hostiarius, 
dated January 19, 1810. 



332 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
desyre it -.1 We are not to infer that Colet meant his 
" children " to have all work and no play ; a memor- 
andum in his handwriting is still extant in which he 
reckoned that there were in the year " viW and xiij " 
(seven score and thirteen = 153) " halidayes and halfe 
halydayes.., in whiche ys no teachinge"3 The 
words raise difiïcult questions, but we may perhaps 
assume that Colet's " halidayes " included Sundays 
and short periods of vacation at the time of such 
church festivals as Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christ- 
mas; we must make a large subtraction from 153 to 
arrive at the numbcr of " halidayes " and " halfe 
halydayes" which occurred on the veek-days of 
school terms. The point, however, which we are here 
concerned to note is that to Colet holidays and 
remedies were entirely different things. The number 
of holidays was definitely fixed, fixed no doubt by 
the church calendar; remedies were casual luxuries 
dependent on special grants. Colet evidently thought 
that the indulgence or self-indulgence of the Head 
Masters of his time had ruade such grants too frequent ; 
he agreed with his contemporary Horman, who had 
been Head Master both of Eton and of Winchester, 
that " many remedies make easy scholars " ; 3 hence 
his provision, adopted with modifications by many 
later school-founders, 4 that a remedy should not be 
1 I quote the passage (adding some stops) from Lupton, Life of Dean Colet, 
p. 278. Mr. Lupton printed Colet's Statutes from the ori#nal MS. preserved 
at Mercers' Hall, and, having subsequently eompared his transcript with it, 
he says that "the spelling may be taken as fairly correct ". It is unfortunate 
that Mr. Kirby, quoting the passage in W.S. (p. viii), gave support to a false 
etymology by printing " remidaies ". 
z See Lupton, Life of Colet, p. 166 ; McDonnell, p. 39. Observe that the 
number of holidays at St. Paul's was the saine as the number of scholars ; see 
above, p. 98. 
 So Horman (see p. 8) translates Minervales ferive crebr[ores ineruditos 
faciunt scholasticos in his l'ulgaria, published in 1519. It is perhaps the first 
extant example of the use of " remedy " by a Wykehamist. 
 For example at Newark (1530), at Merehant Taylors (1561), and at 
Shrewsbury (157]). See the note at the end of this chapter. 



. xxv REMEDIES AND THE REMEDY-RING 333 

granted at his school unless a king or an archbishop 
or a bishop, "presente in his owne persone ", desired it. 
The expression, however, of sueh a desire was no 
essential condition of a remedy as generally under- 
stood; its essence was that it was a free grant, and 
not a fixed arrangement.--But if that was so in the 
early part of the sixteenth eentury, a remedy entirely 
ehanged its meaning afterwards at Winchester, the 
only school at whieh the word survived; remedies 
came to be certain fixed days of the week " in whiehe 
ys no teaehinge".* How is the change to be ex- 
plained ? 
Twyehener's " Winehester Time Table " proves 
that remedies, if they oeeurred (as they doubtless did) 
in 1530, were still unfixed and easual ; it provides a 
full day's work for Tuesday and Thursday, the regular 
non-sehool-days of 167 and the half-non-sehool-days 
of 1914, as for other days of the week.  Vykehamists 
must still have looked to holy days (of whieh, as they 
are mostly fixed days of the month and hot of the 
week, no aeeount eould be taken in a wee-kly rime- 
table) for their reereation in 1530. But as the Refor- 
mation advaneed less dependenee eould be plaeed on 
holyday-holidays, as the Eton Consuetudinariun very 
elearly shows. Some now forgotten holy days, it is 
true, were still holidays at Eton in 1560 ; the feast of 
John before the Latin gare (May 6), and that of the 
Visitation of Mary (July 2), were still observed, the 
former not only by play but by a siesta after dinner. 3 
Others, however, were obsoleseent or obsolete ; on the 
Deeollation of St. John the Baptist (August 29) a 

 In my school-days the phrase "extra half-remedy" was not strictly 
.speaking permissible ; we had '" extra half-holidays ". Dr. Ridding corrected 
a Prefect of Hall who asked for an "extra half-remedy". The distinction 
between "half-holiday" and "half-remedy"is very clearly drawn in the 
word-book of about 1845. 
 E.C. pp. 448-50. 8 See above, p. 143. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

holiday had become a matter of grant (on the butler's 
request !),1 while the eustom of eleeting an Episcopus 
Nihilensis on St. Hugh's Day (November 17), with 
the play whieh that eustom involved, obsolevit, and 
the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8) 
celebrabatur quondatn.  As holyday-holidays dis- 
appeared, compensation must surely have seemed 
reasonable at Eton as at Winehester and elsewhere ; 
remedies must have beeome more frequent and less 
easual. A grudging reeognition of their neeessity 
may be found in the Westminster Stature De Venia 
Ludendi (1560), in which one half-remedy vas fore- 
shadowed in every week whieh eontained no Saint's 
Day;  in the Statures of Merehant Taylors, 4 though 
no necessity for remedies is admitted--the desire of a 
great person being insisted upon as the condition of a 
grant--, the tendency to fix them appears in a proviso 
that they shall be granted only on Tuesday and 
Thursday afternoons. The regulations of Sandwich 
School are in this eonneetion partieularly instructive ; 
they give us an example of the transition of which we 
are in seareh. In 1580 the Master was forbidden to 
give " remedies or leave to play " more than once in 
a week ; but this negative admission of the neeessity 
of play-time became positive in 1656 when it was 
ordained that every Thursday afternoon should be a 
remedy. 5 Meanwhile at Winehester grants of remedies 
were very frequent during the indulgent reign of 
Christopher Johnson (1561-71). The boys, he de- 
elares in one of his Themes, have an insatiable lust for 
play, and (he playfully adds) attempt to extort remedies 

 Even on Lady Day non luditur nisi pro arbitrio proceptoris. Lady Day 
was only a minus duple.r ; the feast of the Purification (like that of the Visita- 
tion) was a ,,ajus duple.r. On " greater doubles " special indulgences were 
granted by the Winchester Statutes (Iubrie XV). 
2 Etoniana, No. 5, pp. t17-8, a E.C.p. 518. 
 Clause 81.  N.E.D., s.r. Remedy. 



o,. x.v REMEDIES AND THE REMEDY-RING 885 
by force. "Look back ", he bids them, " at these 
many weeks past ; count up your otia; reflect upon 
the wasted expense of your parents ; consider how a 
good part of your lires is lost without profit. If 
satiety of play has not yet laid hold of you, shame 
[at my indulgence] bas long since laid hold of me " 
A little later he returns to the subject; chaffs the 
boys for thinking that the rime which they steal from 
study is ail gain ; assures them that gain which means 
loss "of letters" is to be deplored; declares that he 
will not allow his " facility " to corrupt their minds. 1 
Remedies were very frequent under Christopher John- 
son, but they had not yet become fixed, they were still 
granted. In Mathew's days (16¢¢-7) they were practi- 
cally fixed; Tuesdays and Thursdays, weather per- 
mitting, were remedies ; the grant was hardly more 
than a fiction, z Even fifty years ago, when remedies 
and half-remedies were fixed absolutely, whether the 
weather permitted or hot, the fiction of request and 
grant was still kept up. 
"It was my fortune", wrote Mr. L. L. Shadwell, " to be 
Warden's child (Warden Barter's last) at the Election of 1860. 
The duty devolved upon me in that capacity  of applying to the 
Head Master durillg the following year (namely, Short Hall 
1860 and Long Hall 1861) for every remiday and half-remiday 
which came in the regular course .... There was a tradition, 
generally, and with reason, regarded as untrustworthy, that 
the omission of this formality had on occasion resulted in 
Masters coming into School whetl they were not expected ". 
It appears from the Stature noticed above that at 
Westminster the remedy-granting power was vested 
 Themes, fol. 129 ; fol. 182 b. 
 Vv. 134-6. Joseph Godwin (admitted 1648) says that on Tuesdays and 
Thursdays the boys '' expected and most commonly had a play day ".--Ve 
learn nothing from Iathew about Saint's Day ho|idays and extra ha|f-remedies, 
but it does hot follow that they did hot exist. He is throughout more con- 
cerned with what is regularly recurrent than with what is exceptionaL 
a See below, p. 407. « The Vykehamist, Apri| 1888. 



336 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE T. n 

in the Dean. At Winchester it belonged, theoreti- 
eally at least, to the Warden. Nieholas Love was 
Head Master from 1601 to 1613, and Warden from 
1613 to 1630; the distieh whieh speaks of " Love's 
Remcdies " eonneets him with remedies in the latter 
office. It is true that about 1565 Johnson granted 
(and oeeasionally refused 1) them, and that Potenger 
granted them in 167 ; but they did so as the Warden's 
deputies. In 1630 the Fellows of New College de- 
elared that 

it is in the wardens power not onely to giue Remedies, but 
to reserue the gift of all, especially fart ones, to himselfe onely, 
and confine leane Remedies within a fitt nunlber. 2 The 
Deane of Westminster and Provost of Eaton a haue kept that 
power in their owne hands, by a good token, that Deane 
Mountaine denied Bishop Bilson a play-day after he was a 
Priuy-Councellor. 

This right of the Warden was asserted by Hunting- 
ford, " for the Sake of Preeision and elear Under- 
standing", in 1810, and reasserted by him, with 
definite and detailed instructions to the Infortnator, 
in 182. 4 
The Westminster Stature illustrates (recent, if not 
ancient) Winchester usage in another way when it 
providcs that the right to the vee -ldy half-remedy may 
be annulled by the occurrence of a Saint's Day. There 
 He is careful to explain on one occasion (Thcmes, fol. 129) that he does 
hot necessarily refuse a remedy only on the ground that the weather does hot 
permit : Si nocturnarn hamac pluviam in. causa fuisse solam pulatis, quarnobrem 
ad nuces legendas hodie non licuit (?), tota erratis et via (quod aiunt) et coelo.--A 
September nutting-holiday is mentioned in the Eton Consuetudinarium 
(Etoniana, No. 5, p. 68). 
2 It is a pity that so pretty a notion as "fat and lean" for whole and 
half remedies should have become obsolete. 
- Thomas James, in his Account of the Eton Discipline and Education, wrote 
in 1766: "The Hall Holyday on Thursday is begged in this manner. The 
Master sends one of the best exercises of the Sixth Form only to the Provost, 
who upon receiving it grants a play" (Etoniana, No. 7, p. 97). 
« Sec the third document printed at the end of this chapter. 



c. xxv REMEDIES AND TttE REMEDY-RING 

was, for instance, a rule in Dr. Moberly's rime that, if 
a Tuesday or a Thursday came next before a Saint's 
Day, it must be a whole school-day--a rule, by the 
way, which contrasts with the old Eton custom by 
which the day before a Saint's Day must be observed 
as a half-holiday, 1 as well as with Huntingford's rule, 
promulgated in 1824, that " Commutation of days for 
Remedies is to be avoided, except Two ttolydays 
should come together ".--Since ttuntingford's time the 
regulations affecting " fat and lean " Remedies, Holi- 
days and Saints' Days have been frequently altered : 
the normal observance of Tuesdays and Thursdays as 
remedies or half-remedies stands out as the one un- 
changing fact. ttuntingford's two whole remedies in 
the summer, one whole and one half remedy at other 
seasons,  became one whole and two half remedies, 
no whole and three half remedies respectively in 1850. 3 
Friday, which then became a half-remedy, ceased to be 
one some ten years later. In 1902 Dr. Burge abolished 
the surviving summer whole remedy, for which his 
half-remedy on Saturday is ample compensation. 
Saints' Days, again, have altogcther changed their 
character. Bcfore the time of railways " leave out " 
on such days was restricted, except in summer, to the 
town, and to the hours of 8 to 8; in summer, boys 
might go to friends in the immediate neighbourhood, 
starting at noon; there were chapel services at 11 
and at 5. « With the development of railway facilities 

i See Thomas James in Eloniana, No. 7, p. 98 : " If a Saint's Day falls on 
a Tuesday, then Tuesday is the whole tlolyday and Monday Half a Holyday, 
being kept as its eve, &c." 
2 See below, p. 340. It appears from Prefect of Hall's book that in 
December 1826 Dr. Williams, discovering that two whole remedies had been 
"accidentally " granted " in the last week of the short half-year during thc 
last rive years ", ordered that the practice was " not to be drawn into a pre- 
cedent ". 
 This is proved by an entry in Prefect of ttall's book. 
« lich, p. 22. 

Z 



888 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . II 
Lcavc-out Days bccamc complctcr outings whcn thcy 
came but of late ycars thcy havc not comc so oftcn. 
An cxamination of the calcndar will show that Saints' 
Days havc a vay of falling vcry close cithcr to onc 
anothcr or to thc holidays; and oving to this un- 
fortunate fact (with othcrs) a Saint's Day and a Lcave- 
out Day are no longer convertible terms. Charles 
Lamb, in his Oxford in the Vacation, tclls us that as a 
schoolboy hc "a littlc grudgcd at thc coalition " of 
St. Simon and St. Jude, " clubbing as it wcre thcir 
sanctitics togcthcr, to makc up onc poor gaudy day 
betwcen thcm ", and a similar " grudgc " finds ex- 
pression in thc Themes (fol. 156) of our ovn Johnson. 
Hc thanks St. Philip and St. Jamcs for hcralding thc 
delights of May, and, aftcr dvclling on thosc dclights, 
continues : 
Uniea eulpa tamen, nec sola ea vestra (Simonem 
Arguit et Judan), obiieienda nmnet ; 
Namque, diem soeii quia sic glomeratis in unam, 
Inde fit ut pereat lusibus una dies. 
It was the fault of the four saints--so Johnson says-- 
that in former rimes they provided only two holidays 
between them; it is the fault of the eireumstanees 
above mentioned that they do not nov provide even 
one. 
Of the remedy- ring of 1647- and of its motto, 
which gave the first clue to the truc date of Mathew's 
poem--something has been said in the Introduction fo 
Part I. It disappeared, no one knows when ; perhaps 
Potenger took it away with him when he retired in 
1653. The ring which replaced it bore, as every one 
knows, another motto--the well-chosen half-line 
commendat rarior usus. x This second ring was lost by 
a Prefect of School in 1831, but afterwards found;  
 Juvenai, Sat. xi. 208, vOlullales cotnmenda! rafiot usus. 
- The ioss and reeovery «tre deseribed in Adams, p. 805. 



. xxv REMEDIES AND THE REMEDY-RING 889 

it was again lost, but not found, by another Prefect of 
School some thirty years later. A third ring, with the 
saine motto as the second, was given to the school by 
Mr. Horace Joseph, then Prefect of Hall, in 1885-6 ; it 
has since been worn, but ordy on extra half-remedies, 
by the donor's successors in that office. That Prefect 
of Hall now wears it may be justified by the fact that 
a Prefect of Hall gave it, but the practice is a breach 
with tradition; in 1647, as two hundred years later, 
the ring was consigned to the kecping of Prcfcct of 
School : 

Annulus at venia obtenta repetendus ab ipso 
Est domino ; Ludi-proefectus tollat in altum ; 
Protinus exeussoe resonabunt verbere eistoe (vv. 140-.°). 

Wordsworth tacked ludi on to domino, leaving 
preefectus unqualified; but both the MSS. connect 
ludi with proefectus, the Magdalen MS. hyphening 
the two words. When School was School it was clearly 
fitting that its Prefect should hold what was the 
pledge and symbol of remission from school-work2 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXV 

Tn following extracts, illustrating some of the subjects 
discussed in this chapter, may be of interest. Thc first was 
sent by Mr. Leach fo The Wykchamist (February 1886), but 
was printed incorrectly. 

Extract from a Deed of Thomas Magnus endowi»g 
Newark School (1530) 

The said maisters shall not be myehe inclyned nor gyven 
to graunt Remedy for Recreacyon or Dispoorte to their 

x See Chr. Wordswortb, Social Lire al the Universitics, p. 256. 



340 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE   

scolers, oneles it be ones in a wooke [? weeke] upon the 
Thuysday or Thursday or that further Remedy be requyred 
by any honorable or worshipfull Person or Personage or other 
of good Honeste, in whiehe case the graunting of the said 
Remedy, the said Thomas Magnus remyttyth unto the 
wysedome and Disereeyon of the said maisters. 

II 
Extract fron the Bailiffs' Ordinances for Shrewsbury 
School (157) 
Item euery Thursdaye the Schollers of the highest forme 
before they go to playe shall for exereyse declame and playe 
one act of a comedye .... 
Item the schollers shall play vpon Thursdayes vnlesse ther 
be a holydaye in the week and noe daye else but the Thursdaye 
vnless it be at the earnest request and great intreaty of some 
man of Honor or of great worship credyte or aucthorytye and 
that by the consente of the Baylyffes for the tyme being fyrst 
had and obtayned. 
III 
Offcial Minute of Resolutions passed by the ll'arden and 
Fellows of IVinchesler College, January 15, 182& 
It is the Opinion of the Meeting now assembled .... 
That when the Warden delegates his Power of granting 
Remedies to the Head Master, he should strongly recommend 
adoption of the Usage, which heretofore prevailed ; riz. 
During the Whole of Common Business, i.e. from the be- 
ginning of September to the end of the Week preceding Easter- 
business, only One Remedy and a Half should be given in the 
same Week, and on both of them should be learned Books- 
Chamber Lines, by those whose Classes have been accustomed 
to learn them, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 
During the time of Easter Business, Two Whole Remedies, 
in each week, without Books-Chamber Lines. 
During Cloyster Tirne, Two Whole Remedies in each 
Week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays ; but All the Boys, from 
the Senior of Middle Part 5th to the Junior Boy in the School, 



,,. xxv REMEDIES AND THE REMEDY-RING 81 

are to repeat Lines from Eleven to Twelve, and from Five to 
Six. Remissions are seldom tobe given, and Remedies on 
Fridays, being days on which exemption from Lines has been 
eustomary, are tobe rarely granted. 
Commutation of days for Remedies is tobe avoided, as 
much as possible, except Two/:[olydays should corne together. 
Easter Monday and Whitsun Monday are Never to be 
Remedies, nor Days on whieh the Seholars may bave per- 
mission to go out. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

GOING ON HILLS : ORIGIN 

" THE prescriptive right of the school to Hills ", wrote 
Mr. Kirby, "bas ahvays been an article of faith with 
Wykehamists-.1 In modern rimes, at any rate, thc 
right has bccn gcnerally recognizcd; thus whcn 
Napoleon thrcatcncd invasion, and thc govcrnmcnt 
put a beacon on St. Cathcrinc's, ordcrs wcre issucd to 
thc watch that, whilc prcvcnting mischicf, thcy wcre 
" to bc civil to thc collegc boys while at thcir cxcrcisc 
on thc hill "." To assert thc right has only occasion- 
ally bccn nccessary, but, when assertcd, it has becn 
assertcd strongly: thc claim has bcen madc an ex- 
clusive claire during certain hours, and it has bcen 
extcnded so as to covcr more than St. Cathcrine's 
itsclf. In 1799 thc soldicrs quartcrcd in Winchcstcr 
vcnturcd to bathc in thc river below; whcrcupon 
Wardcn Huntingford and thc 3Iastcrs told thc Duke 
of York, thcn Commandcr-in-Chicf, that " from timc 
immcmorial a spot of ground callcd Catharinc Hill, 
with thc River and Ficlds adjacent, has bccn ap- 
propriatcd to the young Mcn cducated at this Collcgc 
for thc purposcs of cxcrcisc, bathing, and rccrcation ; 
and this appropriation is so wcll undcrstood by the 
Inhabitants of Winchestcr that thcy carcfully avoid 

"- Moutray Rend, Highways and By-xays in lIampshire» p. 2. 
342 



.xxz GOING ON HILLS : ORIGIN 3¢3 
thesc prcmiscs, whcncver it is possible for them to 
interrupt our Scholars ". The samc claire was again 
madc by thc Warden when a fresh intrusion occurred 
in 1811 ; a and on both occasions it was fully admitted 
by the military authorities. Thc boys, however, did 
hot always wait for the Wardcn fo write letters ; 
during Dean Hook's school-days (1812-7)thcy proved 
"by apostolic blows and knocks" the orthodoxy of 
thcir article of faith ; Hook " was selected to fight 
onc of thc intruders, and made very short work of his 
antagonist ". 
Somc writcrs havc givcn definitencss to Hunting- 
ford's " from time immemorial " by declaring that the 
practicc of going on Hills dates from thc time of the 
Founder. Thus Roundcll Palmer, in his graceful Lines 
on the 450th «lnniversary of the Opening of the College, 
said that Wykeham's eye beheld his scholars 
two by txvo their comely order keep 
Along the Minster's sacred aislcs, and up the becch-crowned stcep, 
and that in the grey of a fifteenth-century morning 
That black-gowned troop of brothers was winding up the hill; 
to the former of which passages Wordsworth appended 
the comment that the procession to Hills was " accord- 
ing fo statute -.3 Unfortunately the poet's statements 
were pure guesswork, and his editor's comment was 
pure fiction ; the Statures are silent about Hills. Did 
Wykeham recognize, like Latimer, that "we must nedes 
haue some recreation, out bodies canne hot endure 
wythoute some exercvse" .9  He was of course aware 
t To his 1811 ietter the Warden added this postscript : " During the 
pedod of the Ameriean War detaehments of the Freneh and Spanish prisoners 
were frequently sent, by order of the proper Board, to bathe in the River 
between St. Cross Chureh and St. Cross Mill ". 
-" Stphens, Life of Dean Hook, i. p. 12. 
s Wordsworth, pp. 108, 110, 116. 
 'ixh Sermon before Edward I'1. 



844 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 
that boys are restless and active, but, so far as his 
Statures took that faet into aeeount, it was to ensure 
that their restlessness and aetivity should cause no 
noise, and do no damage to his windows and buildings 
(Rubries XVII. and XLIII.). From his eurbing 
aetivity within the preeinets it seems reasonable to 
infer that he meant it to find a vent outside; but 
the language of Rubrie XVII. implies that to go out 
of College was for a seh01ar to be something most 
exeeptional, and Latimer's proposition does not seem 
to have been regarded as an axiom by early sehool- 
founders. Even as late as 1560 we find Queen Eliza- 
beth promulgating the folloving Statutum de Yenia 
Ludendi for Westminster Sehool : " It shall never be 
lawful for the boys to play without leave of the Dean 
 . . and then only in the afternoon, and hot oftener 
than once a week, for any reason ".l--For all this it is 
diiïieult to dissent absolutely from Mr. Kirby's eautious 
statement that "Hills may have been the sehool play- 
ground from the very first, for none is provided by 
the Statures, and it is hot likely that Wykeham in- 
tended his poor scholars to be confined to Chamber 
Court altogether ". Such a conclusion would be more 
than a mere guess, if it could be proved, as Adams 
tried to prove, 2 that the Tabula Legum was " eoeval 
with the Founder " ; for even in its older shape that 
code gave rules to be observed in Atrio, Oppido, ad 
Montes. But the Tabula is eertainly of mueh later 
date than Adams supposed; I have argued else- 
where - that it came into existence about 1570. If 
that is so, no earlier direct evidenee for going on Hills 
has as yet been diseovered than that eontained in 
Johnson's Themes (c. 1565). 4 
 E.C.p. 518.  Adams, p. 93, note. a See Appendix VI. 
 See, however, Mr. Leach's ingenious argument from SVarden Chandler's 
drawing (History, p. 185), some remarks upon which will be found below, 
p. 358. 



c.xxv, GOING ON HILLS : ORIGIN 345 
It has often, however, been suggested that the 
once famous Eton Montera (in the glare and glitter of 
whieh, in its latest days, I the author of Coningsby 
ïound a eongenial theme) was derived from the 
Winehester Hills, and that it was so derived at the 
rime of the foundation of the younger sehool; Mr. 
Leaeh does hOt hesitate to deelare that the existence 
of Montera makes the existence of Hills before 1440 
"certain". 2 There eannot, I think, be any sueh 
eertainty. The annual or bi-annual Montera has on|y 
been traeed baek to 1560 (the date of the Eton Con- 
sueudinarium), just as Hills has only been traeed baek 
to about 1565 ; and at their first appearanee in history 
the two institutions differed in almost everything but 
naine. " There is force in Ir. Leaeh's contention that 
"no one eould have invented de novo sueh an absurd 
eustom as walking to this wretehed mound ", i.e. to 
the Eton Salt Hill ; and it may be granted to him that, 
if Montera was derived from Hills at all, Eton probably 
imitated Winehester in this as in other ways from the 
start. The very dissimilarity of the two institutions 
when we first beeome aequainted with them would 
require that the date of borrowing should be put as 
far baek as possible. 
Ir. Leaeh believes that the institutions had 
originally "a religious signifieanee", and that the 
author of the Consuetudinarium hints at this in the case 
of Montera when he says that "the devotion of Eton- 
ians gives a kind of sanetity to the spot ".* But that 
author proeeeds in the saine sentence to speak of "the 
 Coningsby was published in 1844, Monlem was abolished in 1847. Disraeli 
is said to have taken " what for him was unusua! pains" to make lais picture 
of Eton life faithful (Monypenny's Life, il. p. 202) ; his picture of Montera, 
if faithful, suflàciently justifies its abolition (Coningsby, Book i. e. xi.). 
 History, p. 276. It appears from the latest edition (1911 } of the History 
of Eton College that Mr. Leaeh has hOt eonvineed Sir H. 5Iaxwell Lyre. 
s See 1Iaxwell Lyt's full accourir of 3lontem, pp. 495-517. 
« Mons louerili religione ¢,lonensium sacer locus est (Eloniana, No. 5, p. 65). 



346 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 
beauty of the country, the pleasantness of the green- 
sward, the coolness of tbe shade, the tuneful chorus of 
the birds " ; Etonians, he adds, " dedicate it to Apollo 
and the Muses, celebrate it in songs, call it Tempe, 
extol it above Helicon". If the passage points to a 
religious significance in the institution, it is a pagan, 
not a Christian, significance; but ve must not take 
the language of Eton verse-tasks too seriously. Mean- 
while, so far as Winchester is concerned, Mr. Leach's 
main contention has much plausibility. " On the 
highcst point of St. Catherine's hill are the foundations 
of one of St. Cathcrine's hill-top chapels ,,,1 and, if 
the Foundcr sent his scholars there, he may have sent 
thcm religionis ergo, and hot merely for exercise. In 
that case, however, we should expect to find some 
notice of Hills in the Statures, which on points of 
rcligious observance are explicit and full. 
In passing from these difficult questions I may 
note that Mr. Lcach's belief that the " Protestant 
Carnival " 2 of Motem had a religious origin was 
anticipated in 1847 by a Protestant Fellow of Eton, 
"who ", says Sir H. Maxwell Lyre, "somchow got an 
idca that thc . . procession to Salt Hill had taken 
the place of a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin ", 
and desired " that the ceremonies, happily freed 
from superstition, should be retained as a symbol 
of the Reformation, and a standing protest against 
Popery ".a 
 "" There was a ver)" fair Chapelle of St. Catarine, on an hill scant half-a- 
toile without Winches¢er town by south. Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, caused 
it to be suppressed as I heard say" (Leland, ltin. iii. p. 102, quoted in Adams, 
p. 294). 
-" So Disraeli's Madame Colonna ealled it. 
* M. L. p. 518. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

GOING ON HILLS : DESCRIPTION 

WE saw in the last chapter that the earliest known 
allusions to "going on Hills " (unlcss thosc of the 
Tabula Legum arc carlicr) wcre made by Christophcr 
Johnson about 1565. Johnson noted that it was no 
new thing a montibus abesse aliquos cure luditur, 1 and 
three centuries later (in 1868) the institution was 
abolished because not merely some, but all who dared, 
absented themselves. Its recorded history, therefore, 
begins and ends with shirking; but ve must by no 
means infer that, except in its last days, it was 
generally unpopular. Till towards the end of the 
eightcenth century St. Catherine's bill was practically 
the Wykehamist's only playground. To a scholar 
admitted in 1792 it was the place " that our sports 
bave endear'd-;2 to another, the author of a poem 
which was published in 1804, 3 it was the birthplace of 
Wykehamical Health. Even the Rev. G. W. Heath- 
cote, who was hot admitted till 1819, told me a few 
months before his death in 1893 that to himself and 
his schoolfellows going on Hills was " rather a lark ", 
for it was their " only liberty "  
1 Themes, fol. 138 b.  W. P. Taunton ; see below, p. 13. 
- In the Wiccamicai Chaplet ; the poet writes : 
Quin hue pulchra veni, Catherinoe in vertice nata, 
Et semper nostros rite beato, Salus. 
« In this and the foilowing chapter I bave used materials coilected for a 
paper on " tlills, Meads, and Gaines ", contributed to W.C. in 1893. I was 
347 



848 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

Johnson speaks of going on Hills about 1565; 
Bishop Home seems to allude toit in 1571 ; 1 but the 
first extant description of the institution is that of 
Mathew in 1647. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 
he tells us, before breakfast, the Master and the 
weather permitting, Prefeet of Hall summoned the 
ehildren to the gares; marshalled them in order, 
prefeets on the right, " plebeians " on the left ; ealled 
their names ; walked them off, sociati, "to the green 
ridges of the sublime mount ". Having reaehed the 
top, the procession was disbanded, but the boys 
might neither re-cross " Trench ", nor lie about upon 
the ground; - they might play ail manner of games 
quoits, hand-ball, bat-and-ball, football, and others 
which he would not mention. At nine the prefeet 
ealled "Domum," and the boys went home, sociati as 
before, not straying in disorder. After dinner (at 
noon) they were off" to the green hills " again, eoming 
back to College at three (w. 13-170).--I propose in 
the present chapter to take the poet's lines as my 
text, deseribing, somewhat fully, the institution as it 
was in its palmy days, and speaking, as he does, (1) 
of the occasions and the hours of going on Hills ; (2) 
of the proeession ; (3) of the precise destination and 
the bounds ; (4) of the occupations of the boys within 
or outside those bounds ; (5) of the return to College. 
1. In Mathew's rime, as we have seen, the seholars 
went on Hills twice--before breakfast and after 
dinner--on two days in the week all the year round; 

indebted for much information to letters from old Wykeharnists who are no 
longer living, and to conversations with them of which I took notes in 1892-8. 
1 See below, p. 352. 
 Don't tiare to do so, says Mathew, ne tibi s/ni tremu/oe febres ; but the 
fear of fever was hot in his time the only deterrent. An ex-scholar, admitted 
in 163,8, bas recorded that "they must hot sit down or stand still" on the 
" hill top ", and that '* if they play hot they are sure to be whipt" (see 
above, p. 325). 



oH.w GOING ON HILLS: DESCRIPTION 849 

from some unrecorded subsequent date they also 
went " under Hills " 1 on summer evenings. The 
three expeditions were known as Morning, Middle (or 
Afternoon), and Evening Hills respectively.--Morning 
Hills must have been a hard experience for young and 
delicate boys, especially in winter; in the earlier 
years of the nineteenth century, when the start was 
ruade about 6.30, shivering and breakfastless juniors, 
disregarding the poet's caution against " tremulous 
fevers " (v. 157), would huddle together at what was 
fitly called "Misery Corner" from 7 to 9 on a February 
morning. 2 In 1820 a well-informed correspondent of 
The Etonian, who was not really a Wykehamist, 
professed to remember well " how often I unwillingly 
encountered the cold frosty air of a winter morning " 
on the " bleak and desolate " top of "a high green 
bill" ; 2 to which, most fortunately, George Moberly 
(1816-22) was deemed too delicate to go. 4 The 
wiser and hardier boys set themselves to some of the 
sports which will be presently described; the wisest 
of ail, having secured a prefect's connivance, went 
outside the appointed bounds and bought or begged a 
breakfast. Innkeepers catered for them at Twvford 
and St. Cross; Mr. Bedford, the Master of Twyford 
School, was always ready to entertain an old pupil; » 
and Roundell Palmer (1825-30) has recorded how, 
leaving the " poor fellows " within the " entrench- 
ments ", he would go off with W. G. Ward (182.3-9) 
to a luxurious meal with his friend's uncle at Shawford 

x 1.e. to Tunbridge, at the foot of St. Catherine's Hill. 
z Sec some " Reminiscenees of a Junior in 1825 ", The Wykehamist, 
Deeember 1869. Alïer describing the « passive misery " of the '" eold bivouac 
in the treneh, endured with empty stornaehs "', the writer speaks of it ail as a 
"deliberate eruelty of grown men, for whorn I ean flnd no excuse " 
a The writer was R. Durnford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. Sec a 
letter of the Rev. A. H. Cruickshank in l'he W!tkehamist , March 1900. 
« D.D.p. 
 tiich, pp, 3, 17. 



350 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 
House. 1 In 1847 the hours of Morning Hills were 
mercifully shortcned; you started at 6.45 on a 
" rcmedy " and af 7.30 on a " holiday ", and both 
on rcmedies and on holidays breakfast was served 
at 8.30; about 1860 the function, which had bccome 
occasional only, was finally discontinucd.--Middle 
Hills, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, out- 
lived the other hill-times, took place to the last, as in 
Mathew's rime, immediatcly af ter dinner--in Mathew's 
rime from 12.30 to about 3.15, in their latest days from 
about 2 to 3.45. A passage in our poem suggests that 
on hot aftcrnoons in August Mathew and his school- 
fellows did not go on IIills at all;  and we read in 
Prefect of Hall's book that " in the year 1824 leave 
was given to go under Hills in the short half-year on 
account of the unusually hot wcathcr " ---precisely 
when, one would imagine, an hour or so at the top 
would have been most refreshing.--For Evening Hills 
in the summer the start was madc immediately after 
the evcning meal--cena or (from 1838 onwards) tea-- 
and the boys were back beforc 8. The purposc of this 
third hill-time was bathing simply.  Prefect of Hall 
recorded in 1835 that " the proper day for Evening 
Hills [to begin] is the 8th of May, bcfore which day 
they are not in future to be applied for ", and their 
connection with bathing is well illustrated by another 
entry, ruade in 1872 when all going on Hills had 
ceased, to the effect that " bathing leave " would not 
be granted before that day. In our poet's time there 
were no evening Hills, and thercfore, presumably, 
1 William George Ward, p. 6.---" Ail going from the Hills, or to a neighbour- 
ing village, during the time xvhich should be spent at Hills ", was, by the 
Regulations of 1778, " comprehended under the saine notion "" as going out of 
College without leave. 2 Sec below, pp. 867-8. 
 l.e. no doubt at the end of August or the beginning of September. 
Prefect of Hall adds that " there is no precedent for sueh leave, and it is by 
Dr. Wiiliams' order hOt to be drawn into one on any future occasion "'. 
« See e.g.T.A.T.p. 107. 



c.vx, GOING ON HILLS: DESCRIPTION 351 

there was no bathing; for which, except at Evening 
Hil]s, College inferiors at any rate had no lawïul 
opportunities till about 1860.1 Of the bcginning of 
Evening Hills I can find no record, but from what has 
been said it may be inferred that they were started 
when bathing was first authorized. That, perhaps, 
was not in the very dira and distant past; at Cam- 
bridge in 1571 seholars were forbidden to " goe into 
the water ", whether for swimming or bathing, by day 
or by night, under the severest penalties--two seourg- 
ings on a first offenee, expulsion on a second. 2 It is 
true that Warden Huntingford (admitted as a seholar 
in 1762) used language in 1799 which implied that 
Wykehamists had bathed in the Itchen " from rime 
immemorial ", but on the lips of a Wykehamist that 
phrase often means no more than " from before the 
rime when I came to school " ; we have no evidence 
for sueh bathing before 1760, when it is graeefully 
described in Tom Warton's Mons Catharinoe.  We 
cannot therefore eonfidently refer the origin of Even- 
ing Hills to a date mueh earlier than the date of that 
poem; we ean only say that they began after 16¢7 
and before 1760. The first allusion to them that I 
bave notieed is in a letter written by John Bond on 

x About 1860 the scholars were first allowed to go outside Coi]ege at their 
own discretion, between 12 and 1 ; previously they could never go beyond 
Outer Gare except in procession to CathcdraI or to Hiiis.See aiso above, 
p. 127. 
 Venn, Early Collegiate Lire, p. 123. 
a Sec above, p. 34 o. 
 Wordsworth, p. 99.--A poem, pcrhaps by Georgc IIuddcsford, records 
the death of a scholar while bathing in 1768 (see Miss Locke's I», Praise of 
Wi»*chester, p. 197).--A word-book of c. 1845 states tbat the bathing-p]aces 
were "Newbridge (forbidden by proclamation in 1842); Biricy's Corner ; 
Ttmbridge ; 1st Pot (or Lock) ; 1st Milkhole ; 2nd Pot (or Lock) ; 2nd Milk- 
hole; Daimatia (for Proefeets only); Waterman's Ilut (for Proefects only)" 
In the sixties ail expert swimmers bathed at Pot, most juniorç at Tunbridge. 
--Modern bye-laws forbid bathing at unenciosed places, and the admirable 
'" Gunner's Hole ", provided by Dr. Ridding in 1874 and greatly improved 
by Dr. l"earon in 1900, is all-suflicient. 



352 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

July 29, 1771; something happened, he said, "as we 
were going to Hills on Monday evening" 1 
2. The procession started from Chamber Court. 
Prefects in later days walked alongside as they 
pleased; inferiors marched two and two, or three 
and three, in column, " College men " in front, 
commoners behind. Mathew does not mention 
cormnoners in this (or, indeed, in any other) connec- 
tion, and it is doubtful whether, belote Dr. /3urton's 
rime, their presence was required. In Mathew's rime, 
as afterwards, the conduct of the procession fell fo 
Prefect of Hall, and the hard task was sometimes 
indifferently performed. As early as 1571 /3ishop 
Home enjoined upon the Schoolmaster and Usher 
that they should " keep their scholars together . . . 
in the fields when they go to play, that they range not 
abroad undecently as of late they have done";2 
and the warning of Mathew, 

At discincta phalan.x ne nostra vagetur in agris (v. 165), 

suggests that orderliness may not have been con- 
spicuous in 1647. When, at the end of 1809, Dr. 
Gabell was appointed to the headmastership, the 
Warden and Fellows reminded him " that they con- 
ceive it inseparable from the Head 3laster's Duty, 
that he should PersonaHy attend to . . . the Hill ", 
and 3If. David Williams, the newly appointed Second 
Master, was admonished to the saine effect. It was 
recorded in 1820 that " out Master " walked at the 
head of the procession, 3 and the energetic Charles 
a In an earlier letter, dated August 9, 1770, Bond wrote : " The weather 
is so hot that I get into the $¥ater almost every Day, & sometimes twice a 
Day ". 
 I'.A. ï- 1. p. 1. 
 Sec The Wy'kehamist, Match 1900." Out Master" means the Hostiariu, 
who also led the procession on Sundays to and from Cathedrai ; lais doing so 
there after the present afternoon service is in accordance with tradition. 



e,. xx, GOING ON HILLS : DESCRIPTION 858 
Wordsworth (Hostiarius from 1885 to 1845) seems to 
have done so rcgularly at Morning Hills : 
Seu matutini parvas ascendimus Alpes, 
Et duco Poenos Hannibal ipse mcos.  
The Hcad Mastcr would somctimcs appcar " on or 
on thc road to or from Hills " and direct Prcfcct of 
Hall to call namcs,  but for thc most part thc Masters 
conccived that " attcndance to thc Hill " was separ- 
able from their duty, and left the prcfcct to do his best 
unaidcd. Thc procession, as I rcmcmber it, was not 
impressive. We wcrc all required to vcar tall bats, 3 
but "a hill hat " had scen much better days as "a 
cathcdral "; therc werc regrettable incidents at thc 
point whcrc the oldcr commoncrs followed the College 
juniors; 4 and thc prcfect might bc distracted by 
stragglcrs all along the colunm.--I necd not dwell on 
the famous injunction ad Montes 5 sociati omnes 
incedunto, or, as Mathew expresses it, 
Incedat sociata cohors, sociata recedat (v. 153) ; 
for the obligation to bave a socius applied to other 
places than the road to Hills, and I bave spoken of it 
in another chapter. « 
3. Mathew tells us that the procession was hot in 
his rime disbanded till the top of Hills was reached, 
donec apex montis tangatur (v. 15); but for many 
years preeeding 1859, when, as we shall see, it broke 
up at Tunbridge, its goal was Treneh. Having once 
erossed Treneh, you eould hot go below it: 
Hoee meta est pedibus non transihenda (v. 156) ; 

Wordsworth, p. 91. : See above, p. 14. 
See above, p. 242. 
See, e.g., The W!tkehamist, December 1869. 
quote from the older version of the Tabula Legum. 
See above, pp. 243-4. 

.'2A 



354 ABOUT WINCHESTEH COLLEGE .a 
the upper part of Hills was what Tom Warton in 1760 
called the liciti colles, x But it appears from his poem 
that the law was often broken; boys went off to 
" distant fields et non sua rura ", 

Sive illos (quoe corda solet mortalia passim) 
In vetitum mens prona nefas et iniqua cupido 
Solliciter . . . 
Seu malint secum obscuros eaptare recessus, 
Secreto faciles habituri in margine Musas. 

As he wrote the last lines tVarton may have thought 
of William Whitehead, who was Poet Laureate in 
1760, and of whom it was recorded that when on Hills 
" he would seek a sequestered nook, and read some 
book of poetry-.2 Whitehead was Prefect of Hall in 
1734-5, " when Bigg presided and when Burton 
taught", and it is hOt likely that he was vigilant in 
keeping others within bounds. The amount of laxity 
varied no doubt with the character of successive 
Prefects of Hall ; there was enough of it about 1790 
to prompt Warden Huntingford to add to the Tabula 
Legum the injunction : 

Intra terminos apud montera prescriptos quisque se 
contineto. 

The preïects, meanwhile, had succeeded in establish- 
ing a customary exemption frorn the rule for them- 
selves, and each of them also claimed it for two 
inïeriors whorn he beïriended; but Moyle Sherer 
(admitted 1800) says that it was rarely granted to 
boys "who did not join in the badger-hunts".3 The 

t In his .'lions Catharinoe (Wordsworth, p. 99). 
2 Adams, p. 119. SValcott (p. 429) adds that SVhitehead, " in his verse 
tasks, instead of the usual fourteen lines, would fill a whole sheet with English 
poetry ". The source of these statements is (I believe) liehols'» Literary 
Anecdotes, iii. p. 193. 
 tory of a Lire, il. p. 88. 



. ,, GOING ON HILLS: DESCRIPTION 355 
customary exemption received some measure of lcgal 
sanction in 1832.1 
4. An adequate description of the occupations of 
hill-times before the decline and rail would fill a 
volume ; the inventiveness of boys in devising amuse- 
ments at a time when the staple school-games of to- 
day were as yet imperfectly organized is truly amazing. 2 
Apart from games proper we read of many and various 
sports as popular on Hills : bird-slinging, pole-jump- 
ing, tree-climbing, mouse-digging, adventurous moun- 
taineering on the chalk-pit. The use of guns was hot 
unknown in the thirties, as Frederick Gale has recorded ;3 
in the forties the chalk-pit was " the common place 
for Rifle-shooting, a favourite anmsement during 
Evening Hills ,,.« But of ail sports (in the narrower 
sense) badger-hunting was the chiefl It was vigor- 
ously pursued in 1775, when an irreverent scribblcr 
w-rote on the margin of the scholars' eopy of the 
Statures : » 
Let it be noted that in the reign of N. Hinde, 1775, a 
remarkable badger vas lodged in the possession of the then 
Proefects. By the Grace of God. Amen. 
A badger was still domiciled in College at the end of 
the centu=¢, as Mr. Thomas Huntingford (admitted 
1796) used to tell his son, but the boys', or the 
authorities', tolerance of such an inmate was soon 
afterwards exhausted ; the Rev. J. G. Copleston, who 
died in 1894 at the age of nincty-one, remembered 
 See Prefeet of Hall's book, where precise rules about rather grudgingly 
exoEended bounds for prefects are laid down by authority. A prefect, it is 
added, may take one inferior with him. 
* A list of some thirty gaines, said to bave been in vogue at Eton about 
1770, is given in M. L. {pp. 818-23). 
 G.P.S., p. 887 ; see also above, p. 826. 
« ,, The sport eonsisted generally in shooting at a target, occasionally at a 
rabbit, cock, etc., whieh unfortunate animais were turncd out on the steep 
part of Chalk-Pit " {Word-book of c. 1845}. 
 Sce above, p. 97. 



856 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. n 
that in his rime a certain "" Bob Moody catered the 
badger". Writers of reminiscences of the period 
1820-50 1 described the badger- hunts with full 
particulars ; and even in the early sixties "a sort of 
cad " would appear from rime to time on Hills with a 
badger in a sack, but the force of tradition failed to 
secure him much financial support. Among lawful 
gaines Mathev mentions (unfortunately he does hot 
describe) quoits,  hand-ball, 3 football, and one which 
required a pila and a bacillum, and was perhaps a 
forerunner of cricket; there vere other lawful 
gaines, he adds, but he passes them by (w. 158-163). 
Neither from Mathev's lines nor from a full descrip- 
tion of the gaine in WaloEon's ]lions Catharince can 
anything be learnt of the rules of Winchester football 
in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Football 
of a sort vas still played on Hills about 1860 ; one of 
our authorities records that some twenty-five years 
earlier, when Warden Barrer generously reneved the 
Maze (which is said to date from about 1710), his 
generosity seriously interfered vith the "" long gaine " 
which it vas the custom to play over it. 4 Of ail gaines 
on Hills cricket was the last survivor; on successive 
afternoon hill-times in Match, as lately as 1866, 
Junior Match between College and commoners vas 
played, sometimes in a snow-storm, before very 
critical spectators. The procession having broken up 
at Tunbridge (since 1859) it was the custom that 
' See, e.g., Rich {pp. 17-18), Adams (pp. 297-9), G.P.S. (pp. 886-7), Mansfield 
(pp. 152-8), Tuckwell (pp. 66-7).--" A Junior in 1825 " wrote in 1870 that he 
rcmembered "badgers, foxes, and id genus tmn.e" being kept in lockera in 
school (The Wykehamist, May 1870). 
 Quoits were popular on Grass Court in my schooldays. 
a Pila palmaria. An elaborate ame so called is described in Erasmus's 
Colloq«ies (i. pp. 88-40, ed. Tauchnitz) ; it is said to exercise ail parts of the 
body more than any other game, and to be better suited for winter than 
summer.ohn Lyon in 1571 "directed his scholars, among other diversions, 
to toss a hand-ball " (Thornton, Harrow School, p. 817). 
« Adams, p.295. 



çIl. /,X/II GOING ON HILLS: DESCRIPTION 857 
prefects of distinction should employ " teams " of 
juniors to pull them to the top.--Boys whom neither 
games nor sports attracted found other divêrsions ; it 
was a common amusement during Evening Hills to 
construct "arbours", the nature of which Adams 
explains ; 1 naturalists like Frank Bucand wêre hot 
idle; 2 the " pleasures" of the contemplative Moyle 
Sherer were " the lone stroll upon the hill with its 
black tuft of firs, or [at Evening Hills] the saunter by 
the river side and up the double arbour-filled hedge" ; s 
Hills were the occasion for the transactions of " thc 
order of SS. Shakespeare and Milton ", foundêd by a 
future Lord Chancellor and a very famous future 
Dean.«---At ail periods, no doubt, there were boys who 
did nothing whatever; Christopher Johnson noted, 
about 1565, that just as there was sometimes playful- 
ness in School and tumultuousness in Chapel, so there 
was sometimes mere loafing on Hills. 5 In early as in 
later rimes loafers tempered their loafing by refresh- 
ment, but in Mathew's rime " they might not buy 
anything without the Prepositors leave " . . " they 
must not buy or eat fruit without leavê, excepting 
the Prepositors ". 
5. When it was rime to go home Prefect of Hall, 
says Mathew, cried "Dornum ". In later rimes the 
cry came from more than one throat and from more 
than one place ; three juniors, each with an assigncd 
beat, repeated it at intervals for a quarter of an hour. v 
 Adams, pp. 801-2. 
 It is interesting to know that many of Charles Darwin's researehes on 
earth-worms were pursued on St. Catherine's ltill. 
3 Stort3 o[ a Lire, il. p. 82. 
* Lord Hutherley and Dean Hook. 
 Et in schola luditur, et in rnontibus cessalur, et in ternplo luttlulll,alut 
interdum (Themes, fol. 18 b). The la,st words may cause surprise; but 
Wykeharn hirns¢lï foresaw that the devocio aut earercitium psallencium in cloro 
might be interrupted per itordinatos tumultus (Rubric XXX.). 
3 So Joseph Godwin said ; sec above, p. 301. 
' Sec above, p. 126. 



858 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.. 
On hearing 
The distant shout that bids the straggling train 
Turn from short frccdom toits carcs again 
the boys assembled at what was known as the " on- 
place";1 the prefect called " On!" and the pro- 
cession was re-formed. In case of tain the boys were 
hot expccted to stand upon the order of their going ; 
thcy " skirmished on " or rather off. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXVII 

A QUESTION bas been raised concerning the antiquity of the 
" Clump " which gives so much dignity to St. Catherine's 
Hill. A contemporary account of George III.'s visit to 
Winchester in September 1778 records that the King on enter- 
ing Meads was struck with the view of " the plantation on 
Catherine-Hill", and was much pleased to learn that the 
Colonel of the Gloucestershire militia (Lord Botetourt) and 
his men had completed it in one day during the last camp 
(Charles Blackstone's MS. Book of Benefactions, 1784 ; 
.4nnals, p. 413). This plantation may, of course, have taken 
the place of an older one; but the bill is represented as 
treeless in the late-seventeenth or early-eighteenth century 
oil-painting which has been photographed for this book, and 
no hint of a clump is conveyed, even in an epithet, either by 
Mathew (1647) or by T. Warton (1760) in their full accounts 
of Hills. Mr. Leach, however, who is concerned to prove 
that the bill '" had an early importance for Wykehamists ", 
argues that the trees on a bill-top represented in Warden 
Chandler's drawing (c. 1460), which he takes for the frontis- 
piece of his Hislory, must be Clump ; he admits--it is indeed 
part of his case---that bill and trees are introduced " spite 
of ail geography "' (Hislory, pp. 185-6). In Speed's Map of 
Winchester (c. 1615) a " S. Kathrens bill ", with three trees on 
the top, is placed due east of the city. 

a " On-place: the place on Hills where ail eollect previously Ix) lea4ng 
Hills for home. Vhen the I:Iills are ascended the on-place is the nearest angle 
of' Trench ' fo Tunbridge. In Lower I-Iills it is the strie close Ix) Tunbridge '" 
(Word-book of c. 1845). 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

GOING ON HILLS : DECI,INE AND FAL], 

IN the development of cricket, 1 and (I think) of foot- 
ball, Winchester lagged behind Eton. Etonians have 
enjoyed playing-fields since the reign of Henry VIII.,  
and their prowess at crickct was well known in the 
eighteenth century; Meads was hot (in any 
sense) a playground till late in that century, and 
cricket vas of no great account at Winchester till 
about 1820. Even then, and indeed much later, the 
opportunities which Meads had tardily offcred to 
scholars were dcnied to commoners, who were only 
admitted there occasionally and by courtcsy. I 
cannot discover at what precise datc commoners bcgan 
to occupy the small and inconvenient piece of land 
which is now the Goods Yard of the Didcot and 
Newbury railway, and which, until Dr. Ridding 
enlarged Meads in 1870, was known as Commoncr 
Field. Dr. Williams (182-35) was the first Head 
Master who made himself responsible for the rent, a 
and even when he had done so opportunities of using 
the ground were narrowly restricted. Cricket, how- 
ever, as well as football, was already important whcn 
in 1826, thanks chiefly to the initiative of tvo brothers 
--Christopher Wordsworth of Winchester and Charles 
Wordsworth of ttarrow--our public-school matches 
a See IV.C. pp. 129-31. - I'.H. Bucks, il. p. 173. 
a Adams, p. 192. 
359 



860 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE - 
wcrc institutcd. The growth of organizcd gaines 
exertcd many influences on Winchcster life. It intro- 
duced the opprcssive system of games-fagging, of 
which I have already spoken; it had the happier 
cffect of promoting the fusion, of which I shall speak 
hcreaftcr, of the two divisions of the school ; and it 
brought about thc dccline, and ultimately the fall, 
of going on Hills. 
We havc secn that towards the end of the cighteenth 
century an ex-scholar spoke of Hills as thc place " that 
our sports have cndcar'd " ; he did hot evcn mention 
Mcads. In Scptember 1807 a new boy wrote from 
Commoners to his mother : "We have bcen to the 
hills twice this day, and are much obligcd to Dr. 
Goddard for letting us";1 his words no doubt re- 
flectcd thc opinions which he hcard cxpressed. Hills 
were still, as we know, " rather a lark" to a sedate 
scholar of 1819 and to his companions ; 2 subject to a 
reservation about winter mornings, there is no sign 
that the popularity of the institution was as yet 
dimmed. Thcre were two commoners of the saine age 
--they left respectively in 1829 and 1830--who sat 
next to one another in School, were " much thrown 
togcther " out of school, were both brilliant scholars, 
became Fellows of the saine college, followed the same 
profession, were eventually members of the saine 
cabinet; their language about Hills shows that they 
were of difïerent temperaments. Robert Lowe de- 
clared that "a remedy was worse than the disease " ; 
for, on a remedy, he wrote, "xve wcre marched two and 
two to the hill a toile off, and in consideration of this 
airing were shut up in the hall for four hours".  
Roundell Palmer, though he loved Meads, of which, 
however, he knew little as a boy, " loved especially 
i The Wykehamist, June 1895. -" See above, p. 847. 
a Patchett Martin, Lire of Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 8. 



. xxvm GOING ON HILLS : DECLINE 361 

your hills, and ail the life that is associated with them ,,ol 
There is not much doubt that Palmer expressed the 
general opinion of the commoners of his rime; but 
Meads had become a rival, even a favoured rival, 
of Hills in the affections of many of the scholars. It 
is true that T. A. Trollope (1820-28) continued to be 
an ardent votary of St. Catherine--he " remembers " 
rive pages about Hills, and dismisses Meads in one 
short paragraph; but his contemporary, J. E. Sewell 
(1821-8), afterwards Warden of New College, told me 
in 1893 that Hills were not eonsidered by the scholars 
of his day as a recreation of at ail the saine sort--he 
meant, of as good a sort--as cricket, rives, and 
football; and other evidcnce points the saine way. 
In Sewell's later schooldays the public-school matches 
had corne, and what he noted as the opinion of his 
contemporaries became more and more prevalent in 
the years which followed--over-fagged juniors, per- 
haps, dissenting ; the preference still felt for Hills by 
such confessed cricket-haters as Frank Buckland and 
Mr. Tuckwell 2 became mere heresy. Gaines, and 
especially cricket, became more and more organizcd 
and more and more interesting, a process to which the 
scientiric laying of " Turf" under the auspices of 
Charles Wordsworth in 1836 largely contributed; 3 
Hills lost popularity in the samc proportion. When 
public opinion found an organ in The lFykehamist in 
1866, Hills, we rind, were soon declared "unbearable" ; 
" leaves " from Hills, the number of which was limited, 
were sought, it appears, with the keenest competition. 4 
The gradual change of opinion which I have 
briefly traced brought about, as it would hardly bave 
 From the speech of Lord Selborne when received as Lord Chancellor 
ad porlas ; see 7'he IVltkehamisl for May 1873. 
2 G. C. Bornpas, Lire ofFrank Buckland, p. 15 ; Tuckwell, pp. 71,152. 
a Charles Wordsworth, Annals of 
 The ll'ltkehamist , October 1867. 



862 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . , 

done in the rime of the inflexible Huntingford, a series 
of changes of law. In 1832, as soon as Barrer had 
become Warden, the bounds for prefects at hill-times 
were extended. In 1847 the length of hill-times was 
redueed and the start for Morning Itills postponed. 
In 1859 the proeession began to break up at Tun- 
bridge; "the bounds ", says Prefeet of Hall's book, 
"were altered, and the custom of staying on the top of 
IIills stopped ; every one was allowed to go anywhere 
in the country, the only bounds being the Southampton 
Road and the town ". In the following year Morning 
Hills were abolished. In Long Half 1867 (Dr. Ridding's 
first terre as Head Master) it was deereed that " as 
soon as the boys have reaehed hills " (i.e. Tunbridge) 
" they shall be free to eome home individually till 
5 o'elock ", and the freedom of juniors was ruade real 
by fagng being forbidden till 4; boys might go 
where they pleased in the country, except to the rifle 
butts upon Teg Down. 
It is elear that Dr. Ridding wished to save the 
institution, but in spire of lais large concessions, of 
which The Wykehamist spoke with gratitude,  it con- 
tinued to be unpopular, and boys shirked in very 
large numbers. They preferred, or most of them 
preferred, to be at their games in Meads or Commoner 
Field. But in the Short Half of 1867 a very strong 
person became Prefeet of Hall. He loved the country 
about Winehester, and was vexed that only a few of 
lais sehoolfellows cared to ramble over it ; but he was 
much more than vexed that law and authority should 
be set at nought. Aeeordingly one fine afternoon he 
stopped the unduly short proeession, took a sehool- 
roll out of his poeket, called names, and proeeeded to 
"tund " more than fifty of the absentees. Force, 
however, proved to be no remedy; the result of its 
 March 1867. 



Ç. xxv,,, GOING ON HILLS : FALL 

363 

application was other than he had hoped for. The 
incident convinced Dr. Ridding that the continuance 
of Hills in any shape had become impossible, and at 
the beginning of the next school-year (in Short Hall, 
1868) the following entry was ruade in Prefect of Hall's 
book : 

The following arrangements with regard to Leave out were 
ruade by Mr. Ridding : that there shoulà be no " Hills " ; but 
that there should be leave out on hall holiday aftcrnoons 
from 2.30 till 5. 

The prefect who appcnded his signature has never, 
before or since, appendcd it to anything of equal 
importance, for the entry was the death-warrant of 
an institution xvhich had lived for at least 300, perhaps 
for nearly 500 years; which (all reserves made) had 
been of incalculable value; which even at the last 
encouraged and sometimes secured the acquisition of 
a familiarity xvith the Winchester country which has 
since become rare. But it had lived into an age to 
which it could make no successful appeal ; and since 
its abolition, 

Si nmcret Catharina sola montem 
Desertum, 

her loneliness has elicited little sympathy. 
After an interval of a quarter of the century 
going on Hills was, in a sense, revived. An attempt 
had been ruade by the lessee fo fente off the hill in 
1878, when an indignant editor of The lVykehamist 
recommended a strong Wykehamical protest : " Let 
us go back to names-calling on Hills, if this will pre- 
serve what we cherish so dearly ". The rights of the 
school and of the publie were, however, effectively 
maintained by the City Corporation; representatives 
of the General Purposes Committee " loosening the 



364 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE  n 
stakes levelled the fence", and the lcssee wisely 
acquiesccd, a Sixtecn ycars latcr rumours wcrc afloat 
that free access to St. Catherine's was threatened 
again; to secure it, as wcll as in memoriam, Dr. 
Fearon arrangcd that the school should thenceforth 
mcct the Hcad Master at "Clump" bcfore breakfast 
on the first Fridays of the summcr and the autumn 
tcrrns. 2 From April 27, 1894, names have been duly 
callcd thcrc on such Fridays in the Hcad Master's 
prcscnce; many assistant mastcrs also attend, but 
their prescnce is dictatcd by their own virtue, pcrhaps, 
rather than by Wykchamical tradition. 
a See The B'ykehamist, July 30, 1878. 
2 In connection with this useful and interesting function Mr. Leach writes 
{ l'.il. Bucks, il. p. 192) : " The fact that " Hills ' at $¥inchester now only 
surives much in the same way as  Montera ' surived at Eton in Elizabeth's 
day, riz. in a march out of the whole School at the beginning of the summer 
and autumn terres, i, tetoriam, greatly strenothens the argument " (see 
above, p. 35) '" for attributing the orin of " Montem' to an imitation of 
 Hills" ". I cannot see how that tan be. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

MEADS 

WE have seen that the development of erieket and 
football ultimately proved fatal to "going on Hills ", 
and that it was ruade possible by the conversion of 
Meads into a playground. How and when preeisely 
was this eonversion brought about ? The question 
eannot fail fo be asked by every student of Wyke- 
hamieal history, but out historians do hot answer it. 
The present ehapter is an attempt to repair their 
omission. 
If will, however, be eonvenient to begin by de- 
seribing briefly, and vithout aiming at a surveyor's 
aeeuraey, the original extent and the later extensions 
of what I will eall tbe College grounds, omitting, as 
foreign to the purpose of tbe ehapter, any allusion to 
that considerable part of them which we call tbe 
Warden's garden.--The southern boundary of the 
original precincts was a wall built during the wardcn- 
ship of Morys (1393-1413); 1 it ran westwards from 
just beyond " Non-licet Gare " till it reached another 
wall which ran southwards or south-westwards from 
the south-western angle of Wykeham's buildings. To 
the south and south-west of the former wall were the 
garden and closc of the Carmclite friars who dwclt 
" in Kyngatestrete " ; to the west and north-west of 
i Mr. Kirby identified the course of Morys's wall as that of the brown line 
visible in a specially dry summer. 
365 



the latter were the gardens and closes of private 
residents in Kingsgate Street, and the Sistern Spiral. 
In 15 the College acquired the site of the buildings 
and the grounds of the Carmclites, and thcse, with the 
addition perhaps of some land which had belonged to 
St. Elizabeth's College, it enclosed a few years later 
by building the present eastern and southern walls of 
Meads; materials for these walls were supplied by 
the demolition of the ehureh of St. Elizabeth (in 
what is now the Warden's kitehen-garden) and, says 
Mr. Kirby, 1 of St. Stephen's Chapel (in the meadow 
by" Gunner's hole "). With the further acquisition of 
land which had belonged to the Sistern Spiral, away to 
the north-west, the College grounds beeame what they 
were till 1870, but Siek-house (the northern part of it) 
was built upon them about 1656; z it was deseribed 
about 1750 as standing " in the middle of the College 
meadow ". That sueh a description was never a very 
happy one is shown by Loggan's famous bird's-eye 
view (1675) ; it would be an impossible description to- 
day. A Raequet Court (187-o), a Gymnasium (1878), 
a Sanatorim (1886), the Memorial Buildings (1897), 
an Armoury (1909), a new Raequet Court and Fives' 
Courts (1909), have oeeupied the south-western part 
of "the College meadow ", which indeed had been long 
belote shut off by walls or palings. The extent of 
the grounds, however, eurtailed in this direction, was 
trebled at one stroke in another by the southward 
addition (in 1870) of Lavender Meads and what we 
are too tardily learning to eall Riddings : Riddings 
itself was greatly enlarged by an anonymous bene- 
factor in 1893, and by the College in 1903, till it reached 
its destined linfit, the road whieh parts it from the 

1 Atnals, p. 258. 
- Sec below, pp. 483-5. The date usually given is 1640. 
- Description, p. 65. 



c. xx,x MEADS 367 

house which bears the ancient name of Prior's Barton.  
A large part of Kingsgate Park, away to the west of 
Kingsgate Street, is beeoming as I vrite a real part 
of the College grounds. 
Before the Reformation the sehool ean have had 
no lawful eoneern with any part of the grounds whieh 
I have deseribed; the spaee enelosed behind the 
buildings was garden, paddoek, and so forth; if the 
boys entered it at all, they entered it as trespassers. 
The extensions of 15 and subsequent years must 
have exeited their euriosity; the expenditure of ld. 
by the Bursars in 155-6 pro duobus barris pro fenestris 
scole must have been very neeessary. Whether the 
boys reaped any advantage at the first from the 
extensions is uneertain. I do not remember to have 
met with any allusions in Johnson's Themes (c. 1565) 
to the College prata, to which some fifty years later 
we have the following referenee in a report of the 
Supervisors : 

In pratis Collegii pascantur equi D ni Custodis (Rubr. 26 °) - 
atque etiam oves in tlsunl Collegii mactandi ; si quid supersit 
pascui, liceat etiam magistris equos suos, quibus utantur 
in Collegii negotiis, ibidem alere. 

The names of scholars, hovever, were freely eut on 
the south wall of Meads from 1569 onwards; z and 
that would hardly, perhaps, have been the case if 
they had not sometimes had lawful aceess to them. 
They may bave been sent in Johnson's rime as in 
5Iathew's (1644-7) to Meads for an airing on remedy 

The naine is older than the College. The present house was at one time 
known as Cornwall's îrom the Speaker of the House of Comrnons who oceupied 
it. Thee ae easons fo thinking that Pfio's Barton was in Thackeray's 
mind when he lodged lais Lady Castlewood at '" Waleote '" 
IRubric XXVI. states : Quibu3 quidem equi tare cu.stodis quam Collegii de 
[eno et palrulo de bonis prediclis volumus provideri. 
a W.C.p. 128. 



;J68 AkUUï WI_NCHESïER CULLIGE r. n 
aïternoons in August, when it was too hot to go on 
Hills : 
Ignivomans campos si Sirius urit, cundum est 
Ad prata; hoec folio stipant virgulta comanti (vv. 175-6). 
The history of Mcads, so far as the boys are con- 
ccrned, is a blank from 1647 to 1756. In Dccember 
1756 the Warden and Fellows ordered that they were 
never to go " beyond the 3Iiddle Gare, except when 
called together to go to Church" (i.e. to 
Cathedral), "to Hills or to 3Ieads ", from which it 
is clear that they had no direct access to 3Ieads from 
School Court; they went there through Outer Gare 
and by thc road in procession. Even in 1778 when 
Mcads, as we shall sec, was a playground, they could 
not go there when and as they pleased. They were 
cxpected to wcar hats when they went for leave out, 
or to Hills, or " to 3leads at the season " ; -" they still 
went there only at stated rimes, circuitously, and 
when "called together" 
Meanwhile, in 1768, the use and character of 
Meads had been wholly altered. At a College meeting, 
held on December 6 of that year, "it was agreed" 
That that moiety of the College Meadow in which the Sick 
House does hot stand, & which is divided [i.e. eut off from 
the other moiety] by the Lock-bourn, shall be ceded by Mr. 
Warden to the Scholars for their Airing and Play Place .... 3 
That such Trees growing in the College 3Ieadows as shall in 
the Judgment of the Woodrnan be deem'd to be the worse for 
standing, & such other as are fit to be eut down, shall be felled 
& sold to the best Bidder .... Provided always that a 
sufficient Number of Trees be left standing, in order to afford 

 A rough draft of the Regulations of 1756 is extant but bas hOt been pub- 
tished. I quote from it often in this book. 
 Annals, p. 411. 
'" In Compensation for sueh Cession " the Warden was to bave "' the 
Meadow in whieh the Siek House stands to his sole Use and fxee of ail 
Ineumbranees and Outgoings whatsoever". 



.  MEADS 369 

convenient Shade to the Scholars during the Heat of the 
Summer Season. 
HAttttY LEE, llarden. 

It was ïurther agreed at the same rime that provision 
should be made for the more effectual exclusion of the 
scholars ïrom the stable-yard and othcr " back parts 
of the College ", for the compensation due fo Mr. 
Warden for his cession, and for the construction of 
"a new Ball-Court behind the School" ; the accounts 
of the following two years show that something like 
£500 was spent in carrying these various agreements 
into effect. 1 Of the new Ball Court, and of the 
Resolution quoted about trees, I shall speak presently ; 
out first and chieï concern is with the cession of 
"that moiety of the Meadow in which the Sick House 
does not stand" It was a large and generous cession ; 
for with the exception of the site of Ball Court and of 
what was aftcrwards known as " Grass Court "--the 
area to the north-west vhich was eut off from the rcst 
of the grounds till 1862--it gave the boys the whole of 
what we now call Meads. It was a gcnerous cession, 
but it was urgently needed and long overdue, and once 
made--so one would have thought--it could never be 
revoked. 
So one would have thought ; but the Warden who 
signed the edict of 1768 was to sign ifs revocation 
only twelve years later. Early (it would seem) in 
1780 an aged Fellow of the College, Mr. William 
Bowles,  submitted to his colleagues an elaborate 
x Under cuslus gardini et pratorum in 1769 the carpenter was paid about 
£222 and the bricklayer about £195. In the following year the former re- 
ceived a further £17 pro suis operibus renovandis et emend«ndis in pr«o. 
 Bowles was a Fellow from 1725 till his death in 1781. A charming account 
of him in his old age is given by his great-nephew, William Lisle Bowles, in his 
l'indicioe Wircamice, pp. 29-32.--The memorandum was round in a tattered 
condition in 1912, also a plan intended to explain it, which had strayed away 
from it; the two documents have now been skilfully repaired and scwn 
together. The plan has been reproduced for this book. 
2n 



870 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE -n 

memorandum which deserves most careful study. He 
was distressed by the fact that there was now " no 
Resident Fellow within the College "--a fact which 
he too hastily referred to a cause of secondary import- 
ance; resident Fellows, he declared, had been " no 
better than State Prisoners, being as it were con- 
fin'd to their Chambers & depriv'd of the Pleasure of 
walking in the College Gardens & Collcge Meadow, 
for fear of disturbing or being disturbed by ye ]3oys 
at their Diversions in both places ". Desiring to 
rcvive residence, he offered suggestions for making it 
agreeable. I-le proposed, firstlj, that the Fellows' 
garden in the north of Mcads should be enlarged, and 
enclosed with a new wall too high for the boys to 
scale; x secondlj, that the passage between School 
and Cloisters (nowadays, most incorrectly, called 
Good Friday Passage 2) should be blocked by a strong 
wall, and the existing doorway stopped up ; 3 thirdly, 
"that a new Doorway be ruade out of ye Cloysters 
into y Garden . . .* whereby an easy communica- 
tion will be opened between y¢ s « Garden & Cloysters 
and Library and ail other parts of the College without 
interfering with y¢ ]3oys, to y great comfort and 
advantage of ail Residcnt Fellows" ; and fourthlj, that 
" ye Road between non-licet-Gate and the Mill Gare 
be sufficiently rcpair'd and amended, so yt the ]3oys 
may go clean into the College Meadow by y s « Road 
thro' y Mill Gare instead of the old Doorway near y 
School; & yt they be permitted to play in y said 
a ,, The present walls", says Mr. Bowles, " are too low and ser'e only to 
invite the 1Roys to elimb over ym & to plunder & rob ye Garden of ail its Fruits 
and Flowers " 
2 Sec below, p. 437. 
a ,, The ,¢oid space between y¢ School and ye Cloyster" was go be "con- 
verted either into a Gardiner's House, or Summer Itouse, or Green House, or 
any other Convenieney as shall seem most proper & agreeable to ye Resident 
members of the Soeiety". In his sketeh-plan Mr. Bowles depiets the narrow 
passage as planted with trees I 
t The new doorway was to be" near the s« Summer-House or Greenhouse ". 



c. xxx MEADS 371 
Meadow as usual at lawfull rimes, with ye Consent 
of the Wardcn & Fellows, but hot othervisc "? In 
Mr. Bowles' opinion " y scveral Advantages arising 
from the Several Alterafions abovc mention'd " were 
"too plain & clear to require any Arguments to 
recommend them ", but he gave his arguments not- 
withstanding ; he gave them so charmingly, and they 
illustrate so admirably the attitude of " the Society " 
towards " the Children," that I print them in full at 
the end of this chaptcr. 
Mr. Bowlcs' proposais were not carried out to thc 
letter ; but they obviously made a strong impression, 
and their spirit animated thc Warden and Fellows 
when, on July 24, 1780, thcy passcd thc following 
"Resolutions concerning the Fellows' Garden & the 
Meadow " : 

1. The Fellows agree that their present Garden be con- 
verted into a Play-place for the Boys, providcd the large 
Meadow lying on the eastern side of the Lockbourn be appro- 
priated to the following uses. 
2. The Warden and Fellows agree that the midd]e part of 
the large Meadow be enclosed with a substantial Post & Rail 
or some other sufficient Fence, & that such a space be left ail 
round the Meadow between the outermost Boundaries and 
the said middle Enclosure, as will adroit of a commodious 
gravel walk besides Plantations of Shrubs and Trees to hide 
the Walls and the Lockbourn, and to screen the walk froln 
the Sun. 
3. That this Walk shall be common to ail the Fellows, 
the Schoolmaster and Usher. 
4. That the present Communication between the School- 
court & the Meadow be closed up, & a Door be ruade in the 
southern wall of the Cloisters opposite the western Ms|e. 

 I have omitted certain proposais with respect to " ye ancient Lockbourn 
or Common-Shore of the College ", whieh had beeome " a great Nusanee and 
offenee to ye College & Siekhouse ". He desired to divert it from the course 
it then followed (and follows still) so tlaat it might run diagonally aeross Meads 
towards Log-pond. 



372 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 
5. That the middle part of the Meadow within the Fcllows 
intendcd common Walk & Plantation, remain a pasture ground 
as itis at present, that the Warden shall have a right to turn 
two Horses and two Cows into it, & the Fellows one Horse 
or one Cow each, at all rimes except when by common consent 
thc Meadow is laid up in the Spring; but that neither the 
Warden nor any of the Fellows shall put any Horse or Cow 
into the said Mcadow, except it be his own Property. 
HARRY LEE, Warden. 
TI. LEII, Sub-IIarden. 
Effcct was givcn fo thc Rcsolutions without dclay; 
undcr custus gardini et pratorum in 1780-1 thcrc arc 
abnormally high paymcnts for labour in thc mcadow, 
as wcll as to a nurscryman (£35), a carpcntcr (£39), a 
bricklaycr (£11), a mason (£9), a paintcr (£6) ; and thcrc 
arc many spccial itcms in thc following ycar. Among 
thcsc is a bill for 56 limc-trccs (at a shilling a 
piccc) and for " trccs from Southampton "; plancs 
arc not mcntioncd, but Mr. Kirby conjectures that thc 
magnificcnt planes which arc thc glory both of Mcads 
and of thc Wardcn's gardcn date from this timc.  
The scientific cricketer does not greatly tare for trees 
in a cricket-ground ; the beauty of Mcads is, pcrhaps, 
largcly due to the fact that in 1780 cricket there was 
hot contemplated.  
We have seen that some such amenities for the 
Fellows as Mr. Bowles desired, as well as grazing for 
horses and cows in untrodden pastures, were provided 
in 1780; and, though the Fellows did not, I think, 
become resident in consequence, let us hope that in 
spire of the loss of thcir garden they were on the whole 
well satisfied. But what about thc boys ? In thosc 
turbulent rimes they might havc been expected to 
rcbel, bu we have no evidencc that they even pro- 
 Annal, ç, p. 371. 
 Note the importance attached fo shade in Meads both in Mathew's poern 
(w. 17-6) and in the Regulations of 1768 and of 1780. 



,,. I MEADS 373 

tested; ve are not, however, without evidence of 
what they thought. An Oxford Wykehamist who 
had left Winehester the year before had a taste and 
some talent for invective, and he seized his opportunity; 
he voieed publie opinion about Meads in a letter to 
the Bishop of Winehester. The Bishop put the letter 
into his waste-paper basket, but the writer kept a 
eopy, and he was so proud of his performance that he 
published it forty years afterwards. The letter is not 
a pleasant one, the author was not a pleasant person; 
but mueh may be forgiven to a boy of sevcnteen 
who is bitter in a righteous cause--and supplies a 
historian with information not to be round clsewhere. 
He says that the boys, when they returned from thcir 
holidays--probably the" Eleetion holidays" of 1780- 
round that "a very high wall" had been ereeted to 
exelude them from Meads and that they had lost 
their "Paradise" Why had they lost it ? The 
writer brushes aside the plea that a place was wanted 
where the Warden and Fellows eould walk in privaey ; 
they had had sueh a place in their garden, whieh, he 
deelares (with a eomplete disregard of faet), the boys 
never presumed to enter ; and even if they had not 
had that garden " the College was deserted and 
abandoned by the Fellows ", and the Warden had a 
garden of his own. The boys were exeluded from 
Meads--so he argues--for quite another reason : 

Conscious of the palpable injustice of the aet, they [the 
Warden and Fellows] were ashamed to attempt it but by the 
most underhand means . . . ; not openly demanding if as 
their property, not daring to drop a hint of their design before 
the boys, they meanly eondeseend to form an unmanly eon- 
spiraey; and.., take the eowardly advantage in the 
absence of 70 ehildren for their holidays, of eonverting what 
had for ages been prized by them as their surnmum bonum with 
respect fo health and reereation . . . into a pasture for a 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

horse .... What avail the invaded rights of 70 school-boys 
 . . when put in compctition with the claires of an animal ! 

I must quote another sentence for the sake of an 
interesting allusion which it contains : 

Forgetful of the insulting pride with whieh they themselves 
had so lately exhibited that very spot to Majesty, 1 as the 
nursery garden of rising genius, no sooner did self-interest in 
its nlost degenerate and despieable form present itself, than 
every tic of honour, &e. &e. 

Let the Bishop, he eoneludes, intervene; if a mere 
intimation of his disapprobation is hot enough, let 
him " interpose " lais " exerted authority " - 

And as the theft, the plunder, was committed secretly 
behind their [the boys'] baeks; so let immediate, eom- 
plete, and unequivoeal restitution be made in like manner, 
during the next ensuing holidays.  

I have pruned the writer's periods, and donc scant 
justice to lais eloquenee, whieh, as we bave seen, was 
spent in vain. The Fellows developed, if they rarely 
enjoyed, their walk and their plantation; a horse or 
horses, perhaps a eow or eows, eontinued to graze 
peacefully in the boys' lost Paradise ; but only for a 
rime. ",fter a deprivation of about ten years ", says 
our authority, in 1789 or 1790, the Meadow was 
rcstored by Huntingford, " on lais sueeeeding Dr. Lee 
as Warden ". Let Huntingford have full eredit for 
his eonsideration for the boys in this important 
marrer; o si sic omnia !--The change of poliey is 
reflected in the aceounts of the following years. There 
are many iterns for the demolition, the repair, the 

t The allusion is of course to the visit of George III. in 1778 ; see above, 
pp. 23, 358. Itis not recorded that the King ruade any remark upon Meads. 
2 The writer is the Rev. Robert Lowth (admitted 1776), so of the Bishop 
LooEh who was Wykeham's biographer. See G.L.C. pp. 37-40. 



,. xxx MEADS 375 

rebuilding, the grouting, of walls, stone and brick-- 
items not sufficiently particularized to enable us to 
grasp their significance; there are considcrable pay- 
ments for " work in the meadov ", and (in 1795 and 
1796) for "chalk in the meadow ", payments ruade, 
I presume, with a view to making its surface firmer 
and more level for cricket and football. 1 
Whether all obstruction to free access to Meads by 
School Passage was removed during these last years 
of the eighteenth century cannot be determined from 
the accounts. On the western sidc of School thcre 
was no access even to the prescnt Grass Court (it 
was "the Bursar's mcadov") till 1839, and a wall 
shut off the test of Meads till 1862, 2 but I shall spcak 
of this wall in the chapter on commoncrs, whom 
it chiefly concerned. The " boys " to whom Meads 
was cedcd in 1768, from whom it was (as LooEh 
said) " stolen " in 1780, to whom it was rcstorcd 
about 1790, vere the scholars only; and though as 
rime went on commoners were more and more freely 
admitted there by courtcsy, Meads, as distinguishcd 
from nineteenth and twentieth ccntury extcnsions, 
continues even now to be specially the scholars' play- 
ground. 
I must not pass from the history of Meads without 
speaking briefly of the history of Ball Court. " Refcr- 
ences to an area pilaris somewhere behind the old 
buildings occur", said Mr. Kirby, " at a very early 

 " Turf" (the central part of Meads) was not scientificaily laid till 1836 ; 
see above, p. 361. 
* An off painting in the corridor of the Memoriai Buiidings, painted appar- 
enfly very soon after the completion of Schooi (1687), has a wali across Schooi 
Passage, and another running westwards from Schooi. In Buckler's drawing, 
ruade about 1815 from a point N.V. of Schooi, there is no wali west of Schooi, 
the artist ves a ovod view of boys playing in Meads ; but this was, I think, 
an artist's licence. In an engraving of 1823, ,vhich in the main reproduces this 
drawing, a high stone waii, represented as an oid one, runs westwards in the 
same straight line with thc front of Schooi. 



876 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  

date" ; 1 a payment pro conficienda fossa circa sphoeri- 
steriu»z ubi ,lobis luditur was rnade in 16¢1 ;2 a 
labourer was cmployed circa le ball-place in 1646, and 
circa urum juxta le ball-place in 1652; but whcre 
prcciscly the area pilaris, the spheristeriut, le ball- 
place, was or were situated, and vhat games were 
playcd on if or thcrn, thc accounts do hot show. Mr. 
Kirby statcd positivcly that "Ball Court in the rear 
of School was built in 1688 ",a but he gave no positive 
evidencc for that statement; it was pcrhaps an 
ifference from thc appcarancc of thc south side of 
School, which was complctcd in 1687.  Thcre was no 
Ball Court " in thc rear of School" in 1750, when the 
elaboratc and excellent plan of William Godson dcpicted 
thc spacc as occupied by a garden plot ; but thcre was 
a Ball Court somcwhcrc " in the Back parts of the 
Collcge " a few years latcr and it vas cntcrcd from 
School Court) It was not, howcver, whcrc Sir. Kirby 
placcd if. A rcsolution was passed in Dcccmber 
1768 " that a new Ball Court bc ruade bchind the 
School" The accounts for the half year to Michacl- 
nas 1769 shov that its construction was promptly 
undcrtakcn; that it was floorcd with chalk and 
gravcl ; that the gaine, or onc of the gaines, for which 
it was intcndcd, rcquircd an cxpcnsive net. « 

Pro ereta et sabulo ad confieiendara aream 
pilarem £8 5 0 
Stokes, pro rete ad eandem  6  
Vaughan, pro carr ° crete, &c. 12 13 9 

 AtnaL, p. 68. 
"- There is also an item of 2s. Gd. pro sera pro ostio postico ad Sphwristerium 
in 1644. 
 Loc. cit.  See above, pp. 2274. 
 These facts appear from parts, hot quoted above, of the 1Resohtions of 
1708. 
« The llamlshire Chro&le ealled Ball Court " the tennis court" in 1776. 
See below p. 418. 



. xxix MEADS 377 

Mr. Bowles, I am afraid, desired to appropriate the 
site of this new Ball Court for the Fellows; it is 
occupied, in the plan which accompanied and ex- 
plained his memorandum, by " Flowering Shrubs " 
and grass and gravel walks. His colleagues, happily, 
did not adopt his suggestion on this marrer; the 
court was not attacked by the Resolutions of 1780. 
Indeed Robert Lowth informs us that the very high 
wall vhich was built in that year to exclude the 
boys from Meads, ran " from the [S.W.] corner of 
Cloisters along the bottom of Ball Court " ; and items 
in the accounts of the ncxt tvo dccades show that 
what appear as " ball courts " in the plural 1 occasioncd 
very frcquent payments (varying from about £5 to 
about £15) to the College bricklayer.--Many living 
Wykchamists remember that in their rime, as in 1769, 
the roof was of chalk; concrete was first laid down 
(in the centre of the court only) about 1852. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXIX 

HERE is the passage in which Mr. Bowles summarized the 
advantages which he anticipated from the alterations which 
he recommended. It will be observed that thc Warden would 
be a gainer in pocket ; the Cattle in quiet and security ; the 
Fellows in quiet and other anaenities ; the Scholars in morals 
and good order. 

" 1 t. As fo ye Warden, if is apparent y' Shutthag ye Boys 
out of y Meadow (except at lawfull rimes) must be a great 
Benefit to y" Herbage belonging either fo y Warden or lais 
Under-Tenant, as well as to y Quiet & Security of all Horses 
& other Cattle depasturing in ye s a Meadow. 
" 2 «. As to Fellows if is apparent also, y' opening a 
Door thro' y Wall of the Cloysters into y College Garden 

a The plural is perhaps used because three gaines of rives could be played 
on the Court at the saine rime. 



must make an easy passage unto ail & every of them from 
their several apartments, either to take ye Air in y* Garden, 
or to retire into y* Cloyster, or to amuse themselves in 
Library at proper seasons, as is most Suitable to their different 
Inclinations ; and therefore, whether they be Old & delight 
to enjoy ye Sunshine in the decline of Lffe ; or whether they 
be Young & delight to see the Works of Nature in a Garden 
rising & growing to Perfection in their Several Ranks thro' 
all the Seasons of y Year; or whether they be Monks, 
Hcrmits & Asceticks who choose to retire & enjoy their own 
Mcditations in Solitude & Silence ; I say, in ail these respects 
abovementioned an easy Communication between y¢ Cllege, 
y¢ Cloyster and y Garden, cannot but be most grateful 
comfortable unto all Resident Fellows, of whatsoever Age 
Complexion they be. 
" 3dmy. As to the Scholars, it is most apparent y' exclud- 
ing them from y* Meadows & Sick-house (except at lawfull 
times and through the Mfll-gate) cannot but be much better 
for their Morals & good Order & Discipline within the College, 
than to open the Door of such Licentiousness & Irregularity, 
as have been usually committed without controul in 
Garden, or Meadow, or Newhouse ; to y great disturbance 
of sick Children in y* Newhouse, to y Scandal & Annoyance 
of y Fellows in y Garden, & to y Terror of all the Neighbour- 
hood, under pretence of Health & innocent Amusement." 



CHAPTER XXX 

FIRES IN ItALL 

TttE cold austerity of the lire prescribed in Wykeham's 
Statutes is broken for a moment by a provision of the 
fifteenth Rubric. On ordinary days after dinner and 
supper and their " potations at the hour of curfew 
(ignitegii) " the Fellows and the scholars were to 
leave Hall at once; but on " principal festivals and 
major doubles",1 and on certain other holy days in 
winter-time, when a tire was supplied, it was to be 
lawful for them, after dinner and supper, to make 
some decent delay; they might amuse themselves 
with songs and other honourable solaces ; they might 
soberly (seriosius) recite or listen to poetry, the 
chronicles of -kingdoms, the wonders of this world, and 
such other things as befit the clerical state. The 
provision, which is transcribed verbatin from the New 
College Statutes (Rubric XVIII.), was perhaps less 
perfectly fitted to the conditions of Winchester than 
to those of Oxford life; the differences in age 
and standing between the Fellows and the scholars 
may have prevented the proceedings from being as 
"recreative" as Wykeham intended. But the 
picture suggested is pleasant enough.--An ingenious 
poem justifies the modern College entertainments 
which its author calls " tow-rows " by an allusion 
to the Rubric : 

 See above, p. 334. 
379 



80 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

Wykeham's laws 
Aftcr supper bid us pause, 
Spcnd an idlc hour in song .... 
We may talk of sobcr things, 
Stars and carthquakes, quccns and kings.  

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales appeared in 1887 ; 
Maundevile saw, or at any rate described, raany 
" wondcrs of the world " before lais death in 1371 (?) ; 
and it may be presumed that readings from both these 
very poptdar authors were given at the College tow- 
rows of thc fifteeuth century. I much doubt whether, 
as wouders of the world, " stars and earthquakes " 
proved as potent an attraction as the 

mcn whose hcads 
Do grow bcncath thcir shouldcrs-- 

the hunmn monstrosities, mythical animais, and other 
mirabilia mundi with which Maundcvile delighted 
many credtdous generations.'- The audience, prob- 
ably, like Desdemona, " seriously inclined to hear " 
things that were not ahvays " sober ". 
It appears that in 1685--shortly before Mathew's 
schooldays--tales by the Hall fireside had become 
impossible. The Warden vas hardly ever seen in 
Ilall, the Fellows, perhaps, rarely ; and the statutory 
provision for a tire on winter festivals had been dis- 
regarded. Archbishop Laud therefore enjoined that 
"tire be allowed in hall on such days as your Stature 
doth require". Was it in consequence of this in- 
jtmction, and bv a generous construction of the Stature, 
that in 1617 a tire was " perhaps " allowed in Hall, 
even on an ordinary frosty remedy afternoon ? 

t The poem, which is printed in Miss Loeke's In Praise of Winchester 
(p. °-2i), bears the signature M. J. R. 
-" See e.g. Bevan and Phillett, Medioeval Geography, p. xxii. 
a SVilkins, Concilia, iv. p. 517. 



CH. XXX 

FIRES IN HALL 

Cana pruinosis fuerit si terra eapillis, 
Forsitan et tepida conceditur ignis in aula ; 
Carbones igitur, si missa peeunia, tradat 
Aule-prefeetus, ni sit carbone notatus (vv. 171-4). 

381 

The lines are by no means free from diflîculty. Pre- 
fect of Hall, we are told, was expected to hand over 
eoals (that is to say, ehareoal), if the money had been 
sent him. Sent him by whom ? By the boys or by 
the Bursars ? If by the boys, the tire was but a 
mean " concession "; if by the Bursars, why didn't 
they send the eoals instead ? 1 The Prefeet, again, 
was to supply the eoals, or in default to have a black 
mark put against his naine. qy, if the money was 
sent, should he raise diflîeulties ? I suspect that he 
sent them as a marrer of course, and that the poet 
introdueed his ni sit carbone nolalus beeause a passage 
in Horaee 2 suggested a happy thought to him. 
Fires in Hall, both at XVinehester and at New 
College, originally burned on an open hearth;  they 
were wood-fires, as the rires in Chambers eontinued to 
be till about the end of the nineteenth eentury. * In 
1498 a certain John Bedyl, who had been a seholar and 
afterwards maneiple of the College,  provided, says 
Mr. Kirby, 6 for faggots in Hall upon his obit (January 
9) ; but from the aeeounts of 1525-6 and other years 
it appears that 5d. was spent pro earbonibus in aula 
on that day. Carbones appear with faggots (and tall- 
wood) in the aeeounts of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

1 Mr. Chitty, to whom I refcrrcd the difficulty, tan find no solution of it 
in the College aceounts. 
2 Sot. ii. 8.246. Mathew hesitates in v. 174 between notatus and notmdus, 
the MSS. of Horaee being divided between notati and notandi. 
a At Eton there are three large stone fireplaees on three sides of the hall. 
Sir H. Maxwell Lyre (p. 35) says that they were eonstructed in 1450, but that 
" the bonfires on certain festivals " burned " on the floor immediatcly under 
the open Iouvre'. 
 Ste above, p. 165.  lnscripiones Wiccanticae, p. 7. 
« Ammls, pp. 190-1. 



382 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

centuries, but till 1675 the carbones were plainly char- 
coal; in one place they are said to have corne from 
the College woods at Ropley (near Alresford) and to 
have been ibidem combusti. Pit-coal appears for the 
first rime in the accounts of 1675,1 when the Co]lege 
paid £33 for carbonvs adusti, and £34 for carbones 
fossiles, but in 1677 the payments were £50 and £4 
respectively, and in the years 1692-6 no pit-coal was 
bought; it re-appears in 1697, but in Hall, where 
"an iron store, adorned with ' scutcheons' ", had taken 
the place of the open hearth in 1548,  eharcoal seems 
to have been always used.--A louvre in the roof of 
Hall was still the smoke-vent a hundred years ago; 
a writer of 1818 says that" that part of the roof, which 
is dircctly over the Firc-place, is ruade a little higher 
than the rest, and open at the sides, to discharge the 
smoke-;3 but the louvre disappeared in the follow- 
ing year, when Hall was re-roofed. Here is Warden 
Huntingford's account of the re-roofmg ; it bas not, I 
think, appearcd in print before, and the facts are un- 
familiar to Wykehamists. 

The Roof of the Hall having become so decayed as to make 
Repairs nccessary, a new Roof ,vas prepared. The timbers 
were procured, and placed in readiness at Stubbington's the 
Carpenter's. When the boys went home for the Summer 
tto]idays, in Ju]y 1819, the beams were brought down, and 
the work immediately commenced. A great number of 
Workmen being employed, the new Roof (composed of oaken 

i Armais, p. B62 ; Mr. Chitty, who confirms Mr. Kirby's statement, has been 
at great pains to find answers to the questions I put to him.--At Westminster 
'" sea-eoal " round its way into the kitehen rnueh earlier than at Winehester 
in 1606 (Sargeaunt, p. 20). 
 History, p. ll8.---In the aceotmts for 1547-8, under custus auloe appears : 
liera willelmo taibott pro compositione foci ferrei iiijli xiijs iiijd. 
 Carlisle, ii. p. 460. The louvre is shown in the frontispiece of this book. 
When Wyatt was let loose on New College about 1780, the roof of the hall 
and its louoEe were destroyed, and a fiat plaster ceiling took its place. In 1865, 
when Sir Gilbert Seott erected a wooden roof, he reproduced the louxoEe 
{R. and R. p. 81). 



. xxx FIRES IN HALL 383 

rafters, with Gothic carving), was completed before the Boys 
returned from their six Weeks Holidays. There had been in 
the old Roof, a Lanthorn in the Centre, xvhich gave vent to the 
smoke of a Charcoal Fire, which was lighted in an iron grate 
fixed in the middle of the Hall. This Lanthorn was not re- 
placed in the new Roof, it having been in contemplation to 
make a fireplace with a Chimney in the South Wall of the Hall. 
In the year 1821 a store, with two faces, was fixed in the 
Centre of the Hall, the smoke of which was carried down- 
wards. 1 

This two-faced stove warms Hall still. 

I From Warden Huntingford's MS. Wiceamieal Annals.--The present oak 
floor of Hall also dates from 1821 (Annals, p. 43). 



CHAPTER XXXI 

CLOISTER TIME 

TIE usual cxplanation of " Cloistcr Timc " as a rime 
during the summer months when boys went " up to 
books " in Cloisters may be accepted without demur. 
It is supported, not merely by the certainty that there 
was once a rime during which they did so, but by two 
" notions " which were still current in the middle of 
the nineteenth century. " Cloistcrs " was a naine for 
Middle and Junior Part (or, aftcr Middle Part had bcen 
subdivided, for the two divisions of Middle Part) whcn 
taught in the summer as one class ; 1 and a boy be- 
longing fo the lowcr of the two temporarily combined 
parts or divisions was said to " run cloisters " if he 
rose high enough in the combined class to earn a 
remove into Senior Part. The earliest use of the 
terre " Cloister Time " with which I am acquainted 
occurs in an address dclivered to the school by Villiam 
Harris the Head Master, before the Vhitsuntide 
holidays of 1695, whcn, as we sha]l see, there is reason 
to belicve that the practice which the terre com- 
memorates was already obsolete. 
It was, of course, a relief in the summer (especially 
when August was part of the school-term) to exchange 
the stuflïness of the old school-room for the cool of 
Cloisters ; but when the exchange was first made we 
cannot say. The use of monastery-cloisters for study 
 Mansficld, p. 203 ; IV.C.p. 109. 
384 



H. xxx CLOISTER TIME 885 

suggests that it may have been made as soon as our 
cloisters xvere built; but I have found no earlier 
allusion fo these latter being aetually so used than 
that eontained in the Injunetions of Bishop Home, 
who in 1571 required the Sehoolmaster and Usher " fo 
keep with all diligenee the hours heretofore aeeustomed 
and used as well in the sehool as in the eloister -.1 In 
1630 the Fellows of New College pointed out that the 
Warden " may af his pleasure eome into the sehoole 
or eloysters, or otherwise send for the seholers to 
examine them ", and in 1647 Mathew not only spoke 
of lessons in Cloisters, but fixed the rime when such 
lessons took plaee as beginning " after the annual 
holidays " (af $$qùtsuntide) and ending af Eleetion 
August or September). But the poet's lines upon the 
subjeet, owing mainly to Wordsworth's mispresenta- 
tion of them, 2 have not (as I think) been eorreetly 
interpreted. I quote them as they stand in the 
Iagdalen IIS., omitting a passage whieh does hOt now 
eoneern us : z 

(uando domo pueri post annua resta revertunt, 
Bis sex proefeeti seniori e plebe leguntur. 
VOe pueris aliis ! quoties maie grata frequentant 
Claustra ! pererrata hee quoties pavimenta repulsant ! . . . 
Si tamen ineepta est Eleetio, elaustra, valete (vv. 203-10). 
Waleott understood the poet to mean that there 
were " twelve prefeets (as we say now, in fitll power ) 
who had the sole right of frequenting the eloisters " » ; 
and Mr. Leaeh, who rightly eonjeetured that Words- 
 IZ.A. & I. p. 331. 
 Wordsworth punctuated lines 205-6 (his 187-8) thus : 
We pueris aliis quoties maie grata frcquentant 
Claustra, pererrata .... 
a The omitted passage (w. 207-9) is discussed above, p. 141. 
a According to a writer in The |Vykehamist (April 1890) there were in Dr. 
Villiams' rime (1824-35) twelve prefects in full power (see above, p. 114), 
not ten, as in Dr. Mober]y's rime and since. See also Adaras, p. 57. In 1818 
C. Cooper Henderson gave the number as ten. 
 alcott, p. 229. 
2c 



386 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

worth's text was faulty, supposed that Mathew's 
tvelve prefects walked " the studious cloister's pale ", 
pursuing their studies in peace and forbidding others 
to intrude. 1 But tradition, the notions above ex- 
plained, and the extracts above quoted point to Cloister 
Tinae having been a tinae for lessons "up to books ", 
rather than for private study, in Cloisters ; and the 
text of the 3Iagdalen naanuscript shows that it was 
hot the twelve prefects but the "other children" 
who frequented thena. The naeaning of the passage 
appears to be that between the Whitsuntide holidays 
and Eleetion twelve of the prefects, the naost likely 
candidates for New College, had frequent renaissions 
from school lessons ; while the other ehildren, deenaed 
bv the poet less fortunate, went up to books in 
Cloistersnly too often !--and hot in School.--Boys 
of seventeen or eighteen, with a serious exanaination 
belote thena, require naueh tinae for reading by thena- 
selves ; and the reasolmbleness of " renaissions " for 
that purpose was recognized as fully, perhaps, in the 
nineteenth century as it was in the seventeenth. The 
naid-Victorian junior was expected to know what was 
naeant by "Fever Tinae ", a strange institution which 
died out, savs Dean Wic -khana, in 1853. Here are two 
accounts of it. " For a month belote election ", a'ites 
Mr. Tuckwell (1842-8), " the seniors were exonerated 
frona attending school, renting a roona in sick-house 
for private work".  " Another institution", writes 
the Dean, " which belonged to Cloister Time was what 
was called ' Fever-tinae'. The superannuates of the 
year, to whona the eleetion exanaination was of vital 
naonaent, were allowed in their turn to excuse thena- 
selves frona school for a week. The good 'naother' 
 Hislory, p. 274 ; V.H.p. 335. In another place, however (I'.H.p. 311), 
Mr. Leach speaks of the Head Master going off to Cloisters with Iris prefects in 
the summer. 
2 Tuck'ell, p. 115. 



. xxx, CLOISTER TIME 387 

at Sick-house put a room at our disposal, and there 
many books of Homer and other Election work was 
got ready for the ' Posers ' ".l--Some other points in 
Mathew's lines need a word of comment. " XXïaen 
Election has begun ", he says, "farewell to Cloisters !" 
He means, I suppose, that during Election boys who 
were not candidates for New College did hot go up 
to books. They did hOt, at any rate, iii the first half 
of the nineteenth century;  indeed commoners, who 
were under no circumstances admissible as candidates, 
went home before Election began.  The poet's 
twelve prefects were, I conjecture, what was -known as 
" Senior Fardel ", one of the three (originally, perhaps, 
four) sE gxoups into which the New College exanainees 
were divided; it contained, no doubt, all the more 
serious competitors. 
V, qaen did Cloister Time cease to be Cloister Time 
in all but name ? "Here," in Cloisters, wrote Valcott,  
"the attentive seholar sat at his master's feet dttring 
the heat of summer in the refreshing coolness . . so 
lately as 1773 "; but the statement is absolutely 
untrustworthy. It professes to be based on a passage 
in the History and Antiquities of IVinchester,  which 
was published in that year ; but the compiler of the 
History and Antiquities merely repeated what he found 
in Tom Warton's Description (c. 1750), v and a refcrence 
to the Description shows that Walcott was entitlcd to 

a IV.C.p. II0. 
2 See e.g. Mansfleld, p. 174. But it appears from Themes (fol. 113 b) that 
c. 1565 Fifth Book did their lessons with Mr. Millet, the llosliari«s (the Head 
Master being occupied with Election) during Election week ; a note on certain 
exereises runs : In electionis tempore dictata magistri Milleri feliciter tradita 
reste Badgero puero. 
s Mansfield, p. 158 ; The Ivjkehamist, September 1905. 
 Mr. V,'rench (IV.IV.B.p. 21) gave good reason for his conclusion that 
" fardel "=M.E. ferth-del, German viertei ; and that the Eleetion fardels have 
therefore no eonnection with the almost unbearable fardels of Hamlet's 
soliloquy. See further on fardels below, p. 897. 
 Walcott, p. 257. « i. p 150.  P. 54. 



388 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P,.  

say no more than that summer lessons were learnt in 
(the east aisle of) Cloisters in the rime of Anthony 
Wood, the Oxïord historian of the seventeenth 
eentury. Mr. Leaeh eonieetures, 1 very plausibly, that 
there has been no going " up to books " in Cloisters 
sinee Sehool, with its ample provision of eubie ïeet, 
was finished in 1687. tVhether he is right or wrong 
the boys must have had ïairly free aeeess to Cloisters, 
and may bave prepared their work there, long aïter 
that event. The eutting of names on the walls, a 
praetiee not unknov in the sixteenth eentury, was 
vigorously pursued till the seventies of the eighteenth, 
after whieh it beeame inïrequent ; 2 and it appears 
t'rom ai1 undated memorandum, written by Mr. 
Bowles shortly beïore his death in 1781, that Cloisters 
had then beeome a place of quiet and retirement for 
Fellows. A few bold spirits invaded that shy retreat 
and earved their names there in the twenties and 
thirties of the nineteenth eentury ; but Coisters were 
probably af all rimes ïorbidden ground to the boys 
ïrom about 1780 till the Library whieh they enelosed 
beeame a ehapel in 1875. In the later sixoEies  they 
were only accessible by sealing the high iron railing 
 llistory, p. 275. 
 It is interesting in this connection to remember that the precept .Edificium 
et scribendo eve nsculpendo dcformato was introduced into the Tabula 
Legum when it was revised c. 1790 (see above, p. 237). The words refer, it 
is true, primarily to Chamber Court, but that may be because Cloisters (partly, 
perhaps, because of the names-eutting) had been closed to the boys.--A too 
cursory inspection led Dr. Moberly to write in 189 : " From the dates of thc 
names cut on the wlls of the cloisters, it seems as if they were first opened îor 
the ordinary sccular use of the boys about the timc of the puritanical Warden 
Harris, when Bishop Ken first came to school, and shut up altogether from 
them soon after thc beginning of thc next century '" (Kcn's Ianual of Prayers, 
p. xvi). 
a Beforc the rebuilding of the Tover in 186°.-3 the west vall of, Cloisters 
continued northwards till it reached the chapel buttress ; and over the roof 
of this part of the cloister there was a room, know as Tea Room (see above, 
pp. 181,206), which was approached from th¢ south end ofth¢ Hall dais. There 
is a good photograph in the Memorial Buildings showing the old wall and room. 
An undated plan in the possession oî the Colleg¢ shows that it vas at one 



,,. ,, CLOISTER TIME 389 

which has since been replaced by Bodley's memorial 
to Herbert Stewart, and, though this railing was often 
scaled, the end in view was hot study, or retirement, 
or even names-cutting ; it was the recovery of small 
footballs whieh had been too vigorously " flyered " 
from Ball Court. 
But we have strayed away from Cloister Time, 
concerning which it renmins to be said that it was hOt 
always the saine period that it is now. Before 1778 
it began with the end of the Vhitsuntide holidays and 
ended at Election, about the end of Aust or the 
beginning of September; in 1695 the Head Master 
dismissed the sehool for the ïaitsuntide holidays with 
the remark: " one advantage we shall have by an 
early Vhittsuntyde, that it vill procure us a long 
Cloyster-time .... I intend (God willing) to be here 
the first of June ". From 1778 to about 1860 it began 
some rive weeks after Easter and lasted till the middle 
of July, to which rime Election had in 1778 been 
shifted; the week before, and the rive weeks after, 
Easter were "Easter Time", a period devoted to 
"speaking " and the special studv of Greek grammar, x 
In 1858 regular Easter holidays began, and soon after- 
wards Easter Time was abolished ; after ifs abolition 
Cloister Time began at the end of the Easter holidays 
and, till 1867, ended as before in the middle of July. 
From 1868 onwards it has been extended to the end 
of July or the beginning of August.  

rime contemplated to extend the Tea Room premises, not only along thc 
roofs of the N. and ,V. aisles of Cloisters, but actually beyond their inner 
walls, over a part of the burial-ground. 
 Mansfield, p. 106 ; W.C.p. 108. " Of Easter Time," says the writer of 
a word-book of the forties, ' the thing ehiefly to be remarked is that Greek 
Grammar is the work almost exelusively done ". 
z See below, p. 431.--The shifting of Election, in 1882, from July to 
13ecember bas altered neither the duration of Cloister Time nor the length of 
the summer (formerly called the Election) holidays. 



CHAPTER XX_XII 

ELECTION 

THE examinations for Winchester and New College 
scholarships were never, perhaps, a sterner reality, 
both to examiners and to examinees, than they are 
to-day ; but " Election ", the series of ceremonies and 
festivities of which these examinations were formerly 
incidents, is no longer even the shadow of a shadow. 
Scholarships of the two colleges are now awarded at 
different places and at different times of year ; election 
ad If'ito. is held at XVinchester in Jtfly, election ad 
0xo. at Oxford in Deeember. 1 The former is pure 
business without any picturesque feature; the only 
ceremonv which surdves in connection with the latter 
is the .4d Portas speech, addressed to examiners n'ho 
no longer wear gowns of state,  belote a spiritless 
company, in the tain as often as not, on a mid- 
December afternoon ; and even that ceremony, as we 
shall sec, was no part of the original programme. But 
till after 18ï8 Election was still in some degree Election 
in the wider meaning of the word; it still retained 

t The eoetmimfion for New College scholarships is of course still held at 
Winehester. 
 Formerly throughout the Election proeeedings the Posers wore the full- 
dress velvet-sleeved gowns of Masters of Arts ; these are now worn at Oxford 
by the Proetors only. Even in 1687 the wearing of '" proctors gowns " by 
Masters of Arts on the occasion of a visit of James II. to Oxford was noted as 
exceptional, if not as a survival, by Anthony Wood ( IVooars Lire ond Times, ed. 
Clark,:_pp. 226-7}. 
390 



ca. xxxr ELECTION 891 

some of the quaintness and colour which it owed to the 
vigorous conservatism vith which the externals of the 
Founder's directions had for nearly rive centuries been 
observed. Unfortunately Mathew, more concerned 
with every-day routine than with special occasions, 
makes but a casual reference toit,  and no reference 
toits ceremonies and ïestiities; but in Comilia 
IViccamica, a poem of 1748 which Mr. Chittv has 
disinterred, 2 and in aH the published reminiscences 
of men who were in College during the first hall of 
the nineteenth century, they are described in full 
detail and vith the keenest interest, for Election, as 
3Ir. Tuckwell says, was "the Saturnalia of the vear" 3 
To that poem, and to those reminiseenees, the reader 
must be referred for many particulars. In the 
present ehapter his attention is invited only to the 
following points: (1) the place, and (2) the rime, of 
Election; (3) the eleetors and the candidates; (4) 
the .4d Portas speech; (5) the Scrutiny; (6) the 
" children " of the electors. In the next chapter I 
shall speak of " Medal Speaking " and of Donmm. 
Neither of tbese two functions has anv ancient con- 
neetion with Election; but in 1778 the latter, and 
some years afterwards the former, were grafted upon 
it, and they continued to be a part of its eeremonies to 
the last. 
1. In Rubrie III. of the Statures both of Vin- 
chester and of New College Vykeham ordained that 

t v. 210 ; the referenee is diseussed above, p. 887. 
 tIe sent it to The Wykehamist for November 1906, and diseussed its date 
and authorship in fle following nttrnber. 
 Tuekwell, p. 9o.--At Eton there were festivities throuehout Eleetion week, 
and " Eleetion Saturday " rivalled the Fourth of June ; indeed the latter day 
" bas been deseribed as ' wanting in the bacehanal jubilation ' " of the former. 
M. L. pp. 298, 415 ; see also Wasey Sterry, AnnaLs of Eton College, p. 207. 
Christopher Johnson wrote {c. 1565) that at Eleetion rime his ' humanity " 
Ibrgave mueh : multa quidem tolcro, in plurimis etiam conniveo {Themes, 
fol. 



892 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 
Elcction should be held "in our College at Winchester 
et non alibi quovis modo" ; and neither bad roads, nor 
highwaymen, nor civil wars prevented obedience to 
his ordinance while it still had validity. Till 1873 
inclusive the joint election was duly held at Winchester 
in every year except 1666,1 when owing to the pre- 
valence of the plague in the city it was determined, 
tardily and reluctantly,  that the electors should meet 
at Speenhamland on the outskirts of Newbury, the 
half-way-house between Winchester and Oxford. From 
thc fact that a sure of £51 : 15 : 9 was expended u! per 
billas on this Newbury election we may perhaps infer 
that it was conducted with some of its usual state; 
the Ad Portas speech, at any rate, was spoken by the 
senior scholar, at what gares we do hot know, to the 
amazement, probably, of the Berkshire rustics.--In 
1873 the joint board of electors acted for the last 
time ; since that year the governing bodies of the two 
colleges have appointed their own examiners and 
elected their own scholars independently. The New 
Collcge election bas, as I have said, been nmde at 
Oxford; the Vinchester election was till 1892 ruade 
sometimes at Vinchester, more often at the Vest- 
minster Palace Hotel, but it is now, wlth more pro- 
priety, always ruade at Winchester et non alibi quovis 
modo. 
2. The rime of Election was also fixed by the 
Statures, but within wide limits. The Rubric required 
that the New College members of the " Election 
Chamber " should corne fo Vinchester everv year 
between the 7th of July (or, as the New College ]Rùbric 
says, the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas the 
t Mr. Kirby (.4nnals, p. 356) makes thc exception occur in 1667. But the 
expenses of the election held away from lVinchester were paid in the first 
" terre" (i.e. quarter) ofthe bursarial year December 11, 1666--December 12, 
1667. 
a See the next page. 



cH. xxxn ELECTION 393 

Martyr) and the 1st of October following; the precise 
date was to be fixed bv the Warden of New College.  It 
will be observed that the Founder meant Election to 
take place in the Oxford long vacation, magnarum 
et generaliun vacationum temporibus, as he calls it 
elsewhere. That he did not fix the date more pre- 
cisely was convenient, probably, to the New College 
authorities, but must have caused inconvenience at 
Winchester. For the dates appointed were very 
various. Election was held at the end of Scptember 
in 1396; in 1449 it was fixed for early in July, but 
Parliament was sitting at Winchester, and the King 
postponed it; in 1617 it vas held in the middle of 
August) Even in successive years there was no 
approach to fixity; the indenture of 1646, when 
Mathew's naine stood ninth for succession ad Oxon., 
states that Election lasted from September 23 to 26, 
and approximately the saine days are given in that 
of 1648; but in 1647 il was held more than three 
weeks earlier. Here are the days on which, accord- 
ing to the Scholars' Register, Winchester scholars were 
chosen in the year of the Newbury election and in the 
years preceding and following it : 

1663, September 11. 
166, September 15. 
1665, August 10. 

1666 (the Nexvbury year), Sep- 
tember 28. 3 
1667, August 9. 
1668, July 31. 

 By the Eton Statutes the limits were ruade narrower ; the Provost of 
King's and the " Posers " were to corne to Eton to hold the Serutiny and 
Election between July 7 and August 15 (the Assumption of the Vir.Jn). 
 Annal.s, pp. 72, 194, 333. 
a The late date of this election suggests that the Warden of New College 
wa« anxious to obey the provision ofthe Rubric concerning the place ofElection; 
but as the months passed it must bave seemed unwise for him and the posers 
to go to the plague-stricken city, and he deterrnined al any rate to obey the 
provision as fo lime. In July 1666 the plague was " so violent in Winton . . . 
as 'ris sad to relate ", and in August Winton was "' as bad a ever considering 
the small nomber remaining in it" (V.M. iv. p. 186). 



394 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE »., 

The inconvenience of so shifting an arrangement 
whieh suggests itself most strongly, viz. that the 
preeise age of boys at eleetion-time was ail-important 
to them in view of the rules of the Statures eoneerning 
eligibility, was, it appears, removed at an early date 
by a provision that in the application of those rules 
the day of election should be deemed tobe September 
O¢ 
...--I shall point out in a later chapter 
that in 1778, when the beginning of the summer 
holidays was altered from just before Vhitsuntide to 
mid-July, Eleetion was fixed for the days immediately 
preeeding these new holidays ; that til] 1868 it eon- 
tinued tobe held at that rime; that from 1868 to 
1882 it began (like the holidays) about a fortnight 
later ; that from 1882 onwards, for reasons into whieh 
I need not enter, the New College eleetion has (as I 
have mentioned already) been held in December. 
If the date of Eleetion might vary eonsiderably 
from vear to year, the Founder was eareful to insist 
that in everv vear long notice of its date should be 
given. The third Rubrie of both colleges required 
that the Warden of New College should, by a sealed 
letter entrusted to a sure messenger, eertify the 
Warden and the Head Master of Winchester, seven 
weeks beforehand, of the day of his intended arrival ; 
and that within two days of the appearanee of the 
messenger all persons eoneerned should be informed 
of the appointed dav bv schedules to be fixed on the 
two greater gates of the College and on the northern 
vah'ae of the ehapel. These instructions were faith- 
flflly observed as long as XVykeham's Statutes were 
in force. Warden Huntingford (in lais 3IS. Wiccamical 
Annals) nd Archdeaeon Heatheote (in his MS. 
Common Place Book) give a form of sound words for 
acknowledging the reeeipt of the New College com- 
munication ; it must be stated, they tel] us, that the 



,,. ,, ELECTION 395 

required schedules have been duly posted on the gates 
and on the folding-doors; and the Arehdeacon does 
not forger to add that directions must be promptly 
given to Mr. Bouvet (the writing toaster of his day) to 
write and to the porter to post them. Boards for the 
schedules may still be seen on the two "greater 
gares ". The schedules, beginning with Exaninalio 
seu Nominatio Candidalorun, vere in the sixties still 
written by the writing toaster (in his best copy-book 
hand), and still posted by the porter, at or about the 
rime indicated by the Statutes. Their appearance, 
folloved as it was by the singing of Domum in Hall, 
gave the overburdened junior a welcome reminder 
that there vas a limit to the length of "Long Half" -- 
The close resemblance of the Eton to the Winchester 
Statures, and the strictness with which, at Eton as at 
Winchester, the letter of the Statures was observed, 
are well exemplified by the fact that similar notices 
were required by Henry VI. to be placed on corre- 
sponding gates, and that they were placed there 
accordingly at Eton till 1872. Since that date, says 
Sir H. Maxwell Lyre, "a paragraph in the London 
nevspapers" has taken their place. 1 
The duration of Election is not fixed by the 
Statures, but " Election week ,,,2 which the Account 
Rolls show to have been really a week in the early 
sixteenth century, became a period of much less than 
seven days. Archbishop Bancroft enjoined in 1608 
"that the Supervisors doe yearly corne to the Election 
the Monday night and depart on the Friday morning 
next following ,,;3 from his adding " that no Fellov 
I M. L. pp. 151, 527. An announcement of the coming election of ,Vin- 
ehester seholars was already marie in The Times before 1872 ; a correspondent 
of that paper complained in 1861 that the announcement was " exceedingly 
inadequate" (P.S.C.p. 363). 
 The terre '" Election week " was also in use at Eton. 
a Wilkins, Concilia, iv. p. 4,31. ; sec the 18th Injunction (quoted in .Inna/s, 
p. 05). 



396 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.. of that Collcdge att the Elcction rime doe bring in 
any strangcr to meales " we may conclude that he was 
curtailing an alrcady curtailed week in the interests of 
cconomy.  The ccremonics occupicd hardly more 
than thrce full days in 1748 and for a ccntury after- 
wards. Till 1835 or 1836 the New Collegc party left 
Oxford on a Monday, slcpt at Newbury, rcached 
Winchcstcr on thc Tuesday aftcrnoon, and wcnt off 
again on the Saturday morning; after 1836 thcy 
completed their journcy on the Monday and left 
Vinchestcr on thc Friday, preciscly as thc Archbishop 
had enjoincd. With the extension of thc cxamina- 
tions in thc fiftics thcir stay at Winchestcr bccame 
longer, but its festive charactcr was somcwhat 
dimmed; thcy arrivcd, usually, on a Tucsday, and 
thcir work was not finished till thc following Thursday 
week.2 
3. Thc clccting body or " Election Chambcr " was 
composed fo the last in accordance vith the Statures. 
If consisted of the V'ardcn and ¢hc two " Supcrvisors" 
(or, as thcy came to bc called at Winchcster as at 
Eton, thc " Poscrs " a) from Nev College, and of thc 
Varden, Sub-Warden, and Hcad Mastcr of Winchcstcr. 
To thc selection of thc Supervisors thc Foundcr attachcd 
much importance. Thcy wcrc to bc choscn, by a body 
constituted ad hoc, from thc " more discrcct " Fcllows 
of thc Collegc, and wcrc fo bc, rcspcctively, a Mastcr 
of thc faculty of philosophy or theology, and a Doctor 
a By the Statutes (Rubric III. ad fl.), while the eost of the journey fell 
upon New College, the other costs of the isit fell upon Winchester. 
 The examination for Vinchester scholarships was held in the sixoEies 
on the first two days of the holidays, Domum Day being Monday or Tuesday. 
a Bishop Vhite (ex-Warden) called them " apposytors " in 1555, Bishop 
IIorne called them " apposers " in 1571 (I'.A. & I. p. 325) ; a somewbat |ater 
use of" apposers " is quoted in W.W.B.p. 41. Bishop Andrewes and Warden 
Pinke of New (:ollege talked of " opposers" in 1620 ; the$ are called " op- 
positors " in the scrutinies of the seventeenth century, but " posers " in 1664 
and 1665.--At St. Paul's there was a "' posing chamber" in 1584 (McDonnell, 
p. 64), and there were " posers " in 166 (Pepys's Diary, February 4). 



. xxxn ELECTION 
or Bachelor of Civil or Canon Law. 
was deemed suffieient that they 
Masters of Arts.--The eandidates 

397 

In later rimes it 
should both be 
for eleetion to 

New College were till 1857 exelusively seholars of 
Winehester ; eommoners were ineligible till that year, 
and went home before Eleetion began; 1 the first 
eommoners eleeted (in 1860) were J. H. Thresher and 
John Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. A 
large number of seholars--al] Sixth Book and the 
seniors in Senior Part, some twenty-five in all--were 
divided aeeording to sehool standing, originally per- 
haps into four, afterwards into three, " fardels ,,,2 and 
" underwent an examination in point of learning " ;  
Senior Fardel, whieh in Mathew's rime seems to have 
eonsisted of twelve boys, 4 eontained all the serious 
eandidates. The juniors in Senior Part, exempted 
from the ordeal, were known as "beatitudes ". The 
examination was at no time, probably, a sham. 
Charles Cooth, Prefeet of Tub, wrote " from mv hole 
in gloomy Fifth " to Nathaniel Bond on August 19, 
1770 (about a fortnight before Eleetion) : 

You know how busy a Senior Fardle man is at this time 
of the year ; here is old Demosthenes just by my side looking 
as erabbid as .... 

"A Nominee of Bishop Huntingford ", writing to 
The lVykehanisl for May 1891, deelared that " Senior 
Fardel's Eleetion business " was such serious business 
that he afterwards owed his elass at Oxford to not 

i Since 1778 when " Election Holidays " began ; for the practice before 
that date see Chapter XXXIV. 
 For the meaning of the word see above, p. 387. 
a tI. oe A. i. p. 172 ; the number of the examinees is there stated to be 
about 25 " ; in 1818 according fo Carlisle (ii. 464) it was " usually 24." 
« v. 204, ; see above, p. 385. In 1818 Senior « Fardle " consisted of six 
boys only, middle " Fardle" of twelve. The examination in that year con- 
sisted of viva voce translation exclusively ; there was no rime for "Varyings " 
(see above, p. 309). 



398 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

having been slothful in it; and the institution of 
"Fever time" shows that much preparation was 
thought neeessary.  In the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries the order of the names on the rolls ad Oxon. 
by no means tallies with that on the sehool lists, so 
far as I have compared these lists and rolls ; and in 
the first half of the nineteenth eentury, though the 
order of the names is often that of the boys' school- 
rank (the rank, that is, that the boys had gained on 
leaving Middle Part !), ver idleness or ineffieiency 
lnight cause them to lose places and so to forfeit the 
prospect of succession to vacancies at New College. -- 
The examination for Winchester scholarships was a 
farce till 1855, and had been one "from rime im- 
memorial" In 1773 it was "no more ", ve are told, 
"than the repetition of a few lines, taken out of some 
author, suited to " the candidates' " capacity and 
education -.3 In 1818 the candidates " presented 
themselves, and underwent a slight enquiry ".* The 
slight enquiry deemed suitable to the capacity and 
education of V. A. Fearon in 1851 consisted of the 
questions " Can you sing ? " to which he gave the 
time-honoured answer, 5 and " Can you sav a line 
of Ovid ?" to which feat also he proved equal. 
The election was in faet bv nomination pure and 
simple. In 1853 the question of substituting competi- 
tion for nomination was first brought fornmlly before 
the Warden and Fellows by a communication received, 

 Sec above, pp. 386-7. -" Sec e.g. Tuckwell, p. 94. 
a 11. de A. i. p. 173. « Carlisle, il. p. 464. 
 This question was asked because the Founder had required that candi- 
dates should have been ' competently instructed in plain song " (Rubric III.). 
T. A. Trollope in 1820, like Dr. Fearon in 1851, ha-ing been beforehand 
instructed, answered, "Ail people that on earth do dwell ", "' without attempt- 
ing in the smallest degree to modify in any way his ordinary speech " (T. A. T. 
p. 97). But Moyle Sherer (admitted in 1800) gave utterance to the words (as 
seems to have been then the custom) '" with a stammering effort at harmony " 
(Story of a Lire, il. p. 78). 



c. xxx ELECTION 399 

through the ,Varden of New College, from the Bishop 
of Vinchester (Dr. Sunmer). Competition had been 
introduced into the Eton scholarship examillation 
during the provostship of Mr. Hodgson (1840-52), and 
the Bishop, who was " on the most intimate terres " 
with Hodgson's successor Dr. Hawtrey (the late Head 
Master), was assured that the change had been a most 
marked success and " thought it would be a good 
thing to introduce it " at Winchester also. The 
Warden and Fellows, on the other hand, thought that 
a system of " competition as regards mere literary 
merit " was " less calculated to carry out the spirit 
and letter of the Founder's wishes " than the system 
of nomination to which they were accustomed, and 
which had "worked beneficially on the whole" ; but in 
August 185 the Bishop enjoined it, bv his authority 
as Visitor, upon New College, and in the following 
December we find the authorities of the two colleges 
setting to work to settle a " scheme of examinat]on 
and the proceedings of future elections-.1 In 1857 
competition was enforced by an ordinance of the 
Oxford University Commission; it was no longer 
enough that the candidates should be, in Wvkeham's 
words, habiles et ydonei; " the most proficient and 
most fit to be scholars " were thenceforward to be 
chosen) The pover of custom to pervert the judg- 
ment of even the acutest minds is vell illustrated bv 
the fact that vhen the change was first proposed Dr. 
Moberly " rather objected to it, and wrote one or two 
letters to the Visitor, deprecating it "; when once it 
had been ruade, he freely acknowlcdged that he had been 
x I have based my remarks on the introduction of competition partly on 
the evidence given by Dr. Moberly before the Public School Commissioners 
in 1862 (P.S.C. pp. 339-40), partly on extracts supplied by Mr. Chitty from 
the minutes of College meetings in 1853-4,. 
 Mr. Leach (History, p. 91) calls attention to the unfortunate consequences 
of" the omission of the little word mag/s " from the Founder's direction : qui 
habiles et ydonei reperti fuerint eligantur. 



400 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P. = 

wrong. The dangers of nomination were, one would 
think, sufiîeiently obvious ; some of them were noted 
by Bishop Home in 1571 and by Arehbishop Baneroft 
in 1608 ; 1 but the system vas stoutly defended by the 
eleetors, not, be it observed, on the ground that it 
gave theln what vas a pleasant and had been a valu- 
able  piece of patronage, but because it vas a marrer 
of conscience with them to discharge a duty which the 
Founder had imposed. 
4. In old rimes the New College electors rode to 
Winchester; they are called equites in the poem of 
1748. They were attended, says the poet, by a 
comitum, longissimus ordo, but the superlative is suxely 
rhetorical, for Wykeham, to prevent extravagance, 
strietly limited the lenoh of the cavalcade : accedanl 
ad Collegium nostrum prope IVyntoniam sic quod 
numerum vj equorum non excedant. At a later date 
they drove from Oxford in a earriage ; in the sixties, 
from the station in a cab. They were preeeded by a 
servant knoaa as Speedyman,  the saine "sure 
messenger" who had brought the sealed letter to 
Winehester six or seven weeks before. Speedyman 
annottneed the approaeh of lais masters, mottnted a 
ladder, and removed the sehedule from Outer Gate. 

x Bishop Horne enjoins that the eleetors " without respect or hope of any 
reward friendship or favoor ehoose them that have rnost needs and be 
rnost toward in learning .... " And he continues : '" For avoiding corruption 
it is ordered that in the end of every election " the other electors " shall answer 
by oath to the two Wardens what and how rnuch rnoney or money worth they 
or any of them have reeeived, shall reeeive, agreed or hope to reeeive, in any 
manner of wise direetly or indirectly for speeding furthering or naming of any 
scholar or scholars into the said college or frorn thence to Oxford "' ( V.A. de 1. 
p. 325). See also the 10th Injunction of Archbishop Bancroft (Annals, p. 304). 
 See above, p. 303. 
a Speedyman was also sent to Winchester whenever a vacancy occurred 
at New College to '" speed " to Oxford the boy who had the right to it. The 
terrn "to speed "' occurs in the Injunction of Bishop Home which I have quoted, 
as well as in Archbishop Bancroft's 10th Injunction ("spedd unto Newe 
Colledge "). At Vcstminster boys proceeding to Christ Church or Trinity were 
"" sped away," as the plrase ran, to Oxford or Cambridge " (Sargeaunt, p. 21). 



«. xx ELECTION 401 

The visitors folloved, alighted, exchanged greetings 
with their hosts, 1 walked towards Chamber Court. 
Under or iust beyond Middle Gate they halted, and 
the senior scholar proceeded to deliver an Oratio ad 
Portas, just as at Eton the Provost of King's and his 
two Posers halted at the gateway under Lupton's 
Tower for the delivery, by the second colleger, of the 
"Cloister Speech ,,.3 XVhen the Cloister Speech had its 
origin we are not informed; the Oratio ad Portas 
dates from 1615, when 5Irs. Letitia SVilliams, a lady 
of Wykchamical connections, provided a sum of money 
for the annual delivery of a Gtmpowder Plot sermon 
and three orations ; one of these latter was to be the 
address of welcome vith which we are now concerned. 3 
The preacher of the sermon was to receive £1 : 6 : 8, 
the orators 13s. 4d. each; the payment of this latter 
sum to the speaker of the Newbury .4d Portas is 
entered in the accotmts for 1666-7. draft of the 

t The Provost of King's, on arriving "in his four-horse chariot ", was 
"greeted by his brother of Eton with the kiss of peaee" (Wasey Sterry, .4nnals 
of Eton Collee, p. 42). 
 Wasey SterrT., loc. cit. ; M. L. p. 527. 
a The other orations were (1) In honorera Fundatoris, usually known as 
Fundator, and (2) Eli-'abethoe et Jacobi Laudes, known as " Elizabeth and 
Jacob ". A good account of these speeches will be round in L.R.i.p. Iii, but 
some of Mr. Holgate's details are incorrect. He says, for instance, that in the 
early tirnes the Fundator Speech was delivered on December 21 ; he should 
have said, " on the Commemoration day next before that date ". The point 
may seem unimportant, but the correction is needed for the interpretation of 
a sentence in one of Warden Harris's letters (sec below, p. 557).--Mr. Chitty 
tells me that Mrs. Williams was consanguinea Fundatoris ; ber brother, Henry 
Stringer, C.F. (admitted 1605), became Warden of New College. The loyalty 
she sbowed in the founding of the " Elizabeth and Jacob " and of the Gun- 
powder Plot sermon may have been due to the fact that hcr father was " foot- 
man " to Elizabeth and to James I. 
 Bampton pro oratione apud cotventum in Spinnbam Land, £0 : 18 : 4. The 
Election Ad Portas Speech, with the other two speeches, was allowed to drop 
in 1874 (The Wykehamist, October 1874). The .Fundator and the Elizabcth 
and Jacob have hot been revived ; the Ad Portas was revived by Dr. Fearon 
in 1885. The Gunpowder Plot sermon was still preached (by a chaplain, and 
hot, as desired by Mrs, Williams, by a Fellow) in the forties ; I cannot fix the 
date of its discontinuance.--The Eton Cloister Speech was discontinued after 
1870. 

D 



402 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . II 

Ad Portas of 1684 has been preserved. It is in the 
handwriting of the Head Master, Villiam Harris, with 
whose English addresses to the boys we are already 
familiar; x it gives us, as they do, no very favourable 
impression of his tactfulness. " Out joy ", he makes 
lais scholar say, " can no longer be repressed; out 
affectus animi oestuantes can no longer help bubbling 
over ", for we sec belote us the Varden of New College 
and his colleagues ! " We no longer grieve over the 
malevolent vicissitudes of the year, the smallpox, the 
flight, the other anxieties which we have suffered: 
vestro quippe adventu hoec omnia disperguntur, et velut 
nascenti die penitus evapuerunt !" Mr. Kirby quotes 
items from the accounts relating to these events, with 
the renmrk that but for such entries "ve should have 
no means of knoving that the school broke up in 1684 
owing to an outbreak of smallpox";2 the draft 
Declamatio ad Portas had escaped his notice. His 
interesting observations on the outbreak and the 
breaking-up increase out wonder at the Head Master's 
effervescence. 
Declamations ad Portas are of course spoken at 
Winchester on other occasions and to other visitors ; 
they bave been spoken, vithin the last forty years, to 
a King and Queen, a Prince of Wales, some Oriental 
potentates, an Archbishop of Canterbury, two Prime 
Ministers, a Lord Chancellor, a Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. In the last 250 vears manv Bishops of 
Winchester, also, have been received ad Portas; the 
speech prepared for the reception of Bishop Mew in 
1684 was drafted, like that from which I quoted, by 
William Harris, and though, like that speech, it has not 
been mentioned by Vykehamical writers, the draft of 
it is extant. The seholar who delivered it was re- 
quired to represent himself as pusillus, bipedalis, nec 
t Sec above, pp. 48-9. t Annals, pp. 870-1. 



c. xx ELECTION o8 

corpore nec voce potens, but that was only introductory 
to some chaff of the Bishop, who had fought with the 
royalists in the Civil War. 1 " ,ïao am I ", the boy is 
made to say, " that I should dare to look upon that 
brow, before which mailed battle-lines are smitten 
with horror and broken hosts of rebels have so often 
turned their backs .9 "--Bishops have acknowledged 
compliments by " desiring "remedies or half-remedies, 
which even Colet would have allowed Head Masters 
to grant ; 2 but one Bishop at least rewarded an orator 
personally. In 1822 Bishop Tomline, says The Hamp- 
sbire Chronicle, 3 "presented a very handsome set of 
books to Mr. Stephens, the gentleman who delivered 
the oration on his Lordship's late visit to the 
College "; but then Stephens's oration had been of 
exceptional merit, and had contained most flattering 
allusions to the Bishop's prowess as a theological 
disputant. 4 
5. After the Ad Portas speech the Varden of New 
College and his colleagues at once proceeded to carry 
out what in Wykeham's intention vas the primary 
purpose of their visit. We speak of its purpose, as of 
its period, as " Election " ; but the election of scholars 
was only an incident--a most important incident, no 
doubtf what the Founder called a " Supervision " 
The first duty of the visitors was " to enquire dili- 
gently and hold a ' scrutiny ' concerning the regimen " 
of the various members of the College, " and to 
correct and reform whatever needed correction and 
reform" 5 
Scrutinies were not of Vykeham's invention. 

 "The discreditable Cavalier-Bishop ", as R. and R. cail him (p. 170}. 
2 See above, p. 331. a July 15, 1822. 
 An account of Stephcns's speech is givcn in Warden HuntingTord's MS. 
Annals. We may conjecture that Huntingford composcd it. 
 Rubric III. ; at the time of the Supervision or Scrutiny the visitors were 
aiso to hold an election. 



404 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rT. n 

Long before his rime it had been ordained that they 
should be held at Merton, "Wykeham's Model ", and 
a record of one held there in 1888-9 is extant ; it is 
" a remarkable and perhaps a singular account of the 
domestic state of a college at the beginning of the 
ïomoEeenth century-.1 Here is a typical extract 
from Warden Brodrick's print of it: Fynemer dicit 
quod Elyndon, cure loquitur cun sociis, non vult per- 
niIIere eos loqui. The extract, which incidentally 
illustrates the unchangeableness of human nature, may 
also suggest a doubt of the value of the process by 
vhich such information vas elicited. But this early 
MeloEon scrutiny vas hot an investigation by out- 
siders, it vas held by the Varden and other senior 
nembers of the College itsclf ; and, in addition to the 
Election scrutiny, domestic scrutinies vere appointed 
by the Foundcr to be held at Vinchester (as at New 
College) at least three rimes in the year.  In the 
earlier paloE of the nineteenth century they were held 
bv the Warden and Fellows in the course of College 
meetings, " at which", oEote Archdeacon Heath- 
cote,  "the Senior Prefect in each chamber makes 
anv complaint which may be necessary ".--The Elec- 
tion scrutiny relninds us that under the Statures the 
Bishop of Winchester was Visitor of Winchester 
College in a more restricted sense than he was Visitor 
of Nev College. The Statures of Nev College pro- 
vided (Rubric LXVIII.) that, either on requisition or 
vithout it, the Bishop or his " commissaries " might 
hold a visitation de biennio in biennium. In the Win- 
chester Statutes there is no such pro6sion; the 

 Brodrick, 5lemorials of Merton College, pp. 841 seqq. Scrutinies con- 
tinued to be held at Merton iill 1839 (Henderson, Merton College, p. 25). 
 About eight days before Christmas and before Easter, and within 
eight days after the nones of July (Rubric X_L. ; see also the New College 
Rubric LX.). 
a In his MS. Common Place Book. 



. "x'n ELECTION 405 

Bishop's authority at Vinchester vas due partly to 
the fact that he was a referee (under Rubric III.) to 
whom New College might appeal vhen its directions 
or advice were rejected, partly to his ordinary power 
as diocesan over ail spiritual persons within his 
diocese. 1 Though Bishops of Winchester often exer- 
cised the visitatorial power directly, their right to 
intervene was not always admitted. 
Some results of Election scrutinies have been re- 
corded in these chapters; ve have seen that on one 
most critical occasion the scrutineers most unfortun- 
ately failed to secure the Bishop's support, z A sugges- 
tion was made in the poem of 178 that scrutinies were 
urmeeessary, beeause everything was perfect : 

En septem poscunt juvenes ex ordine lectos 
Inquisitores tend ! scrutantur et urgent 
Dicere, quoe Sociis, aut quoe sit culpa Magistris. 
0 tandem vanas quoerendi mittite causas ! 
Si velit ipse suos Wy-khamus visere muros, 
In coelos du/ce arridens loetusque rediret. 

" Vqmt vould Wykeham think, if he could revisit 
Winchester .9 ,, has been a frequent subject of specula- 
tion from the time of Christopher Johnson to that of a 
recent editor of The IVykehamist. 3 The uual answer 
is, " He vould be greatly shocked " ; it is a relief to 
have an answer from an optimist.--Scrutinies were 
still held, I think, as late as 1871. Whether the 
"inquisitors" still enquired, as directed by the 
Rubric, into the regimen of the socii and the magistri I 
carmot say; the Head Master, and (I think) the 
Warden of XVinchester, sat vith them during that patoE 
of the scrutiny which I attended, as a "junior in 
x Armais, p. 377.--Under the new Statutes of 1873 " the Visitor of the 
College shall be the Bishop of Winchester'. 
 Sec above, p. 210. 
a TheTrs, fol. 153 ; The Wykehamist, March 19, 1913. 



406 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 
chambers ", in 1863. In the previous year the follow- 
ing conversation had passed between the Public School 
Commissioners and Varden Godfrev Lee : 
Now is that [the serutiny] a bona ride enquiry ?--Yes, 
indeed itis ; we are always very anous to get at the truth. 
Are eomplaints ruade ?--They used tobe eonstantly. 1 
Of the bona .rides of the enquiry, so far as the enquirers 
were concerned, there could be no doubt, and their 
kindness was such as might well have tempted the 
timidest junior to confide. But I agree th Adams 
and with Mansfield  in doubting whether in its later 
days any useful information was " extracted by the 
operation ", and whether if had any " practical result 
in causing reforms of real abuses ". The good inten- 
tions of the scrutineers were baflïed ; their questions 
were anticipated, and the juniors went before them 
primed. The excellent mentor who had taught me 
mv notions told me precisely what I should be asked 
and what I should answer; and his foreeast proved 
preeisely accurate, down to the question " Vhat 
about dinner ? "  and the answer, that the potatoes 
were not well mashed. 
6. It has been shoxm elsewhere  that the word 
" ehildren " as an equivalent for " seholars " fell into 
disuse in the second half of the eighteenth century ; 
but certain scholars were still called children a 
hundred vears later in connection with Election. 
Till 1873 it was the eustom that eaeh member of the 
Election Chamber should have one of the scholars for 
his " ehild ". Originally, no doubt, the ehild in 
 P.S.C.p. 330. 
 Adams, p. 51 ; Mansfield, p. 176. 
* The Rubric special[y directs that enquiry shall be ruade ualfler in 
victualibus providetur eisdem (i.e. scolaribus). 
« See above, p. 106. 
* In the Long Roll of 1653 the names of two pueri Domini Ludimagistri 
and of a puer Dornini Hypodidascali are given. One of the Head Master's 



c. xxx ELECTION 407 

question acted as a page or valet; Christopher 
Johnson alludes (c. 1565) to the puer . . . qui mihi a 
cubiculo est. At Eton till about 187- ° " small eollegers 
were ehosen as 'servitors' to the Fel/ows and as 
'ehildren' to the Posers . . . and waited on them 
at their dinners. The office was by no means disliked, 
for it meant dining on greatly superior fare after the 
elders had done, and the Posers' ehildren eould daim 
by eustom a guinea ,,.1 A very good service it was, 
" little to do and plenty to get ". At Winehester, 
indeed, while there was the superior fare, and the 
guinea, and exemption from all fagging, there was in 
the middle of the nineteenth eentury (for ail but one 
of the ehildren) nothing to do whatever. 2 Not only 
was the oflîee "hot disliked ", it was so keenly desired 
that, to avoid suspicion of favouritism, the Warden 
and the Head 3laster took as their children the two 
senior seholars in " Middle Part V ",a whoever thev 
might be. The only duty which fell to the lot of anv 
of the ehildren was that of applying for all remedies 
and half-remedies during the eoming school-vear ; it 
fell to the lot of the Warden's ehild. That such 
applications should have had to be ruade at all is due 

children was the senior scholar of the year ; the Second Master's child was 
the second senior. It appears from letters of the eommoner. John Bond that 
in 1770-1 the Head Master's ehild was stili in SLxoEh Book. He speaks of one 
boy being degraded from the oflïee, and of Dr. Warton making Iris son 
" Docter's [sic] child "'. 
 Wasey Sterry, Am,als o.[ Eton College, p. 56. 
 That the ehildren were formedy " servitors "' is shown by the Coilege 
accounts. In 1768-9, and for many years after, we find an entry duobus pueris 
(or scholaribus) et Choristis serrientilrus in aula tempore Electionis, £2.12.6 
of whieh sum two guineas, apparently, went to the two ehildren. In the 
nineteenth eentury four guineas were annually paid by the College, " to four 
ehildren who waited at Eleetion ", tili the joint eleetion eeased ; the last sueh 
payment was made in 187P.,-8. The " waiting at Eiection " was diseontinued 
long before the entry. 
a In 1866 it was ordained that they should be the two seniors in " Senior 
Part V." (Prefect of Hall's Book). The change recognized the fact that 
eompetition for places had been introdueed into Senior Part ; sec above, p. 288. 



408 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P,., 
to the originalconception of a " remedy " ; that they 
should hve been made by the Warden's child is a 
reminder that though they were in fact ruade to the 
Head Mster, the power of granting them belonged in 
theory to the ,Varden. 1 

i On these points see above, pp. 333, 335-6. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

DOMUM : DOBIUM BALL : BIEDAL SPEAKING 

IN 1780 Philip Hayes, the compiler of Harmonia 
Wiccamica, asserted that the tune of Domum vas 
composed by John Reading, organist of Winchcstcr 
College from 1681 to 1692, and implied that it vas 
composed by him while organist. Experts are agrced 
that the tune bas the charactcristics of Reading's 
period; 1 and in the absence of any conflicting 
evidence or tradition Hayes's assertion, with the 
implication, has been generally accepted. Conccrn- 
ing the date of the poem there has been no such 
general agreement. Adams believed that it vas 
written aftcr the nmsic, that " the youthful poct 
adaptcd his words to an air which had bccolne 
popular"; but his theory vas bascd on a mistaken 
idea that Reading was at no time connected vith 
Winchester, 2 and it may safely be dismissed. Others, 
again, havc supposed that the pocm was already old 
in Reading's time. Lisle Bowles, for instance, "a 

x The following iudgments of two experts of the highest authority have 
been communicated to me : " The tune is of Reading's time, but the harmonies 
more modern" ; " Reading's chier contemporaries were Blow and Purcell, 
whose melodic idiom is sulficiently like that of Dulee Domum to be attribut- 
able to the saine period ; so is the idiom of some of the popular tunes which 
Playford was publishing at intervals ail through tbe latter part of the 
century ". 
 Adams, p. 410. 
C0O 



410 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE T.n 
great Wykehamical authority" (admitted 1775), attri- 
buted if " to a date previous to the Reformation, 
1580 "; x Walcott spoke of it in 1852 as three centuries 
old, " more or less ";* Mr. Leaeh thought it might 
" well date from Henry VIII.'s reign " ; 3 and finally 
H. C. has inferred, from a statement ruade in 1648 
that New College had " lately " been a Dulce Domi- 
eilium, that Dulee Domum was already at that date 
"well recognized . . . among ingenuous Wykehamists, 
wherever assembled "? The poem, I have no doubt, 
was written before, but not, I think, long before, the 
tune. It would hardly bave lived as Words without 
Song; and if the words had been wedded to a song 
before Reading, even Reading could hardly have 
deereed a divorce. They were written, probably, 
during or immediately before the years when he was 
organist ; they attracted attention; he set them to 
music; the music caught on. Except the very in- 
teresting but inconclusive evidence adduced by H. C. 
there is no evidenee for referring them to an earlier 
period than the reign of Charles II. They were 
written, of course, for a breaking-up in the early 
summer,  whatever their date. 
x This statement was ruade till lately in the programme of the Vykehamist 
Dinner. 
- Waleott, p. 266. 
 tIistory, p. 433. Mr. Leaeh suggested that Reading "" did hot Jurent, 
but only harmonised lhe air", and that the air also might date from Henry 
VIII.'s reign. But, as we bave seeu, the experts are agaiast him on both 
points. 
« The Wy'kehamist, August 1905. A riter of 1648 found on a visit to 
New College in 1647 that a Pembroke scout was undergoing irnprisonment and 
torture there in consequence of the diseovery of a Cavalier plot, and he re- 
marked : 
Quod dulce nuper Domicilium 
Ingenuis alendis, 
Nune merum est Ergastulurn 
Innocuis torquendis. 
For the story, sec R. and R. p. 170. 
 Rider annus, prata rident (sec below) . . . Jam repetit domum Daulias 
advena. 



c. xxxm DOMU3I 411 

We cannot hope to identify the poet; 1 but we 
must not set aside too lightly the famous tradition 
that " he was a ehild belonging to the sehool who was 
kept at Winehester during the holidays for having 
eommitted some serious offenee ". The tradition bas 
of course been embroidered, and as embroidered it 
may deserve Mr. Leaeh's epithet, " idiotie -.2 People 
came to believe, or at least to assert, that the ehild 
was chained to a pillar or a tree on whieh he earved 
his verses, and that he pined away and died, or, as 
Mr. Tuekwell has it, "drowned in the river himself and 
his despair". 3 Valeott, eoneeiving that the average 
old Vvkehamist was as eredulous and as sentimental 
as himself, imagined that a "tear glistens in his" (the 
average old Wykehamist's) "eye ", as the good man 
teaehes his son "the cause of the aneient eustom ". 
Remove the embroidery, and the stuff on whieh it 
was worked remains. The main assertion of the 
tradition is supported by the well-authentieated faet 
that at the rime to whieh the poem may, with good 
reason, be assigned " ehildren " were now and then 
kept at Winehester during the holidays " for some 
notorious action they have eommited ".» Nor need 
we be deterred from believing that the poet was one 
of these notorious aetors by the argument, often 
eonfidently advaneed, that our lively Domum " eould 
never have been written by a person labouring under 
melaneholy deprivation of his long-expeeted return 

1 Mr. Kirby (Annals, p. 59) says that " aeeording to an old tradition "' 
his naine was Turner. I cannot find that this old tradition is known to 
others. There was no Turner in College between Francis Turner (admitted 
1650, afterwards one of the Seven Bishops) and William Turner (admitted 
1734). 
2 Hislory, p. 452. a Tuckwell, p. 70.  Valcott, p. 266. 
 See a letter of Ralph Verney's, dated May 18, 1682 ; I have quoted from 
it below, p. 428.--Mr. R. T. Warner suggests that by a refinement of cruelty 
a poem on the joys of home was set as a " holiday-task" to a boy who had no 
holiday. 



412 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P,. 

fo lais 'home, sweet home'", x for the value of that 
argument is discounted by many facts in the history 
of literature. If wc are fo reject the tradition alto- 
gether, thc best ground to take would be that a school- 
boy could not have written those elcgant stanzas, or 
worked that charming metre with ifs two trochaic 
followed by three dactylic lines, quite so skilfully. If, 
a friend suggests, you must resuscitate the unhappy 
boy-author, make him responsible only for the very 
inferior chorus, or say that thc Master set him his metre 
and revised lais verses, adding some stanzas of his own.  
If thc words were written, like the tune, c. 1680-90, 
it is not till many ycars later that we find any record 
of an annual cercmony to which they gave a naine. 
¥e have no allusions to Domum, cven as a recognized 
Wykchamical song, during the earlier half of the 
eightecnth ccntury ; " the first mention of it as sung 
on a public occasion "--so it was stated formerly in 
the programlne of the Wykehamist Dinner--" occurs 
in a MS. letter, dated 1759, whcn it was sung at New 
Collegc after the toast 'the immooEal memory of 
William of Wykeham'" That if was familiar Wyke- 
hamical scripture in 176 appcars ïrom a paper in 
which the prepositors pctitioned Warden Harry Lee 
for an extra fortnight's holiday at Whitsuntide : cure 
 Ger, tleman's .lagair, e, Lxwi. 570, quoted by I. T. in The ll'ykehamist, 
May 1909. 
2 Stanza 5, for instance, whieh makes use of Martial's 
Phosphore, redde diem : quid gaudia nostra moraris ? (viii. 21. 1). 
My friend Mr. A. O. Prickard makes two interesting suggestions: (1) that 
the nucleus of Domtun may be found in the old--they may be very old-- 
doggerel lines : 
Omne bene siae i»oEna ; 
Tempus est ludendi ; 
\'unit hora absque mora 
Libros deponendi. 
(2) The tune seems to fit very badly the last line of the stanzas. The metre is 
two dactyls and a spondee : the tune requires a '" molossus" (-----) at the 
end. Could it have been intended to get this by dragng out the spondee, e.g., 
3lêti pêt I ita 1,5 I bSr-6r-fim ? 



cr. xm DOMUïI 4,18 
lrata rident et annus, Tu quoque communem leetitiam 
comiteris et suaviter arrideas. Allusions to Domum as 
an annual ceremony first occur in the years which 
immediately follow, when the song was sung, before the 
itsuntide holidays, round the Domum Tree,  which 
as eve Wykehamist knows, is some way from 
College ; " no mholocal orgies were ever celebrated 
th more te devotion ". That the orgies vere 
oelebrated before they were recorded appears from the 
fact that the Domum Tree is marked in Godson's map 
of Winchester (1750). In 177 we have the earliest 
known allusion to a Domum ceremony within the 
College valls : " on the evening which prccedes the 
itsuntide holidays the scholars are, to this day, 
formed into a procession, with the Master, Chaplains, 
Organist, Choristers, etc., and a band of music, by 
which they are led round the College Cou, singing 
these verses" (the verses of Domum). z In 1776, 
when The Hampshire Chronicle first describes the func- 
tion, Domum is said to have been " performed in the 
tennis cou, the School, and under the middle gare" 
It will be observed that the tree is not mentioned in 
either of these passages, but, though I. T. infers, from 
this and other evidence, that it was finally deseed 
about 1775, that can hardly have been so; a Wyke- 
hamist of 1791-5  coupled "the tree where ve 
x Sec I. T. in T IVykehamt, May 1909 and Je 1910.The connection 
bween the song and the tree (which the traoEtional stow elas veD- 
absuly) is the real mystew about Dom. 
ffi H.  .4. i. p. 175. It is siificant that the psage does hot occur in 
T. Waon's Desiption (c. 1750) of weh the History and ntiquities is an 
eoetion reoed to date.Mr. Ctty suggests that the boys may have sed 
e oeremony at the tree, and that the authorities aards transfeed it to 
Hege. Perhaps the tree-festities had become too much of an or ; but, 
 we sha sec, the boys continued to hold them, probably qthout sanction, 
till a later date. 
 W. P. Taunton ; he w a cooner in 1791-2 and again in 1795, 
hang been in College dng the teal. s poem w tten for the 
Wykehamist Meeting, and set to music by Dr. Carnaby ; it was coucated 
to T IVyhamist (Jy 30, I889) by Lionel Joson. 



414 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

caroll'd the Poean of joy " with " the hill that our 
sports havc endcar'd ". Nor, again, do thc passagcs 
alludc to any singing of thc song in Mcads, and no 
mention of 3Icads is madc by The Chronicle in 1792 
whcn it describcs "what Dr. Warton calls his annual 
Domum cntcrtainmcnt". Evcn in thc days of Edvard 
Rich (admittcd 1829) Domum was sung " in Middlc 
Court, in School, and on Ball Court",1 but not 
apparcntly in Mcads propcr; somcwhat carlicr noticcs 
in Tte Chronicle (1822 and 1824) speak of it as sung 
"in various parts of the building ". On July 14, 1837 
(just after Queen Victoria's accession), Mrs. Moberly 
noted in her journal: " The Domum very fatiguing 
and very hot; the room crowded to excess "; she 
felt it " painful and awkward " to be placed " in a 
chair of state". In the sixties School was still 
elaborately decorated for the function, but its true 
home since the forties had been Meads. Meads retain 
all their " midsummer magic " at the end of July, a 
and Wykehamists would regard a Domum with no 
singing there as no Domum at ail. 
Dcscribing the ceremony in the fifties Charlotte 
Yonge vrote : 

There is no forgetting the wandering in the twilight or 
moonlight ; the meeting old friends ; the keeping with some 
seldom-seen friend as it grew darker and darker ; the enthusi- 
astic cheers in Chamber Court .... « 

In connection with these last vords it may be inter- 
csting to rcad an cxtract from Prcfcct of Hall's book: 

1 Rich, p. 180.  D.D.p. 65. 
a " The midsummer magie of Meads "" is from A. P. Herbert's Dommn 
Night.--I should have mentioned that in 1778 Domurn, with the beginning of 
the holidays, was shifted from SVhitsuntide to mid-July, and in 1868 to the 
end of that month. The change of rime spoils the allusion to the Daulias 
advena. 
 D.D.p. 132. 



c,. xxx DOMUM : DOMUM BALL 415 

On the evening of Wednesday in Election Week, 1848, a 
great noise was made in Middle Court by the boys after Domum 
had been sung, various eheers being given for the Masters, etc. 
repeatedly. This was eommented upon by the two Wardens 
in Eleetion Chamber next day, and warning was given that 
any sueh offenee oceurring again would be severely punished. 

The evening of Wednesday in the Election Week of 
1848 was not the evening of Domum Day but the 
evening before it, and we may hope that the noise 
which was an offence on Wednesday was not an 
ofïence on Thursday. In that case the fault of the 
boys was only that, exeited by the festivities of 
Election, they had been a day too previous. It was 
the Wednesday eheering, apparently, not the singing 
of Domum, to whieh the two Wardens took exception. 
To sing Domum days or even weeks before Roger or 
the South Western provides the means of transpooE is 
not too previous to the Wykehamical mind; it was 
an established eustom in the early nineteenth eentury, 
as it was in the sixties, to sing it on every Saturday 
evening during the last six weeks of Cloister Time, 
and boys bave been known to whistle the tune and even 
to sing the song on their way from the station at the 
beginning of a new school terre. 

In Miss Loeke's anthology some verses On retur- 
ing home front Winchester, 1761, are described in the 
margin as " Reminiscenees of a Domum Ball ". 
" Mine was the lot ", says their author-- 

Mine was the lot, from ev'ry youth to bear 
The prize how en2¢'d, how desir'd by ail ! 
Mine was the lot, where hundred nymphs were fair, 
To lead the fairest through the mazy Ball. 

The William Lipseomb (the naine should be Lips- 

 1 Praise o.f Winchester, pp. 207-8. 



416 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. 

combe) to whom Miss Locke attributed the lines vas 
both a poet and a Wykehamist ; he won the English 
Verse at Oxford vith a poem on The Beneficent Effects 
of Inoculation, 1 which probably contained " the cele- 
brated invocation, somewhere recorded by Coleridge, 
' Inoculation, heavenly maid .v, ,, ," 2 but he vas not 
admitted to the school till 1766. Miss Locke, to 
whom I pointed this out, has now discovered a that the 
poem vas written, not by Lipscombe, but by a certain 
F. N. C. Mundy, vho also wrote Il'inter, a Poem begun 
at ll'inehester Sehool, 175ï. « 1Now the naine of a 
eommoner ealled Mundy appears in the Long Roll of 
1756, but in no subsequent roll; he must bave left 
the sehool, soon after beginning his lVinter, in 1757. 
His On returning home proves that he attended a 
Winehester ball, at whieh he may have been as irre- 
sistible as he says, in 1761 ; but I know no reason for 
supposing that it was a Domum Ball, or that it had any 
eonneetion vith the sehool. 
In the earlier years of the last eentury the College 
superannuates, when Domum vas over, sometimes 
eelebrated their superannuation by some further 
festivity. On July 19, 1813, The Hampshire Chroniele 
reeorded that " our theatre opened for the season 
yesterday (under the patronage of the Gentlemen 
Superannuates of the College) with the Comedy of 
.4 Cure for the Heartaehe and Rosina ", and ten years 
later it notieed for the fist time what it ealled "the 
Gentlemen Superannuates' Ball" The funetion took 
place immediately after Domum, on Friday, July 13, 
1823, at the White Hart, and it was "well attended ". 

t Walcott, p. 438. 
2 Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, iii. p. 114. The invocation was made 
in a prize poem. 
a My best thanks are due to Miss Locke for the trouble she bas taken in riais 
marrer. 
 In Praise of Winchester, pp. 106-7. 



Cil. XIII DOMUM BALL 417 

The late Mr. Oetavius La CroLx, the College con- 
fectioner knovn to many generations as "Octo ", uscd 
to say, and I believe eorrectly, that his father was the 
founder of the institution ; and the description of the 
ball of 1823, as of those of some subsequent years, 
suggests that it was a tradesman's speeulation. 
Perhaps it was not a quite sueeessful one ; it was not, 
apparently, repeated in 1824, and on the Domum 
night of 1825 the Gentlemen Superannuates again 
patronized the theatre. But the confcctioncr pluckcd 
up courage and tried his luck again ; Rich (adnfitted 
1829), Mansficld (admitted 1836), Mr. Tuckwcll (ad- 
mitted 1842), ail speak of Domum Ball as a successful 
annual event.  In 1858 it was shifted (not to every- 
body's satisfaction) to the day after Domum Day, - 
and except in 1868 that arrangement was maintained. 
In 1874 the ball vas put on a nexv footing ; it was taken 
over by the school and moved to the Guildhall--a 
change which The Wykeham ist declared to be "a most 
decided success". ,iOwing to circumstances" there 
was no ball either in 1900 or in 1901 ; in 1902 and in 
1903 it was held in the Gymnasium and the Mcmorial 
Buildings; in 190 the committee regretted that 
"owing to the lack of outside support they are unable 
to hold a ball this year ". The balance-shcets of 1902 
and of 1903 had shown alarming deficits, and since 
1903 there has been no ball. Under latter-day con- 
ditions a large company cannot easily be attracted to 
a dance at Winchester at the end of July. 

t Rieh, p. 180 ; Mansfie|d, p. 183 ; Tuekwell, p. 94.--By Mansfield's rime 
it had been transferred to St. John's Rooms. 
2 D.D.p. 133. Miss Moberly speaks of the" amusing unconventionalities" 
which occurred at what was to most of the boys present their flrst public 
dance : " for instance, when a {2ollege prefeet remarked to his partner, 'I 
hope you are not heavy, for I ana hot strong'". The conversation of the 
Wykehamist who said that more than fifty years ago is always delightful, but 
if is hot always so delightfully haire. 
2E 



418 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE rr.= 

What is knovn as " Medal Speaking "--the public 
recitation of exercises in composition and elocution by 
the successful competitors, and the presentation fo 
them of prizes (medals or books)--has been the subject 
of two valuable pamphlets by Mr. Chitty. 1 In the 
fev remarks vhich I have fo offer on the ceremony I 
shall deal, almost exclusively, vith a point which, 
though he provides useful data for its discussion, 
he docs hot discuss: ifs connection, namely, with 
Domum Day and with the Election festivities of which 
I spoke in the last chapter. 
5Ic(lals were first givcn by Lord Bruce (aftcrwards 
Earl of Ailesbury) in 1761, but the first clear allusions 
fo our ccremony bclong fo a later year. The compiler 
of the History and Antiquities of Winchester, published 
in 1773, fixes if at " some rime belote the Easter 
holidays ,,,2 but his statement was by no means up- 
to-date; in 1770, in 1772, and again in 1773, Medal 
Speaking vas held in July. Whether held belote 
Easter or in July, if can have had no connection with 
Elcction, vhich took place in August or September, 
or vith Domum, vhich immediately preceded the 
Whitsuntidc holidays, until 1778 ; if synchronized, not 
with any Wykehamical festival, but with the Win- 
chester races, of vhich Jane Austen vrote : 

Shift your race as you will, it shall nevcr be dry ; 
The curse upon Venta is July in showers ; 

and again, from her lodgings in College Street, a few 
days before her death in Jtfly 1817 : 

When Winchestcr races first took their begirming, 
'Tis said that the people forgot their old Saint, 

t Mcdal-Speaking al Winchester College (1905) ; Winchester Medal Speaking 
(1906). 
2 Vol. i. p. 174. The use of the pltrase "Easter holidays" does hot mean 
that the school had any real holiday at Easter ; sec below, p. 436. 



CI/. XXXIII MEDAL SPEAKING 419 
That thcy ncvcr applicd for thc lcavc of St. Swithin, 
And that Wil]iam of Wykcham's approval was faint. 1 
On July 5, 1770, Mrs. Harris wrotc to ber son (an 
old Wykehamist, who was tobe the first Lord Malmes- 
bury) from lier home in the Close at Salisbury : 
Your fathcr has gone this morning to Winchester, to hear 
the gentlemen speak for Lord Bruce's medal .... Your 
father wi|l return to-night, the races are now going on at 
Winchester, but both Mr. Harris and Mr. Bow|cs who accom- 
panicd him, will avoid tlaem as much as possible. 2 
Mr. Harris and Mr. Bowles, however, were exceptional 
people; the Winchester rates, as Jane Austen's lines 
suggest, were of great local importance, and they 
attracted large numbers of the nobility and gentry of 
the county. On May °.2, 1775, The Chronicle announeed 
that the medals had been " very deservedly adjudged " 
fo certain gentlemen, and added that they were "to 
speak publicly in the School atour Rates, when itis 
supposed there will be a very brilliant company ". In 
1778, when the end of Election and the beginning of 
the summer holidays (and with their beginning, 
Domum) for the first rime coincided and fell in July, 
Medal Speaking took place in July likewise. I have 
hOt consulted any eighteenth-century racing calendar, 
but itis probable that the authorities had the rates in 
their mind in fixing its date. The audience was 
"uncommonly numerous and splendid ", for it included 
rive peers and at least eight other persons of title; 
our modest ceremony by itself would surely have been 
 Quoted in Mr. Moutray Read's llighwa!ls and Byrvays in llampshire, 
p. 90. 
 Quoted by Mr. Holgate (The Wykehamist, February 1899) from the 
Letters of the first Earl of .llabnesbury, i. p. 203). The Bond Letters speak of 
Lord Henley and Lord Dunkellin as having been present at this Medal Speak- 
ing. Medal Speaking and the l{aces again synchronized in 1771 ; "upwards of 
60 Gentlemcn ", says John Bond, " were present, arnongst whom was the 
Marquis of Carnarvan [sic], the Duke [of Chandos] his father ". 



420 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

too veak a magnet to draw them ail to Winchester. 
In 1796, when the company, though it did not ap- 
parcntly rcach thc standard of 1778, was " numcrous 
and most rcspcctablc ", Mcdal Spcaking was held, not 
in Elcction wcck, but on June 23, " the last day of our 
raccs ", says Tke Chronicle. Down to about 1802 the 
Spcaking was, in fact, oftcn hcld in Junc, for thc 
race stcvards oftcn sought to avoid "the cursc upon 
Vcnta"; and it was not till about that ycar that 
it began to coincide invariably with Elcction. The 
appointed day of thc wcck, which, vhcn vc can dctcr- 
mine it, was always Thursday in the cightccnth 
ccntury, was in the ninctccnth altcrcd to Wcdncsday 
and aftcrvards to Tucsday, thc day of thc arrival of 
thc Ncv Collcgc clcctors ; though it had long bccn a 
function of Elcction, the Spcaking was nota function 
of Domum Day till aftcr 1842.1 
The medals are now, as all Wykehamists knov, 
"thc gift of thc Sovcrcign ". Lord Ailcsbury's mcdals 
wcrc no longer givcn aftcr Dr. Warton's rctircmcnt in 
1793; in the three years that followed there were 
speeches but no medals.  The " very respectable 
company " of 1795 ineluded an illustrious orator who, 
xvhen dining after the ceremony xvith Dr. Goddard, 
asked him " xvhat reward the boys obtained for such 
great and meritorious exertions ". Honour, the Head 
Master was happy to inform him, was the only 
motive ; " it indeed happened that he and the Warden 
might give a present of books ". The visitor" seemed 
much surprised, and said that such merit 

]It still took place on the day of the arrival of the New College party in 
Mansfield's time, 1836-42 (Mansfield, p. 178). In a word-book of a rather 
iater date the Speaking is said to have taken place " on the last Saturday of 
the Long Half". 
2 Sce the epigram on Lord Ai[esbury's withdrawa[ of his prizes quoted 
from The Hampshire Repository (Match 1799) in Itledal-Speaking at }Vinchester 
College, p. 27. 



c xxx, MEDAL SPEAKING 421 

claimed the higher reward of medals also ". Ho was 
(to his undoing) intimate with the Prince of Wales, 
and he " took an early opportunity of telling him 
these circumstances, at which His Royal Highness was 
much delighted, saying, ' , I will give them medals ; 
I desire you will write to Warden Huntingford to tell 
him of my determination "". From 1797 to 1819 out 
medals were the gift of the Prince of Wales; from 
1820 onwards they have been the gift of the Sovereign ; 
it is hardly less interesting to learn that the royal 
munificence was prompted by Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan. 1 

 In 1811 Charles Brinsley Sheridan {see Walcott, p. 459) won the Gold 
Medal for English Verse ; the record from whieh I bave quoted says that he 
reeited his poem and received his medal in his father's presence.--The faets 
stated in this paragraph are contained in a note at the end of vol. i. of the 
MS. Carmina Wiccamica, lately presented to the College Library by Mrs. 
Wordsworth of Bedford. Mr. Chitty called attention to them in The tl'yke- 
hamist, July 28, 1908. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

THE HOLIDAYS 

TttE Statutes both of New College and of Winchester 
show that Wykeham contemplated no migration of 
his Fellows and Scholars en masse at any season of the 
year; that did not, however, mean " no vacations " 
in the sense of the Dotheboys Hall prospectus. At New 
College the allowance of absence was liberal; the 
Warden and his deputies were hot to show themselves 
" too difficult " about granting leave to " go down ", 
espccially ma,narum et generaliun vacationum tem- 
poribus ; but more than twenty of the seventy Fellows 
and Scholars were in no case to be absent together, 
ne cultus divinus minuatur (Rubric XXIV.). At 
Winchester the Fellows and Chaplains, the Masters and 
Scholars, might absent themselves for a month, con- 
tinuous or discontinuous, during the year ; or indeed for 
a longcr period, with the Warden's leave, under special 
circumstances (R. XVII.). At Winchester, therefore, 
as at Oxford, no general holidays in the modern sense 
were intended, only exeats, if a Wykehamist may use 
the word, of longer or shorter duration. We may 
note that Wykeham's allowance of absence to the 
Masters was precisely what, more than a century 
later, Colet granted fo the High Master and Sur- 
master of St. Paul's in the ill-expressed sentence: 
"His absence shalbe but onys in the yere and hOt 
422 



.  THE HOLIDAYS 423 

aboue xxx t' dayes whiche he shall take coniunctim or 
diuisim "2 
Colet's provision for school holidays, however, is 
in many respects abnormal or puzzling; holiday 
arrangements at day schools generally were in old 
rimes much the saine as they are now. At Bury St. 
Edmunds, for instance, Carlyle's Abbot Samson 
directed, towards the end of the twelïth ccntury, that 
there should be three terres beginning respectively at 
Michaelmas, aftcr Christmas, and after Easter ; there 
were therefore tobe three periods of holidays ending 
at those rimes. 2 At Wotton-under-Edge, where a 
ammar school was established in 1384, the foundcr 
ordained that the Master and his successors should 
teach continuously except from St. Thomas's day to 
the day after Epiphany (December 21 to January 7), 
from Palm Sunday to the eighth day after Easter, 
from the day before Pentecost to the day after Trinity 
Sunday, from the feast of St. Peter ad vincula to that 
of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (August 1 to 
September 14). 3 When the Master did hot teach the 
boys stayed at home. At boarding schools the con- 
ditions were less simple. (1) It was easy to arrange 
that the school routine should, as at day schools, be 
suspended at certain rimes of the year; but it was 
not easy, and it was not attempted, to arrange that 
all the boys should go home at such rimes. (2) When 
school work stopped but the boys, or many of them, 
did hot go home, they could not be left altogcther 
unoccupied; the most obvious way of occupying 

 Lupton, Life of Dean Colet, pp. 273-4. 
- E.C. p. 130. 
a Ibid. p. 338.--At Shrewsbury under Ordinances of 157 the holidays xvere 
fixed as definitely, but less indulgently. " The Times of Breaking up " were 
to be " Six days before Christmas, Three days before Easter, Whitsun-eve" ; 
those of beginning school, " nexoE week-day after the twelfth day, Monday 
next after Low Sunday, Monday after Trinity Sunday ". 



424 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 
them vas to set thcm some kind of tasks.--There were, 
then, in early rimes no holidays in the full sense at 
Winchester and other boarding schools, but only what 
I shall call " vacations ", tempered by tasks ; such 
vacations might be with or without exeats. When 
exeats during vacations became universal, there werc 
what I shall call " holidays " " Breaks " or " re- 
cesses " I shall use as non-committal terms for what 
may be either of these things. 
We know little of the Winchester vacations of 
early rimes, but the researches of Mr. Leach and Mr. 
Kirby have thrown light upon the exeats. From an 
examination of Seneschal of Hall's book  Mr. Leach 
has shown that during the first four or rive years of 
the College the number of scholars " in commons" 
had a way of dwindling, for a week or more, at Easter 
Whitsuntide and Christmas, espeeially at Vhitsuntide. 
There were, for instance, only 25 seholars in residenee 
in the Whitsun-week of 1398, and only 48 in the 
week following.  Mr. Kirby, on a general view of 
the evidenee, eoneludes that in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth eenturies there was an optional exeat of a 
fortnight or three weeks twiee a year, one about Vhit- 
suntide, the other after Eleetion, in August or Sep- 
tember. 3 In the four or rive years before 1490, the 
figures for whieh I have examined, there are indications 
that a few boys might go home at Christmas, and 
sometimes a few at Easter. How mueh exeat any 
paoEieular boy may have enjoyed might be aseertain- 
able by a patient examination of the Senesehal's 
1 For the Seneschal of Hall see above, p. 213. The office " seems to have 
dropped about '" (i.e. soon after) " the year 1520. Many of his books are 
preserved in the muniment room, the series eommeneing with a fragment of 
the book for 1395. These books record the name of everybody who was in 
eommons from week to week, and the names of guests at dinner and supper 
whether at the fellows' or servants' table " (Annals, p. 80). 
2 I'.H.p. 277. 
a .4nnals, p. 188. 



c. xxxr THE HOLIDAYS 425 

books ; I may note that two connensales ad ensatn 
puerorum, commoners vho took their meals vith the 
scholars, xvere in residence for 48 and 49½ xvceks 
respectivcly in 1420.1 
13efore the end of the fifteenth century it had 
become the custom to rcstrict exeats to Whitsuntide. 
Mr. Chitty and I have examined the Account Rolls of 
over thirty years betveen 1490 and 1545, 2 and wc find 
no trace of excats at Christmas or at Eastcr; but 
exccpt in 1517 and 1542  there vere always exeats at 
Whitsuntide, of vhich usually some 50 or 60 of the 
scholars took advantage. There is no evidence for 
Mr. Kirby's statcment that there vas also a " regular " 
exeat in August or September.  It is true that in 
seven out of the thirty years or more of which we have 
takcn account (1492, 1502, 1509, 1518, 1521, 1522, 
1543) the scholars, at or about the rime he mentioned, 
vere absent in large numbers ; but in some of thcsc 
years certainly, in the others almost certainly, their 
absence was hot due to " regular holidays" or to the 
"generosity " of a Head Mastcr or Wardcn ; it was 
due to the presence of plague or epidcmic. The whole 
period was a terrible time in the annals of England. 
At Oxford grave epidemics occurred in at least fiïtecn 
years betveen 1485 and 1525 ; in London " from 1511 
to 1521 there is not a single year without some refer- 
ence to the prevalence of plague ", nor again from 
 A,,als, p. 113. 
 These ro||s give the number of scholars in residcnce during each week on 
every year ti|| 1545.--Mr. Chitty is in no way responsible for the conchsions 
which I have drawn in this paragraph from the facts which he has helped me 
to discover. 
* Why there was no exeat at Whitsuntide (or indeed at any rime) in 1517, 
I ca[mot say ; it may be that Winchester escaped an epidemic that was raging 
elsewhere ; there was plague both at Oxford and in London. In 1542 nearly 
ail the scholars were absent for four or rive weeks belote Whitsuntide ; at 
Whitsuntide they were ail in residence. 
« .4mls, p. 229.--I ara obliged to dissent from Mr. Kirby's statements 
of fact upon this subject, as well as from his inferences. 



426 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. n 
1526 to 1532.1 Our rolls suggest (and wc know) that 
there were also many such visitations at Winchester. 
The late-summer and autumn absences which they 
rccord were longer--often much longer--and more 
general than thosc of the Whitsuntidc cxcat, which 
usually lastcd for a week to a fortnight. In 1509 68 
or 69 scholars were away for threc wceks in August, 
and over 60 for thrcc weeks a little latcr; in 1518 
all wcre away for a wcek in the middle of August, 
some 40 for a fortnight afterwards, nearly 60 for ten 
or twclvc wecks in thc autumn ; vhilc in 15.-thc 
ycar of the " Great Death " in London ---all but one 
or two werc away at thc cnd of Septcmbcr, and they 
rcmained away till the following FebruaryY In 1502, 
1521, 1522 the absences were not quite so remarkable ; 
but in 1521 (as in 1518) all the 70, and in 1522 69, were 
away iii the middle of August. The faets of the year 
1492 have a by-interest in Wykehamical history. The 
numbers of the seholars in residenee during successive 
weeks of the quarter beginning about the end of June 
vere 67, 68, 69, 70, 68, 7, 12, 27, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10. The 
figures, no doubt, mean plague or epidemie ; but why, 
if so, the sudden rise to 27, and the sudden fall to 4 ? 
The week of the 27 was Eleetion week, and (as we 
bave seen) Eleetion eould not be indefinitely post- 
poned, or held elsewhere than at Winchester ; plague 
or no plague, the senior seholars in their " fardels " 
had to face the eleetors in Eleetion Chamber.--I 
1 C. Crcighton, llislory of Epidemics in Britain, i. ch. xii.---On the proxision 
of refuges for the seholars during plague see beiow, pp. 486-7. 
- An ordinance of the Privy Cotuaeii coneerning this appailing plague was 
ruade on May 21 ; it continued for many months, so that the Michaelmas law 
terre was kept at St. Albans. See Creighton, op. c/t. i. pp. 302-3, 313. 
a In the parish of St. Mauriee, Winehester, "" in 1543 there are twenty-eight 
burials, and in 154-$ there are seventeen (in 1541 and 1542 there are only four in 
each year) ". See Fearon and Williams, Parish Registers and Parochial Docu- 
ents in the Archdeaconry of IVinchester, p. 71. 
 See above, pp. 892-8.--At Vestminster in 1608, in consequence of a bad 
visitation of plague in London, the Coilege broke up at the end of July for a 



c. xxxv THE HOLIDAYS 427 

havc thought that the subject of this paragraph is 
of sufficient interest to justify a full statement of the 
facts; our immediate concern, however, is only to 
rcmember that bcforc the sixteenth century began a 
vacation-with-cxcats, of which most parents alloxved 
their sons to avail thcmselvcs, had become fixed for 
Whitsuntide, and for Whitsuntide only. 
After 155 the numbcr of scholars in residcncc is 
no longer statcd on the Account Rolls. At Eton in 
1560, as at Winchester in 15.5 and before, Vhitsuntide 
was the only rime of a migration ïrom school, but not 
a rime of universal migration. " On Ascension Day ", 
writes the Head Master, " a vacation is granted from 
literary warfare; they cease from study, they relax 
their minds, and those who are carried away with the 
desire of visiting thcir parents or friends . . . are 
given leave to depmoE on the condition that they 
return by the feast of Corpus Christi ,,.1 The Whit- 
suntidc break at Eton, that is to say, was in 1560 a 
vacation-with-exeats; but, as the Head Mastcr tells 
us fully how the boys xvere employed at school during 
other vacations, we may infer from his silence on that 
subject at Whitsuntide that the vacation-with-exeats 
had nearly becomc holidays. That it had become so 
entirely by 1636 may be doubtfully inferred from a 
letter in which the Provost, Sir Henry Wotton, told 
Lord Cork that the school " breaketh up two weeks 
before Whitsuntide, and pieceth again a foloEnight 
after".2 At Winchester about 1565 Christopher John- 

long period. But "as the seniors, who were tobe major candidatcs at thc 
next Election, would surfer from enforced idleness ", Deatx Laneelot Andrewes 
"ealled them back into residence with the Head Master and one or two of the 
Prebendaries" (Sargeaunt, p. 62). 
 Etoniana, No. 5, p. 67. Corpus Christi Day is the Thursday after Trinity 
Sunday ; the SVhitsuntide vacation, therefore, lasted for three weeks in 1560. 
In 1686 the Whitsuntide holidays (?) lasted for four weeks. 
2 Austen Leigh, Eton College LisL% p. xlvii. 



428 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

son welcomed lais pupils after a (Whitsuntidc) recess 1 
whieh he ealled a longum otium a »tilitia; Mathew 
spoke in 1647 of the (Whitsuntide) annua resta (v. 
203) as a rime after which the elfildren " return from 
home " 2 for Cloister Time ; 3 Joseph Godwin, who 
entered College in 1648, said that they "have leave 
for a month at Whitsuntide leaving off the Monday 
before " ; and in 1682 we have the elearest evidenee 
that this reeess was no mere vaeation-with-exeats. 
On May 18 of that year Ralph Verney told lais father 
" that all the Children and Cornmoners and Gentle- 
man Cornrnoners Goe home " on the Monday before 
Whitsuntide, and that " noe body stays but some of 
the Children whieh the Warden makes stay here for 
some notorious action they bave eomnfited-;4 the 
exception, which gives verisimilitude to the tradition 
about Dornurn, » need not make us hesitate to say 
that the reeess was holidays. The period of absence 
from School was still a month in 1694. ç 
During the eighteenth eentury, till 177ï, the Whit- 
suntide holidays are mueh in evidenee in Wykeharnieal 
literature. It xvas to Whitsuntide holidays that seniors 
and juniors alike looked forward in Tom Warton's 
Junior of ; Chamber : 
Like us out Seniors are but Boys, 
N'or aire at more exalted joys .... 
Like us on home thcir thoughts are running, 
Like us impatient for a ride, 
Eger they wait for Whitsuntide. 

 In another Theme (fol. 15(;), after addressing St. Philip and St. James 
as the heralds of May, Johnson continues : 
Vos pentecosten converso ostenditis anno, 
II[a dies nobis gaudia quanta feret ! 
 Wordsworth followed the faulty Winchester MS. in reading domum; 
the Magdalen MS. has domo.  See above, pp. 385-6. 
« R. T. Warner, Winchester, p. 26.  See above, p. 411. 
« This appears from an address delivered to the school by the Head 51aster 
before the IVhitsuntide holidays in that year. 



c XXXl THE HOLIDAYS 429 

It was in an ode to Whitsuntide, and "on the im- 
mediate approach of the holidays ", that a contributor 
to George Huddesford's Salmagundi desired the eom- 
ing of 
Crickct, nimble boy and light, 
In slippers red and drawers white. 1 

It xvas an extra week or fortnight of Whitsuntide 
holidays that the proepositors " sollicited by epistle " 
in 1764, and again in 1768. 2 It was after " the annual 
breaking up for the Whitsuntide holidays " that on 
May 20, 1776, and on May 12, 1777, The Hampshire 
Chronicle gave its earliest reports of the eeremony of 
Domum.--There were, then, Whitsuntide holidays at 
Winehester till 1777, but there have never been such 
holidays since. It was decided in that year that 
Election, which had usually been held in September, 3 
should thenceforward be held in the middle of July, 
and that the holidays should be postponed till im- 
mediately after it--that they should no longer pre- 
cede, but should follow, Cloister Time. 4 To the boys 
at school in Deeember 1777 it was a dreary outlook. 
They had been at work since May or June, and if 
their Christmas holidays were to last for the normal 
three weeks only, thcy had before them a terribly 
"long half-year ,,,5 from about the 10th of January 
till the middle of July. It was clearly a case for one 
of those solicitations which I have mentioned. The 
proepositors accordingly wrote to the Warden on 
 The passage points to the unimportance of cricket as a school gaine at 
Winchester in the eighteenth century. See W.C.p. 129. 
- These epistles are extant. That of 1764 bases its solicitation on the 
reeent appointment of Harry Lee to the wardenship. 
3 On the date of Election, see above, pp. 392-3.--In lïï7 it took place 
about the middle of August. 
* See above, p. 389. 
 The term "the long half-year "', sinee abridged into ' Long Half", cannot 
have been invented till after the change here discussed. It was current at 
the beginning of the nineteenth eentury. 



430 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . ,. 
Dcccmber 6, urging that the unusually long tcrm that 
" thrcatcncd " thcm was a sufficicnt rcason for an 
extra fortnight at Christmas; and thrcc days latcr 
thcy sent a Sapphic ode to Dr. Warton, cntrcating him 
to support thcir appeal utroque poIIice ; pores, thcy tcll 
him, qaicquid polis. Hcrc arc thrcc of thciæ tcn 
stanzas : 
Respice, oramus, bone Dux, labores 
Tcmporis longos memor anteacti ; 
Scptimus mensis vehit ad Decembris 
Otia îesta. 
Scptimus nobis peragcndus ecce 
Jam manet, rursus manet ; haud potiri 
Feriis (hune quam procul o rcmotis !) 
Ante liccbit, 
Quam, suoe sedes rcpetcns Sororis 
llospitas, loetam referet eatervam, 
Et suum justis statuer Tribunal 
Legibus Oxon. 
(There is some exaggeration in the second septimus.) 
We may be sure that Dr. Warton, notus in nostros 
animi paterni, was not deaf to so reasonable a request. 
--The Whitsuntide holidays, then, gave place to 
"Election holidays" 1 in 1778 ; and Elcction holidays, 
whether so called or not, there continued to be till 
1882, vhen Election, shorn of its ceremony, was shifted 
to December.  From 1778 to 1867 these Election 
holidays began about the middle of July, and ended 
about the end of August. But after the institution, 
still to be noticed, of Easter holidays in 1858 it was 
felt that " the short half-year "--now that there were 
three sehool "halves" it was the longest of them all-- 
was inordinately long; that August was a bad time 
* Warden Harry Lee spoke of" the Election vacation " in an official docu- 
ment of 1784, and The Hampshire Chron/c/e of "' what is called the Election 
vacation " in 1792 (July 28). 
 I speak, of course, of the Election ad Oxon. only. Sec Chapter XLKII. 



c. xxxv THE HOLIDAYS 431 
for resuming work--that Eton 1 and other great 
schools were wise in beginning and ending their 
summer holidays later than Winchester. These con- 
siderations brought about a change in 1868, and the 
arrangement then made has not since been modified, 
in spite of the shifting of Election. Domum Day, 
which in 1867 was the 9th of July, was the 28th in 1868 
and the 29th in 1913, and the holidays have lasted for 
seven weeks, till the middle of September. 
We have seen that in the fifteenth century thcre 
were sometimes exeats at Election time (in August or 
Scptember) as well as at Whitsuntide. There is also 
evidence for an Election exeat in 1634; it cornes from 
the Verney correspondence, and, as the interesting 
letter which contains it has not hitherto round its 
way into a book, I reprint it here from The Wyke- 
hamist. « 
To his Much respected Brother, Msr. Ralph Verney at 
Middle Claydon. These. 
GOOD BRoT.u--The Commoners custome and the 
childrens are not alyke, in respect that the children cannot 
go home without the consent of the Warden, and School- 
toaster, and the Commoners only of theire parents. The 
cause which makes me so desirous to goe home is, because 
that ail the Commoners doe goe home at that [?] rime, and 
most part of the Children (though they are compelled to make 
great sute before they can obtaine leave). Now to satis[y 
you concerning the terme of our stay, and my fathers un- 
willingnes. Our stay is about 3 weekes in which rime they 
that doe stay here have not soe mueh taske imposed upon 
them, that ean take up one dayes labour, and if you do obtaine 
your sure, you or my father neede only to write to my Sehool- 
toaster to eertify him that it is his pleasure to send for me 

t Mr. Austen Leigh proves (Eton College L/sts, p. xlài) that Eton shifted 
its holidays from Whitsuntide to August at some rime between 1753 , and 1766. 
But the change was ruade at latest in 1759, when the .loffem festival was 
shifted to Whit Tuesday (V.H. Bucks, ii. p. 192 ; .SI. L. p. 500). 
 June 28, 1900. 



432 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. ,, 
home. I fearc that the earnestnes of my sure hath ruade rny 
father rnistrust that I neglect my rime .... I rest, Your 
obliged Brother, EDIUND VERNEY. 
VlNTON COLL., Augus! 29 a, 1634. 
The following extract from a letter written by an 
Eton oppidan to his father shows that there was an 
Election exeat af Eton in 1687 ; the lctter was written 
on July 21 in that year. 
HONOaED Sa--This is to acquaent you that the electione 
being near art hand, which is our usuall vacation ïrom business 
and with your leave a rime appointed for home enjoyments, 
and prosuming opon an old custome that you will be pleased 
to grant this, I ïurther request you to send ye horses for us .... 1 
Sir H. Maxwell Lyre thinks that this rime for home 
enjoymcnts was no more than an exeat of a few days 
during Election for " such oppidans as lived within 
rcasonablc distance of Eton-.2 Oppidans at Eton 
and commoners at Winchester had no concern with 
the elections for King's and New Collcge, and even in 
mueh later days at ¥inehester, when the post-election 
holidays had been introduced, commoners went home 
before Election began, a In 1770, when the holidays 
were still at Whitsuntide, John Bond spoke of a 
commoner as spending the Election week " with a 
Gentleman " away from Winchester : Bond himself, 
though he also was a commoner and had his home in 
Dorset, did not go home for election veek, with which 
(he writes on September 11) he was " quite wearied ", 
having little or nothing to do.--Returning to Edmund 
Verney's letter, I think we may safely conclude that 
in his anxiety to go home and stay there he some- 
what exaggerates the general acceptance  and the 
1 51r. Wasey Sterry prints the letter in full (Armais of Eton College, p. 147). 
z 51. L. p. 277. a Sec above, p. 387. 
 Of course it was only the younger seholars whose suit to the Warden 
eould be suceessful ; they had no work during eleetion tirne (sec above, p. 387), 
but the Warden would feel that they ought to be prescrit at the festivities. 



,. xxx THE HOLIDAYS 433 

normal duration of the Election exeat, to vhich we 
have no other scventeenth-century allusions; not 
one of the extant addresses of the Head Master 
Harris (1679-1700) was writtcn in view of such an 
occasion. 1 
So much for Whitsuntide and Elcction holidays or 
vacations. At Christmas, as we havc scen, therc wcre 
cxcats at Winchestcr in the fourtccnth  and fifteenth 
centurics, but therc is no trace of them in the sixteenth ; 
therc were howcvcr, no doubt, Christmas rccesses. 
At Eton in 1560 thcre was a Christmas reccss ; it was 
a vacation-without-cxcats. An otium literarium and 
vacatio a publica prcelectione in schola was proclaimed 
by thc Schoolmaster on thc vigil of St. Thomas, and it 
lastcd till thc 7th of January, 3 whcn the boys set to 
work again "strcnuously, even though with unwillng 
minds ". During this vacation thcy acted plays choscn 
by the Master ; challcnged one another to the making 
of epigrams ; moved one another to virtue by prose 
orations, ahnost--so the Master assures us--without 
the Master's knowledge; and, though wc are told 
that " all tlis time is allowed for play ", learnt how 
to write  an interesting point for parents who 
complain in The Times of the atrocious handwriting 
of the modern schoolboy. We have no companion 
picture for Winchestcr. Bishop Horne rcquired in 
1571 that the Wardcn should prcach in chapcl on St. 
Stcphen's Day,  and thc boys, no doubt, were thcrc 
to hcar hinl. In 1633 Edmund Verney told his 
brother Ra]ph that he should " acknowledgc himsclf 
much bcholdcn " if he did " his best endeavours " to 

' See above, pp. 48-9. 
 Thus during the Chrismas week of 1895 only 45 scholars wcre in rcsidenee 
(I'.H.p. 277). 
a Sec above, p. 4,23. 
 From the Con.etudinariurn (EIoni«ma No. 5, pp. 65, 68-9). 
 V.A. & I. p. 826. 
2F 



48¢ ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 
arrange for his going home "af Crismas"; 1 Verney was 
a gcntleman commoncr, and his brothcr's endeavours, 
if ruade, verc probably successful. On December 16, 
1657, Lord Saye and Sele wrote fo his friend Warden 
Harris fo requcst that his grandson, a College" officer" 
for whom clcction fo New College vas confidently 
expectcd, might corne home "for this idle tyme";2 
thc emphasis which the writer laid on the very special 
rcasons for his rcquest shows that Christmas cxeats 
wcre in 1657, for the scholars af any rate, by no mcans 
a marrer of course. 3 They were common forty years 
later, whcn William Harris was Hcad Master. He 
distinguishcs in his pre-Christmas addrcsses betwecn 
boys " that go into the Country" and boys that stay 
af Winchcstcr ; 4 he tells the latter that he " knows 
no place whcre thcy can spcnd the rime vith more 
innocence and safcty", though if appcars that they 
did not in fact spcnd it very profitably.--When the 
Christmas vacation-with-cxcats bccame holidays I 
cannot dctcrmine. A casual allusion fo " the Boys 
being just going Home " occurs in a lctter writtcn 
by Joseph Warton, thcn Hostiarius, on Dccembcr 10, 
1759 ; « that thcre were Christmas holidays in 1768 7 
1 I'.l. i. p. 157, but the condensed statement there made is liable to 
rnisinterpretation. See The Wykehamist, June 28, 1900. 
a It was not altogether an idle rime. Joseph Godwin (admitted 1648) says 
that "at Christrnas and such rimes they ]earne for Task abundance of Homer 
exactly". The Head Master alludes in 1693 to a Christmas vacation task, 
but it is a task that "' will hot exhaust halfe your rime ". 
 I bave already rnade use of this letter on p. 133. An interesting point 
which it brings to light is that a founder's kinsman in College might take a 
private servant to Winchester. The servant to whorn the letter refers had, 
rnuch to Lord Saye's annoyance, causcd scandal by his drunkenness. 
 Harris's addresses draw very clearly the distinction between ,Vhitsuntide 
holidays, Christmas vacations-with-exeats, Easter vacations-without-exeats. 
 See above, p. 49.--The difficulty of disciplining boys who stayed af 
school during vacations-with-exeats was also felt at Vestminster ; see Sar- 
geaunt, pp. 47, 160. 
ç The Wykehamisl, June 1889. 
 There were Christrnas holidays, lasting a month, at Eton in 1766 
(Eloniana, No. 8, p. 114). 



. xxx,v THE HOLIDAYS 435 

may be inferred from some words, subsequently 
erased, which occur in Resolutions passed by the 
Warden and Fellows in that year. The Warden had 
ceded Meads to the scholars " for their Airing and 
Play Place " ; he looked for " Compensation for such 
Cession-.1 It was proposed to find it by depriving 
the Bursars of certain privileges which they had 
previously enjoyed ; they too looked for compensation : 

They shall be allowed the Benefit and Liberty of the 
Pasture during the Whitsuntide and Christmas holidays. 

The benefit of the pasture wotfld have been very 
small if many of the boys, with a task assigned them 
which "would not exhaust halfe their rime ", had been 
kicking their heels at Winchester.--The Christmas 
holidays, if not in 1768, at any rate a little later, 
lasted normally for three weeks, but there were some- 
rimes successful solicitations by epistle for their ex- 
tension; in December 1791 there were negotiations 
on the subject between the Warden and the Pre- 
positors, of which the following document marks the 
final or semi-final stage : 

The Scholars of Winchester College are willing to adopt 
the Alterations so kindly proposed to them by the Wardcn. 
They consent in future to make Monday in every Easter- 
Week, and Monday in every Whitsun-Wcek,  School-days 
to ail intents and purposes, provided that the Wardcn will 
upon his part relinquish the usage of allowing only Three 
Veeks as the Regular Vacation at Christmas, and will engage 
that a Month shall be the stated rime of Winter Vacation 
without any sollicitation by Epistle. 
This proposal being accepted, they perfectly understand, 
that any rime beyond a Month must be altogethcr an 

a Sec above, p. 868. 
 Itis still understood that Whit Monday is a whole school-day, unless 
verbal solicitation tan convertit, as it usually tan, into a half-rcmedy. 



436 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
indulgence sollicited as usual, and of course at the Warden's 
option to refuse or grant .... 
Thc Proepositors, whosc attitude as high contracting 
partics will havc bccn admircd, madc a vcry good 
bargain. Ata trifling cost thcy gaincd a certain 
cxtra wcck at Christmas and rctained the right of 
asking for more. 
At Eastcr, as at Christmas, cxcats werc somctimcs 
grantcd in carly rimes at Winchcstcr; but beyond 
that faet we know nothing about the obsewance of 
thc Easter season there till late in the seventecnth 
century. At Eton in 1560 there was at Easter, as at 
Christmas, something of an otium literarum et vacatio 
as at Christmas, there were writing lessons 1 and no 
exeats; but the vacation lasted only for ten days. 
At Winchester, even in 1695, it vas still shorter, 2 and, 
as af Eton, no boys went "into the Country ".a How 
vcry shooE it vas a century later is shown by the 
proepositors " consenting" in 1791 to Easter Monday 
bcing a school-day. 4 The terre "long halï" vould not 
have corne into use if Eastcr had ruade a real break. 
Exeats were granted in 1856 and in 1857 (possibly, 
also, a little earlier), to boys who could conveniently 
go home, from Easter-Eve to Easter-Tuesday ; but it 
vas only in 1858 that Easter holidays (lasting about a 
fortnight) began.  Such holidays vere by no means 
universal at public schools, even in the sixties ; there 
vere nonc, for instance, at Rugby; and in 1862 
 Discul scribe're qui nondum scite pinçant ; qui veto elcganter sua manu 
aliquid possunt, bi describunt ordine Jïguras elementorum, et sociis exempla ad 
imitandum proponunt (Etoniana, No. 5, p. 
z Sec above, p. 48. 
 Mr. R. T. Warner, however, produces evidenee ofa Gentleman Commoner 
enjoying an exeat of a few days at Easter in 1682 ( Winchester, p. 47). 
a In 1824 the Warden and Fellows told the Head Master that it must never 
be a remedy (sec above, p. 31). 
 In 1766 " the Easter Holydays" at Eton began on the Monday belote 
Easter and lasted a fortnight (Etoniana, No. 8, p. 11). 



c. xx THE HOLIDAYS 4,37 

Dr. Moberly, when giving evidcnce before the Public 
School Commissioners, x was asked the question : " Do 
you think that three breaks in the year are required 
for rest 9. ,, His " Yes " xvill be echoed by ail boys 
and masters to-day : no one would feel it possible to 
face an unbroken " long half" of 5- months. 
The coming of Easter holidays led to the discon- 
tinuance of an interesting custom which may be 
mentioned in this place. We have seen that William 
Harris gave addresses, probably in School, to the boys 
three rimes a year ; of such addresses xvhat was knoxvn 
as "Good Friday Prose" was a survival. This 
" Prose " was a carefully-prepared speech, delivcred 
by thc Head Master in School to the boys and thc 
boys only, on events of the past year, on rccent or 
eoming changes, on lighter or graver questions of 
sehool-life, on anything, in fact, whieh seemed to 
require his comment. "Every Wiccamical reader", 
says Dr. Warton's biographer, 2 " will reeolleet his 
diseourse annually delivered in the School on Good 
Friday ". The present writer was fortunate enough 
in 1863 to hear the last Good Friday Prose 3 of Dr. 
Moberly; everybody listened with the closest atten- 
tion. It may be regretted that in Moberly's later 
years the practice was finally abandoned. It was a 
good thing that the Head Master should take ail the 
boys, and hot the seniors only, into his confidence, so 
far as he could discreetly do so, on matters of school 
poliey, thereby quiekening and refining their sense of 

 P.S.C.p. 358. 
: SVooll, Biographical 211emoirs of Dr. lVarton, p. 4. 
a It was hot of course actually delivered on Good Friday, for the Easter 
holidays had begun on the Wednesday before Easter.--Dean Wickham 
deseribes earlier " Proses " of Dr. Moberly in W.C.p. 109.--Does any old 
Wykehamist "know why the passage (destroyed in 1869) bet'een Cornrnoners 
and School Court was called ' Good Friday Passage " ? The naine has now 
been transferred to the passage between School and t21oisters, which was 
formefly called " School Passage ". 



438 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.  
membership in a great community ; that he should 
have an opportunity of indicating his views on this or 
that question of school-life xvithout secking it by 
summoning the school ad hoc ; and most of ail, that 
he should speak to the school from rime to rime in a 
more secular tone than is thought suitable to the 
pulpit. We praise a speaker, and generally praise 
him rightly, who " raises subjects to a higher level "; 
but the highest level should not be the habitual levcl 
for any but the highest subjects. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 

lnde Capcllani, qui constant ordine trino; 
Vcndicat et trinum numerum sibi Clcrieus ; unus 
Organa qui facili p..rcurrit dissona dcxtra (vv. 15-17). 

BESIDES instituting ten perpetual pricst-fellows Wvkc- 
ham also instituted three other priests who, like the 
two Masters, vere to be conducticii et remotivi, hired 
and removeable (Rubrie I.); the former adjective 
explains the naine " Conducts", which is still given 
to the hired priests at Eton, and vas given to them 
at Winchester in the reign of Henry VIII. 1 The two 
kinds of priests, charged capelle in divinis servire et in 
ca ministrare, are sometimes classed together in the 
Statures as the tresdecim presbiteri, sometimes as 
"the chaplains " (capellani); but the latter titlc is 
usually reserved for the hired priests. The chaplains, 
to use the word in this narrower sense, ranked below 
the Fellows  of course, and therefore also belov the 
Informalor; together with the Hostiarius, of whom, 
however, they took precedence (R. XIV.),  they 
x Hislory, p. 134. 
 Present and past chaplains had a second-preferential daim, after prescrit 
and past Fellows of New College, to election to vacant Winchester fellowhips 
(R. viii.l. 
 The stipends of the chaplains were however smaller than that of the 
llostiarius, owing perhaps to the fact that their duties were less exacting. 
The tIostiarius received 5 marks, the chaplains were to receive 3---if they could 
be had for the money ; but the Warden might agree to pay them 4 rnarks if 
439 



440 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,T.- 

occupicd a second grade among the official staff of 
the College. They were to be lodged in one of the 
upper ehambers, the camera cure camino " towards 
the west, adjacent to the kitehen " (R. XXXIV.), i.e. 
in what is now the Second Master's drawing-room. 
No regular duties exeept that of ministration in Chapel 
were assigned to them, but a ehaplain might be ealled 
upon to coach a very baekward kinsman of the 
Foundcr (R. II.). 1 
The duties of the ehaplains, if not onerous, were 
suflïeicnt before the Refornmtion fo keep them 
oeeupied ; indeed Wykeham thought it possible that 
for his seven daily masses and seven eanonieal hours 
his thirteen priests might need reinïoreement (R. 
XXIX.). After the Reformation it was otherwise; 
when Warden Harris, speaking of the ehaplains in 
164, explains that " their employment, together xvith 
the fellowes, hath been to read praiers tviee every 
day, at 10 and 4 of the eloek, and also to the ehildren 
every morning", ve see that thirteen priests were at 
least ten too many; the reports of the Supervisors 
show that in the seventeenth eentury even the three 
ehaplains round little to do. The other duties of the 
Fellovs, of those at least who did not hold sueh 
ofiïees as the two bursarships, were neither onerous 
nor eontinuous, and they began to live away 
from Winehester. Perhaps the ehaplains may have 
taken work outside the College. As late as 1641, 
however, they vere all three in occupation of their 
College quarters ; for it was "eonditiond and agreed " 
in that year between them and one of the bursars that 

he found it necessary. On the other hand they were allowed annually 6 
virgalae of cloth, the Hostiarius only 5 (RR..NVI., XXVII.).--Till 1782 the 
name of the Hostiarius always stood in Long Rolls, as it stands in Warden 
Harris's list of 1645, below lhose of the chaplains. See L.R.i.p. lxxxi. 
a A chaplain received 6s. Bd. in 1399 for teaching the quiristers (Annals, 
p. 146). 



c,,. _xxv CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 441 

the latter should "seele the Chaplaines Chambcr over 
head, sert upp partitions over their Studies, make 
them three severall wood-houses to lay their fewell 
in, and wainseott their Chamber in the greatest part 
of it ,,.1 At some rime between 1641 and 1661 residcnee 
eeased, it would seem, to be enforeed ; for in the latter 
year the Supervisors, finding that their monitions 
in the marrer were disregarded, eomplained to the 
Bishop that the ehaplains took thcir eommons out 
of College. When they gave up thcir chamber or 
ehambers for good I have not becn able to diseovcr.-- 
In eonnectiol witl the early history of the chaplains 
mention should be ruade of " Fromond's pricst", an 
ofiïcial appointed by its founder to sing nmsses in 
Chantlsz at the high stipend of ten marks. He was 
also employed oeeasionally in Chapcl, - and ho was 
usually a Fellow of the College. The office was 
abolished in 1547, but Mr. Chitty has diseovered that 
in spire of the Chantries Act the stipend was paid in 
1550-1. If was paid of course during Queen Mary's 
reign, but was again discontinued after Elizal)cth's 
accession. In 1571 we find Bishop Horne noting with 
disapproval that Latin prayers were still said daily 
by the quiristcrs in " Fromon's chapel " ; he requires 
that " instead thereof some other psalms or psalmody 
shall be appointed by the Warden -.3 Mr. Kirby was 
therefore mistaken in supposing that after Mary's 
reign Chantry was "shut up " till Warden Pinke of 
New College eonveoEed it into a library in 1629. « 
History is silent about thc chaplaius of the 

 It appears from the terres of the agreement that the Chamber had 
ecently been "" open unto the roofe, the mairie beamcs, posts, & braccs on 
eaeh side appcaring", but that a new chamber had rccently bcen constructed 
above the main beams ; this new chamber, approachcd by a " Stairc-raft ", 
was o¢upied by one of the Fellows. 
 llislory, p. 259. a I ".. 1. d" 1. p. 32.0. 
« /lnnals, p. 169. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

eighteenth eentury. It is probable that what preach- 
ing took place in Chapel devolved upon them almost 
entirely, as the Fellows came to reside more and more 
infrequently ; even after the institution of a Sunday 
sermon by Warden Barrer in 1833 they were still the 
preachers on speeial occasions. 1 Some samples of 
their eloquence are given by T. A. Trollope and Mr. 
Tuekwell ; 2 in the sixties, when these speeial sermons 
had been diseontinued, extraets from them were 
treasured.--Sinee 1863 it has been the eustom to 
confine appointments to ehaplaineies to Assistant 
3lasters; in 1877 a fourth chaplain was added, who 
has been spccially eonnected, like Fromond's Priest, 
with Chantry. 

l'endicat et trinum numerum sibi Clericus ; as there 
were thrce chaplains, so there were three " clerks", 
whose duties and privileges are set forth in the 
Statures. They were clerks " of the Chapel " (Rubrics 
VIII., XIV., XXVI.), and as such were to take their 
paoE, with the Fellows and chaplains, in the choral 
services (RR. XXVIII., XXIX.) ;  but they were also 
to wait upon the Warden, Fellows, chaplains, school- 
masters and scholars in Hall, taking their own meals 
afterwards " with the other servitors and attendants" 
(R. XIV.). They were to receive a stipend of twenty 
shillings,* and a gown at Christmas (RR. XLXVII., 
XXVI.). They were also, though the Statures do not 

 See above, p. 252.  See e.g. Tuckweil, pp. 147-8. 
a A fuller accourir of the choral duties of clerks of the chapel is given in the 
New College Statures (Ruhric XLV.). At New College as at Winchester there 
were three elerks ; at Magdalen SVa3mflete pro»'ided for eight (H. A. Vilson, 
Magdalen College, p. 40).--Like the ehaplains the elerks were remiss about 
attending ehapel in the seventeenth eentury. The Supervisors often eom- 
plained of this ; in 1621 they required ut clerici frequentiores sin! in divinis et 
magis solliciti. 
« The stipends of the clerks and chaplains were much lower than at Eton, 
where a clerk received rive marks and a chaplain rive pounds. 



ch. xxxv CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 443 

say so, to be lodged in College, as at New College and 
Eton; the Supervisors complained in 1668 that 
" Clark, one of ye clerks of y° College, entertayns 
townsmen as guests in lais chamber, drinking and 
singing of rude songs, to ye great disturbance of a 
greater part of ye Coll." ---Entries in the accounts 
show further that in Wykeham's lifetime the clerks 
were expected, for a consideration, to make them- 
selves useful in other ways. A clerk was paid 6s. Bd. in 
1399 " for entering evidences of title in the Registcr " ; 
another received the same sure in the same year '" for 
ringing the bell and keeping the kcy of the chapel ".- 
The clcrks were members, though humblc mcmbers, 
of the foundation, and it was difficult to class them. 
Rubric I. introduces them among the dignitaries, and 
they are placed among these in Mathcw's poem; a 
but in the later Rubrics, as in the early Long Rolls, 
they are placed among the servants. 4 In Bishop 
Horne's Injunctions of 1571 they appear in this humbler 
category ; the Bishop assumes that " the clerks choral, 
choristers, and other lay officers of the College do not 
ail understand the Latin tongue ", and therefore directs 
that grace at meals shall be said in English.  Two 
clerks are commemorated in Cloisters; they died in 

1 Mr. Kirby wrongly calls Clark a ehaplain (Annals, p. 351).--Clark's 
misconduct was condoned ; his naine (variously spelt) appears among those of 
the clerici in Long Rolls till 1695. 
2 Armais, pp. 146-7.--It is possible that the alius clericw of Rubric II., to 
whom the eoaching of backward Founder's Kin might be entrusted, was, as 
Mr. Kirby thought (ibid. pp. 71, 93), one of the chapel clerks. At Magdalcn 
one of the clerks or chaplains rnight offer himself for the post of instructor of 
the ehoristers (Wilson, Magdalen College, p. 40). 
a Mr. Chitty relis me that in pre-reformation rimes it was hot uncommon 
for scholars fo become elerks, and for clerks to become ehaplains and after- 
wards Fellows. 
« The names of the Clerici appear among the Nomina Servorum in Long 
Rolls, but always at thc head of them. It bill be observed, howevcr, that in 
the Roll for 1658, while the clerks are plain Frampton, Burgis, Taylour, the 
manciple is Dnus Auston and the cooks are Dus Davis and Dnus Pew. 
 See above, p. 186. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,.T. ,, 

1644 and 1668 respcctively ;  but as two butlcrs and 
(apparently) a eook of the College were buried there in 
the course of the saine century (in 1693, 1694, and 
16..7)  the fact throws no light upon their rank. 3 

The Statures make no provision for an organist. 
Thcre was probably an organ in Chapel from the first, 
for in 1407 (or 1399) 4 the celebrated item occurs in the 
accounts: in expensis ri. scholarium deferenlium or- 
gana 5 de collegio usqae ad hospilium d' epi de Wallham, 
ix « oh. ; but for an organist there is no early evidenee. 
Mr. Kirby eonjeetured that in early rimes the instru- 
ment xvas played by one of the elerks of the ehapel; 
the eonjeeture, xvhieh he based on a very bad ground,  
is probable in itself and is supported by evidenee from 
EtonY A Winehester elerk of the ehapel was perhaps 
 lnscriptiones Wiccamicae, pp. 39, 65. 
: Ibid. pp. 60, 61, 57. 
a Among the names of members of the Foundation who took the oath of 
fidclity and secrecy in 1400 (Armais, p. 67) thc naine of "" Richard Mathon, 
in loco Diaconi " stands between those of the three chaplains and of two 
Clerici C«pelloe. As the list of offices precisely corresponds otherwise to that 
given in Rubric I., it seems clear that Mathon was thc third clerk of the chapel ; 
but what is the meanin of in loco Diaconi ? 
« Mr. Kirby says in 1399 ; "Valcott, vho quotes the item, says in 1407. 
 At a later date there were two organs in Chai»ci (sec below) ; but the 
ldural organa (or thc phrase "" a payre of organs ") is very commonly used of 
a single instrument.--The six scholars who carricd the organ from Winchester 
to Bishop's Waltham had no heavy load. 
« Armais, p. 58. Mr. Kirby's conjecture was based on a misinterpretation 
of vv. 16, 17 of Mathew's poem, -hich, with Walcott (p. 195), he took to imply 
that the organist was one of the clerks when the poem was written ; he did 
hot know that it was written in 1647. George Kin was organist (though 
Warden IIarris preferred to call him "" Singing Master ") in 1645, and continued 
to hold the office till after the Restoration ; but neither in the "Varden's 
statement of 1645 nor in the Long Roll of 1653 does his naine appear as that of 
one of the three clerks. 
 The Eton Statures provided that the organist should be one of the four 
elerks, and that he should receive the handsome stipend of £5. They contain 
no mention of an organ, but the final instructions of Henry VI. directed that 
space should be left " for a wey in to the Rodclofte for redyn and syngs, ng , 
and for the organs and other manê observance there to be had "(M. L., original 
edition, Appendices A and B).--A " Survey of Eaton College, Co' Bucks", 
ven in full by Sir E. Creasy (Eminent Etonians, pp. 84-6), shows that one of 



cH. xxxv CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 445 

not always a brilliant executant; vhen Henry VI. 
paid a visit to thc College in 1,45, the organ was 
played by a clcrk hired from the convcnt of St. 
Swithun. 1 
An organista first appcars in the accounts of 1538-9, 
but the entry secms to show that he was not an organ- 
player, but an organ-repaircr--what latcr accounts call 
an organaritts. An organist proper first appears in 
1553-; hc was paid at the rate of 10s. a quartcr. 
After some ycars of makeshift arrangements a regular 
organist, at an annual stipend of £,, rcccivcd quarterly 
payments from 1558 to 1571, in which latter ycar 
Bishop Hornc cnjoined " that thc organ shall bc no 
more used in service timc ", and "that thc stipend for 
thc organ-playcr shall bc hercafter turned to some 
other godly or ncccssary purposc -.2 It was turned to 
somc othcr purpose during thc remainder of Horne's 
cpiscopate, and during thosc of his four successors ; 
but soon after the translation of Bishop Bilson to 
Winchester in 1597 thc organist and lais stipcnd 
(£2:13:4 at first, then £2, and aïter 1605 £,) arc 
again in cvidencc. 3 Thcy werc again in jeopardy, as 
wc shall sec presently, in 16,5, but with thc Rcstoration 
came a musical rcvival. Thc organ was rcpaired for 
£26, and vas rcbuilt in 1665 at a cost of over £150; 
whcn in thc following ycar Thomas Kcn  bccamc a 
resident Fcllow thc intcrests of music in thc Collegc 
gained an cnthusiastic supporter. The existence of 
thc organist has ncvcr sincc bccn imperillcd, but in 

the elerks, therein called ' conducts " (see above, p. 4[;5 ; the ehaplains did 
not as yet bear that name), was still the organist af Eton and reeeived a 
stipend of £6 in 1545. 
I Amals, p. 193.  |'.A. e 1. p. 329. 
a See a paper by Mr. Chitty in The IVykehamis! for Deeembcr 1913, where 
Mr. Kirby's statements on the subjeet in Amals (p. 58) are refuted. 
« Ken was wont to " sing his part" at musical meetings in New College 
before the Restoration (R. and R. p. 192). For " Ken's organ "' at Vinehester 
see Anals, p. 84A. 



446 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. n 

1901 his official title and his status were changed; 
he beeame " Master of Music " and was merged in the 
promiseuous eategory of assistant masters, whose 
names were first reeorded in the Long Roll of 1776, and 
of whose very existence before 1739 we have little or 
no evidenee. 1 
No roll of our organists has, I think, ever been 
drawn up. Two of them found out musical tunes 
which are more famous, perhaps, than the names of 
their finders ; these were John Reading (1681-92), who 
gave us the setting of "Election Graee" and the 
music of Domum, and John Bishop (1695-1737), to 
whom we owe Te de profundis and Imn Lucis. There 
xvas also Thomas Weelkes (c. 1600), whose madrigals, 
especially his Ms l;esta was from Latmos Hill descending, 
are still well known; and there was Jeremiah Clarke 
(1692-5), afterwards organist of St. Paul's, who first 
set Alexander's Feast to music. But the greatest 
naine upon the roll would be that of Samuel Sebastian 
Wesley (18¢9-6¢), the composer of The Wilderness, 
Blessed be the God and Father, Ascribe unto the Lord. 
Wykchamists of the fifties and early sixties well 
remember his quaintly dressed figure and strange gait 
as he walked up Chapel on Sundays after the evening 
sermon. 2 
The story of the College organs, to which there are 
many references in .4nnals, has been written, vith an 
expert's knowlcdge, over the initials E. T. S. 3 We 
read in the accounts of the purchase of other instru- 
ments "for the use of the chapel" or "for the use 
of the choristers"; the College paid about £5 
(including portatio ejusdem a Londino) for a "harp- 
sican" (Walcott) or "harpselen" (Mr. Kirby) 4 in 
i Sec Chaptcr IV.  Sec above, p. 262. 
a The I|'ykehamist, March 29, 1910. 
 Having examined the two entries in which this instrument is mentioned, 
I read "" harpsecan " in one place, and " harpsecon " in the other, but thc first 



.,' CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 447 

1665, and £2 : 10s. for a smnbuca some twenty years 
later2 

The chief historical interest of the clerks and the 
organist, as perhaps of the quiristers also, belongs to 
the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth. 
Warden Harris was formally aeeused, probably in 
1645, of maintaining "the lawfulness and antiquity 
of organieall musiek in the Quire "--a charge whieh 
he met with mueh adroitness. 2 When, therefore, he 
was ealled upon to furnish an inquisitorial eommittee 
with partieulars about the choral staff, he was mueh 
upon his guard. I have said that tvo clerks are 
commemorated in Cloisters; of one of them, who 
died in 1644, it is reeorded : 

Olim cantica, musica peritus, 
Dulci vote dedisti et arte multa. 

But in 1645 the judicious Harris described the functions 
of the elerks as follows : 

Their office is, to attend in the Chappell, to see it swept 
and kept cleane, to keep the bells and the clock and to wait 
upon the ffellowes at the table. 

He knexv nothing, it will be observed, of their skilful 
art and sweet singing of anthems.--So with the 
organist; Harris was hot aware of his existence; 
there was " one Singing Master, Mr. King". Yet 

entry might well be read as " harpselen." The bursars should have written 
" harpsicon " 
t "' ttarpsieon "=harpsieord or spinet. ,¢;amlmea (Dr. Sweeting relis me) 
probably=sackbut or trombone; " many old English varieties of the 
name are round, sueh as sakbud, saykebud, shackebutte, shagbushe, 
shagbolt ". 
a Mr. Kirby (Armais, p. 889) says that " we bave hot got the Warden's 
answer ", but a draft of it, in the Warden's handwriting, is belote me as I 
rite. 



448 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

Mathew wrote two years later that there was a person 
on the staff, 

Organa qui facili pereurrit dissona 1 dextra (v. 17) ; 

the Long Roll for 1653 calls Mr. King Organisla ; the 
accounts of 1644-5 and of many subsequent years 
record quarterly payments of £1 : Ss. to him under that 
title. The Warden, clearly, should have editcd poem, 
roll, and accounts. The two organs--" the one great, 
the othcr a choire organ "--are described in the in- 
vcntory of 1646, but they " disappeared ", says Mr. 
Kirby, " from the invcntory in 1647, 8 and remained 
concealcd until the Restoration ,,.a The organist's 
" facile hand " must in the intcrval have either lost 
its facility, or " run over" the kcys by stealth ; what 
would hc not have given for the sound-proof walls of a 
modern Music School ! King continued to be organist 
till aftcr the Rcstoration, and thcrc may be some truth 
in thc allcgcd tradition that "a musical service of 
some kind was kcpt up during the Parliamentary 
and Conlmonwealth régime " 4__ Again, it appcars 

 If organa is here a real plural, dissona probably means no more than 
" two '" ; if it refers to one organ ooly, dissona mu)- refer to the double key- 
board. 
 Shouid this date be 1649 ? See Annals, p. 841. 
a Ibid. p. 57.--Winchester Coilege was more fortunate than Winchester 
Cathedrai or New College. The New College organ was destroyed after the 
surrender of Oxford in I6J,6 (R. and I. p. 68) ; for the tmhappy rate of the 
Cathedrai organ see Winchester Cathedral Documents, il. p. xxiv.--I find the 
following interesting entries in Pepys's Diary for the year of the Restoration : 
"' July 8th (Lord's day). To White Hall chapei .... Here I heard very good 
musique, the first rime that ever I remember to have heard the organs and 
sinog men in surplices in my life " ; "' November 4th (Lord's duy). After 
dinner to Westminster . . . I went to the Abbey, where the first rime that 
ever I heard the organs in a cathedrai ". 
 Plumptre, Lire of Thomas Ken, p. 30.--At Eton "one of the oidest of the 
Feilows, Thomas Weaver, is said to bave been in the habit of assembling the 
members of the disbanded choirs of Eton and of Windsor in his rooms every 
morning, to perform some of the saered music to whieh they had been aeeus- 
tomed '" (M. L. p. 236). 



«. v CHAPLAINS : CLERKS : ORGANIST 449 

from Mathew's poem that in 1647 the sixteen 
quiristers 

resonant saeros argutis voeibus hymnos 
In templo, ex templo soeiis puerisque ministrant (vv. 25-6), 

but Harris ignores the sacred hymns and the treble 
voices; "we have ", he says, "16 poor children whom" 
(for some mysterious reason) " we call quiristers who 
are by Statute to make the ffellowes bedds, and to 
wait upon the Children in the Hall" 
It is claimed for Harris on the beautiful brass 
which is on your left hand as you enter Cloisters 
that in the diflïcult tides of the times in whieh 
he lived he steered his ship safcly, with God's 
help, through various tempests ; 1 nec tamen, adds 
his eulogist, remembering that the Warden had 
been accused of having " onely serv'd the times " 
--nec tamen secula quibus usus est coluit, sed 
soeclorun Deum. The statement is, I believe, sub- 
stantially true, but Harris was unquestionably an 
astute man of the world. Dr. Freshfield possesses 
"a contemporary edition of the Solemn League and 
Covenant which contains illustrations, among others 
of bishops, deans, and priests being turned out of a 
Cathedral; they are preceded by Singingmen and 
two boys described as Coristers-.2 Vho will judge 

i The author of a memorandum drawn up, apparently, soon after the 
Resoration quotes passages from Coruelius Nepos to prove what he calls the 
" Agreeableness of Dr. H. to T. Pomp. Attieus "'. Here is one of them : " If 
that pilot is most highly praised who saves his ship from wintry storm and 
roeky sea, why should we hot regard as matehless the prudence of one who has 
corne safe and sound from civil tempests so many and so dangerous ? " But 
Harris, the writer hastens to add, though like Atticus, excelled him, for he 
saved hot himselî alone, but his whole College ; and he did so without "that 
massy power of money, by whieh Attieus obliged ail parties".--I suggest 
that the writer of the memorandum was also the writer of the inscription ; 
there is some reason for supposing that he was Harris's successor, Waxden 
Burt. 
 The Wykehamist, April 1900. 
2G 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ».  

the great Warden very harshly if, walking warily 
in those dangerous days, he would have it believed 
that his organist was no organist, that his quiristers 
were not ehoristers, that his singing men did not 
sing ? 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

QUIRISTERS 

" QUIRISTERS ", " queristers ", "queresters ", "query- 
sters "--you could vary your vowels as you pleascd, 
but till comparatively recent times it was usual 
evcrywhere to take Q for your initial consonant. 
"Choristcrs ", "coristcrs ", "coresters ", "corustars ", 
arc indced round as early as thc sixteenth century; 1 
but if was not perhaps till the end of the seven- 
tccnth that, undcr the influence of the Frcnch chur, 
"choristers " became the acccpted spelling and pro- 
nunciation--away from Winchestcr. Wykchamists 
have resisted French influence; though I find the 
Warden and Fellows toying with the compromise 
"choiristers " in 1777, 2 we still in 1914 both write 
and pronounce the vord with a Q.3 
The quiristers have their origin in the Founder's 
Statures. In the first Rubric, which deals with the 
"total number " of persons on the foundation, we 
read of sexdecim puerorutn choristarum capelle . . . in 
rebus divinis servire debencium. In the third it is 

 Thus Injunctions of 1547 to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester bave 
both "' queresters " and "' coristars " (Wincbester Catbedral Documents, i. pp. 
179, 181) ; Injunctions of the saine year to ail Cathedral Churches have also 
"" coresters " and " choristers " (ibid. pp. 184, 188).--For the Q in the English 
and French of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries see W.W.B. 
 C. Cooper Henderson, a commoner of 1818, wrote "' choiresters", but 
lais letters show that he was no authority on points of orthography. 
a The N.E.D. notes the use of the Q in Tristram Sitandy (1765). 
451 



45- ° ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. n 

noted that they are to be eligible for scholarships. 
The eighth (in the strangest context 1) speaks of them 
in full detail. They are to be poor and needy; to 
be under twelve when appointed; to be appointed 
intuitu c]aritatis; to be " of good condition and 
honourable conversation"; to be able to sing. 
Thcy are to give help every day to the priests who 
celcbrate in the chapel, and to serve there in divine 
offices ; thcy are to make the priests' bcds ; they are 
to help the other servants of the College at the hour 
of dinner and supper; 3 thcy are to be fed with 
fragments from the table of the priests and scholars, 
or otherwisc if these do not suffice ; they are to abide 
(permanere) in the College as long as they are able and 
compctent to discharge their duties in the chapel. A 
latcr Rubric (XXVII.) permits the magistri to give 
thcir old gowns to thcm or to poor scholars "out of 
charity" 
It will be observed that, though the Statures fix 
the number, prescribe the duties, and provide for the 
maintenance of the quiristers, they say little about 
their dress, and nothing about their lodging and their 
education. I propose to offer some remarks upon 
these three points, and to add a few notes upon two 
others. It should be premised that the ground is 
treacherous in places; it is likely enough that some 
of my tentative conclusions will be disproved by further 
research. 

 The insertion of the passage may, as Mr. Kirby suggested, have been an 
afterthought. There is no corresponding passage in the New College Statures, 
but their first Rubric mentions the quiristers as sexdecem pueri scienles com- 
petenter legere et cantare. 
 On these phrases and the arguments drawn from them sec below, pp. 537-8. 
a At Magdalen, where (as at New College, Winchester, and Eton) there 
were sixteen quiristers, they " waited in Hall, a custom which was retaineà 
untiI 1802, and continued, as a form, at the ' Gaudy" for many years after 
that date " (Wilson, 3Iagdalen College, p. 43). So originally at Ail Souls 
(Grant Robertson, p. 19). 



cH. xxxw QUIRISTERS 453 

I. The discarded gowns of wardens, priests, school- 
masters, and ushers, or rather such of these gowns as 
were given to quiristers, may not have gone all round 
and must have made them seem a rather ragged 
company; John Fromond, the founder of Chantry, 
clearly thought Wykeham's provision too haphazard. 
He directed by his will (1420) that the inconae from 
certain of his tenements should be applied for the 
quiristers' benefit, pro indunentis emendis; if it 
proved insufficient, it was to be supplemented from 
other sources. The gowns he thus provided seem to 
bave been of the saine quality, 1 and were probably 
of thc saine colour and cut, as those of the scholars ; 
the latter werc in early rimes colorati, but by Rubric 
XXVII. might not be white, black, russet, or grey ;  
the quiristers' gowns in 1450 were blue or green. In 
Mathew's rime (1644-7) the gowns of both were 
"Cimmerian " (v. 30) ; that they were alike in other 
ways is shown by two items in the accounts for 1646 : 

So. Stardey Scholari pro liberata sua hoc anno 0. 13. 9. 
So. Sparke Choriste pro simili 0. 13. 9. 3 

When did gowns cease to be the quiristers' dress ? 

i Cloth for quiristers' gowns, of " blewe or greae medeley "', cost 86s. per 
piece in the years 1449-52 ; that for scholars" gowns (which is described in 
the aecounts, as in the Rubric, as siccatus aquatus et lonsus) cost 37s. or 37s. 6d. 
The accounts explain that it was hot possible to procure cloth at the price 
fixed by the Rubric, riz. 33s. 4d. 
 At Etoa "white, black, grey ad red were forbidden by the Statures, 
possibly because the first three colours were worn by monks and friars, and the 
fourth by members of the royal household at Windsor " (M. L. p. 21). 
 Mr. Chitty, who has helped me greatly with this chapter, though he is 
aot responsible for my conclusions, points out that this quirister's naine is of 
interest. Thomas Sparke, elected scholar in 1594, was afterards Reetor of 
Brown Candover ; he died in 1640. We may assume that four young Sparkes, 
ail of Brown Candover, who were elected scholars in 1629, 1630, 1642, 1649 
respectively, were his sons. The youngest of these was probably the quirister 
of 1646. In the seventeenth (as in the eighteenth) cetury quiristerships were 
hot disdained for clergymen's sons, ad quiristers might still be elected to 
seholarships. 



454 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .n 
In his Description of IVinchester (c. 1750) Tom Warton 
says of Fromond : 
The saine Benefactor also ordained Liveries or Gowns, 
annually, for the Choristers. x 
The compiler of the History and ,4ntiquities of 
Winchester (1773) repeats these words, and adds : 
which custom has, for some wise purposes, been of late dis- 
used, and Cloaths are substituted in their stead?- 

The change, therefore, was ruade betveen 1750 and 
1773, but the aceounts enable us to fix its date more 
precisely. In the years preeeding 1765 separate items 
for the quiristers' eloth do hOt always oceur; their 
absence in certain years suggests, what their presenee 
in other years confirms, that their cloth eost the saine 
sure, per pieee, and probably was the saine, as that of 
the scholars. In 1759 ve have these items : 

Pro 253 Virgatis Panrd ad 5s. 63. 5. 0 
Item pro 15 Virgatis in usum Choristarum 
[at Ss.]. 3. 16. 3 

But in 1765 there xvas a change : 

Sol. Silver pro 225 Virgatis Parmi [at Ss.] . 56. 3. 9. 
Item pro Parmo crasse Texture in usum 
Choristarum 6. 8. 10. 3 

That not only the texture but the whole character of 
the quiristers' dress had been altered is shown by 
the aeeounts of the following years, when instead of 
liberatce (gowns) they were supplied with what are 
described by the new naine vestimenta, the " Cloaths " 
of the History and Antiquities. I have dwelt upon this 

Description, p. 44. z H. & .4. i. p. 128. 
The price of this coarse-textured cloth per virgate does not appear. 



cH. xxxw QUIRISTERS 455 
change of dress because it synchronized with a more 
important change of which it was the visible sign ; we 
shall see presently what were the " wise purposes " 
which prompted it. 
Fifty years ago the quiristers wore quaint reddish- 
brown suits, with swallow-tail coats and brass buttons ; 
thcy changed them a little later for suits of the same 
cut but of an ugly if serviceable grey, with buttons of 
pewter ; since 1906 they have been clothed much like 
other boys of their age--their dress is a uniform, but 
it does not proclaim itself as such. Whether the 
"cloaths" substituted for gowns in 1765 were servitors' 
uniforms, like those of the nineteenth century, I can- 
not determine.--In 1892 The Wykehamist advocated 
such a change as that of 1906 on the ground that 
the quiristers' garb was " so degrading that the more 
respectable parents will not send their sons " ; and it 
quoted an outsider's opinion that at a time " when so 
much homage is paid to music, the representatives of 
the art might be spared the menial office of waiting 
upon the collegians in hall -.1 Which is ail very well ; 
but the Founder's desire to help really poor boys may 
deserve some homage too. 
I may note in passing that in Mathew's time, as 
afterwards, the quiristers, like the scholars, wore no 
head-gear : 
Nomine seu pueri vociteris sive choristoe, 
Non caput obtegitur pileo crassoque galero (vv. 28-9). 
Fiïteen years before they llad taken to running about 
in llats, 2 but such scandalous insolence seems to have 
been repressed. 
II. The Statures say nothing about the housing of 
the quiristers, but the phrase pernanere in collegio 3 
i The ll'ykehamisl, October 26, 1892. 2 See the next page. 
 See above, p. 452. 



456 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P,.  
implies that the Founder meant them to live in 
College. 1 In 1467 and 1472, as in several years 
between 1600 and 1631, we have evidence that they 
were lodged in a College chamber, which, we are told, 
was called Seventh. * The fact--if itis a fact--that it 
was so called, and the difficulty of locating it else- 
where, suggests that their chamber occupied the site, 
or paloE of the site, of the present Thule ; 3 we shall 
sec presently that thc suggestion is suppoloEed by the 
accounts. Mr. Kirby thought that this Thule arrange- 
mcnt came to an end " early in the seventeenth 
century ". He declared (1) that at that rime the 
quiristers' chamber "became a store for lime, &c."; 
(2) that the quiristers " were allowed to live with 
their friends in the town "; (3) that they were ill- 
disciplined in consequence; (4) that " this state of 
things continued till the year 1810 ,,,4 when the 
authorities again lodged them together. Now there 
are reasons for thinking that the quiristers vere ill- 
disciplined in 1631 ; but the document which supplies 
those reasons 5 does not attribute their iii-discipline 
to their living with their friends in the town ; that they 
so lived seems to be only a guess--it is no necessary 
inference---from the statement about the lime-store, 
his evidence for which statement Mr. Kirby with- 
 The New College Rubric LII. says that the " priests and other ministers 
of tbe chapel " are to be lodged in certain College chambers. I follow 1R. and 
R. (p. 58) in assuming tbat the quiristers are ineluded under olii ministri. 
2 Armais, pp. 37-8. 3 See above, p. 151. « Amals, p. 38. 
 Tbe document, which Mr. Kirby took to be a Supervisors' report, seerns 
fo be only a collection of rough notes ruade while tbe superdsion was in pro- 
gress. Here is tbe part relating fo the quiristers : 
" 1. Tbey runne about yo towne with hats &c. 
2. Corne hot to Scboole. 
3. ïew of thern--[?] surplisses. 
4. few. 2or3ean [?] sing. 
Not wayte dewlie in ye Haule ". 
For the last cornplaint sec above, p. 185. The Supervisors' report of 1617 
says that quiristers are otherwise ernployed during botLrS of chapel services ; 
that of 1620, that if they absent themselves they rnust be punished. 



c xxxv QUIRISTERS 3`57 
held. If the room beeame a lime-store, as he says, 
it must soon have reverted to the quiristers' use, for 
we learn from Mathew that in 163`-7 there was a 
camera signala chorislis (v. 81); in 1668, when the 
screen-wall aeross Outer Court was built, it was 
deseribed as running " from the brewhouse to the 
quiristers' ehamber " ; 1 in 1673, Thomas Ken advised 
the quiristers to say their prayers in chapel or going 
Circum "to avoid the interruptions of the eommon 
chamber "; and in 1706-7 and 1711-12 there are 
these items in the aeeounts : 

Verrenti eaminos 8, puerorum et ehoristarum 00. 0ô. 00. 3 
Castlernan pro novis ffulcris in usum choristarum 07.05.0ô.  

It has not yet been discovered, but Mr. Chitty will 
one day diseover, when the quiristers finally eeased 
to live in College; it must have been after 1712 and 
some time before 1810. "In the year 1810 ", we 
lern from an old folio book of aeeounts, "a House 
was purehased in College Street  for the Benefit 
of the Choristers the expenses of which before it 
was oeeupied, viz. Purehase & Repairs, amounted 
to 1077.7.3½.. The Boys are now under the 
Superintendanee of a Person appointed by the College. 
 At the time of the building of this screen-wall some expense was incurred 
for bricks ad conficiendum murum cubiculi Choristarum, and payments were 
ruade fo workmen operantibus in ponendo tabulas there. At an earlier date 
we hem- of a murus in domo lignario et cubiculo choristarum (1629). 
 Manual of Prayers, p. 7. 
 A chirnney had been put into Seventh Chamber, which was chimneyless 
so long as it was School (see above, p. 224). In 1735-6 there is an item pro 
verrendis 7 caminis in culrieulis puerorum, from which it is a probable inference 
that the quiristers had lost their chamber in the interval. 
 3s. was paid fo workmen in 1629 emendanlibus fulcra leclorum in 
camera choristarurn.--On the subjeet of the lodging of quiristers Sir H. 
Maxwell Lyre says that it was ordered by the Provost and Fellows of Eton 
in 1660 "that . . . ail the King's Schollers and Choristers shall ly in the 
Long Chamber" (M. L. p. 252) ; in 1689 we hem` of improved arrangements 
for lodging the Choristers in College (/b/d. p. 274). 
 No. 5, which as I write (May 191,) is in course of demolition. 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r.. 
They are not allowed to be with their Parents as 
formerly except during the Holydays. Their Commons 
are regularly taken to this House ". The arrange- 
ment eontinued under a succession of superintendents 
(one of whom, William Whiting (1842-78), 1 wrote the 
hymn "Eternal Father, strong to save") till 1882, 
when the quiristers moved into newly-built and more 
roomy quarters in Kingsgate Street. 
III. Besides their chamber the quiristers in the 
sixteenth century had also a schola of their own ; Mr. 
Kirby, without giving reasons, identified it with the 
present "chair room" in Chamber Court. It was 
probably the saine room as the schola nusica, schola 
organiste, "ly singing schoole ", of later aeeounts; 
its existence in no way proves that quiristers were 
separated for edueational purposes from seholars and 
commoners. Even in Wykeham's lifetime, however, 
they had their separate instructor. John More, a 
Fellow of the College (though not as yet formallv 
adnfitted), was informalor chorislarun in 1395-6 ; 
a chaplain received 6s. Bd. for teaching them in 1399. a 
At Magdalen, "the daughter of New College", a 
special informator choristarun was to be added to the 
staff if none of the chaplains or clerks would undertake 
the office ; * at Eton, "the daughter of Winchester", 
it was assigned to one of the clerks.  The Winchester 
quiristers were probably taught by a fellow or a 
chaplain, or (them failing) by one of the three clerks, 
throughout the fifteenth and in the early sixteenth 
century.  It does not follow that such an ioEorrnator 

1 Being lame and a poet he was known to Wykehamists as .Tyrtaeus. 
- llistory, p. 137. a Armais, p. 146. 
« Wilson, Magdalen Coilege, p. 40. 
6 Wasey Sterry, Armais of Eton Coilege, p. I22. 
6 In 1541 there was (perhaps for the first rime) an inforrnator ehoristarum 
who was neither fellow nor ehaplain nor elerk. See H. C. in The Wykehamist, 
Deeember 1913. 



cH xxxvi QUIRISTERS 459 
was their onlv teacher. Their perpetual engagements 
in Chapel would have prevented their attending many, 
but they may have attended some, of the scholars' 
and commoners' classes. They were often or even 
usually elected to scholarships, and the necessary 
qualifications for election included a competent know- 
ledge of " old Donatus ,,,1 i.e. of the elements of Latin 
grammar. They learnt Latin, probably, as well as 
music, from their special informator, but his instruction 
may have been supplemented by the Masters in School. 
The Westminster Statures of 1560 ordained ttat a 
" master of the choristers " should be appointed. He 
was to teach them music, and a Doctor or Bachelor 
of Music was therefore to be preferred. But he was 
also to give them instruction in grammar (in literis) 
"till they are thought fit to be admitted into our 
School "; and when they had learnt the eight parts of 
speech by heart, and eould write tolerably, they were 
to join the scholars' classes for at least two hours on 
school-days, being taught by the Masters ut melius in 
gramatica proficiant. 2 Some such arrangement may 
have been in working at Winchester at about the 
saine date. 
In 1647, according to Mathev, " the door of our 
gracious school " was open to the quiristers : 
His quoque discipulis patct almi ianua ludi (v. 27), 
and it is a reasonable inference that they attended 
the school classes or some of them; but thc contem- 
porary statement of Warden Harris places them far 
apart from the scholars, describing them as servants 
pure and simple2 The earliest Long Rollsthose of 
1653 to 1681assign no quirister to any school class, 
but in 1681 we are on the eve of a change. The roll 
x Rubrie II. ' E.C.p. 504.  See above, p. 449. 



,60 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- 

for 1683 marks a quirister as belonging to Sexta 
Classis ; that of 1685 marks another as "Praef. "; in 
1688, though their names are still printed separately, 
ail the quiristers are assigned to the " forms or books " 
of the scholars and commoners. The fact is, I think, 
significant. The present school-room, it will be re- 
membered, was ready for use in 1687, and it seems 
that with the increased accommodation the quiristers 
were more completely incorporated into the school. 
In the rolls of subsequent years to 1710 inclusive their 
names are arranged in various ways of which I need 
not speak; that for 1711 is missing. From 1712 to 
176 scholars', quiristers', and commoners' names are 
printed in parallel cohmms under the headings of the 
various school classes; the position of the quiristers 
in some of these, and some earlier, years is shown in 
the following table: 
NUMBER OF QUIRISTERS IN SCHOOL FORMS 

Year. V I th- Vth. IVtk "Second 
I & Fourth." 

1688 
1690 
1700 
1712 
1732 
1745 
1762 
1764 

0 
3 
0 
1 
0 
0 
1 
0 

4 
5 
9 
6 
9 
6 
0 
0 

5 
6 
3 
3 
10 
9 
10 * 

* The names of three commoners also appear in this class. 
The evidence of Long Rolls that quiristers xvere a rem 
part of the Sehool from 1688 (if hot earlier) till 176 is 
eonfirmed by other evidence. XOnen Eyre the Usher 
quarrelled fith Burton in 1739 1 he complained that 
the Head Master had withdraa some commoners 
from his classes, and he asked the interesting question : 
* See above, p. 89. 



cn xxxv, QUIRISTERS 61 
Is hOt the Schoo]master injurious fo the Usher when he 
takes from him his proportion of commoners, whom he hopes 
he is as able fo teach as he is the chi]dren and choristers ? 

Still more interesting is the evidenee of the " roll of 
aeeused persons" presented by a prefeet to the Head 
Master in 1699, x in whieh four quiristers who wore 
long hair, and one who had not his arma scholast{¢a 
in promptu, were reported together with seholars and 
eommoners who were guilty of the saine offenees. 
It will be observed that during the years with whieh 
my table is eoneerned the quiristers gradually gravitate 
towards the lowest class, and that they are all found 
there in 1764. In 1765 there is a novelty in the Long 
Roll; a " Second Class" appears below the "Second 
and Fourth "; it ineludes all the quiristers and no 
one else. There are some peeuliarities about the 
plaeing of quiristers in the years that follow; some- 
rimes a few eommoners are found with them in the 
lowest class, however named; oeeasionally a few 
quiristers appear in a rather higher one ; 2 but for the 
most part the quiristers are in the lowest class, and 
sometimes they are there by themselves. The ,.çecunda 
Classis was in fact on its way to becoming, definitely 
and permanently, a separate lower-grade sehool for the 
quiristers only.---I renmrked above that the change 
of gowns for "cloaths " in 1765 synchronized with a 
change of greater importance; now that the latter 

i See above, p. 247.--1n the nineteenth centul., when quiristers had be- 
corne a ¢ompletely separate school, Prefect of Hall (or some other prefect) 
claimed the right of "" tunding " them for delinquencies on more than one 
occasion. It appears from Prefeet of Hall's book that the Warden in 1861 
and the Head Master in 1891 ruled that no sueh right existed ; the belief that 
it did exist may have been a vague tradition from rimes when scholars and 
quiristers were under the saine discipline. 
2 A eonspicuous instance is W. S. Goddard (the future Head Master), who 
was a quirister in Fifth Book in 1770. He appears in the oll of 1771 as a 
scholar. 
 It has been so now for more than a century. 



462 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT.  

change has been described, it is clear that the con- 
neetion between the two changes was not merely one 
of date. A new poliey had been inaugurated, the 
immediate result of whieh, as we shall see, was not 
eneouraging; its inauguration was perhaps due to 
Harry Lee, who had been eleeted Warden at the end 
of 1763. 
IV. I bave said that the Founder meant his 
quiristers to " abide in the College " only so long as 
they were eompetent to diseharge their duties in 
Chapel, but he did not mean to east them adrift when 
their voiees had " got the mannish crack" ; like 
other founders, he meant many of them, at any rate, 
tobe eleeted to seholarships, and many of them were 
so eleeted in his lifetime and afterwards. In the 
seventeenth eentury the right of nominating seholars 
had beeome too valuable 1 for the eleetors to exereise 
it altogether " out of eharity " ; in the eighteenth and 
early nineteenth it gave them pleasant opportunities 
of eonferring or discharging friendly obligations. 
Meanwhile the Warden and Fellows were not unmind- 
fui of the interests of the quiristers. The figures 
whieh I gave above will show that during the earlier 
vears of the period to whieh they relate many quiristers 
emerged from the lowest elass of the sehoolome 
reaehed Sixth Book--whereas in its latest years they 
were all or nearly all in the " Second and Fourth ". 
We need not eonelude that there had been a marked 
change in the relative abilities of quiristers and of 
seholars and eommoners; the explanation should be 
sought in another direction. Injunetions of 1547 to the 
Deans and Chapters of all eathedrals "towehyng the 
ehoristers after their breste be ehaungyd "  required 
a Sec above, p. 400. 
a It 5ll be remembered that in Twelfth Night (ii. 3), just belote Feste 
sings ' O mistress mine ", Sir Andrew Aguecheek declares that "' the fool bas 
an excellent breast ". 



ch. v, QUIRISTERS 463 
that after that change they should be supported at 
some grammar school from the cathedral revenues. 1 
At Winchester College, in the seventeenth and well on 
in the eighteenth century, the Warden and Fellows 
appear to bave observed the spirit of that injunction 
by continuing, when it seemed desirable to continue, 
the education, within the walls of School, 2 of quiristers 
whose voices had broken; 3 but in the eighteenth 
century they began to provide for some of thcm in 
another way--by apprenticing them to a trade. This 
was usual|y the wisest provision, and for making it 
the Warden and Fellows deserve full credit. 
V. A few words must be added about the number 
of the quiristers. We saw in an earlier chapter (V.) 
that the number of the scholars fell much below 
Wykeham's seventy in the middle of the eighteenth 
century ; that of the quiristers fell much below his 
sixteen a little later. Their full number seems to 
have been steadily maintained till about 1710 ; from 
1711 to 1760, if the evidence of Long Rolls may be 
trusted, an average of nearly 14 was reached. In the 
rive years preceding 1765 the average was 10; in 
1765 the number was 1. This was the year in 
which, as we have seen, the dress and the status of 
the quiristers were altered ; 4 it is interesting to observe 
the effect of these changes upon their number. During 
the next six years Long Rolls give the names of only 
8, 9, 9, 7, 5, 5; evidently the new policy did not 
attract candidates. I have attributed the origination 
x IVinchester Cathedral Documents, I. pp. 184, 188. 
 One quirister--Westcombe--appears as sueh in ten successive Long 
lolls {1754--63} ; he was in Sixth Book in his last two years. 
a It was stated at New College in 1566 (R. and R. p. 116) and at Winehester 
in 1631 (above, p. 456) that few of the quiristers eould sing; cf. Wilson, 
Magdalen College, p. 127. Was this partly because quiristers continued to abide 
in the College aftcr losing their voiees ? 
 Perhaps a superannuation fuie began to be more or less enforeed about 
the saine rime. 



464 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT.  

of that policy to Warden Harry Lee, and may note that 
during the remaining years of Iris wardenship, which 
lasted till 1789, the number of quiristers never reached 
16 ; in only one of these years did it exceed 12, which, 
in defiance of the Statures, he seems to have regarded 
as the normal maximum. From 1781 onwards the 
College accounts show annual payments "to 4 
Cathedral Choristers attending College chapel; one 
year to Vhitsuntide, 2 guineas each "; but the 
authorities cannot have felt that the making of these 
payments acquitted them of" unstatutable " conduct. 
After Ituntingford's appointment in 1789, the 
names of 16 quiristers appear year by year on the 
Long Rolls ; but the arrangement with the Cathedral 
choristers was not discontinued till 1840. In a 
" Table of fees paid bv Boys" endorsed by the 
Warden in 1798 it is noted that "officers" pay ls. to 
" Singing Choristers " and new prefects ls. to" Trinity 
[i.e. Cathedral] Choristers ". In the Common Place 
Book which Archdeacon Heathcote began to com- 
pile in 1808 he noted that one " Dispar of Mutton " 
and two quarts of beer a day each were allowed to the 
quiristers, who were " 12 in number, because the 
other 4 are hired from the Cathedral "; C. Cooper 
tIenderson in 1818 and Mansfie]d 1 (admitted 1835) 
also speak of 12 quiristers. T. A. Trollope (1820- 
1828) usually remembered " what he remembered " 
very accurately, but I cannot quite harmonize his 
statement upon the subject fith out other eddence : 
We had . . . six ehoristers for the service of the ehapel. 
The " ehoristers ", who were mentioned at a former page as 
earrying the" dispers "into hall, though so ealled, had nothing 
to do with the choral service. They were twelve in number. 2 

1 Mansfield, p. 83. 2 T. A. T. p. 137. 



CtIAPTER XXXVII 

SERVANTS 

]IATERIALS for the history of the College are most 
complete on the side of its domestic economy; 
accounts, inventories, and the like bave already 
yielded valuable restdts to patient research, and they 
still have much to reveal which will throv light on 
more than lnerely Wykehamical affairs. My chapters 
deal for the most part only incidentally with the 
economic side of College history ; but something must 
be said about the servants and their hmctions by way 
of comment on some lines of Mathew's poem (vv. 
48-5). 
Not being members of the fotmdation, the servants 1 
are not mentioned in the first Rubrie of the Founder's 
Statures; no formal list of them, indeed, is tobe 
found in any Rubrie. Rubrie XLV. speaks of a 
porter, a baker, a brewer, a eook, a maneiple, and of 
alii oOîeiarii vel minisiri ;  we learn from Rubrie 
XXVI. that the Warden was to have some special 
servants of his owna clericus vel domicellus, a 
valellus, a garciowho were tobe boarded, clothed, 
and paid by the College. Early lists of wage-receivers  
 With the exception--if they should be called " servants "---of the elerks 
and quiristers, of whorn I have spoken in the last two ehapters. 
 The Eton Statutes are more explicit, advantage having been taken of 
Winehester experienee ; the College was to " keep as principal servants a 
eaterer [rnanciple], a butler, a eook, a porter {who shall also be torehrnaker and 
barber), two bakers, two brewers, a gardener, and a groom " (M. L. p. 585). 
 See, e.g., Annal.s, pp. 142, 158, 189. 
465 2 H 



466 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
show that anaong other early o2ficiarii were a butler, 
an under-eook, a eook-boy, a barber, a gardener, a 
carter ; a slaughterer appears a little later. In some 
of the lists a washerwoman is also ineluded, but she 
differed ïrom the test, as we shall see, hot ordy in sex 
but in another important partieular. As arrange- 
ments about servants were hot determined by the 
Statures, they were af first modified freely as eon- 
venienee dietated ; but as rime went on their number 
and funetions beeame almost as rigidly fixed as those 
of the members of the foundation, and they were 
sworn to fidelity and seereey with the saine solemnity. 1 
Three lists of servants, eompiled by different hands, 
bave eome doaa to us ïrom the nfiddle of the seven- 
teenth eentury; it is perhaps woa'th out while to 
compare them. The first cornes from Warden Harris 
(1645) ; z the second from Mathew (1647) ; the third 
ïrom the earliest Long Roll (1653). 
x See L.R. ii. 337-8 ; er. Rubrie VIII. 
2 For the date (which Mr. Kirby gave as 16}ï) see above, p. 250. 

[TABLE 



c,. xxxw 467 

SERVANTS 
LISTS OF COLLEGE SERVANTS 

] I. 
Warden Harris (1645). 

3 Cookes 
1 Baker 
2 Brewers 
1 Millet 
2 Horsekeepers 
1 Gardiner 
1 Porter 

Servants in 
Ordinarie, viz. : 
Mantille 1 
Butlers fl 
(1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 

Ail these"/aave diet 
wages and livery 
from the College 

Il. l 
Robert Mathew (1647}. 

Opsona[or 
Artopta a  
Supprontus l 
Cooks 
Pistor 
Brewers 
Molarius 
Agaso 
H ortorum Custos" 
Janilor 
L ixoe 
Lanio 
qui mundat qua- 
dras 
anus culinve 
Hos st ipe commeri- 
fa geminus Bur- 
sarius implet 

III. a 
Long Roii (1653). 
Nonina Servorum 
Clerici - 
Opsoniatur (sic) 
Promi  
Coqui  
Pistor 
Potifices 
Molarius 
Agasones  
Hortulanus 
Eel imozinator (sic) 
Janitor 
Lixoe  

x I have altered the order of the servants in Lists II. and III. to make it 
correspond to that given in the oltïcial List I. Mathew's order in List Il. was 
partly determined by metrical e.xiencies. 
z Harris and Mathew class the Clerks with the Chaplains and Organist (see 
above, p. 443). 
a Artopta should mean '* baker", but Mathew uses it here and in v. 218 for 
the '" bread-butler", of whom we iearn nluch from Coilege documents. He 
salis the baker pislor. 
« The Roli of 1672 distinguishes the two proml as Pan. prom. and Pot. 
ptom. (Suppr.), i.e. "' bread-butler and beer-butler". 
 The aecounts (e.g. in 1584, 1644, 169) sometimes dignify the head-eook 
by the title Archimagyrus, just as it became fashionable to sali the Head 
5Iaster Archididascalus (sec above, p. 85). 
 Distinguished in some later rolls as Auriga and Stabularius. 
 Called Gardenarius in the accounts of 1421-2. 
 =Eleemosynator (Almoner) ; sec below. 
* The lixae, whom the accotmts call lioea and sublixa, and who were in later 
rimes called "" scullion " and "tumspit ", are hot mentioned in any subsequent 
Long Roll. 
It will be observed that the Warden agrees with the 
Roll, but differs from Mathew, in taking no accotmt 
of the slaughterer (lanio), the trencher-cleaner, the 



468 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .- "old woman of the kitchen "; that he omits the 
lixae, whom Mathew and the Roll include; that 
(after reflexion) he also omits the almoner, differing 
therein from the Roll, but agreeing with Mathew.--I 
do not propose to deal with the lists seriatim, but shall 
note some points relating to the slaughterer and 
almoner, to whom I have just referred, and to the 
porter and the manciple ; and I shaH conclude with 
one or two observations on the servants generally. 
It is only during the period 1556-8, when he was 
paid 10s. a quarter, that the slaughterer (lanio or lanius) 
appcars in the accounts as an ordinary wage-receiving 
servant; the fact that he was no longer an ordinary 
servant in the seventeenth century explains lais 
absence from lists I. and III. Inventories of the 
sixteenth century take account of " ye stuffe in ye 
Slaughterhouse " ; 1 and in the seventeenth, though 
the lanius no longer received wages and was re- 
munerated we know hot how, 2 Custus in o.fficina 
Lanii, " costs incurred in the slaughter-house ", con- 
tinued to be a sub-heading in the accounts till 1653, 
though in many previous years the entry under it is 
nihil. Here are SOlne typical entries in other years : 
Pro lune ad usum Lanionis ponderanti 10  (158-5). 
Pro xiv. hamis pro Silkstede a (1605-6). 
Pro le clever (1605-6). 
Pro furie ad colligandos boves (1606-7). 
Pro unA ulnâ cannabis quâ se induit Lanius ponderandî 
carne bovinâ (1644-5). 

 The carnificina is mentioned by Johnson (Themes, fol. 191) as one of the 
o.ïcinoe non adeundoe. 
 The following entry, ruade under Cstus Necessariorum cure donis in 
1688-4, may explain : Allocat. lanioni pro sevo oh puerorum absentiam tempore 
exanthemalum vil..dijt, iiij dE. (see above, p. 402). 
a The whole establishment had been removed to Silkstead near Hursley 
in 1603, ai the time of Raleigh's trial ; we know of another migration there 
in 1625 (see below, p. 487). 



. xv SERVAI'S 469 

There is also a charge under another heading about 
1645 for a bridge ruade in the meadows for the use of 
the lanius ; in eonneetion with whieh I may refer to 
an already-quoted order, 1 issued after the serutinv of 
16o.0, for the pasturing of sheep, " tobe slaughtered 
for the use of the College ", in the Co]lege meadows.-- 
3If. Kirby says that " the Society ceased to kill their 
own meat in 1697 "; 2 the laniu.ç must then have been 
dispensed with, and his o.fficina (whieh Mr. Kirby 
places to the immediate west of the brewhouse) 
beeame available for other purposes. 
The almoner (eleemosynator or eleemosynarius) is a 
most elusive person ; even his naine was a puzzle to 
the compiler of the only Long Roll in which it oceurs. 
An almoner was a very important oflïeer in religious 
houses ; he was very prominent, for instance, among 
the obedientiaries of St. Swithun's Priory, though its 
numerous Almoners' Rolls give little evidenee of his 
performance of the duties whieh his naine suggests. 
" In aetual eharity ", xoEote Dean Kitchin, " the 
office did very little indeed, and not nmeh even in 
doles of bread ; there is not a trace of the visitation of 
the siek".  Frequent distributiones pauperibus were 
ruade by the College, but we eannot connect the 
College almoner with them ; we eannot, indeed, trace 
his existence very far baek. His naine is absent from 
.lr. Kirby's lists of servants for 1395, 1411, and 1431 ; 
5Ir. Leach eould find no record of him in the earlier 
Bursars' Rolls,* and 3lr. Chitty and I eould find none 
in those of the later sixteenth eenturv. In 1603-4 he 
had an oflicina which needed hinges and nails for its 

 Sec above, p. 367. 
 Armais, p. 34.--Two " Articles of Agreement" are extant, dated 1691 
and 1707, by which a Winchester butcher undertook to supply meat to the 
College. 
a Obedientiary Rolls of St. Swithun's Priory, Winchester, pp. 74-8. 
 L.R.i.p. lii. 



470 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT. 

door ; a little later he vas receiving 2s. 6d. a quarter, 
with an occasional present ex gratia or pro vestibus. 
Hc was not however classed as a "servant" ; his vages 
were not entered under Stipendia servorum, but under 
Custus Necessarior-,«n cure Donis, together with, and 
at the sanm rate as, those of the lixa, sublixa, and old 
woman of the kitchen, as late as and probably later 
than 1671. He vas therefore, on second thoughts, 
omitted, with these humble employés, from the 
Warden's list of " servants in ordinarie " ; in spite 
of his high-sounding title, he may have been 5Iathew's 
un,s qui mmdat q,adras, a mere eleaner of trenehers. 
His position beeame less humble afterwards. He 
reeeived fees from the seholars (like the other principal 
servants) in 1711 and (like the manciple) till 1869. 
It was his duty in 1778, as it is to-day, to keep Hall 
elean " without the use of sawdust " ; in 1809 he had 
fo supply trenehers, the annual eost of whieh he put 
at £6, but the XVarden mueh lower ; he also lighted 
the School tire, whieh fact may partly explain his 
receiving £12 in ïees ïrom commoners. 
The porter (jaitor), whom the ignorant compiler 
of the Long Roll for 167_ ° ealls portitor, was required 
for manv eenturies to aet as barber. In 1395 the two 
oflïees appear to bave been held by different persons; 
but John Losynge was porter and barber in 111 ; 
the barbaria or domus barbitonsoris, mentioned in very 
early documents, is identified by Mr. Kirby with the 
porter's lodge) XVhv the saine person should have 
been set to shut loeks and to cut locks is hot elear, but 
the combination of functions was common or universal 
in colleges as in monasteries. It obtained, for instance, 
at New College,  and was enjoined by the Statutes at 

 .4nn«ls, pp. 142, 1,58. " Ibid. pp. 8, 1-$5, 161. 
 In Henry. VIII.'s rime {Valeott, pp. 291-2) and in Charles II.'s {R. and 
R. p. 18). 



OE xxxv= SERVANTS 471 

Eton, 1 at Ail Souls) at the new Cathedral Grammar 
Sehools of 1541. 3 The Vinchester porter-barber was 
well paid ; and deservedly, for as barber he had to see 
to people's tonsures, EE to keep everybody's hair well 
eropped, and to shave the magistri.  When the two 
offices beeame distinct I have not diseovered. 
The manciple (obsonator ; also manceps, cibarius, 
dispensator, in some of the Long Rolls), under the 
naine dispensator, is mentioned in Rubrie XIV. as 
aeting under a weekly offieer (the Senesehal of Hall) 
ehosen from the Fellows; but the duty of buying 
vietuals, the primary duty of a maneiple, seems to 
have fallen in the earliest days on the head-eook, who 
was styled emptor victualium in 1395 ; in 1411 manciple 
and cook wcre separate officials.  A manciple who 
died in 1498 had a brass in Chapel; he had been 
scholar, clerk, and bailiff of the College ; he had been 
Mayor of Winchcster and was one of our bencfactors2 
The manciplc's duties were most important; the 
compiler of the Long Rol| of 1653 distinguishcs him 
(and the cooks) with the title of dominus. Mr. 
Holgate produced evidcnce to prove that his title and 
oflïce " lasted ccrtainly till the end of the last [i.e. 
the eighteenth] century ", but the title and oflïce last 
still; the manciple, in Mathew's words, 

emit nobis quodeunque necesse est (v. 248) 

to-day, as he has done for rive centuries.It appears 
from some memoranda whieh I have seen that 

 M. L. p. 585.  Grant Robertson, p. 20. 
 E.C.p. 454 ; Early Education in Worcester, p. 141. 
* Rubric II. ; cf. Armais, p. 33. 
 Rubric XVII. ; ne comam nurian sire barbare. See above, p. 245. 
t Armais, p. 158. 
 Mr. Kirby's details (ibid. pp. 190-1)about this manciple (John Bedy]) 
need revision. 
 L.R.i.p. li. 



472 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

his net income in 1809 xvas over £100, fully double that 
of any other College servant. 

The chief interest of the lists of servants consists 
in the faet that they reveal to us a soeiety whieh 
in its domestie eeonomy was almost entirely self- 
suffieing. The College through its servants killed its 
own meat (indeed it tended its own eattle), eut its 
own hair, ground its own wheat, baked its own bread, 
kept its own horses, grew its own hops, brewed its 
own beer; it also kept workmen in its service for 
building, earpentering, and sueh-like jobs. It would 
be interesting to trace the gradual disappearanee of 
this self-suffieieney; of the funetions which I bave 
mentioned, the slaughtering was perhaps the first, and 
the brewing was the last, to be abandoned. The 
College eontinued to brew till 1905; a quondam 
College brasiator or potifex is still a familiar figure at 
l¥inchester, and the old-fashioned equipment of the 
brewhouse is still in evidenee. 
Hardly less interesting, perhaps, is the faet that all 
the servants on the lists (with one unimportant ex- 
ception in Mathew's) were nmles. It is unneeessary 
to dwell at length on what was a universal law of 
collegiate, as of monastic, establishments, çluod singula 
ministeria ipsius Collegii fiant per masculos --a law 
enjoined alike at Merton, " Vykeham's Model", at 
¥inchester and its daughter Eton, at New College 
and its daughters All Souls and Magdalen,  at the new 
Cathedral Grammar Schools of 151. Wykeham, like 
other founders, was obliged to tolerate one quasi- 
exception. It seemed too much to hope that a 
 Rubric XLV. 
* In 1674, Bishop llorIey of Winehester as Visitor of Magda/en eonderrmed 
most vigorously the emplo.xunent of women, together with the keeping of dogs ; 
he pointed out that Wa)mflet ex-pressly prohibited his college becoming 
claustrum fa.mineure canumve iatibulum (Wilson, Magdalen Coilege, p. 187). 



ex xxxvu SERVANTS 473 

washerman would be found in rerum natura; there- 
fore, in defectu lotoris masculi, 1 the employment of a 
washerwoman was sanetioned. A lotrix was at work 
in 1395, and, though a lotor had been seeured in 1411, 
sueh good fortune was most exeeptional. It was 
therefore neeessary to rely on the elaborate safeguards 
whieh Wykeham inserted into Rubrie XLV. ; they 
might be negleeted at rimes, but we find the Warden 
and Fellows insisting upon them as late as 1775 : 

Dec. 6, 1775.--Order'd that two Able Men be appointed 
by the Warden to make the Beds . . . & (to make women 
totally unnecessary) to feteh & carry all their Linnen elean & 
foui from their [the Boys'] respective Laundresses. 

A washerxvoman xvas the sole exception sanctioned, 
even eonditionally and with safeguards, by the 
Founder ; Mathew's anus una culinte, who beeame a 
fixed institution in the seventeenth eentury, was 
"unstatutable ", as was also the woman-nurse whom 
Warden Harris wisely put in charge of his Siek-house 
about 1657. There is evidenee of a further infringe- 
ment of the Rubrie in the Register of the admission 
and swearing-in of servants in the eighteenth eentury ; 
John Tolfree was appointed (1756) "in Mrs. Gosney's 
place as Under Cook" I eannot remember that in 
my own sehool-days any women were employed in 
College (elsewhere than at Siek-house) exeept the 
turba anilis of weeders, a Nowadays, though traces of 
the old order of things remain, the kitehen at least is 
served by women exelusively, and it is not deemed 
neeessary that they should be " old and wrinkled " 

x The careful writer of what is known as the Sub-Varden's copy of the 
Statures eould not believe in the existence of even the word lolor ; both in the 
Winchester and in the eorresponding New College Rubric he perpetrated 
lotricis masculi. 
 Annale, pp. 142, 158. a Ste above, p. 190. 



CHAPTER XXXVlII 

THE POETS OMISSIONS : SICK-HOUSE 

TItERE is no part of College whieh it was more im. 
portant that a vriter of 1647 should deseribe than the 
old School, for it was soon to be dismantled, shorn of 
its fair proportions, transformed for other uses; and 
Mathew deseribes it fully (w. 70-113). There, how- 
ever, his account of the preeinets ends. His tan- 
talizing last paragraph tells us that he will not speak 
of Chapel or of Library, of Kitchen or of Chamber 
Court ; that he will wash no hands at Conduit ; that 
his Muse shall not drink from " gispins" in Cellar, or 
loiter in Cloisters like a priest; that he passes by 
" the gardens of Alcinous " and " the greeneries of 
Tempe ". Some of these are in 1914 as they were in 
1647; of some, with help from elsewhere, we ean 
picture to ourselves the former aspect ; others again 
are dina to us, we eannot in every case even place 
them with eertainty. 
Cloisters are practieally unchanged, but nowadays 
no schoolboys ereep unwillingly 1 to sehool there or 
begaile the tedium of work by eutting holes for fox- 
and-geese on their stone seats)---The poet's Library 
i Mathew forgets his optimism when speaking of Cloisters as a place for 
summer lessons : 
Voe pueris aliis ! quoties maie grata frequentant 
Claustra ! (w-. 205-6). 
For CIoisters as so used see Chapter XXXI. 
2 Annals, p. 63. 
474 



c. xxxv,,, THE POET'S OMISSIONS 

475 

is of course our (and Fromond's) Chantry. Though 
no longer a chantry after the Reformation, the build- 
ing was still a place of prayer in 1571,1 soon after 
which date it seems to have become derelict ; it vas 
converted into a library, by the generosity of Warden 
Pinke of New College, in 1629.  Sixty years later an 
American visitor xvho " viev'd Winchester College " 
selected for special mention the " Library built in the 
midst of the Green within the Cloisters -,3 and many 
Wykehamists remember what a charming library it 
was. Owing to the increase of numbers which 
followed on the dispersion of commoners (1869) it 
reverted to religious uses by becoming a chapel for 
juniors at the beginning of 1875. 4 Some Wykehamists 
regret that it is hot now possible, except in Cathedral, 
for the whole school to worship together; but there 
are compensations in the suitability to the congrega- 
tion, and in the attractive simplicity, of the chantry 
service. The finely proportioned little building, the 
charm of which has been enhanced by the taste and 
generosity of Dr. Fearon and Dr. Freshfield, has never 
been and never tan be dedicated to a happier or more 
fitting purpose.--If the ghost of a Fellow or of a 
scholar of 1647 could revisit the Cellar to-day he 
would admire the saine vault with its single pillar 
that he admired of old, but he would look rather 
ruefully at the single beer-barrel of these degenerate 
rimes.  Why was Kitchen " Cleopatra's " ? Was 

t Sec above, p. 4-il. 
 In the Inventory of 1566 books of theology, logic, grammar, medicine, 
etc., are entered as kept in Fromond's Chantry ; perhaps they were kept in 
the room above it. 
 Armais, p. 871. 
« The name Chantry had in 1875 fallen into disuse. A correspondent of 
the Editor of The Wykehamist asked (February 1875) to be ailowed "' to suggest 
that the buiiding in Cloisters just fitted up as a supplementary Chapei receive 
the naine of ' Chantry' ", and pointed out that that naine "' bas the historical 
advantage of describing what it originaily vas intended for 



476 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . a Cleopatra the anus una culinee of the poem (v. 255), 
and does the name imply that the boys feigned a 
susceptibility to her anile charms ? Or, as the epithet 
lautam perhaps suggests, was the poet jibing at too 
meagre commons ? 1 Smaller than it had been originally, 
for the lobby s and perhaps the organ-room 3 ,, were 
carved out of it in the sixteenth century ,,,4 but pro- 
vidcd, since 1520, with a chimney, Kitchen as it was 
in 1647 would not seem strange to us ; it was the same 
dignified but quaintly proportioned room which, 
according to the " Joel " of fifty years ago, Plnce 
Albert " admired more than anything" when he 
visited College in 1849. -- Mathew is silent about 
Chamber Court, "although it is quadrangular" 
(v. 282). The Court is indeed, to a Wykehamist's 
eye, "r«rpd7,,oç i,«v 7ov : is that what he implies ? 
--The Conduit of 1647, with its penthouse, is feebly 
represented now by two taps and a seam in the 
wall above them. s The poet will not speak of it, 
though it had lately become very elegant : 
Ductus aquoe quamvis sit plumbo et poste novatus  (v. 284). 
As " furbished up with lead and post " the Aquve- 
ductus--so it is called in the College accounts is 
portrayed in more than one old picture : vaguely by 
Loggan in Oxonia Illustrata (1675), more definitely v in 
Ball's Historical Account of Winchester (1818), very 
 For the commons supplied from Cleopatra's kitchen see Anlony and 
Cleopatra, Act II. Scene 2. 
 It will be observed that Mathew does hot speak of the "Trust] 
Servant". 
a There is an item in the aceounts for 1645-6 (during Mathew's sehool- 
days) pro clave ad ostium schol Musicoe. 
 Annalç, p. 39. 
 There was, says Mr. Kirby, a shed over Conduit tom the first (Armais, 
p. 50). 
 I bave diseussed this line in eonneetion with the date of the poem (above, 
p. 6). 
 See also the frontispieee of this book. 



cH. xxxvm THE POET'S OMISSIONS 

477 

definitely indeed, but not perhaps very accurately, with 
Mr. Sissmore's renovations 1 but after its removal, in 
Mansfield's School Lire (1866); in the History and 
.4ntiquities of Winchester (1773) the artist ignores it 
altogether. 
Mathew alludes to the " rive 2 tuneful bells " 

Quas resonare iubet pietas, mors, atque voluptas 3 (v. °-77). 

The saine causes evoke the melody of the saine bells 
still, if bells that " have been recast, some more than 
once," * are still the same; they hang, as everybody 
knows, in a rebuilt tower.S--The appearance of Chapel 
in 1647 can be faintly realized with the help of Mr. 
Hardy's concise statement in the Quincentenary 
volume,  and of the copious details supplied by 3Ir. 
Kirby. The building had lately been embellished. In 
1637 William Harris, joiner, of Oxford, contracted "to 
lyne or cover the two syde walles from the East end 
of the Choyer in the Chancell . . up to the East 
end Wall from the Pauement on either syde to that 
highth that the said Waynscott may rainge [?] in the 
topp or uppcr paloE of it with that Waynscott which is 
already sert upp at the East end of the said Chappell 
soe that the lower edge of the soyle of the syde Win- 
dowes or any paloE of it may not remayne bare un- 
covered or in sight"; and again in 1639 to nmke 
 Rieh, p. 28 ; Mr. Sissraore, a Fellow of the College, died in 1851 at the 
age of 94 or 95.--As a washing-place for the seholars the "' aqueduct "" became 
superfluous in 18.28 ; see above, pp. 158-9. 
 A sixth bell was given by John Desborough Walford in 1866. 
 Mr. Kirby gives a list of public occasions, mostly of voluptas, on which 
the bells were rung between 1686 and 1709 (Armais, pp. 373-4). 
 Ibid. p. 62. 
 The tower was rebuilt in 1862-3 ; it had been strengthened in 1772-3 
(/Md. p. 220). John Bond wrote from Commoners to his brother on June 80, 
1771 : "The Tower is much obliged to you for your kind wishes for its destruc- 
tion. They bave, I believe, now secur'd it for some years longer." Its fall 
would bave necessitated ' a few weeks Holydays '" 
« W.C. pp. 33-4. 



478 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . i 

" one faire Skreene " for the chapel, " adorned with 
taphrells above", with a eorniee "to go from the 
skreene over the stalls " on either side to the new 
wainseot there, and to make " one border of like 
stuffe ", 26 inehes high, "to go from the skreene round 
about the said Chappell ". The wainseot was fo be 
finished by August 1688, the sereen by Christmas 
1640 ; both were to be " of Poland oak -.1 The new 
screen, says Mr. Kirby, "was removed in the Parlia- 
mentary Visitation ", and replaced by another in 1658 ; 
the new wainscot seems to have survived till about 
1690 when (as everybody knows) Warden Nicholas 
provided anothcr. Of Nicholas's wainscot, of ils 
removal by Butterfield, of ils subsequent history, I 
will not speak.--Mathew, in his brief allusion to " the 
temple", mentions only ils " pictured windows", 
those fenestrce vitrete which Wykeham was anxious 
to protect against stones and balls (jactus lapidum et 
pilarum, necnon rerum quarumlibet aliarum : Rubric 
XLIII.). They had fortunately eseaped the ravages 
of Puritan soldiers and Puritan bishops,  but they 
were so seriously dilapidated just aller Mathew's 
sehool-days (in 1650) that masons and glaziers were 
employed to mend them suflîeiently to keep starlings 
from passing through them? We have an elaborate 
aeeount (said to have been written as a sehool imposi- 
tion)  of the great east window from the future Bishop 
Lovth (c. 1725 ?) ; and about 1820 a letter from the 
Rev. G. Rowlands expressed some interesting opinions 
eoneerning ils arrangements and history.  " In the 

 Not "pollard oak "(Annals, p. 53). Mr. Kirby's account of the contracts 
is incorrect in some other unimportant particulars. 
 Contrast the misfortunes of New College at the hands of Bishop Horne ; 
see R. and R. p. 67. See also ibid. p. 113. 
 Annals, p. 56. * Valcott, p. 219 ; Wordsworth, pp. 73-88. 
» The letter is copied into Warden Huntingford's MS. Armais. Mr. 
IRowlands believed that the window had been taken down al least once, and 



c.xxxvm THE POET'S OMISSIONS 

479 

month of July 1821", wrotc Warden Huntingford, 1 
"the Glass in the Eastern Window of the Chapcl was 
taken down, and sent to Mess  Betton and Evans at 
Shrewsbury, who in the spring prcccding had con- 
tracted to retouch the colours .... This Glass was 
restored to its original brilliancy by Mess fs Bctton 
and Evans, and put again into the Window " in 
November and Dcccmber 1822. In the latter month 
The Hampshire Chronicle informcd all " loyers of 
antiquity and admirers of thc art of Glass Staining " 
that they would " receive much plcasure " from a 
visit to Chapcl, the east window having bccn " re- 
touched and restorcd with great skill with fidclity ", 
and " rccovered and brought back to what it was 
when originally painted ". Thc side windows wcre 
subsequcntly sent to Shrcwsbury, and Wardcn Hunt- 
ingford records that by August 1828 "all the 
painted windows in the Chapcl wcre complctcd "; 
on the replaccment of those on thc south side The 
Chronicle was no less enthusiastic than bcforc, and 
dcclared that when thc northcrn windows should also 
be completed, the beauty of the Chapel would be 
"imposing and unique ". Unhappily thc fate of 
being " loathed by an carly posterity " which a 
Master of Trinity prcdicted for the mid-Victorian 
chapel of St. John's has, in spite of The Chronicle's 
eulogies, befallen our late-Gcorgian glass. Even in 
1845 the expert Mr. Winston, whil¢ admitting that 
the new work was "a vcry good copy " of thc old, 
"considering the rime at which it was executed ", ruade 
it plain that his qualification mcant much ;  and as I 

certainly " at the rime of the Great Rebel[ion, when many windows vere 
presel-ed by burying tbem, as, if I recoLlect rightly, xvas the case with thc fine 
glass at King's College Chapel, Cambridge". 
x In his MS. Anna|s. 
 Proceedigs of the Archoeological lnslitule al Wichester, 1845. 



480 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

vrite I find the Head Master asserting, in the current 
number of The Wykehamist, that Messrs. Betton and 
Evans's windows "are universally admitted to be crude 
in colour and grotesque in design ".l--It will have 
been noticed that both the Warden and The Chronicle 
gloss over the fact that the glass which came from 
Shrewsbury was not the old glass retouched and 
restored, but was almost entirely new glass; what 
became of the old ? Much of if no doubt, as Mr. 
Rendall says, was " destroyed or lost " at Shrewsbury ; 
some fragments xvere inserted into the new east 
windoxv; some others may be seen elsevhere. With 
respect to these last I ara indebted to the kindness of 
Mr. Car6e (who wonders if I shall " get any poetry out 
of the existing windows ") for the following statement : 

Three figures were cut down and inserted as an east 
window of the south aisle of St. Mary's church in Shrewsbury. 
That had two eusps in the heads instead of four, the lights 
were narrower and shorter ; so the canopy-work was muti- 
lated accordingly. In course of time these lights were dis- 
carded from St. Mary's and round their way--I don't know 
when or how--to South Kensington. They have been 
patched nd are not in their pristine state, and hve been 
covered with a thiek coat of brom shellac or varnish, and so 
have lost all their brilliance. There is  small piece of the 
original east window in the east window of St. Mary's (I ara 
told this on good authority), and other fragments in the 
chapel of Shirley Hll, Eltington, Warwickshire. I never 
before heard that any was af Ludlow, 9 but have been told 

 The Wykeha:nist, July 29, 1913.--I leave this passage as it was written 
just before Mr. Arthur Benson called attention to the "' wickedness" of a 
proposal to remove the glass of 1820-8 (The Times, August 6, 1913). 
2 As has sometimes been stated. The E. window of Ludlow church " was 
orinally the gift of Spofford, Bishop of Hereford, 1421-48, and, after under- 
going great mutilation, was well restored in 1828, by Evans of Shrewsbury" 
(Murray's Handbook to Shropshire, p. 5). A correspondent of The Times 
(August 20, 1913) gives reasons for believing that certain figures "in the 
window [a window, I ara told, on the N. side] of Ludlow church choir" were 
'" brought from Winchester", but, he adds, " whether from the cathedral or 



cH. xxvni THE POET'S OMISSIONS 

481 

that there is some at St. Neots, Cornvall. This I should 
doubt however .... There ean be no doubt, I think, that 
the glass removed xvas the original glass. 

I pass from "the temple and its pictured vindows". 
What are " the gardens of Alcinous " and " the 
greeneries of Tempe" (v. 280) ? The former should be 
kitchen-garden or orchard or both; it was of course 
towards fruit-growing that the horticultural tastes 
of Alcinous inclined. There ,vas a kitchen-garden 
as well as a flower-garden in full view from the old 
School, 1 and after the new School had been built there 
were such gardens still. It was into these gardens 
that the Warden and Fellows ordered, in 1778, that 
"whilst the boys are af Meads or elsewhere " no boy 
vas "to presume to go ", but they went ail the saine ; 
a year or two later Mr. Bowles eomplained  that the 
walls " are too low and serve only to invite the Boys 
to elimb over them, and to plunder and rob the Garden 
of all its Fruits and Flowers ". Apple-trees were 
planted, in 1643, in the hop-garden whieh then 
oceupied Siek-house Mead.  From all this we may 
conclude that the gardens of Aleinous roughly corre- 
spond fo the northern and north-western parts of 
Meads. There remain the greeneries of Tempe. It 
is impossible to aeeept Mr. Leaeh's suggestion  that 
they are the Tempe of his sehool-daysthe nasty bit 
of ditch that separated the pathway to Hills from the 
decayed wharf-buildings. The other places mentioned 

the college is hot certain". A recent visitor to Ludlow, who has carefully 
examined these figures, informs me that they are much smaller than those in 
the College Chapei windows to-day. 
a It is shown in Loggan's picture of 1675. 
 In the memorandurn discussed above in the chapter on Meads. 
 See Annals, pp. 412, 250, 331. That there was an orehard within the 
preeincts at an earlier date appears from p. 258, where we read that a labourer 
wa paid ll½d. in 1532 pro eradicacione herbarum nox/arum in le orcharde. 
« Hi.çtorj, p. 
2 



482 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

in the poet's last paragraph are places of dignity 
within the College precincts, and Tempe is coupled 
with the gardens of Alcinous. Its greeneries must 
bc thc southern part of Mcads, the prata vhich, the 
poet tells us, folio stipant virgulta comanti (v. 176). 
" Tempe " was for verse-task writers any green and 
pleasant place--a valley, no doubt, for choice, but 
Eton poets gave the name even to their Salt Hill; 1 
in his Mons Catharince T. Warton gave if fo the 
thinly-timbered vater-meadovs about St. Cross.  
There is an interesting use of Mathew's vord viri- 
darium in the lVinton Domesday, whieh deseribes the 
site of College as the viridarium et deambulatorium 
,ç. Swithuni, " quiet meads ", writes Dean Kitehin, 
"wherein the brethren strolled and dreamed awhile "? 

So much for our poet's confessed omissions, but 
there is a building within our walls, which, if the date 
usually assigned to if is right, we should expeet him to 
have deseribed, but whieh he does not even deeline to 
deseribe. Siek-house, or rather the northern part of 
it? was built on the site of the Carmelite Friary by 
the Warden of 3Iathev's sehool-days, the John Harris 
who was afterwards his friend and benefactor. The 
first addition to our buildings since Chantry, it is of 
all such additions the most charming as it was the 
most necessary) When lVarton described Winchester 
 Sec above, p. 345. 
-" SVordsworth, p. lOl : sparsis frondentia Tempe arboribus. 
 llistoric Towns : IFinchester, p. 79 ; see also p. 142. 
« ,, The baek and more eommodious portion " was built by Mr. John 
Taylor in 1775 (Armais, p. 826). His munificentia in reficienda suisque im- 
pensis augenda domo alumnis cegrotantibus dicata was eommemorated in Chapel. 
n As will be seen from a passage to be quoted presently.--At Eton 
Henry VI. intended to build, but did hot bttild, an infirmary for his seholars 
and ehoristers ; siek boys were "' entrusted to the tare of some worthy marron 
in the town" (M. L. pp. 40, 51). About 1690, when the Upper School was 
being rebuilt, an appeal for subseriptions stated that " there is a bui]dlng 
within twelve or fourteen yards of the Long Chamber which may be turned 



c. ,,, SICK-HOUSE 483 

its beauty was conspicuous, for it stood by itself, 
" in the middle of the College rneadow " ; 1 but it 
is dwarfed and alrnost hidden to-day by buildings 
of greater bulk and pretension.  Now Adarns, Mr. 
Kirby, Mr. Leach and others a say that it was built 
(or "founded ") in 1640, seven years beforc 3Iathcw's 
poem was written ; the statement seems to be based 
on a note in Charles Blackstone's MS. Book of Bcnc- 
factions (178). Blackstone was an excellent anti- 
quary, but he cites no evidence; and I suspect that 
Mathew ornittcd in 1647 to mention Sick-housc for 
the very suflïcicnt reason that it did not thcn exist. 
Mr. Kirby's notice of the building is pcrplcxing. 
He says that it was built in 1640, but hOt furnished 
(which, as he says, is " remarkable ") till 1668; he 
proceeds to quote a list of articles bought for it in the 
latter year juxta legatum D Harris, with a view to 
proving that even then it vas furnished " inade- 
quately enough". Now inventories of College furni- 
ture were ruade in the August of the years 1656 and 
1657. In that of 1656 we have no hint of the exist- 
ence of Sick-house; but in that of 1657 we have a 
list of furniture " in the new Lodgeing for the Sicke"  
The new lodging, then, was furnished and ruade 
available between August 1656 and August 1657, and 

into an infirmary, with accommodation for ten or twelve at a time, which is 
more than any c.an remember to have been sick in the College at once " (iln'd. 
p. 274). 
t Description, p. I)5 ; see above, p. 361). 
2 The following statement occurs in a leading article in The IVykehamist 
for Jtme 1868 : "A very interesting subject is involved in the Abolition of 
Commoners--the enlargement of Meads. Belote Sick llouse can be pulled 
down and Sick House .Meads turned into ground for Cricket, accommodation 
for the Sick must be round elsewhere .... Vqaen Sick I-Iouse, then, is re- 
moved", etc. No one can believe that the vandalism here contemplated 
entered Dr. Ridding's head, but it is strange that the editoriaI statement seems 
to bave aroused no indignation. 
a Adams, p. 43 ; Annals, p. 326 ; History, p. 338. 
 A payment pro capsula in Bethesda (see below) ad reponendum mappas 
(i.e. for a linen-chest in Sick-house) is entercd in the accounts for 1665--6. 



484 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . u 

Mr. Kirby's remarkable interval between building and 
furnishing is thus reduced from tventy-eight years to 
seventeen; but was there any interval at ail ? An 
admirer of Warden Harris, one fully acquainted with 
the details of his activities, wrote as follows, soon after 
the Restoration2 

That which he intended for his last work was a consider- 
able work of Charity for the poore children of the Collcdge. 
They are thcre lodged about 12 in a chamber & had no place of 
rctircment in sicknesse, so that were the disease anything 
infectious it must needs run from one to another over the 
whole chamber or it may be Colledge. If hot infectious the 
sicke person was troublesorne to those that were xvell & 
designed either sleep or study; and they that were well as 
mueh troublesome to the sieke. He therefore - round this 
dcviee to ernpty his purse to build some lodgings for the sicke 
in whieh place also there should be lodngs for a Physitian 
& for a woman that should attend any that were sieke. This 
place when it was [? . . . ?] hee ealled Bethesda a on the front 
of whieh there were inseribed these two short Suffrages, one 
stiled Votum Seholarium pro Custode a--whieh was-- 
Cubantis in Lecto languoris [extremo cor eius 
Et artus Jehovah curer foveat ae sustenter] .... 
I bave printed the passage beeause it has not been 
printed before and is in many ways instructive. For 
my present purpose it is valuable as showing that 
aeeording to a well-informed eontemporary Siek-house 
was built, not in 1640, but towards the end of the 
Warden's life. He died in August 1658 ; the building 
t Sec above, p. 46. 
z After " therefore" the writer erased the words "" layd out what mony 
remaind to him ". 
z It is called Bethesda in the accounts for 1665-6 : pro emendando Le 
Pumpe ad Bethesda ls. In Loggan's plan (1675} it is cal/cà Bethesda seu 
Nosocomion. It is also often ealled "New House "' ; that expression was in 
use as late as 1780 (sec above, p. 878). 
« The writer quotes from memory ; he should bave written Votum Puerorum 
pro Authore. 



tI. XXXVIII SICK-HOUSE 485 

was furnished in 1656-7; I suggest that it was fur- 
nished as soon as it had been built. We ought not, 
perhaps, to take it as certain that the pathetie Yotum 
pro Authore was carved while the building was in 
progress; but Harris had been in failing health for 
some little rime before his death.'--In all ways the 
great Warden had deserved well of Winchester; in no 
way better, as the above-quoted passage brings home 
to us,than bydoing what a man eould do togive effieacy 
to his own " short suffrage " for its " children " - 

Jchovah, qui sanitatis author est unicus, noxia, prccor, 
Omnia a vestris capitibus arceat ac rcpcllat. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXVIII 

W have seen that there was no infirmary at Winchester 
belote about 1657, or af Eton belote 1690. Arrangements 
for the prevention of outbreaks of pestilence (see above, 
pp. 425-6) among the boys were even more necessarv than 
arrangements for their cure under ordinary illness ; and sueh 
outbreaks in their neighbourhoods in the sixteenth eentury 
had moved the authorities of Eton and of Winehester. as of 
other sehoo]s, to provide retreats fo whieh boys eould be sent. 
Elon.--In the year 1509-10, on " one of the earliest re- 
eorded appearanees of the plague at Eton", many of the 
seholars went off with Robert Aldrieh, afterwards Head 
Master and Provost, to Langley near Slough (M. L. p. 100). 
In 1537, " Udall [the Head Master] and the boys under his 
charge went to Hedgerley ", a little further away, "fo avoid 
a pestilence " (ibid. p. 111). In 1563 a permanent arrange- 
ment was made. A bouse af Cippenham, about two nfiles 
from Eton, had lately been acquired by the College. On the 
appearanee of the plague some of the boys were reeeived 
there ; " the tenant was theneeforth bound by a clause in his 
lease to take in six seholars free of charge for the spaee of 

 As is shown by a letter written by Lord Saye and Scie in 1657. 



486 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P.  

one term ; and this arrangement eontinued until the ereetion 
of a Sanatorium in 1844 " (ibid. p. 169). 
IVinchestcr.--There is elear evidenee for the appearanee 
of pestilence at Winehester in the late summer and autumn 
of 1509, and it is probable, but we are not informed, that the 
authorities provided some of the boys with a retreat. From 
September 1543, owing to the "Great Death "', nearly all the 
boys were absent for eighteen weeks (see above, p. 426), and the 
Warden and Fellows realized that they must provide a per- 
manent place for " rustieation " during pestilence. They had 
reecntly aequired the manor of Moundsmere, on an upland 
some twelve toiles N.E. of Winehester, and the aeeounts of 
1543-4 show that a eonsiderable expenditure was ineurred 
thcrc upon nova edificia. 1 It was no doubt at bloundsmere 
that a sum paid to the Head Master in that year pro cornunis 
scholariun in rure was spent. In 1554 the larger part of the 
altos given by Philip and Mary to the College at their marriage 
"was delivered to Mr. Crane and Mr. Langrage bowcers to 
repare the Chyldre house at Mounsberie [sic] for ther consorte 
in tyme of siknes" (Winchester College Documents, ii. 4). Chris- 
topher Johnson refers to another rusticatio, at Moundslnere, 
no doubt, in 1563, mentioning among its inconveniences : 

Aquarum inopia ipsi non solum haurire eas de puteo pro- 
fundissimo sed in summuln etiam montera tanquam bovcs 
quidam subiugati anhelantes trahere nccesse habeatis (Themes, 
fol. 2) ; 

I)ut, he adds, you bear it ail patiently : 
Durum ; sed levius fit paticntia 
Quicquid corrigere est ncfas. 

The accounts of the year show that various expenses were in- 
currcd ad usure scholarium comrnoranli«m apud Mowdesmere 
tcmpore pestis from November 9 to December 17. Moundsmere 
was sold by the College only recently, and till 1887 the tenant 
was bound byhis lease to set apart "the new buildings adjoining 
to the said manor house, with all and singular the ehambers and 

* The principal item is stated in Alnals (p. 259) to be " xwj viij ixd, '' 
but the ' xvj  " shou|d be "" xxi  ". 



c.. xxm REFUGES DURING PLAGUE 

487 

rooms whatsoever within the same contained, or at any time 
hereafter of new to be built there" for the use of members of the 
College, "for the avoiding the plague or any such pestilential 
sickness " (Annals, p. 260). The Moundsmere arrangement, 
it will be observed, survived the less elaborate arrangement 
which it probably suggested to the Eton authorities.--The 
accommodation there provided was supplemented or super- 
seded in the seventcenth century. There was a rusticatio to 
Silkstead near ttursley from Octobcr 1625 to May 1626, " for 
what purpose ", says Mr. Kirby, "does not appear" (Annals, 
p. 301), but it will be remembered that in the summer of 1625 
the plague caused the adjournment of Charles I.'s first parlia- 
ment to Oxford ; like that of 1543 (see above, p. 426}, it found 
its way to Winchester. In the parish of St. Maurice " ' the 
sore disease' . . . proved fatal to eighty-seven, of whom 
twenty-five died in August, and twenty-seven in September " 
(Fearon and Williams, Parish Register and Parochial Docu- 
men/s, p. 72). Finally in 1666, sceviente peste, £11 was spent 
on the hire of a house at Crawley, rive miles away, for all or 
some of the scholars, and much other expenditure was in- 
curred there; one of the items (pro impedito feno vel incre- 
mento per lusus scholarium £2) shows that the boys wcre 
allowed to play or played in an adjoining meadov. Collcge 
was praetically deserted ; under the usually full section of the 
accounts called Custus Domorum, I find the entry nihil in the 
autumn term. 
Westminster.--In May 1564, when there was plague in 
London as at Winchester, the Chapter resolved " that in case 
of any sickness happening the boys should be removed to 
Wheathampstead or any other convenient place" ; they were 
fo be under the charge of a Prebendary. They were at Putney 
in 1565 from May to September. Dean Goodman (1561-1601) 
subsequcntly secured for them "a more permanent refuge " 
by acquiring in perpetuity the tenancy of a house at Chiswick 
(Sargeaunt, p. 34). 
Shrewsbury.--Mr. Ashton's Ordinances of 157 require that 
" there shall be nmde or provided (... in some convenient 
place within the county of Salop) a house for the schoolnmster 
and scholars to resort unto and abide in the time of any 
eommon plague or sickness dangerous in Salop, as . . . for 
the time being shall be thought most eonvenient". If a 



488 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. n 

mastcr refused to tome and teach there during the rime or 
rimes of such plague or sickncss, he was tobe "dcbarred of his 
wagcs" 
We read of similar refuges for the members of Oxford 
colleges. On an outbreak of plague, for instance, in 1493 
" Magdalen College removed fo Brackley in Northampton- 
shire, Oricl fo ]3artholonaew's I-Iospital near Oxford, and 
Mcrton fo Islip instead of Cuxham, their usual place of re- 
tirement". Such rustications were exceedingly frequent 
(Creighton, History of Epidemics in Britain, i. pp. 283-4; 
Hcnderson, llerton College, p. 72). 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 

THE choice of topics for discussion in this book has 
been chiefly determined by Mathew's dcscriptions, but 
I spoke in the last chaptcr of buildings and localitics 
which he barely mentions, and in the prescnt chapter 
I propose to speak of commoners, whom he does not 
mention at all. His silence is both a surprise and a 
misfortune. It is a surprise, because there were 
commoners, though not in large numbers, in lais 
time; some of thcm not only worked in School and 
attended Chapel, but slept in College bcdrooms and 
took thcir meals in Collcge Hall. A commolaer in 
collegio complained in 1633 of " affronts " offercd llim 
by the " propositors", but found that " their words 
were more than thcir decds";  at least seven 
commoners, one of whom was Thomas Ken,  boardcd 
in 166 ad mensam puerorum, and Mathew was anaong 
these pueri ; in 16¢7 the Bursars paid Bd. pro cande- 
labris pro sedili comm.ensalium in Chapcl; our first 
Long Roll, that of 1653, gives the names of 26 
commoners of one kind or another. Thc poet's 
silence is also a serious misfortunc. Commoners havc 
an intercsting, a complex, and in somc respccts an 
 *.M.i. pp. 156-7. 
 Annals, p. 119. Ken was elected a scholar, at the age of [hirteen, in 
1651. John Potenger the younger, who was elected, at the age of eleven, 
in 1658, had like Ken been a eommoner ; he has recorded how young 
eornmoners were taught (sec above, p. 87}. 
489 



4.00 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . n 

obscure past ; it needs ail the light tbat can be thrown 
upon it, and Mathev throvs none. 
A history of commoners is still to be writtcn. A 
papcr by Mr. Kirby, published in 1893,1 tclls us much 
about "the commoners until Dr. Burton"; of that 
long period of their history I have spoken incidentally. 
Of the commoners under Dr. Burton I have spoken 
somewhat fully in more than one place. In the 
present chapter I shall speak of the commoners after 
him, attempting little more than to fix some land- 
marks in their fortunes, and to note some salient 
characteristics of their life, during the century which 
begins vith his retircment and ends with Moberly's 
(1766-1866). 
I. On Burton's retirement Joseph Warton became 
Head Master. As Usher (1755-65) he had been, like 
Speed his predecessor, the house-master of Old 
Commoners, and as Head Master (1766-93) he con- 
tinued to hold that position. As the house-masters 
first of Old and then of New Commoners the Head 
Masters during the whole of our century had all or 
most conamoners under their immediate care. From 
1766 to 1809 there were at intervals or continuously, 
from 1859 to 1866 there were continuously, other 
commoners; during the intervening half-century 
(1809-59) " Head Master's boarders " and " com- 
moners" were convertible terms.--In the first period 
"street commoners" were still in existence ; here are 
some allusions to thena from the unpublished Bond 
Letters of 1770-71. On November 6, 1770, John 
Bond wrote from Winchester : 

Mr. Millner is going to settle in Winton as his Wife eant 
be absent from ber Dear Children one of whom is at Dr. 
Wartons the other at Mrs. Lees. 

 W.C. pp. 48-56. 



es. xxx,x OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 491 

And on June 80, 1771 : 

Cooth la late schoolfellow] has not yet brought his Brother, 
altho he was expected last Monday by the Miss Lipscombs. 

And again on July 18 : 
Commoners are greatly increas'd since the Holydays ; we 
have likewise about six new street-Cmmoners. 

In the later seventies there were some dozen of them 
in ail, " boarded and lodged at two or three different 
houses in King'sgate and Cannon Streets " ; 1 Gabell, 
the future Head Master, was himself " a Street eom- 
moner at his father's house in King'sgate Street " 
fill he moved into College in 1779 ; their diseontinuance 
was hot decreed till 1809. " There were also, for some 
few years after 1772, some other eommoners who 
were neither street eommoners nor Head Master's 
boarders; numbers were rising, and Thomas Collins 
the Usher, having aequired the lease of "the Sistern 
ehapel", a took boys for whom the Head Master 
eould hot find room; about 1778 he had some 
thirty sueh boys. In the early eighties the numbers 
fell again; when Collins resigned the ushership in 
1784 the Sistern ehapel was given up, and (as we 
bave seen) the long eonneetion between the Usher 
and commoner-boarders was finally severed. « There 
a G.L.C.p. 6Readers of Gibbon's lemoirs may remember that in 1749 
his aunt, Mrs. Porten, opened a boarding-house in College Street, Westminster, 
principally--so it was believed--that her nephew might be properly cared for 
while at Westminster School. " Her friends wcre numerous and active ; in 
the course of some years she became the mother of forty or fifty boys "(Roman 
Empire, edition of 1864, i. pp. 21-2). 
 In a letter to Gabell, dated December 6, 1809, the Warden and FelIows, 
before confirming his appointment as Head Master, fixed the outside limit 
of the number of commoners (see below, p. 508), and added that "of that 
number none should be Street commoners ". 
a See above, p. 79. 
« It bas been necessary to retraverse here some of the ground already 
traversed in Chapter III. 



492 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,-. n 

can have been no difficulty in finding room in Old 
Commoners for ail the commoners of the next 
decade, when there were ncver more than 54. Rc- 
newed prospcrity, however, followed closely upon the 
appointment of Goddard in 1793 ; the numbcr of 
commoners had trebled itself by 1803,1 and from 1804 
onwards it exceeded 130. " It is a puzzle", says 
Adams, "to know where all these were lodged". 2 
The Sistern chapel, thenceforth called "Wic-kham's ", 
was occupied by Dr. Wickham, the College medical 
officer, from 1794 to 1801, and he may have taken 
boarders; Mr. Bower, the writing master, who be- 
came its tenant in 1801, may have done the same; 
there vere probably street commoners in other private 
houses; Adams suggests that Goddard, who though 
married had no family, may have lodged many boys 
in lais own " large Dwellinghouse "2 In 1808 the 
situation was simplified. Goddard secured the contml 
of Wickham's, bought the freehold of the building, 
ruade it a part of Old Commoners; and when he 
retired at the end of 1809 he sold it, together with lais 
lease of the Spiral, to the Warden and Fellows, who let 
the whole property, at a rent of £60, to lais successor. 4 
The Head Master could now provide lodging tel quel 
for from 130 to 140 boys; during Gabell's reign 
(1810-24) the number of commoners was never less 
than 130, and they were all lais boarders.--The bread 
which Burton cast upon the waters in 1739 was thus 
found after sevcnty years; commoners were at last 
all lodged together, brought under "the care of thcir 
mastcr's eye ", protected, " as much as locks and doors 
can provide ", against outsidc temptations. » Burton's 

x See L.R.i.p.i.xii. In 1798 there were 41 commoners, in 1803 there were 
120. 
- Adams, p. 161. s See beiow, p. 568. 
« Annals, p. 134. s W.C.p. 90 ; above, p. 53. 



CI]. XXXlX OLD AND NE$V COMMONERS 493 
aire was realized ; but the Head Master's " monopoly 
of boarding and lodging all the commoners " did not 
commcnd itself to everybody. A quarrelsome old 
Wykehamist, whose acquaintance we have madc, " had 
yet to learn " in 1818 why his sons should not "go 
through Winchester School with credit " just because 
it was Gabell's " mighty will and pleasure " to refuse 
to board and lodge them. " I really ", he said, " tan 
perceive no absolute moral necessity for their going 
through your Commoners to that school, subject to 
the risk of every eddy and whiff of your caprice . . . 
any more than I do for every boat which passes 
London bridge shooting the dangerous arch, or being 
prevented from going through at ail-.1 The point 
was worth making in more mannerly fashion, for thc 
monopoly, though an improvement on what had 
prcceded it, was not an ideal arrangement. It was 
maintained till 1859 ; but before its abolition a change 
of great importance to the fortunes of commoners had 
bcen ruade. Of this changethe dcmolition of Old 
and the building of New Commoners--I have now to 
speak. 
Dr. Moberly began his long headmastership in 
January 1836. He must bave set to work at once to 
convince the Warden and Fellows that the provision 
of bettcr accommodation for his boardcrs was not only 
urgent, 2 but partly incumbent upon them; and it is 
a striking proof both of his persuasiveness and of the 
new spirit which animated the College after Warden 
Barter's appointment that he convinced them speedily. 
 G.L.C.p. 6. 
a Old Commoners was in ail ways inconvenient, but in the eighteenth 
century it was considered exceptionally healthy (Adarns, p. 237). In its 
later days it cannot have been so ; Mrs. Moberly notes in her journal (January 
12, 1839) : " In consequence of the unhealth), condition of " Comraoners ' 
it has been decided to rebuild it entirely" (D.D.p. 68). In Lord Selborne's 
Memorials (i. p. 95) it is stated that "a tire gave opportunity '" for the recon- 
struction ; but the tire is hot mentioned, I think, elsewhere. 



9 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

In the following December they passed the following 
resolution : 

That in case a suffieient $tllll be raised by subscriptions for 
carrying into Exccution any approvcd Plan for thc rcbuilding 
and extension of Buildings for the use of the Hcad Master 
and the Commoncrs, the Collcgc will contribute the sure of 
5000£ towards the saine. 

Having set the ball rolling, Moberly wisely retired into 
the baekground, but it is on record that he " con- 
sented to make a large sacrifice of ineome to further 
the proposed plan ,,.1 It vas the Warden (backed 
loyally by the Fellows) who took the lead. He 
aequired from the Dean and Chapter the freehold of 
the Sistern House,  arranging for the necessary private 
Act of Parliament; 3 he invited subscriptions by 
private letters, and negotiated with the architect ; at 
a later stage he ruade a public appeal, on behalf of 
the College, in The Times (December 2, 1838), and 
persuaded lais colleagues to increase their contribu- 
tion. Some seventy answers to his appeals are ex- 
tant; they are a most pleasant testimony hot only 
to the patriotism of old Wykehamists and to their 
affection for him, but to his zeal in the cause. The part 
taken by the College in financing the seheme is no 
less admirable ; it contributed in ail £17,739, charging 
(reasonably enough) 3½ per cent interest on a portion 
(£10,000) of that outlay, and giving the rest outright. 4 

z From the Tim«s advertisement reïerred to below. 
 l.e. the Sistern Spiral premises. See above, p. 492. 
3 The Act, which received the royal assent on July 12, 1837, provided for 
an exchange of properties ith the Dean and Chapter, which (as the advertise- 
ment stated) "" puts them in permanent possession of the ground on which the 
present ' Commoners ' stands ". The Dean and Chapter received a full quid 
pro quo, but the Act stipulated that " the Costs and Expenses of obtaining and 
passing " it (which amounted to over £600) should be borne by the Colleg 
 "The total cost of the building (including the Head Master's house) was 
stated by Dr. Moberly (P.S.C.p. 331) to have been £27,000. At one stage 
(Dcccxnber 6, 1838) the Warden and Bursars were " empowered " to instruct 



. XXlX OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 495 

I may quote the opening sentence of the Times 
advertisement : 

Itis well known to ail Wykehamists that the meanness and 
insufficiency of the buildings for the reception of commoners 
at Winchester has been most prejudicial to the interests of 
the School. 

The architect chosen was Mr. G. J. Repton, who 
had designed the present front of the Wardcn's lodg- 
ings (1832-3). He must have ruade his first plans for 
New Commoners early in 1837, for we find Sir John 
Kennaway writing to the Warden in February of 
that year : 
I ealled on Mr. Repton while in Town, and he showed me 
his plan . . . whieh seemed a very suitable one. One almost 
feels that it is a case in whieh it would be desirable to have the 
benefit of publie eompetition. 

Very suitable, but--? The revised plans, which 
were submitted in February 1838, can hardly have 
been more attractive. From the letter which accom- 
panied them 1 if appears that Rcpton had in the 
interval been instructed " to reduce the expence as 
much as possible " ; he therefore proposed " that the 
whole of the Exterior Fronts should be finished quite 
plain, with the exception of the North Front of the 
Itead Master's House towards College Street" This 

the architect to reduce the estimate to £22,000 ; this was just before the 
appeal in The Times, which suid tlaut the plans had been framed witla strict 
economy, but that tlae lowest tender was £25,000. On February 1, 1839, 
the contract between the College and Mr. Iterbert, the builder, fixcd the 
amount to be paid to the latter at £22,428.---The lists of subscriptions 
which I bave seen are incomplete. New College gave £1000 ; one of the most 
generous subscribers was Lord Eldon, on whose gift of £500 ont ofthe Varden's 
correspondents remarked : "Can Tories do such noble deeds ? and, indeed, I 
should hot bave been able to have accounted for it, had I hot called to mind 
that on the mother's side he sprang from Whigs ". 
i The College dossier about these matters contains no other communica- 
tions from tlae architect, and no plans at ail. 



496 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  
was to be "built with Stone and Flint, and partake in 
some dcgree of the charactcr of the old Collcgc Fronts"; 
and Repton addcd that the house "should not stand 
farthcr back from Collcgc Strcet than is nccessary for 
the Entrancc Porch and Steps, as it would then be 
lcss sccn from the Street, and would from its aspect 
appcar more gloomy, and in decper shade ". In what 
dcgrce his front " partakes of the character of the 
old Collcge Fronts " I will not attempt to determine, 
nor indccd nccd I describe the architecture of New 
Commoners as it was before the building was adapted 
and adorned by Butterfield ; we have flfll accounts 
both of Old and of New Commoners from Adams, 
who lived in the former as a boy from 1831 to 1835, 
and in the latter as a tutor from 1844 fo 1851.1 If his 
architectural tastes blinded him to the picturesqueness 
of Old Commoners, many drawings enable us to form 
a judgment for ourselves. No drawings or photo- 
graphs, and no descriptions,  of New Commoners will 
lead any modern Wykehamist fo dissent from the 
universal opinion of those who knew the building as 
it was till 1869. " You have built a wor-khouse", 
said a friend to Dr. Moberly. " My dear Sir, that is 
the very thing I meant to do ", vas the reply. 
I have noted in an Appendix that there has been 
uncertainty about the date when Old Commoners 
" came into being ", but. that it may safely be said to 
be 1739-42. New Commoners, though its date also 
has been variously given,  was built exactly a century 
later. The Times advertisement states that the 
building " is fo commence next spring ", i.e. the 
spring of 1839, and Mrs. Moberly reeorded that the 
Head Master migrated with his family to Kingsgate 
1 See Adams, ehapters xii. and xiii. 
- See in particular Mr. A. O. Prickard's description in IV.C. pp. 113 seqq. 
* Adams gives 1840, Mr. Kirby 1843, Lady Laura Ridding 1844. 



¢«. , OLD AND NEW COIfMONERS 497 

Street in the January of that year; he was back in 
College Street, in his quasi-Gothie new home, in 1841.  
His boarders did not migrate at all. Some of their 
old premises were left standing till some of the new 
were eompleted; 2 a certain amount of temporary 
accommodation was also provided, whieh beeame "a 
notion " as " Middle Commoners ". The transition- 
period ended before the end of 1842, for in that year 
the arehiteet and builder reeeived the balance of their 
accounts. 
It is stated in Dulce Donum --but the number is 
certainly put too low--that New Commoners was 
"arranged to hold a hundred boarders ", and Dr. 
Moberly told the Commissioners that he did not 
propose, in 1862, to take more than a hundred. « In 
the eady years of the building that number was 
largely exceeded. In July 1843 Moberly noted in 
his journal that he expected (after the holidays, 
apparently) " near 140 boys" and had " refused 
more";5 his boarders reached their highest point, 
148, in 18¢62 Meanwhile it had become too clear 
that the new building was unhealthy; did over- 
crowding, with inadequate ventilation, contribute to 
the unhealthiness of which bad drainage was the 
primary cause ? Moberly records "scarlet fever, with 
the dispersion of thê boys " in 1843, and " terrible 
illness in the school " in 1844; * Adams speaks of 
"an outbreak of fever which prostrated half thc 
 D.D. pp. 68, 72.--The contraet with the builder stipulated that the 
buildings should be finished within three years from Fcbruary 1, 1839. 
 The architect explains that his plan " will allow a considerable part to 
be erected, before it will be absolutely necessary to disturb much of what is 
now occupied, and the pulling down the old Hall will be the only part that u411 
occasion a temporary inconvenience ". Just like an architect ! A good story 
told by Adams (p. 223) shows that vety rea! inconvenicnce was experienced. 
' D.D. p. 72. « P.S.C. p. 331. ' D.D. p. 75. 
« P.8.C. vol. ii. Appendix to Report, p. 186. Dr. Moberly's figures do hot 
precisely agree with those given in L.R.i.p. Ixxvi. 
 D.D. pp. 75-6. 
2K 



498 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE F. n 
inmates" in the hot June of 1846.1 From that year 
the number of commoners fcll rapidly ; in 1848, when 
it had sunk to 107, Moberly was convinced that he 
"must look forward to furthcr and more decisive 
declcnsion -.2 His misgivings were justified ; he gives 
the number as 68 in 1856. A rally followed; it 
was 92 in 1859, and applications for admission were 
coming in freely. Chernocke House (now removed 
to Kingsgate Park, and knoxvn as A) was opened for 
boardcrs by Mr. Wickham in that year ; 3 69 Kingsgate 
Street (B) by Mr. It. Moberly in 1860; Southgate Itill 
(C) by Mr. Du Boulay, who had alrcady taken some 
boys in Cheesehill Street, in 1863. New Commoners, 
as evcrybody knows, continucd to bc a boarding- 
house till 1869, when its inmates were dispersed into 
the houses F, G, H. But this latter development 
is outside thc limits of thc ccntury which ends with 
Dr. Moberly's rctirement ; it will be dcscribed in the 
next chapter 
Even in 186_ °, though " ' Commoners ' was flourish- 
ing", Dr. Moberly was again " uneasy about the 
hcalthiness of the buildings".4 Did he, as his 
daughter suggests,  start tutors' houses "with a view 
to ultimately emptying Commoners " ? In 1870, 
when his successor had emptied it, he publicly 
declarcd that "the discstablishmcnt of Commoners, at 
any rate, was no bad thing ", but it is not likcly that 
ho looked forward in 1862 to bcing himsclf its dis- 
establisher. If, after twenty-six years of headmaster- 
ship, thc idca of discstablishmcnt was prescnt to his 
 Adams, p. 237. 
 D.D.p. 89.It is unnecessary to look about for other causes of decline, 
such as the high-churchmanship of Moberly and Vordsworth (see History, 
p. 435). The latter, by the way, |eft Vinchester just before the deeline began. 
a An interesting paper on the opening of this, the first tutor's bouse, 
appeared in The Wykeharnist for February 1911. 
« D.D.p. 168.  Ibid. p. 14. 
 The WykeharaisI, October 1870. 



c. xxxix OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 499 
mind, he must have regardcd it as a possible task for 
a younger man whom he would not embarrass by a 
premature announcement. For himself he had a clear- 
eut scheme, in course of realization but hot yet fully 
realized, which included a large Head Master's board- 
ing-house. 1 Disestablishment, when announced in 
1868, came upon Wykehamists as a complete surprise. 
II. The foundation of Old Commoners was in its 
ultimate results a clear gain to the school, but the 
place was no paradise,  nor even a reasonably desirablc 
home. One of the Warden's correspondents in 1837 
spoke of " the very unworthy state of that Depart- 
ment in a School second to none in this kingdom in any 
other respect"; another callcd it "a disgrace to 
Wykehamists "; we have seen what the Warden and 
Fellows themselves said of it. In speaking of thc 
lire there lived I shall pass by its riots and discontents, 
its hardness and roughness. Lord Hatherley stigma- 
tized the system which prevailed as " domestic 
slavery", and just because it was so the sturdy 
and genial W. F. Hook " quitted Winchester with- 
out a pang of regret ,,.3 But these were features of 
public-school life everywhere; a more special char- 
acteristic of lire in Old Commoners was its close con- 
finement. Dr. Burton was satisfied that his locks and 
doors would prevent undesirable excursions, and, 
though our evidence shows that they often failcd to 
do so, the average law-abiding commoner felt that he 
was a prisoner. " Commoners' Court ", much smaller 
than Moberly's Court is now, " very small, referencc 
being had to the number of boys shut up in it ,,,4 ,, a 
nasty place, but the only place we have to play in ", 
 See below, p. 51)9. 
2 Robert Lowth (1776-9) called it "a garden of Eden", but " this is 
 Stephens, Lire of Dean llook, i. pp. 339, 18. 
 Patchett Martin, Li, fe o,f Lord Sherbrooke, i. p. 7. 



500 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE r. ,, 

was (except Hills) the commoner's only recreation- 
ground. One of out best authorities--a naturally 
cheerful pcrson, who described things faithfully and 
thoroughly--came to Winchester in 1818. After a 
fcw weeks in Old Commoners he told his mother of his 
first impressions with much zest; he was " as happy 
as the day is long". Six months later shades of the 
prison-house had closed upon him ; Old Commoners 
had become "this enchanting hole" ; " what can I ", 
he asked, " shut up in yard have to say ? A canai T 
in a cage cannot tell his friends what it thinks of the 
country -.1 There was of course" Hills "on remedies ; 
" we were marched to the hill a mlle off," wrote 
RobeloE Lowe ; but he added that "in consideration of 
this airing we vere shut up in the hall for four hours" 2 
--the hall which was both " Grubbing " and " Mug- 
ging " Hall. An alleviation came with the acquisition 
of " Commoner Field ,,,3 but permission to use it was 
granted very sparingly. 4 
The strict confinemcnt of Old Commoners involved 
physical and social separation from College. When 
Lord Hatherley, after Dean Hook's death, described 
the origin of their friendship, he said that it began in 
1814 " at Dr. Gabell's school, which was associated 
with William of Wykeham's foundation under the 
naine of Commoners " ! 5 The association was by no 
means close. " Commoners and Collegers ", wrote a 
contemporary commoner, " never see one another 
except in School, where we mix in our different classes, 
and when we go to hills twice a week, and then they 
walk by themselves till we get to the top. We are 
divided from Colledge by 2 courts well walled ". A 
" colleger" of 1820-28 said the saine : 

t The caged canary was C. Cooper Henderson ; see above, p. 92. 
- Life of Lord ,Sherbrooke, i. p. 8. a See above, p. 359. 
« Adams, p. 308. 6 Lire of Dean Hook, i. p. 337. 



c. xz OLD AND NEV COMMONERS 501 
My remembrances concern College exclusively. It may 
seem strange to a Winchester boy of the present generation 
that one should have lived eight years in College, as I did, 
and yet be wholly ignorant of words and usages common 
in Commoners .... We saw nothing of each other save in 
school time. We might have seen more of each othcr " on 
Hills ". But practically and habitually we did not.  
Ho thought that thcrc was " a certain degrec of sub- 
acid antagonistic fccling " duc to thc fact that whilc 
" Commoncr Prefects wcrc absolutely nothing to thc 
Collcgc boy ", Collcgc officcrs had authority over 
commoncrs. On thc wholc thc relations bctwccn thc 
two bodics werc not so much hostile as distant; to 
bring about cvcn a tcmporary fusion a rcbcllion was 
neccssary.  Scparation was dclibcratcly fostcred by 
thc Wardcn and Fcllows of thc Huntingfordian cra; 
many now cldcrly Wykchamists will rcmcmbcr that 
vhcn thcy wcrc young a commoncr was still somc- 
thing of an alicn to thc vcterans of thc inner circle. 
Hcrc is a passage from a lcttcr of thc Wardcn and 
Fcllows to thc Mastcrs, writtcn in Huntingford's 
middlc pcriod (January 19, 1810) : 
In the Number of Boys, who resort hither for Education, 
they see manifest and creditable Proof of the high Repute in 
which the School is holden. But from the saine Circumstance 
they also infer the Nccessity of frequent Recollection, that 
to the Warden, Fellows, and Two Masters, the Scholars of 
the College are the first and principal Objects of Attention. 
Therefore however great may be the Accession of Com- 
moners, yet in the School, the teaching and advancing of thc 
Col]ege Boys should be the primary Concern, as a Mattcr of 
positive and paramount Duty. 

t From a memorandum about " notions " which T. A. Trollope sent to 
Mr. Wrench in 1891. 
 The Bond Letters suggest that relations between seniors in College and 
Commoners were closer in 1770-71 than afterwards, but John Bond notcd 
(June 80, 1771) : '" There is no Alteration in Commoners except College door, 
to which is placed Iron Bars, that it may appear more like a Jayl than ever ". 



502 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

Commoners, that is to say, were outsiders; there was 
no desire to bring them inside. We have a notice, 
undated but in Huntingford's handwriting, concerning 
the " School Court Door towards the Commoners "; 
it is to be opened for a few minutes now and then on 
school-days just to enable commoners to go to and 
from School and Chapel; " on remedies, when no 
school ", it "is not to be open'd through the whole 
day -.1 Even in 1837, in the early days of the new 
era, the architect of New Commoners told the Warden 
that (acting presumably on instructions) he had 
" throughout endeavoured to keep the two Establish- 
ments as distinct as possible . . . as regards personal 
communication " 
Yet both the system of close eonfinement and that 
of separation had reeeived a serious blow by the 
appointment of Dr. Moberly. Nev Commoners, with 
all its defeets, at least gave his boys more indoor 
spaee; they gained, while it was still building, a 
valuable extension of outdoor spaee also. Mr. Repton 
said in his letter (February 3, 1838) that "the 
Bursars' Meadow "--afterwards ealled Grass Court- 
" may (or may not) be appropriated as an airing 
Ground" for eommoners; by a resolution of the 
College dated Deeember 5, 1839, it vas so appropri- 
ated--perhaps after laboursome petition by Moberly, 
perhaps through the generosity of Barter, who plaeated 
the Fellovs by surrendering his right to Siek-house 
Mead. Compared with Commoners' Court, Grass 
Court was spaeious indeed, and its appropriation to 
eommoners was a boundless gain.--Having seeured 
the demolition of one wall, the Head Master aimed 
at the demolition of another, but many years passed 
before his aim was realized. In May 1862, when the 
Public School Commissioners visited Winchester, Grass 
1 I have spokcn of this " order " in another eonneetion above, p. 62. 



(]t. X.XXIX OLD AND NEW COMMONERS 503 
Court was eut off from the test of Meads by a vall 
which I can just remember. Moberly told the 
Commissioners that he "wished to have it down 
for every consideration", but he hinted that the 
Warden and Fellovs had objections. His mooting 
the point publicly may have helped to remove thcm; 
in the ensuing holidays the wall disappeared. 1 Onc 
of his considerations was that it " kept off the south 
wind from the premises [Commoners] and interfered 
very much with the full ventilation of our buildings" ; 
he dvelt upon this considcration, I recollcct, in his 
last "Good Friday Prose", dclivercd in the follow- 
ing spring, z Anothcr was that when the wall was 
down the borders of commoners would be virtually 
enlarged. 
Still more important was a third considcration. 
Since he began his vork at Winchester Mobcrly had 
aimed steadily at rcmoving those immaterial partitions 
which ruade it possible for Lord Hatherley to call 
Commoners "Dr. Gabell's school ". Hc had indccd 
acquiesced, against his will and with reserves, in the 
division of authority which withdrew much of thc 
life of " College men" from his control and gave the 
school a dual character; 3 but his influence was con- 
stantly cxercised to promotc social union. "Every- 
thing ", he said in 1862, "that tends to blend the wholc 
of the school into one is of great value.. Any- 
thing which will get rid of the idea of our being two 
separate bodies, vith different interests and feelings, 
and make us one body, is highly desirable" 4 The 
i P.S.C.p. 358.--*,Ve are told (D.D.p. 15) that Moberly met with " the 
greatest dilfieulties" in this malter. Perhaps the shrewdness of ,,'arden 
Godfrey Lee {appointed 1861) helped to remove them.--Moberly called the 
Commissioners' attention to "the Fives Courts now [in May 1862] in course of 
erection in the commoners' meadow". " As", he said, "' they are situated 
within the commoners' premises, I hope they will have the effect of getting rid 
of that wall ".  See above, p. 437. 
a See above, pp. 62-3.  P.S.C.p. 358. 



504 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . , 
language of Wykehamists of the later thirties shows 
that some advance towards his ideal had already been 
ruade. " There vas the greatest amity and good- 
fellowship", wrote one of them, "between both 
sections of the school .... There vas a very friendly 
feeling between College and Commoners . . . plenty 
of honest rivalry in sports, and much community in 
anmsements-.1 Commoners, it is true, were still 
admitted to Meads by courtesy only, but the courtesy, 
as time went on, was shovn more freely; the groving 
keenness in cricket matches between College and 
commoners, the training of school elevens to meet 
Eton and Harroxv, were strong influences towards 
fusion. It was promoted also by the common prepara- 
tion hours in School, where College men, being at 
home, could act as hosts ; by hospitalities in chambers 
and in Hall; 2 above ail by near neighbourhood, no 
longer nullified by foolish lockings of the School Court 
door2 So far as juniors were concerned, the fusion 
was incomplete; it is incomplete still; but the elder 
scholars and commoners began to form friendships as 
readily as their successors do to-day; they were 
brought together, perhaps, more closely and more 
constantly.* After a quarter of a century as Head 
Master Dr. Moberly was able to say that the process 
of blending had gone very far;  the removal of the 
wall would, he hoped, carry it still further. 
 G.P.S. pp. 337, 317. 
2 See Mr. A. O. Prickard's interesting paper in W.C.p. 120. 
a An order of Dr. Moberly's, recorded in Prefect of Hall's book, is in 
pleasant contrast to Huntingford's. 
 Among other evidenee for the staternents here rnade I have ruade speeial 
use of that of Mr. J. H. Thresher (P.S.C. pp. 377-8), who was Senior Commoner 
Prefect in 1859-60. 
* Dr. Moberly believed that the blending was helped arnong the seniors 
by the fact that in 1857 eommoners beearne "equally eligible for seholarships 
at New College". 



CHAPTER XL 

NUIIBERS 

IF we use the word " commoners " loosely, as denoting 
ail boys taught in the sehool, however lodged and 
boarded, who are neither seholars nor quiristers, the 
question, how large a sehool should Winehester be, bas, 
during most periods of its history, 1 been answered, so 
far as it has been answered at all, by deeiding how 
many eommoners it should adroit. The Founder's 
Statures ordained that it should adroit no more than 
ten. These ten--outsiders or foreigners (extranei) as 
Wykeham ealled them--were to be the sons of noble 
and influential persons who were in a special sense 
friends of the College; they were to be admitted, it 
would seem, in gratitude for past and in expeetation of 
future favours from their fathers ; they were to be no 
burden.  The Statures of Eton opened its doors to 
outsiders more widely ; while doubling the number of 
admissible boys of quality, Henry VI. provided that 
other boys---in what numbers his statures did not 
say--might attend the sehool-elasses without pay- 
ment. It is possible that Wykeham, though the 
Winehester Statures give no hint of it, meant to do 

i Quiristers, who have never been called commoners, were at one time 
taught as part of the school ; and it was determined at another to increase the 
number of the scholars to 100. See above, pp. 458-62, and pp. 100-1. 
z Rubric XVI. 
5O5 



506 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE PT.  

the same. 1 Eight years after his death eighty to a 
hundred day-boys were being taught with the scholars, 
and it is difficult to believe that this could have hap- 
pened so early if it had been a violation of his wishes. 
Yet his successor so regarded it ; he forbade Warden 
Morys, at his peril, either to adroit outsiders or to 
allow them to be admitted, beyond the Rubric's 
number ; and though, as Mr. Leach observes, he "took 
the lightning out " of his fulmination by adding a 
saving clause that such outsiders might be admitted 
with the Warden's "special license ,,,2 the terres of 
his nmndate show that he knew of no othcr wish of 
Wykeham's concerning extranei than that to which 
thc Rubric gives expression.. 
Wykeham nowhere used the word commensales, but 
the extranei whose admission his Rubric contem- 
plated were commensales, commoners, in the literal 
sense ; they were to board in College at the tables of 
the mcmbers of his foundation. For the so-called 
commoners of to-day, who take their meals extra 
collegium, the Rubric gives no warrant, but it is from 
its grudging recognition of extranei that these com- 
moners may trace their origin, just as at Harrow 
the " foreigner clause " of Lyon's Statures opened the 
door to boys whom it was not the founder's special 
purpose to befriend.---Foundationers were destined 

t Mr. Kirby (.lnnals, p. 122) states as a fact that Wykeham endeavoured 
to racer a local demand for a good day schoo] "' by admitting a number of boys 
from thc city and suburbs to the privilege of being educated along with the 
scholars on his new foundation ". He bases his statement on a passage which 
he quotes from " an ear]y biographer " of Wykeham; but this "early 
biographer ", Dr. Thomas Martin, was hot so very early--he was chancellor 
of the diocese of ,Vinchester under Bishop Gardiner--, and LouoEh declares 
that "his account is full of mistakes ", and that "Iris relation of facts . . . is 
extremely confused and inaccurate" (Lowth, Life of Wykeham, p. ix). 
2 Sec History, pp. 187-9.--The saving clause is ignored in Mr. Kirby's 
translation of the mandatc (Armais, p. 123). 
 The clause runs as follows : " That the Schoolmaster rnay receive over 
and above the youth of the Inhabitants within the Parish so many Foreigners 



cH. xL NUMBERS 507 

to be outnumbered by exlranei--by oppidans at Eton, 
foreigners at Harrow, commoners at Vinchcster, but 
at Vinchester the outnumbering bas been a less 
overwhelming and a more recent development. It is 
chiefly of the recent period during which it has be- 
corne pronounced, if less overwhelming than clse- 
whcrc, that I shall speak in the folloving pages. 
In the year 1740, when there wcre some 200 
oppidans at Eton and only 42 commoncrs at Win- 
chester, a Fellow of the Collegc spoke with scverity 
of what he called " the Schoolmaster's family "; 
which, he said, " in the mariner it has been ercct'd 
and manag'd, I look upon as the most notorious 
Violation of one of our Statures that ever was 
attempted. Why the Varden has suffer'd this new 
Thing, and one for which no Custom or Prescription 
cottld be plcaded, to take root under lais Government 
and to grow up and be fruitfull of Ill Consequenccs 
undcr his Eye, is best known to Himsclf ". He did 
not mean that Dr. Burton had been turning Collcge 
upstairs chambers, to the annovance and incon- 
venience of the Fellows, into boudoirs and nurseries ; 
for Burton was unmarried. His complaint was, per- 
haps, partly that Burton had enlarged the quartcrs 
and increased the number of the filii nobilium who 
livcd with him in College ; their quarters had indeed 
been enlargcd before the appointment of the Varden 
whose apathy the memorandum criticizcs, 1 but there is 
evidence that their number had been increased during 
that Varden's reign from six to a number exceeding, 

as the whole may be well taught and applied, and the place can conveniently 
maintain .... And of the Foreigners he may take such stipend and wages 
ashecanget . . . 
 The date assigned by Charles Blac;tone in his MS. Book of Benefactions 
(1784), and generally accepted, for these enlargements is 1727. Warden Bigg 
entered upon office in Eanuary 17g{, and was still Varden when the Fcl]ow's 
memorandum was Titten ; he died a few months afterwards {in July or 
August 1740}.--For Bttrton's enlargements, see further above, pp. 76-7. 



508 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . a 

perhaps considerably exceeding, the statutable ten. 1 
Itis probable, however, that the critic was chiefly 
disturbed by the portentous growth of outside 
boarders whieh had marked the earlier thirties, and 
by the Commoners' College whieh Burton was erect- 
ing for sueh boarders when the memorandum was 
in writing. 2 His lesser grievance was soon tobe 
redressed ; itis practically certain that no commoners 
were lodged in College after 1746. The other griev- 
anee, if our Fellow lived into the fifties, must have 
ceased to vex his soul ; the number of commoners all 
told never reaehed twenty between 1748 and 1755; 
in 1751 it was eight. In the seventies things were 
better, or, as he would have said, worse ; there were 
over 100 commoners from 1775 to 1779, as there had 
been from 1731 to 1736. In the eighties, if he was 
still living, he was happier again; the commoners 
were always outnumbered, sometimes greatly out- 
numbered, by the scholars from 1782 to 1795. 
It was noted in the last chapter that during more 
than twenty years in the early nineteenth century 
the number of commoners was steadily maintained at 
between 130 and 140 ; and referenee was there made 
to what is, I believe, the first extant authoritative 
pronouneement, sinee the rimes of "Vykeham and 
Beaufort, whieh attempts to fix what their number 
ought tobe. The Warden and 17ellows " eoneeived it 
indispensable " in 1809 that it " should not exeeed 
One Hundred and Thirty ". Some of the reasons 
whieh ruade them so eoneeive were good, some were 

i The Long IRoii of 1729 gives the names of six commensales in collegio, that 
of 1731 gives the names of eleven, ten of whom iived with Burton ; of the 
eleventh, Lord Drumlanrig, we are toid in a contemporary ietter that he was 
under Burton's '" peculiar tare tho" hot in the house because he would hot 
exceed his fixd number " (see The tVy'kehami.st, Match 1895). Burton seems 
to have beeome iess scrupulous afterwards. 
2 See Appendix IX. 



o,,. : NUMBERS 509 

not so good; but, whatever their reasons, the maxi- 
mure whieh they preseribed, though, as we bave seen, 
it was sometimes exeeeded,* was regarded as the 
normal maximum during the fifty years that followed. 
In 1859, however, after a period of depression, a 
reeovery, whieh so far bas happily been permanent, 
had beeome pronouneed ; Dr. Moberly had eonvineed 
himself that the sehool was " growing and must 
grow "." We have seen that, taught by experienee, 
he would not again take more than 100 boarders in 
New Commoners; that he wisely determined that 
any boys beyond that number, when they came, 
should be lodged in " Tutors' Houses "; that he 
started three sueh houses, those whieh we know as 
A, B, and C, between 1859 and 1862.  In the latter 
year he defined his position very elearly. The 
Oxford Commission had ordained that the number 
of seholars should be gradually inereased to 100; 
Moberly announeed that, limiting his own boarders to 
100, he aimed at 100 other eommoners who should 
be lodged in four houses of 25 boys eaeh. « Thus from 
the "not more than 200 " of 1809 we have corne in 
1862 to an ideal of " 300, but hot more ". Three 
hundred, in Moberly's view, was a desirable number, 
but he did not wish to see it exceeded ; " I think," he 
said, " three hundred boys as many as we, or, I will 
venture to say, any school ought to have ". The 
maximum, however, was soon tobe put higher under 
circumstances which I shall describe somewhat fully. 
Early in 1867, immediately after his succession 
to the headmastership, Mr. Ridding persuaded Mr. 

a Sce above, p. 497.--The actua] number fcll far bclow 180 in thc pcriod 
bcginning with 1847 ; in 1856 it fcll be]ow that of the scholars. For the causes 
of the decrease see above, pp. 497-8. 
 From a lctter to the Rev. H. J. Wickham, dated March 10, 1859. 
See The Wykehamist for February 1911. 
a See above, pp. 497-8. * P.S.C.p. 333. 6 lbià. p. 354. 



510 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Fearon--they were both plain " Mr." then--to corne 
to Winchester and open the fourth bouse which 
Moberly had contemplated, and for which he had 
rather vaguely arranged. Mr. Fearon began to take 
boarders in temporary quarters (22 Kingsgate Street) 
at the beginning of 1868 ; he moved into the newly- 
built Culver House, now -known as D, in the June of 
the following year. 1 Meanwhile, in April 1868, The 
lVykehamist " understood " that a fifth house would 
be opened after the summer holidays by Mr. F. 
Morshead "in the place of Mr. Awdry ", who had just 
been appointed Second Master. Mr. Morshead ruade 
a start, as Mr. Du Boulay had done before him and 
as Mr. Turner was fo do aïter him, in Cheesehill 
Street ; from there he moved into the house (E) which 
he had built but did not name--it is now called 
Southgate Corner in the summer of 1869. D and E 
had been arranged for, I) was in existence, before the 
world knew of anv revolutionary intentions in the 
Head Master's mind; it was not till June 1868 that 
The Wykehamist announced--strangely enough, as 
the merest item of " School News "--that " the 
building -known as ' Commoners' is fo be converted 
into class rooms etc., as soon as the necessary arrange- 
ments can be ruade ". These necessarv arrangements 
included the adaptation of an old house (F) and the 
bui]ding of two new ones (G and H) for the accommo- 
dation, primarily, of the Head Master's surviving 
boarders; G and H (Culverlea and Culver's Close) 
were opened by Mr. Sergeant and Mr. Bramston in 
September 1869, when New Commoners had become 
" class rooms etc." ; Mr. Hawkins had, I think, moved 
into F (Southgate House) a few months before. A 
ninth house founded, apparently, as an after-thought 
i See a valuable paper, signed W. A. F., in The Wykehamis! for March 
1911. 



c. x,. NUïIBERS 511 
in consequenee of the pressure of applications--was 
opened in September 1869 by Mr. Turner ; he started 
in Cheesehill Street, and moved into Sunnyside (I) in 
September 1870.---The total number of commoners (in 
the wider sense) when Dr. 5Ioberly left Winchester af 
the end of 1866 vas 205; in July 1869, just before 
the conversion of New Commoners, if was 2J,8 ; in the 
following October, just after that event, if was 264. 
If is not probable that Dr. Ridding had determined, till 
towards the end, af any rate, of the period of transi- 
tion, what his maxinmm should be; he was content 
fo wait and see how his changes would affect the 
popularity of the school ; his instructions concerning 
numbers, to some af least of the new house-masters, 
were " vague and variable" Af first, perhaps, he 
aimed hardly higher than af Moberly's ideai maxi- 
mum ; then, more definitely, af eight houses of some 
80 boys each, i.e. af 20 or 250 commoners in ail; 
dtimatelv he fixed his maximum af 815 commoners, 1 
which in the earlv seventies was also their actual 
number. If we add to these figures the number of 
the seholars, whieh it had been resolved long before 
fo raise gradually fo 100, we may eonelude that as 
his plans took shape he eontemplated a sehool, first 
of about 350, afterwards of 415 boys. The proposed 
inerease of College, after a small beginning, was 
finally abandoned in 1872; 2 ifs abandonment re- 
dueed Ridding's maximum to 385. But in the years 
that followed some of the house-masters began to take 
rather more than 35; we may put the maximuln 
(and the aetual) number of the sehool, during the 
later years of the nineteenth eentury, af between 
400 and 420. a If may safely be said that af any rime 
during that period it would have been easy (given the 
I Nine houses of 35 boys eaeh. 2 Sec above, p. 101. 
a ,'hen Dr. Ridding left Winchester in 1884 the actual number was 407. 



512 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE .  

necessary accommodation) to go beyond that number, 
but neither Dr. 1Ridding nor Dr. Fearon would do so. 
Early in the present eentury, as house-masterships fell 
vacant, the houses were standardized, and the maxi- 
mum (whieh has also been the aetual) number of boys 
in a house was fixed at 88; a tenth house (K) was 
opened by Mr. Beloe (Kingsgate House) in 1905. 
Ten houses of 38 boys eaeh give us 380 eommoners ; 
add the seholars, and you have a sehool of 450. 

The faets and figures which I have given may 
suggest that the poliey of rigidly limiting the numbers 
of the sehool from rime to rime has been mistaken. 
Some Wykehamists are disposed to take that view. 
Enlargements, they say, have been resisted on the 
ground that sueh and sueh a limit is "indispens- 
able " ; provision for enlargements, when ruade, has 
been made tardily and grudgingly; the indispens- 
able limit has been replaeed by another deemed as 
indispensable, but when allowed to grow the sehool 
has groaa; it should be allowed to grow. They 
would hot, of course, advoeate a large sudden inerease, 
still less a fully open door ; for sueh a sudden inerease 
and sueh an open door would not only endanger the 
traditions of Winehester and the eontinuity of its 
life, but would expose it to that risk of an ebb 
after a flood from whieh Arnold wisely proteeted 
Rugby. 1 But these objections, they would eontend, 
eannot be alleged against sueh small and steady 
inereases as nfight on a reasonable expeetation be 
maintained. 
It would be impossible in this ehapter to state 
and examine ail the arguments that have been ad- 
vaneed for and against a poliey of expansion ; but I 
shall attempt to summarize, and to comment upon, 
* Stanley, Lire of Arnoid, pp. 203, 211. 



. , NUMBERS 513 

those on which most reliance has been placed. Itis 
urged on the one side that " almost ail the other 
public schoolsespecially those of recent foundation 
--average about six hundred ", and that if Winchester 
insists on artificially limiting its numbers it will 
incur a danger like that with which publicists threaten 
France : it may sink into the second tank. Whatever 
may be the force of this contention, itis hot 
strengthened by being based on " the law of human 
institutions that they rnust grow or decay ", for what 
is meant by "grow" .9 People speak of the House of 
Commons as decadent, but no one attributes its 
alleged decay to the fact that its numbers are fixed.-- 
Itis argued further that if a Winchester training has 
a special value, it should be offered to as many boys 
as possible ; to which it may be replied that its special 
value may be due precisely to the relative smallness 
of the school.- I have often been told that the 
loyalty of Wykeharnists who desire to send their 
sons to their old school results, thanks to our inelastic 
maximum, in a vicious system of " inbreeding "; 
that the house-rnasters, if they rneet, as they desire 
to meet, the wishes of old Wykehamists, cannot 
infuse enough new blood into the Wykehamical 
frame. The number of sons (and brothers) of Wyke- 
hamists who corne to Winchester is happily large; 
but relatively to that of the other members of the 
school it is not nearly so large as is commonly sup- 
posed ; moreover, unless enlargements are to continue 
indefinitely or the love of Wykeharnists for Winchester 
is to wax cold, the difiàculty cannot in the long run 
be removed by the proposed expedient.--I will hot 
dwell on a point sometimes ruade, that in certain 
walks of lire the alumni of a small school like Win- 
chester find thernselves at a disadvantage as compared 
with those, say, of Eton and Harrow; it is difiàcult 
2L 



514 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE P. ii 

to gauge the disadvantage, but the valks of life in 
question must surely be few. 
,Vhat I may call the educational argument is more 
important. People admit that in days when one and 
the saine kind of education was deemed suitable for 
every kind of public-school boy a small school might 
be as efficient, educationally speaking, as a large one ; 
but few of us, it is said, continue to believe that the 
saine curriculum suits everybody ; even bifurcation is 
but a clumsy expedient ; we need bifurcation, quadri- 
furcation, or rather we need something more deli- 
cately contrived and more elastic than any mere 
furcation, and even bifurcation and trifurcation carmot 
be efficiently and economically arranged in any school 
which is not large. Yes, it may be rejohed, much of 
all that is true ; but must a particular school provide 
for everybody ? If it is too small to meet all needs 
efficiently and econonfically, let if meet such needs as 
it tan; for other needs let other schools provide. 
The rejoinder vould be cogent enough if at the age 
when a boy begins (and should begin) his public-school 
life the bent of his mind was always clearly declared. 
Unfortunatelv that is not so; a boy may bave been 
at a publie sehool some eonsiderable rime before you 
can say, with any confidence, what kind of schooling 
you ought to give him during the rest of his boyhood. 
If it proves to be one whieh you do not supply, you 
place lais parents in an awkward dilemma. 
To this " edueational argument " I shall return ; 
meanwhile let us see what case is made against en- 
largement. It is urged in the first place that by 
keeping your maximum number well within the number 
that you eould get you ean make a seleetion among 
your applieants. You ean, indeed you must ; but 
the value of the power and neeessity of seleetion is 
often put too high. No doubt under the Winehester 



. ,. NUMBERS 515 

conditions a house-master is under no temptation to 
take manifest undesirables ; but at any good sehool, 
under almost any conditions, the temptation to do so 
eannot be irresistible. Under Vinehester conditions, 
again, a house-master must often select blindfold ; how 
ean he make a ehoiee of fit persons among boys of 
eight or nine, whom he has never even seen, whose 
eharaeters are as yet altogether unformed, for whose 
promise, moral and intelleetual, he must take on trust 
what their parents tell him ? 1 He may ehoose the 
sons of desirable parents, if he knows what parents 
are desirable ; but even so, as we are reminded, " an 
Edward I. very often produees an Edward II." 3__ 
The warning sometimes given, that eonsiderable 
further enlargements would mean the swamping of 
College, is by no means only an appeal to the senti- 
ment of " College men " ; that College should not be 
swamped is to the interest of aH Yykehamists ; but 
it is so strong an appeal to that sentiment that an old 
College man eannot diseuss it impartially.--Another 
argument appeals to a sentiment more videly spread. 
Wvkehamists dee]are that they are not onlv in a very 
rnarked deoTee a united body, but that their sehool 
has a speeial ,8oç. I shall not attempt to define that 
aoç, but the omission implies no doubt of its reality 
or its value. It was described fifty years ago very 
mueh as loyal VCykehamists would deseribe it to-day, 
and it was believed to be bound up with the eom- 
paetness of out numbers. It survives with little 
change, though our numbers are now much less 
compact ; but eould it survive, people ask, after anv 
eonsiderable further enlargements ? Meanwhile the 
,8oç argument has perhaps been sometimes stated too 
i If, feeling this difficulty, he postpones his selection, he narrows its area. 
 I bave read many communications from old t,'ykeharnists to The 
W!tkchamis on the question under discussion, and bave occasionally, as here, 
quoted from them. 



516 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . i 

emphatically. Vhen Dr. Moberly argued in favour 
of a comparatively small school, he spoke repeatedly 
of the " stamp or mint-mark " which such a school 
impressed, more deeply than a large one, upon ifs 
members ; he regarded it as extremely important that 
a school " should give one stamp to the boys that 
issue from it ". It was said of Dr. Arnold's best 
pupils, as it was said of Dr. Moberly's, that they were 
all of one pattern; when some one said that Dr. 
Temple's best Rugbeians were of very different 
patterns, I remember hearing Dr. Ridding answer that, 
if that was so, it was an indication of Dr. Temple's 
greatness, and he was surelv right.wOnce more, it 
has been urged that " all the chief influences " of a 
school are at the top, and that the top will be reached 
by a larger proportion of boys in a small school than 
in a large one; which brings me to the last argument 
that I shall notice, to what may be called the Head 
Master argument. 
Great efforts and great sacrifices have been made, 
and are being made, in many parts of England to 
ensure that Bishops shall have a full and intimate 
knowledge of their dioceses and their clergy; Head 
Masters should have an even fuller and more intimate 
knowledge of their schools and their staff. It is most 
desirable that a Head Master should take a substantial 
part in the teaching of his school ; that he should know 
his boys personally--a considerable number should be 
brought under his direct and constant influence ; that 
he should know his colleagues, know them not only as 
teachers, but as men and as friends ; that he should be 
accessible to reasonable calls for advice and help; 
is it a counsel of perfection to add that he should have 
some leisure ? The tradition of some schools may 
pronounce that much of aH this is unnecessary; it 
i P.S.C.p. 854 and elsewhere. 



. x, NUïIBERS 517 

may be said that the ideal is impracticable ; but at no 
school in which it has been even approximately realized 
will the advantage of its realization be ealled in ques- 
tion. A sehool in whieh it is not realized in large 
measure, in whieh a Head Master is hardly more than 
a suzerain, must surfer seriously if it eannot find in 
other directions some great gains to eounterbalanee 
the loss of a Head Master's pervading influence. 
It will perhaps be agreed that the " edueational " 
and the " Head Master " arguments are the most 
weighty on the one side and on the other, but it will 
be felt that it is necessary, so far as it is possible, to 
give them quantitative expression. How large must 
a school be to secure the advantages on which the 
former, how small to secure those on which the latter 
argument insists ? Is there a hopelessly wide diver- 
gence between the answers to these tvo questions ?- 
Dr. Moberly was certainly right when he said that 
bifurcation (which, by the way, he profoundly dis- 
liked) was practically impossible in a school no larger 
than the Winchester which he knew ; 1 it is the opinion 
of many experts that a school must number 600 or 
more if it is to provide for the true educational needs 
of everybody--if, that is to say, it is to provide for 
them economically; in a smaller school, they say, 
such provision must be too costly. Experience, how- 
ever, seems to show that with a relatively large staff 
of masters, a good plant for the teaching of science, 
and careful organization, much may be done to meet 
varying demands even in a school of 450.--Returning 
to the other argument we find that the experts of the 
Board of Education not only urge upon local authorities 
the importance of limiting the number of pupils in 
elementary schools, but that they urge it by the Head 
Master argument, and that for such schools they 
x P.S.C. pp. 354-5. 



518 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ».  

recommend, subject to considerations of economy, 
approximately the same maximum as that of Win- 
ehester ; they believe that it is only a Head Master so 
exeeptional that you will seareely ever find him who 
ean do all that a Head Master should do in a sehool 
of more than 400 or 450. If that is sound doctrine 
for a day school, it is not less sound for a boarding 
sehool, where a Head Master's responsibilities extend 
over a wider field. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX I 

THE MSS. OF MATHEV'S POEM 

I. The Magdalen MS. 
I Iï[AVE spoken above (pp. 7-8) of the recent discovery, in 
the Magdalen College Library, of this MS. The volume in 
which it was found bears the press-mark S. 11.2t, is labelled 
"Tracts ", and is described on the fly-leaf as " Theological 
Tracts 4 t° Vol. XXI.". Of the pamphlets which it contains 
one is dated 1680; the others, with some speeches bound up 
with them, belong to the reign of Queen Arme. There is no 
indication by which we tan identify the collector of the con- 
tents of the volume or determine how the Winchester poem 
reached him; we shall never know how it round itself in 
such company as that of The Mask of Moderation pull'd off 
the Foul Face of Occasional Conformity : Being an .4nswer to 
a late Poisonous Pamphlet, entitul'd Moderation still a Yerlue. 
Wherein the Loose Reasoning and Skudffling Arguments of that 
Author, are Plainly Laid Open and Confuted {London, 1705}. 
The MS. occupies seven leaves. The recto of the first con- 
tains a pen-and-ink drawing of William of Wykeham in 
ecclesiastical dress, holding a crozier ; on either side of Iris 
mitre are the letters W.W., and below, on his right hand, the 
Founder's Arms. Above is printed the couplet-- 
Qui condis dextr condis collegia loeuì, 
Nemo tuarum unam vicit utrìque manu. 
Below is written in bold characters, " Marmers maketh man. 
W.W.", followed by the lines-- 
ttuncine tare cuitas tibi Qui sacmuerit oedes 
ExoEincto pateris nomine Musa mori ? 
Musa petite veta, vetuit te Musa petite 
Wicchamus, et quamvis ipse sepuitus, alit. 
ri21 



522 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Marked off from these there follows in bolder characters 
Pingere hum potihs liceat, vel fingere ? Soecla 
Pingere nostra vetant, fingere prisca vetant. 
Nescio hum Calamus melihs tua pinxerat Acta 
Finxerat an vultus, Vicchame Diue, tuos ? 
The verso is blank. 
The second leaf begins with the heading De Colle£io seu 
potius l Colle£iati Scholî Wicchamicfi I Wintoniensi, printed with 
decorated capitals. A prologue follows : 
Sit fas ritè mihi vestros pede tangere montes 
Pierides, penitusque sacros reeludere fontes 
Restagnent tIelieonis aquoe, sit ripa soluta, 
Ut mea Castalio distillet penna liquore : 
Nam scripturus ego (sed quìm benè quam malè nolo 
Dicere} Wieehamicas, quas fundent secula, laudes 
Quis sure qui canerem tanti proeconia Diui ? 
Anser ego (forsan} concinnos inter olores 
Quisue ego qui tales auderem sumere vites ? 
Sure puer, et rires tantas natura negauit 
Vieehamici (tamen 5} pars parvula corporis adsum ; 
Gurte de minimo caput ipse Tridentifer vndam, 
Nec merit8 membri minimi caput abnuat vsum. 
Next comes the poem itself, marked off from the prologue; 
it continues on the recto and verso of each leaf till we reach the 
top of the sixth. Marked off from the poem is an epilogue 
Vicchame miramur, miramur imaginis vmbram 
In coelis auima est, terris tamen vmbra manebit. 
(Ah} nobis altum spectantibus ora tueri 
Vicchame non las est, tua non las ora tueri. 
Non perferre queant humani luminis orbes ; 
Te tamen in factis, atque a te faeta videmus 
tIas leu posuisse manu tu diceris oedes. 
Si talis sit leua manus tua dextera qualis 
¥icchame ! ad Oxonium si (si !} peruenero, dicam 
The epilogue is followed by a printed couplet : 
Quod structure loeuâ est, hoc floreat omine dexoEro 
Audiat Omnipotens que mea Musa petit,  

I The application of divus to Wykeham also occurs in Christopher Johnson' s 
De I ïta dz tlebus H'ilhelmi de ||'ykeham. The parenthesis sed quàm bene, &c., 
occurs in the saine writer's distich on himseif as Head Master : 
Uitimus hic ego surn, sed quam bene quam maie noio 
Dicere ; qui de me iudieet, airer erit. 
 I bave ieft the punctuation of ali these verses as it stands in the MS. 



I 

The Magdalen MS.-Conclusion of the Poem and Epiiogue. 



THE MSS. OF MATHEW'S POEM 523 

On the remaining spaee of the recto of the sixth leaf is written 
in bold letters " Robertus Mathew ". The verso is blank. 
The seventh leaf contains on the recto (a) the emblems of 
the Aut Disce (riz. mitre and crozier, sword and ink-horn, rod) ; 
(b) the Aut Disce hexameter elegantly printed ; (c) the lines 
explanatory of it, which have already been written in the body 
of the poem (w. 81-95). There are one or two differences 
of reading in the two places, noticed in AppendLx II. ; the 
punctuation is fuller in the later place. Af the top of the 
verso of the seventh leaf a hand points down fo the title 
Tabula Legun Poedagogicarum, beneath which are printed the 
lines : 

Sex hic Rubricis quidam depimxit Apelles 
Quales sint leges, Quintiliane, Scholoe. 

A metrical version of the Tabula follows : 

1. Sit Deus in Ternplo cultus ; Sint vota peracta 
Deuotis anirnis. Nec lumina sparsa vagantor. 
Sint etiarn linguis taciturna silentia vestris. 
Nulla Poetarurn figrnenta profana leguntor 
2. Yt sit sedulîtas Pueris Schola nostra requirit 
Si pensa ediscant, submiss voce loquantur 
Curn Domino repetant quicquid didicere, Canorh, 
Nerno gravis sociis ; sed quisque orthographus esto ; 
Sernper et in certo sint arma scholastica prornptu. 
3. Clar voce loqui qui Meusarn cousecrat Aula 
Precipit, atque alios responsum reddere mandat. 
Stent omnes recti. Sit quod recitatur et aptè 
Et benè distinctum ; In rnens sit quisque quietus. 
4. Atria circumagant urbern rnontesque revisant 
Cure sociis Pueri. Nec culta rnodestia desit : 
Si tarnen obueniant generosi, siue Magistri 
Submisso curvurn flectatur poplite corpus. 
Sit nullurn tegimen capiti, las, ut sit aperturn. 
Vultus et incessus, gestus sint more decoro. 
5. Luce uolunt studium ; sed Nocte Cubilia somnurn 
Verrite vos soli Carneras ; Vos sternite lectos 
Ornnia sint (foedo deterso pulvere) rnunda. 
Atria per bifores perlustret nerno fenestras. 
Et crirnen, si quis contraria fecerit, esto. 
6. Plebeius sernper Prefecto pareat ; Ipse 
Nil nisi legitimum fieri, Proefecte, iubeto 
Nulla decet lacerata toga, aut dissutus Amictus. 
Sint ab utrisque procul iactantia uerba rernota 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Atque etiam pugnoe, rixoe, mendacia, furta. 
Displiceat patrius cordi, sit sermo Latinus 

Hoec Lex aut sinfilis ni tot ex parte peracta 
Juditium dabimus, Quintilianus ait. 
ROBERT LkTHEW. 

II. The Winchester MS. 
The little volume from which Wordsworth printed his text 
of Mathew's poem is labelled Schola Wichamica ; it contains 
the book-plate, with crest, of " Phil Barton LLD. /Edis 
Christi Can : ", with the date 1755. Dr. Barton (sec Walcott, 
p. 196; Annals, p. 865, note) gave it, presumably, to the 
College. The contents rail into two parts. 
The first part is introduced by a title-page on which a 
well-dressed angel of no great personal attractions holds a 
trumpet with one hand, while the other grasps a too heavy 
sign-board bearing the title De Collegio seu potius, &c. The 
second leaf contains the Sit fas rite mihi, &c. verses on the 
recto, and Wicchame mirmnur, &c. on the verso--which verses 
appear in the Magdalen MS. as the prologue and epilogue of 
the poem respectively. The recto of the third leaf gives, with 
unstinted use of paint, a clumsily drawn portrait of the 
Fotmder with mitre and crozier ; " W.W." with Wykeham's 
arms and the motto " Manners make man " are to the right 
hand of the figure. Above are the lines Qui condis Dextrh, &c., 
and beloxv Huccine [sic] tare cdtas, &c., and Pingere hum 
potius, d:c. The verso gives the Aut Disce symbols x5th the 
Aut Disce verses. The poem occupies the recto and verso of 
the next four leaves, and ends on the eighth ; it is followed 
immediately by the above-quoted metrical version of the 
Tabula, which is given very incorrectly. The ninth leaf 
contains the Effigies Servi Collegiati, with the well-known 
lines which describe it. The vhole of this first part is in the 
same hand. The scribe was a very neat printer, used red ink 
too freely, varied his lettering too often. 
After the first part a leaf is left blank. There follows a 
second part, in a very different, much later, much bolder and 
less attractive handwriting ; it bears the title Carmina I C. 
Jonsoni Poetee eximii I (Scholee Winton Informat '. (26)) I De 
Vita & Rebus ] Wilhelmi de tVykeham, I tum l Custodum atq. 



THE MSS. OF MATHEW'S POEM 525 

Didascalorum],_çeries Distichis explicata. I We are not con- 
cerned here either with the De Vita & Rebus or with the 
Disticha ; of the distichs, which are also preserved elsewhere, 
I have ruade frequent use in Part II. 
Why Charles Wordsworth should have positively stated 
that the author of the second part of the volume was also the 
author of the long pocm and some of the shorter poems con- 
tained in the first part is a mystery. But on that subject 
I have spoken on p. 4. 



APPENDIX II 

TItE TEXT OF TItE POEI 

OF the two MSS. of Mathew's poem the Magdalen MS. (M), 
vhich, as we have seen, is almost certainly in the handwriting 
of the author, is for every reason to be preferred to the 
Winchester MS. (W). In preparing a text for this volume 
I have accepted its READINGS almost invariably, preferring 
others only when I suspected a mere lapsus ealami. So in 
matters of ORTHORAPU" generally. I bave retained M's mis- 
spellings except in cases of the merest inadvertence; thus 
while correcting gnominis (v. 213) and eoitte (v. 120)--M bas 
eommissa in v. 18--I leave ignivomans (v. 175), which appears 
in W also, and eommessalio (v. 257). I have ïollowed M 
in not resolving diphthongs ; but ae and 0e when unresolved 
look the sanie in writing, so that in printing I have had to 
choose between oe and oe. M has i, almost invariably, for 
consonant as well as vowel ; j is therefore banished from my 
text. With respect to u and v, M's rule is to use v as initial 
and u elsewhere ; but the rule is so often broken that, follov- 
ing modern custom, I have used v for consonant and u for 
vowel always. I have, with sonle hesitation, removed M's 
ACCENTS, which are used somewhat capriciously; I have 
not printed cùm, postq,tàm, rediêre, patire, and the like. 
In matters of PUNCTUATION I is oïten instructive, and 
occasionally prevents a reader from falling into pits which W 
or Wordsworth have digged for him (e.g. in w. 205-6). But, 
though far better than that of W, M's punctuation is by no 
means irreproachable ; in one place (w. 168-70) it is absurd. 
It offends not seldom by omitting full stops and by vagaries 
in the use of commas; though I have sometimes deferred 
to it by punctuating otherwise than I think best, I have 
not folloved it slavishly. In the employment of CAPITAL 
526 



 rr. = THE TEXT OF THE POEM 527 

LV.TTaS, which in Mis haphazard, I have used my own dis- 
cretion. The PRINTING, OF CERTAIN WORD8 in M always has a 
meaning. If I have not called special attention in my text 
to ail the words printed in M, I have not disregarded what 
the printing seems to indicate. 
With a view to showing the superiority of M I have pre- 
pared the following critical apparatus, in which matters of 
punctuation are only noticed when important. I bave called 
attention to Wordsworth's omissions and conjectures, but not 
to his agreements with W against 3I, or to the rather frequent 
peculiarities in his text which were due to inadvertence. 
When two readings are given, the first is that which I 
have adopted. 

4 M, W; omitted by Vordsworth. 
5 Regalis platea is printed in M ; sec Appcndix IV. 
6 Swithini M; Suithini W. 
10 est W; omitted in M. 
11 igni M ; igne W. 
16 l'endicat M, W; so spelt in the Statures and frcqucntly 
elsewhere, e.g. in an inscription in Cloisters, datcd 1633. In 
v. 83 M has lrindicat. 
18 septuagesimus M; septuagessimus W. 
19 octodecim M ; octodecem W. 
29 pileo M ; pilio W. crassoque M ; crassove W. 
84 Purpureas W; Purpuereas (.9) M. 
40 soleee BI ; soliee W. 
42 inciperent M ; inciperint W. 
4 Sternuntor (corrected from Sternuntur) 3I ; Sternuntur W. 
(The older Tabula Legum has Solum cubiculorum verritor. Ster- 
nuntor lectuli.) 
6 dividit W; dividet (?) M. 
4 Tum M ; Iam W. 
58 leviter breviterque M ; breviter leviterque W. 
61 vocandus M ; colendus W. 
65 fiecundo (or foecundo) BI ; facundo W. (Both fiecundus and 
foecundus were common mis-spellings for fecundus in the seven- 
teenth century, as fielix and foelix were for feli,v; see sevcral in- 
scriptions in Cloisters.) 
67 heereat M; hereat W. 
68 quam M; tare W. 
69 dirus M ; divus W. 



528 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

71 lactantes M, W ; lactentes Wordsworth. 
72 Quatuor iliceis fulcris M ; Quattuor illiceis fulchris W. 
74, octodecim M ; octodicem W. 
81-95 M ; omittêd in W. The fifteen lines are above the 
gcncral lcvcl of the poem both in rhythm and vocabulary ; perhaps 
Mathcw appropriated well-known lines by an oldêr hand. 
82 .4t in separate quotation of the lines undêr the .4ut Disce 
symbols ; Aut in text M. 
86 sic in têxt ; ut undêr the .4ut Disce symbols M. 
97 quo W ; corrêctêd from qua M. 
110-11 M, W ; omittcd by Wordsworth. The omission is per- 
haps an improvêmênt; lines 112-18 rcad like a latcr alternative 
to 110-11, but both distichs are in both MSS. 
112 rapidus M ; rabidus W. 
114 reuerenda M ; veneranda W. 
120 cornrnitte W ; cornitte M (but in v. 18 corn.rnissa). 
182 neoe M ; AEntete W. profugi W ; corrêcted from pro- 
fugre M. 
186 petenti. M ; petenti W. 
187 est M; omitted in W. Wordsworth reads annulus, 
aequam Aureus ad, &c. 
138 POTENtiam M, W ; potentiam Wordsworth (see p. 4). 
139 GERit M, W ; gerit Wordsworth. si M ; cure W. 
141 Est domino ; Ludi-M ; Est domino, Ludi W ; Est domino 
ludi ; Wordsworth. 
142 Protinus excussae W ; corrected rom Percussce crebro M. 
143 Argus M ; a gap in W, which Wordsworth proposed to fill 
with aptus l 
148 Stetur et M ; Sleterit W. 
149 farragine M ; ffarragine W. 
151 nec M ; ne W. lacessant M ; lacessent W. 
160 juvat W ; iuuet M. 
174 notatus W ; corrected from notandus M. (Both readings 
are round in the MSS. in the passage of Horace--Sat. ii. 3. 246-- 
from which Mathew borrows.) 
175 Ignivornans M, W ; Ignivomens Wordsworth. Mr. H. A. 
Wilson conjectures Ignicornans. est W; omitted in M. 
176 folio M ; folia W. 

177 reuerlunt M ; reverlant W. 
179 hos Marlis M ; aut Marlis W. 
180 Prô M ; proh W. 
182 Hebdornadoe M ; Hebdornodoe W. 
184 Demittent (?) M ; Dirnittent W. 

solvent M ; solvet W. 



 THE TEXT OF THE POE3I 529 

186 at M, Wordsworth ; ad W, which blr. J. S. Cotton preIerred. 
187-8 here in M ; after v. 192 irt W. 
187 forsan bi ; Quintre W. 
188 relicebit M ; recitabit "iV. blanda M; docta "iV. 
190-1 scenam and scena bi ; screnam and scte»uz W. 
195 Nouelli bi ; Nowelli 
198 Hesiodus I ; ll«esiodus W. 
201-2 text M ; lugere propinquans Ni nale decipiant Fasti. 
Lux W ; lugere, propinquans Ni nale decipiat festi lux Wordsworth. 
203 Wordsworth takes the line with the preceding paragraph, 
putting a comma after solis, domo M ; donum "iV. 
20 eSI; aW. 
205-6 punetuation as in bi ; W has no notes of exclamation ; 
its only stop is a comma after ClauMra. 
209 star and pulsat bi ; stet and pulset 
213 gnomonis W ; gnominis 
227 sancla [ ; sacra W. 
231 umit M ; ducit W. 
235 fercula M; ffercula W (but in v. 232 fercula), ista 
istud W. 
236 (aatuor ,I ; quattuor W. 
29 text M ; omitted in W. 
251 Et M ; (ui W. socio W ; correeted from numero 
254. Squalidus bi; Squallidus W. atque cupit numerun bi ; 
at uumerum cupiet W ; at numerum capiet Wordsworth. 
264 llicet bi ; lllicet W. Wordsworth reads llicet ire, licet, 
" circum " licet " ire " precandum. 
266 Danda ; tribus pueris II ; Danda tribus pueris, W. 
268 Hunc bl ; Hoc W. 
270 sonaverit W; sonaverdt M. 
271 animoe M ; anima W. 
275 lecto capite bi, W; recto capite (misreading W or conjec- 
turing ?) Wordsworth. 
276 canoras corrected from sonoras bl ; sonoras W. 
280 viridarla M; viridantiE W. 



APPENDIX III 

THE POET 

IT may be xvorth while to set down here the facts which, with 
the help of Mr. Chitty, I bave been able to collect about the 
rather uneventfu] ]ife of Robert Mathew. 
We saw, in the Introduction to Part I., that Mathew's 
naine stands tenth on the Roll ad Winton. which was drawn 
up on September 7, 1643, and that he became a scholar nearly 
a year later, on September 3, 1644. This, strangely enough, 
was the very day on which a new election began ; probably 
some one, for a consideration, created a vacancy at the last 
moment. The roll for 1643 states that at the previous 
Michaelmas (that of 1642) Mathew was annorum lô, and the 
statcment is rcpeatcd in the Scholars' Rcgister; he must 
therefore, il the statemcnt is correct, have been 15 or just 
undcr 15 at the time of his admission in 1644. The roll and 
the rcgistcr state further that he was " of the parish of St. 
Maurice in the city of Winchester"; but a rcference to the 
parish register i lands us in a difficulty. It contains many 
cntries rclating to many Mathews, but the only Robert Mathew 
whose baptism it records betwcen 1620 and 1640 is said to have 
been baptizcd on July 2, 1626 ; and a boy baptized then nmst 
have been annorum 16, not 13, at Michaelmas 1642. It seems, 
therefore, either that a fraud was practised or that the date 
in the parish register is wrong. On the forlner hypothesis 
the fraud was persistently maintained ; not only did Mathew's 
friends in 1643 pass off a boy of 17 as one of 14, but in 166 
they passed off one of 20 as one of 17. For Mathexv's naine 
was placed on the Roll ad Oxon. in this latter year, when, if 20, 
i My thanks are due to the Rev. V. E. Co/chester for he/ping me to ex- 
amine the register. 
30 



,r. ,,, THE POET 531 
he was ineligible. The parish register was well kept, and the 
entry about Mathew is in its proper place ; there is no internal 
reason to question its pcrfcct accuracy. It is difficult to 
resist the conclusion that the electors both in 1643 and in 
1646 were deceived by, or connived at, a palpable mis-state- 
ment. They were in any case less scrupulous than the 
authorities of 1762, in which year a certain Robert Mead, 
after being admitted, was sent honm cure nondum ex tabdis 
parochialibus de cetate ejus constaret.t----I have gone into this 
marrer fully because it illustrates the irregularities, perhaps 
the corrupt irreoaalarities, of those irregular rimes. 
If out Robert Mathew was, as may be presumed, the son of 
another Robert Mathew who, according to the parish register, 
was married to 3largret Maine in St. Maurice's church in 16., 
he was the son of a Winchester citizen who could style him- 
self "gentleman" and make some provision for his family. 
Robert Mathexv the elder was Mayor in 1646, and when he 
died in 1656 he was possessed of leasehold houses and shops in 
the city, as well as of lands and tenements elsewhere. He 
bequeathed ail his property to his son Robert, subject to a 
payment of £50 apiece to his four other children. 
No facts are recorded about Mathexv's school-life, but we 
know a little about his lire at Oxford. On May 8, 1648, New 
College was subjected to a Parliamentary Visitation, and 
Mathev was one of nine scholars who were ordered to appear 
belote the Visitors. The feeling of the College was against 
admitting jurisdiction, and out tmdergraduate of seven months' 
standing did hot answer the order submissively. " Upon 
your summoninge me", he is reported to have said, "I lmve 
perused the Statures of out Colledge, and thereby I ara con- 
victed (as I conceive) of flatt perjury if I should submit to 
you . . . as Visitors; and I believe if this burden of out 
conscience were represented to the honorable Houses of Parlia- 
ment they would not be urgent in such complyance ".z On 
the 15th an order of expulsion was ruade against him, as 
against 52 other members of the College, but it is clear that 
(owing, probably, to a taidy submission) it was not in his 
a W.S.p. 258. Mead's naine appears in "Junior Part" in the Long Roll 
for 1762. 
 Burrows, Register of lhe |'i,vilors o.[ lhe Universily o.[ Oxford.[rom .ç.D. 1647 
to A.D. 1658, pp. 49, 58-9, 91-4, 529. 



532 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 

case enforced, for in 1649 he became a full Fellow in due 
course. In 1652 he wrote what he called a farrago qualis- 
cunque, a strange medley of conceits and compliments, with 
sonle verses, for the Music Sacrte 1 of his friend John Ailmer. 
We catch a further glinlpse of him in the sl)ring of 1654, when, 
at the funeral of a chaplain of New College whose learning 
and virtues he had greatly admired, he" delivered an eloquent 
oration from a pew set near the grave "in the Cllege Cloisters. 2 
He became a B.C.L. about the saine rime, and a D.C.L. in 
1661. 
Soon after taking the former degree he must have left 
Oxford. It al)pears that Warden Harris, who had known 
him as a boy at Winchester, was glad to secure him as his 
curate at Meonstokc, where, though the living was in the 
gift of the Crown, the College had property. The Warden- 
Rector by no nleans neglected his parishioners, a and preached 
to them (driving or riding over twenty toiles for the pur- 
pose) " conlmonly once a fortnight ";a but he must bave 
left much in Mathew's hands. About 1656, owing to failing 
health, he began to show arLxiety to resign his cure, and many 
of his letters prove that he strongly desired, and used every 
effort to secure, the succession for Mathew. " I desire by ail 
means ", he wrote, "if it be possible, that Mr. Matthew may 
succeed nie in the Parsonage of Mconstoke .... If that may 
hot be, I ara willing to resigne it to any other able man who 
can and xvill pleasure Mr. Matthew otherwise to his content" ; 
"I conceive him", he told Lord Fiennes, " to be a very 
hopeful! and well-deserving young man; and it would be a 
good satisfaction to me, if in any handsonle way I could be the 
meanes of his preferment ". The Varden resigned the living 
shortly belote his death, which occurred on August 11, 1658, 
three weeks belote that of Cromwell. During the troubles 
that followed Meonstoke was without a rector; but in 

 O.'xford, 1652. Sec above, pp. 44-5, 299-300. 
"- Wood, Fasti O«oieses (ed. Bliss), Part I. p. 388. 
a Tlie anonymous admirer who scribbled notes about Warden ttarris says 
that he allowed Iris curate "' for lais paines about the halfe of the living & the 
rêmainder he usually gave away & spent upon the place. Soc that no one could 
cast it upon him that he kept it out of Avarice ". 
« So the anonymous admirer. The Warden's brass says that I-Iarris was 
" a pious rector and frequent preacher" at Meonstoke. 



'" THE POET 533 
July 1660 a " petition of Robert Mathew to the King for 
presentation to the Rectory of Meonstoke " came under con- 
sideration. It was backed by a certificate " fronl the Warden 
of New College and six others "; by another from " 43 
inhabitants of Meonstoke, testifying to his orthodoxy and 
loyalty"; and finally by a report from Drs. Sheldon and 
Morley superior clergy who stood high in Court favour. 
Their report gained Mathew lais preferment. 2 
Hc continued to be Rector of Meonstokc till lais death in 
168î. a In 1663 he was iustituted to the Wykchamical 
prebend of Exceit in Chichester Cathedral, which mcant an 
occasional sermon and the addition of a fcw pounds to his 
income, but no residence ; in 1669 he tried to secure the post 
of a Canon Residentiary. " Yesterday ", he wrote to an in- 
fluential friend, "I fulfilled my course oï preaching in Chi- 
chester Cathedral as a minor prophet, which rendors laie 
capable of advancement to a residentiary's place, iï I could 
obtain an election .... The place would be a preferment 
for me, I should not be unacceptable to thc church and the 
city and it would redeenl nie from the desolate condition 
I am now in, by the death of my nlost dear Betty ".a But 
he was unsuccessful both on this occasion, " owing to the 
Archbishop's intervention ", and on the occurrence of another 
vacancy in 1672. » I gather from an item in the College 
accounts  that in his lonelincss at Mconstoke he maintained 
friendly relations xvith the College authorities ; Warden Burt 
paid him a visit when " on progress " in 167L 
 Sheldon becarne Bishop of London in 1660 and Archbishop of Canterbury 
in 1663 ; 5Iorley became Bishop of Worcester in 1660 and of Winchester in 
1662. 
2 Slale Papers, Dolnestic, Car. II. vol. vii. No. 148. 
a Wood's Life and Times (ed. Clark), ii. p. 513. 
« ,.p. Doeslic, 269, No. 30. 
 Ibid. 318, No. 190. 
a ",Iconstoke--Gratuities at Dr. Matthews' bouse, 7s. 6d.'" (.l,,a/.ç, p. 360}. 



APPENDIX IV 

Australis lotus est, ubi se via findit in urbem ; 
Regalis platea est, si vulgi more loquamur. 
Wicchamus, insi_mais mitraque pedoque Swithini, 
Condidit hic sacris sacraria digna Camoenis (vv. 4-7). 

TItlS passage was a well-known cru« as printed by Words- 
worth, who omitted the first line ; but even as it stands in the 
MSS. it is obscure. I have supplied a semi-colon after urbem, 
with some hesitation ; the literal meaning of the first two 
lines is not quite certain. Our chier concern, however, is 
with the words regalis platea. They plainly designate College 
Street, or a part of it; but are they applied to it as they 
migbt be applied to an), highway, or are they a more special 
name for that particular road ? The two words are printed 
in the Magdalcn 3IS. ; and from the writer's use of printing in 
other passages, as well as from lais si vulgi more loquamur, we 
may perhaps infer that "the King's Highway" had become 
a proper naine. 
The naine " College Street " did not, I think, corne into 
use much before 1750, when we find it in Godson's Map of 
Winchester; it occurs also in an " Ichnography" of Old 
Commoners, the date of which is perhaps a few years earlier. 
I have spent some hours over the Corporation Order Books 
without discovering any notice of its adoption; but new 
names were devised for many Winchester streets in the middle 
of the eighteenth century. Thus the Order Books talk of 
Gold Street in 1751, of Southgate Street in 1759, of Southgate 
Street formerly Gold Street in 1794, and many other sueh cases 
might be quoted; 1 the now unfanfiliar names of Flesh- 
1 In Godson's Map we find marked " Southgate Street (Gold Street 
anciently)", " St. Thomas Street (Calp Street anciently)", but "College 
Street" with no more ancient naine assigned to it. 
534 



. ; REGALIS PL.4TE.4 535 
mongcr Strcct, Wongar Street, Fcllstcrs Strcct, Calpcstrcct 
and others, occur in these books between 1740 and 1760. 
Dr. Burton spoke of " College Street " in his will (1774), but 
in legal documents of v. 1740 the position of the properties 
which he describes is indicated without the employment of 
that naine. It does not follow that v. 1740 the naine did hot 
exist ; its non-employment may have been due to the prefer- 
ence of lawyers for long-established forms. 1 
Mr. Chitty has supplied me with an extract from some 
title-deeds of 1338 which describe a messuage apud laflodstock 
in suburbio Wynton. quod . . . extendit se a vivo regio to a 
meadow southwards. The " flodstock " is the watercourse 
(lately covered in) which runs eastwards from opposite 
Commoner Gate along the north side of Cllege Street ; the 
naine occurs frequently in similar docunents, and vicus r«gius 
occurs as frequently. In two documents printed in ,4nnals 
(Appendices V. and VIII.), relating to the acquisition of the 
site of the College, lands are described as extending from 
gardens and closes held by residents in vico de Kyngatesrete 
on the west to a " house of ours called le Garite " on the east ; 
Le Garite was, we know, in College Street (.4n,als, p. 8), and 
the documents state that it was super viam regiam. The 
following memorandum, sent to " the Warden " at some 
uncertain date, is instructive but puzzling. 
Extract from Evidcnce Book mark'd H, pages 89 & 90, and 
from another mark'd (, pages 1 & 4, in the Muniment Housc. 
The King's Highwy northward of the College ex-tends itself 
from the Wall of the Sustrone Spital standing Westward of the 
said Collegc, & is in lcnh East,vard 200 feet, & bounded by the 
Stream that runs from the Mills within the Priory of St. Swithin. 
Anno Regis Ric. 2a. i 16 & 17 
-- Domini 1392, 1393 
2OO feet = 66 yards & 2 feet. 
Of this memorandum, or of the Evidence Books, Cockerell 
made use in his excellent plan of the College, 2 marking off 
 Even in 1809 the lawyers described the Sistern Chapel (where the tIead 
Master's bouse now stands) as "' abutting', hot on College Street, but "'on 
the highway northward " (Adams, p. 463). 
 Proceedings of lhe Archaeological Institule, 1845 : William of Wykeham, 
p. 16. 



536 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE APr. iv 

the 200 feet as he interpreted them; the number of feet 
(which the writer of the memorandum obligingly reduces to 
yards) is perplexingly small, but on that difficulty I will not 
dwell. It has been suggested to me that Mathew's clause 
si vulgi more loguamur implies that the King's highway had 
been nmre distinctively named by Wykehamists. Local 
antiquarians, Mr. Baigent among them, think that Win- 
tonians (the poet's vulgus) -lmv it by no other naine till it 
became " College Street" ; the omission of any more ancient 
naine for it on Godson's Map supports that opinion. 
The Account Rolls of the sixteenth century contain 
references to a " Kingstrete ,,,1 which we might be disposed to 
identiïy with the regalis platea. We should do so wrongly. 
Two indentures of lease, drawn up in 155 and 156½ (Register 
G, folios 183 and 218), show that Kingstrete vas Kingsgate 
Street. Of tvo houses situated between Kingsgate and 
" pallard stitchin lane " (=Canon Street) one is definitely 
said to be "in Kingestrete "; the other, then as nov, faced 
"the hyghe waye ". Bishop Home enjoined in 1571 that the 
Schoolmaster and Usher" resort not oït . . . into the country 
city King Street or other places of the town to banquet or 
feast in the teaching days ". Kingsgate Street in Elizabeth's 
reign contained substantial residences; z there seem to have 
been no houses of any importance in College Street till much 
later. 

1 Account Holl of 1547-8 : pro cariagio lapidum ad vicum vocatum Kyngstret 
xt'i « ; of 1549-50 : pro cariagio lapidum pro reparatione publice vie juxta terre. 
mcnta in Kyngestrete oex . 
-* I'.A. de 1. p. 
z The only surviving Elizabethan house in Kingsgate Street is that now 
oeeupied by Mr. Aris, known to Wykehanfists as B. 



APPENDIX V 

PA I'P.ER.E,S .ET I.VDIG.E.VTES 1 

Two kinds of arguments have been advanced in support of 
what may be regarded as a lax interpretation of the require- 
ment of flae Founder's Statures that the seholars should be 
pauperes et indige,ntes. The aire of the first kind is fo prove 
that Wykeham intended fo exelude the poorer poor ; that of the 
second, that he intended to ineude the poorer rich. I propose 
in this note fo comment on some of the arguments of eaeh 
kind in order. 
I 
1. The scholars, besides being pauperes et indigentcs, were 
to be bonis moribus ac condicionibus perornati et conversacione 
honesti (Rubric II.). Condicio, it is contended, is no mere 
synonym of conversacio, but means status or tank. Of course 
condicio often has that meaning, but no possible interpretation 
of pauperes et indigentes would be consistent with bonis con- 
dicionibus perornati, if if had that meaning here. The pro- 
posed rendering of the word is moreover absolutely ruled out 
by the language of another Rubric (VIII. ad fin.) which says 
that the quiristers are to remain in the College while com- 
petent to discharge their duties, " provided, however, that 
they have been bone condicionis et conversacionis honeste", 
where the same substantives, qualified by the same adjectives, 
are coupled again, and where condicio, like conversacio, plainly 
refers to conduct and behaviour. 
2. The quiristers, like the scholars, were fo be pauperes 
et indigentes, but they were to be admitted intuitu charitatis 
x Sec above, pp. 104-6.--A discussion of the meaning of the words will be 
round in Mr. Leach's fortheorning The Schools of ,'lledieval England, the prooî- 
sheets of which I bave been permitted to read. 
537 



588 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
(R. VIII.), and this expression is hot used in the Winchester 
Statures " in respect fo the admission of any other Members 
of the Society whatever " ; therefore, it has been concluded, 
the scholars were to be drawn from a higher class than the 
quiristers, not from the poorer poor. x Whether the conclusion 
is truc or not, the argument has no validity. For in his New 
College Statures (R. II.) Wykeham uses intuitu charitatis in 
respcct of his benefaction to his " scholars clerks " at Oxford ; 
it thereforc applies to his Winchester scholars also. 2 If ifs 
use implies, as the argument admits, that the quiristers were 
to be really poor and needy, it follows that the scholars were 
to be so likewise. The New College Rubric, it may be thought, 
not only invalidates the argument here examined, but estab- 
lishes the contrary conclusion. 
That, however, is not the case. It is truc that a widow 
receivcd a gratuity of 4d. from the Bursars in 1406 intuitu 
charitatis, and that the Founder allowed the rnagistri of the 
College to give their old gons intuitu charitatis " to poor 
scholars or choristers " (R. XXVII.); but the use of the 
phrase by no means necessarily implied that the recipient 
of a benefaction intuitu charitatis was a recipient of what we 
call " charity ". Bishop Reynolds of Worcester, for instance, 
conferred the mastership of the grammar school on )Iaster 
Hugh of Northampton intuitu charitatis (1812), " considering" 
(not his poverty, but) " the merits of his probity " ; a and Mr. 
Leach ilfforms me that in episcopal registers, e.g. those of 
Bishops Pontissara of Winchester (1280-1804) and Halton of 
Carlisle (1292-1824), the phrase is " the regular formula for 
admission or institution to rectories and vicarages ". 
We cannot, therefore, sav that the use of intuitu charitatis 
in Rubric VIII. proves that the quiristers were meant to be 
really poor boys; but it is difficult to read the whole passage 
without arriving at that conclusion with regard to them. 
x The Rev. Liseombe Clarke (a Fellow of the College) attached great irn- 
portance to this argument in Iris Lelter to H. Brougham, Esq., ,tI.P. Some use 
of it is made in Annats, p. 70, and in History, p. 95, but Mr. Leach bas since 
abandoned it. 
 In the Winchester Foundation Deed Wykeham says that he purposes 
scholarilrus clericis pauperibus et indigentibus . . . charitatis subsidium im- 
partiri. 
 Leach, Documents illustrating, Early Education in IVorcester. p. 34; a 
similar use of the formula oecurs in a document printed in E.C.p. 342. 



PAUPERES ET INDIGENTES 539 

It would probably be a mistake to lay any stress on the fact 
that they were to make the Fellows' beds and wait at table ; 
itis the general tone of the passage that ereates the impression 
that the Founder regarded them as other founders regarded 
their ehoristers--as eharity boys in the modern sense. The 
provision for them was haphazard. They were tobe fed on 
seraps ; their elothing was left to chance generosity ; where 
they were tobe lodged, how they were tobe taught, are ques- 
tions whieh Wykeham passes by. But when seholarships 
were tobe filled, quiristers were tobe eandidates (R. III.), 
and Mr. Leach has demonstrated that " not only were they 
elected " from the first, in Wykeham's life-time, " but that it 
was the rule to elect them, and that more than hall the 
choristers in any given year became scholars-.1 A large 
proportion of the scholars, therefore, in any given year were 
ex-quiristers, and (if my reading of Rubric VIII. is correct) 
must have been really poor. 
3. It has been argued that Wykeham cannot bave meant 
fo open his seholarships to the very poor, beeause his seholars 
were to be elerks, u and the sons of villeins were ineligible for 
elerkship. Servile status was pronouneed bv early Christian 
Emperors and by Popes to be an absolute bar to elerkship ; a 
the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) expressly ordain, filii 
rusticorum (i.e. of villeins) non debent ordinari absque assensu 
domini de cujus terra nati dignoscuntur; a and from the 
manorial rolls of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries if 
appears that villeins were often fined even for sending their 
sons to school without their lords' consent) We hear of such 
fines being inflicted as late as 138 and 1386, when Wykeham 
had already, in the Vinchester Fotmdation Deed of 1382, 
declared that his scholars were to be pauperes et indigentes. 
Is it likely, then, Mr. Leach asks, that in using those words 
he contemplated the admission of boys who could only go 
to school at the risk of legal penalties ? 

1 I'.H.p. 270. 
 Scholars who had hot received " the first tonsure " already were to 
receive it within a year of their admission. 
a As appears from the Decretu*n of the Bo|ognese monk Gratian (c. 1140). 
 Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 140. 
 I ara indebted to Mr. Leach for this and for mueh other information on 
this subiect. 



5¢0 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,. 

The argument is weighty, but I ara not sure that itis 
eonelusive. Would Wvkeham have refused to adroit a 
villein's son whose lord's assent had been obtained by pur- 
chase or fithout ? 1 Again, we should remember that at any 
rate after the Peasants' Revolt of 1881 many lords hesitated 
or round it diffieult to enforee their full legal elaims. Itis 
true that in 1391 an attempt was ruade by the Commons to 
give them inereased stringeney, but it was met by Richard II. 
with a refusal: le roi 8'aviseroit.  Wykeham in that year 
resigned his ehaneellorship, before (I think) the king deter- 
mined, or was advised, to "advise himself ", but he retained 

the king's favour, and 
he disapproved of his 
improve and enlarge " 
edition " in 1400,  the 

there is no reason to suppose that 
refusal. He continued to " amend 
his Statures till he " gave his last 
year that followed Riehard's deposi- 

tion; but he did not insert, in consequenee of what had 
happened in 1891, any words deelaring the ineligibility of the 
sons of villeins (nalivi), sueh as were inserted some forty years 
later in the Eton Statutes.--Thomas à Beeket opposed the 
Constitutions of Clarendon whieh, as we have seen, barred 
villeins from clerkship without their lords' consent, whieh, 
that is to say, " eut off from the lowest elass the only path by 
which they had any hope of rising to posts of honour and 
authority ". Have we any ground for supposing that 
William of Wvkeham would have been of a different mind 
from that " plebeian elerie " ? To maintain the liberal posi- 
tion did hOt mean to Wykeham, as it meant to Beeket, to 
withstand his king. 
Let us grant, however, that Wykeham may not have 
favoured the admission of villeins' sons to seholarships; it 
does not follow that he shut his doors against the poorer poor, 
even of the eountryside. The number of free labourers was 
steadily growing in his later years, and there was no legal bar 
against them. We know very little of the early Winehester 
seholars, but it is a signifieant faet that very manv of them 

1 .J[l] interestin example of the mamlmission, by a bishop, of a person, 
bound to him by the bond of shve-, who desired to be "enroHed in the 
clerical army " (1312) will be found in E.C.p. 270. 
" Jusserand, La Vie Nomade, p. 164 ; I'. H. Bue'ks, il. p. 159. 
 Lowth, Lire of W!t'keham , p. 177. 
« Freeman, Growth of the English Constitution, p. 76, and espeeially p. 179. 



v 

P,4UPERES ET INDIGENTES 541 

left the sehool after three or tvo or even one year's sehooling. 1 
May this mean that being poor, and hot proving speeially 
idonei ad litteras, they were removed at sixteen, or fifteen, or 
even earlier, to be apprentieed to a trade or to go into some 
kind of " service " ? 
#. In founding his eolleges Wykeham's main design was 
to help in his oxm small way (pro nostrae parvitatis modulo) 
towards fflling up the gaps in the clerical army (caused by 
pestilences and other calamities) and especially in the ranks 
of the seeular elergy. 2 It has sometimes been asserted 3 that 
he eannot have desired to enlist reeruits from the poorer 
poor, but I know of no ground for that assertion. Un- 
doubtedly he designed that his reeruits should be well taught, 
but there is no evidenee that he abandoned existing reeruiting- 
grounds. The parish priests of the fourteenth eentury, in 
the villages at any rate, were very often ehildren of the soil, 
on the saine social level, and in many cases as poor, as the 
peasantry to whom they ministered, a Mr. Leach gives proof 
that in 1291 there were in the dioeese of Winehester 67 livings 
below the armual value of rive marks.In 1540 there was 
an election of " ehildren " to the grammar school at Canter- 
bury. 6 Some of the eleetors argned " that it was meet for the 
ploughman's son to go to plough, and the artifieer's son to 
apply the trade of his parent's vocation "; they were for 
rejeeting such candidates. "Poor men's children ", replied 
Cralmaer, " are many times endued with more singular gifts 
of nature . . . and also more apt to apply their study, than 
is the gentleman's son ,,.7 I have suggested that Wykeham 
t Sec .Mr. Kirby's lists in W.S. 
2 Sec Hubric I. of the New College Statures. 
 E.g. by Liseombe Ciarke in his ietter to Brougham. 
* Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycl(Ïe, pp. 121 seqq. It is notieed by 
Mr. Trevelyan that at the rime of the Peasants" Rising (1881) " several parsons 
of poor parishes put themseives at the head of their eongregations and revenged 
on soeiety the wrongs that they had endured " (ibid. p. 202). 
 V.H.p. 270. 
« *,**qaen educational Statures coneerning the thirteen grammar sehools of 
" Cathedrals of the New Foundation " were drawn up in 1541 they ordained 
that a varying number of boys (fifty at Canterbury), "poor and destitute of 
the help of friends ", should be maintained and taught Latin, ut pietas et bone 
littere perpetuo in eccleMa nostra suppullulescant . . . et suo rempote in gloriam 
Dei et reipubliee commodum et ornaraentum fructificent ( E.C. p. 456}. 
 Strype, Memorials of Cranmer (ed. 1840), pp. 126-8 ; the passage is given 
in an abridged form in E.C. pp. 470-1. Sec also Early Education in Worcester, 
p. lxii. 



52 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ,. 
would perhaps have agreed with the liberal views of an Arch- 
bishop of the twelfth, and I suggest that he would perhaps have 
agrecd with those of another of the sixteenth century. 

II 
1. Rubric V. required every scholar to take a solemn oath, 
on completing his fifteenth year, that he would neither pro- 
voke hatred, discord, and the like, nor " allege speeial or 
emhaent prerogatives of good birth, family, sciences, faculties, 
vealth ", that he would make no " comparisons (which are 
odious) betveen family and family, nobilitas and nobilitas 
(or ignobilitas)"; and another Rubric (XIX.), after one of 
Wykeham's impressive exhortations to brotherly love and 
charity, condemns such allegations and comparisons in almost 
the same words. It has been inferred that some of the scholars 
might lay a just claire to some degree of nobilitas or wealth. 
Nov odious comparisons of means and of birth are not least 
common in societies in which no claires of the kind tan be 
put high; and the prohibitions of the two Rubrics, being 
such as are " constantly met with in ail scholastic statures ,,,x 
may have followed a common form, the terres of which were 
hot carefully examined. For ail that, they supply a legitimate 
argument for including within the terre pauperes et indigentes 
boys who were at least relatively well-born and well-to-do. 
2. A stronger argument is supplied by Rubric II., under 
which no boy possessed of an armual income of rive marks 
(£3:6:8) could be admitted as a scholar, z We should 
multiply that sum by twenty at least to obtain its value in 
modern money; and it is urged with great force that a boy 
with an ineome approaehing £70 or more, even if he were an 
orphan without further expeetations, eould not possibly be 
elassed to-day with the poor and needy, but that Wykeham 
elassed him with the pauperes et indigentes. It does hot, of 
course, neeessarily follow from the langaaage of the 1Rubrie that 
x R. and 1R. p. 62.--The same words were used by Wykeham (' or his 
rhetorieal scribe ") as early as 1.385, when '" no moderate stupour " invaded 
his mind on his hearing that " odious eomparisons " were prevalent at New 
College (ibid. p. 88). 
2 If a boy who was already a scholar came into possession of property ol 
the annual value of more than £5, he forfeited his seholarship (Rubric 



v P,4UPERES ET INDIGENTES 543 
Wykeham expected or desired that many (or even any) of his 
scholars would or should have much (or even any) income of 
their own. But that is no sufiïcient answer to the argument, 
which, whfle it in no way disproves the admissibflity of the 
poorer poor, establishes the admissibility of boys belonging to 
the class which (for brevity's sake) I have called the poorer 
rich. 
3. Among other considerations which support the saine 
conclusion I will notice only one. Mr. Leach has made re- 
searches, the results of some of which are still unpublished, 
concerning the social position of many of the early Winchester 
scholars, elected during "Wykeham's life-time. He finds that 
some of these boys were at least raised above poverty, and 
that the names of others suggest, if they do not always 
establish, a rclationship with persons of birth and considera- 
tion. 1 He has also discovered the interesting fact that even 
in the fourteenth century boys admitted at first as com- 
moners became scholars afterwards. Some of these latter 
may have been needy for all their nobililas ; and others may 
not have been, though they should have been, filii nobilium 
et valencium personarum (Rubric XVI.). One commoner of 
good family had to be pardoned arrears of commons ; another, 
whether noble or ignoble, became "a chapel clerk " a fcw 
weeks aïter his achnission to the school--he became, that is to 
say, a mere servant of the College. 
The provision of Wykeham for the admission of filii 
nobilium as commoners, together with the fact that his own 
kinsmen, even if their income largely exceedcd thc rive marks' 
limit, 2 were admissible as scholars, has been used as an argu- 
ment, not only for the inclusion o[ the poorer rich, but also 
for the exclusion of the poorer poor. It is said that, if a 
considerable number of the scholars had been drawn from the 
labouring classes, Wykeham would not have wished his kin 
 History, p. 102 ; I'.H. p. 272. Mr. Moberlywrote in hisLifeof Wy "keham, 
p. 210: " Among the first twenty-five scholars admitted, ail have English 
names : there are no Norman names among them. Clearly they did hot belong 
to the upper classes", ttis general conclusion is that they came " from the 
class from which Wykeham himself came, that of the upper churis ", with 
here and there perhaps " a boy of humbler extraction ". 
 They were admissible if their income did hot exceed twenty marks 
" clear of outgoings" (R. II.), and might hold their scholarships if they came 
into possession of an income hOt exceeding £20 (R. XXIV.). 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ^tF. v 

to mix with them, or thought it possible that the nobiles of 
his Rubric--" the country gentlemen of ttampshire or else- 
where " --would pay money to send their sons to school with 
them. Much knowledge of the social conventions of the time 
would be needed to determine how much weight should be 
given to this argument ; but with regard to the country gentle- 
men I may point out that their sons were not expected to live 
with the scholars in their chambers, and might take their 
meals, if it was desired, "at the table of the Fellows "'; it 
was only in the school-room that they would be exposed to 
close contact with " the poor and needy" 

 History, p. 97. 



APPENDIX VI 

DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE TABULA LEGUM 

THE only place in Wykehamieal literature vhere I remember 
to have seen the origin of the Tabula diseussed is a note 
in whieh Adams maintained, as a "strong probability", 
that " the earliest form '" of that code " is eoeval with the 
Founder -.1 He gave two reasons for his strong probability: 
(1) that certain practiees whieh the Tabula enjoins are also 
enjoined by the Statures of Winehester or of New College ; 
and (2) that "if any Warden 2 had introdueed the Tabula de 
novo, Christopher Johnson would eertainly have mentioned" 
the faet in his distieh on that Warden. Neither of these 
reasons is eonvineing. (1) Many of Wykeham's preeepts, 
even of his more important preeepts, were not ineluded in the 
Tabula ; that eoneerning stones and balls and windows, 3 lor 
instance, did not appear there till it was inserted by Varden 
I-Iuntingiord about 1790 ; « and it is a poor compliment to the 
Founder's sagaeity to argue that if the code had been eom- 
piled after his rime the compiler would have thought none of 
his preeepts worthy of a place in it. (2) If some Warden 
" introdueed " the Tabula at some date between Wykeham's 
days and Johnson's, Johnson may have known who that 
Warden was, and may yet have left the introduction unre- 
eorded--you eannot ahvays put all that you know, or even 
ail that is important, about a man into two lines ; or he may 
not have known--he was ignorant of mueh.  It is moreover 

 Adams, p. 93. 
 The fact that Mathew spoke of the Tabula as" Quintilian's " suggests that 
in the seventeenth century tradition ascribed its authorship to a Head Master 
rather than to a Warden ; see above, pp. 236-7. 
 See IRubric XLIII. « See above, p. 240.  See above, p. 37. 
545 2 N 



546 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
possible, I think itis probable, that when the distichs were 
written the Tabula had not yet been compiled. 
The reader will have observed that it is "the earliest 
form " of the Tabula that Adams considcrcd tobe probably 
" coeval with the Founder " ; but by" the earliest " I assume 
that he mcant, as indced his argument implies, a form sub- 
stantially the saine as that of the Tabula as it was in 1773. x 
The code as it then was shows no trace of a late fourteenth- or 
an early fifteenth-century origin ;its diction and its substance 
alike are post-renaissance, and are not pre-reformation. The 
use of templum for the capella of the Statutes is, Mr. Leach 
informs me, post-renaissance ; z so, surely, are sueh elassical 
eoneeits as plebeii for " inferiors ", and arma scholastica for 
"pen and ink ". The tone of the religious precepts is that of 
the Reformation ; the language about prefects, showing as it 
does that they had been developed into a distinct ordo in the 
eommunity, fits the faets of the sixteenth eentury, but hOt, 
as I think, those of the early fifteenth ;  the praetiee of delatio, 
mentioned in the Tabula, is virtually unknon (certainly un- 
knom under that naine) to the Statures, but is constantly 
enjoined under that naine in the age of Elizabeth and after- 
wards ; a ,, going on Hills " is in the Tabula a well-established 
and a purely secular funetion, but even the learned and in- 
sistent advocate of its primitive origin believes it to have had 
a more or less religious character in the early days of the 
College.--The phrase arma scholastica seems to have been 
suggested to the author of the Tabula bv a passage in one of 
the Colloquies of Erasmus : Quid est scholasticus absque calamo 
et atramento ? Quod mlles absque clypeo et gladio.  Here is 
anotber probable case of conveyance from the saine source : 
 Sec above, p. 237. 
 The use of templum for capella is almost invariable in Johnson's Themes (so 
far as I bave read them) and in Mathew's poem. Mr. Chitty bas discovered the 
word for me in the aecounts of 1546-7 and in some interesting items of those 
of 1553-$ (" 1 & 2 Marie "') ; under the old heading custus capelloe there is 
entered pro vino e:cpenso in tewplo x-/s, wid., as wel! as lapidariis pro erectione 
altarium in navi rempli vis. viijd. He bas hot, so far at any rate, found 
templum in earlier accounts.--We heax of moderatores Templi in the Eton 
Couetudinarium (1560). 
a Sec above, p. 116. 
 Above, pp. llg-20.--Erasmus, it may be observed, forbids it: neminem 
deferto (i. p. 37). 
 Above, p. 345.  Colloquia, i. p. 58. 



vx AUTHORSHIP OF TABULA LEGUM 547 
Vestis item ad decorum componatur, ut totus cultus, vultus, 
gestus . . . ingcnuam modestiam . . . proe se fcrat (Colloquia, i. 
pp. 85-6 (cd. Tauchnitz). 
Modcstiam pre se fcrunto .... Vultus gcstus incessus com- 
ponantur ( Tabula). 
I have argued that the earlier Tabula was not compiled 
belote the sixteenth century ; can wc go furthcr, and identify 
the " Quintilian '" who compiled it ? Cristopher Johnson 
insists in his Themes (c. lô65) on the importance of lavs; 
they are, he says, as necessary and as useu] or schools as for 
states. He lays down samples of the lavs vhich a school- 
code should contain, and many of his laws are identical with 
those of the Tabula ; but he nowhere says or implies, " We 
have such a code here at Vinchester, and it contains these 
laws".l His longest and most carcfully claborated exercisc 
on the subject is as follows : 
Nec rcspublica sine le, bus constate, nec puerorum coctus sine 
disciphna contineri posstmt. Atquc idcirco que sequuntur loges 
in omnes qui huc discendi causa accedtmt sancitmtor, et ab onmibus 
sacrosancte habentor. Festis diebus caste ad ecclesiam adcunto : 
illic quoe loci religio postulat curanto : risus, confabulatio, strcpitus, 
oculorum vaga et otiosa jactatio procul absunto. Profestis ad 
studia animos applicanto : ncmo usquam nisi petita et impetrata 
ad id facultate abesto : ad scholam bini accedunto : bini si quo 
crit abeundum discedunto : in cubiculis aut alio quovis loco non 
morantor : Romanam linguam semper exercento : inter dis- 
cendum seeum submisse loquuntor. Proefeeti cum equitate et 
iustitia gubernanto : plebeii proefeetorum auctoritatem non con- 
tenmunto. Jurgia, rLxas, lites mutuo non sefinanto : se in vicem 
diligunto : non omnino juranto : tantum ita est aflirmanto, aut 
non est neganto: interrogati verum de rebus omnibus respon- 
dento : mendacium capitale esto : nihil in moribus invcrecundum, 
nihil in vultu aut gestu eorporis incompositum exhibento. In 
aula silentio indulgento: coquinam, carnificinam, pistrinam, 
ceterasque officinas non adeundas nunquam frequentanto : ton- 
strinam, nisi quid opus sit, [non] adeunto. Hzec legum obser- 

t One of the exercises (fol. 141) begins : Ut in omni repub, ira in bac noslra 
literaria leges alioe ad civium utilitatem latee surir, alioe ad ornatelun. We 
might think that this ianguage suggests the existence of the Tabu/a, but 
Johnson's first " useful " iaw (qua precipitur ne quis a schola absit) is one 
which the Tabula does hot include. 



58 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE APP. vx 

vantia ad omnes pertineto : quibus-si qui minus obtemperant, 
poenas danto : poena non eapitis, sed alia esto.  

On a first glance one might say that all this proves that the 
Tabula was in existence, and that Johnson was merely play- 
ing variations on a well--known tune. A eloser examination 
suggests another conclusion. Johnson's language is that of 
one who is legislating on his own aeeount. If would have 
given a strong sanction to the rules whieh he wished to be 
observed if he had added : " So the Founder, or the men of 
old rime, ordained " ; but he added nothing of the kind. If 
the Tabula had been already in existence, the exereise as it 
stands would bave an insipidity most uneharaeteristie of its 
author. " Why "--so the boys would have asked themselves 
--" why does he prose away like this ? Most of these preeepts 
are painted on the wall a few yards off ; we know every word 
of them" The "theme ", I suggest, is not a diluted version of 
an old code, but an essay towards a new one ; it is the first 
draft of a Tabula Legum, to be abridged and pruned when the 
code took its final shape.--The language of another theme is 
not ineonsistent with a pre-Johnsonian origin of the Tabula, 
but fits in as well or better with the hypothesis that Johnson 
composed it. The earlier (like the later) Tabula enjoins, with 
respect to Bible-reading 2 in Hall : recitationes intelligenter et 
apte distinguunlor. Johnson gives some rules for the readers : 

Quibus proecipio ut prius apud se legant quoe aliis retirant, quo 
legcre possint abque ulla impeditione et pronunciare intelligenter, 
sententiasque apte distinguere ; ut non solum voecm sed etiam 
motum aliquem adferant qui rei de qua dieitur sit aeeommodatus.  

Johnson 7ote the exereises from whieh I have quoted not 
later than 1566 ; he retired from the headmastership and went 
off to London in 1571. If the theory whieh I have advanced 
is correct, the Tabula probably came into existence between 
those dates ; it may have been his parting gift to Winehester. 

a Fol. 191.--The last words were perhaps suggested to Johnson, as we 
have seen that some expressions in the Tabula were pcrhaps suggested to its 
compiler, by Erasmus (Colloquia, i. p. 57). Two boys on thetr way to school 
fear that they may be flogged for not "knowing their lesson ; non agitur de capite, 
says one of them, sed de parte diversa. 
 See above, p. 189.  Fol. 140 b. 



APPENDIX VII 

ETON CONEUETUDI.V.IRIUM AND WESTMINSTER STATUTES 

FREQUENT reference has been made in Part II. to a document 
known as the Consuetudinarium Vetus Scholoe EtoncHs (or 
Consuetudinarium Etonense) vhich xvas compiled in 1560 by 
William Malim the Head Master; he described himself, in 
a little volume of verse presented to Queen Elizabeth in 
that year, as r rô, v Airo»,,«on, o-xoA dpXdrX«Aoç (sic).  
The Consuetudinarium is preserved among the MSS. given 
to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker ;  
it has been printed, from an imperfect transcript in the British 
Museum, a by Sir Edward Creasy in his Eminent Etonians,  and 
more recently, direct from the Crpus MS., in Etoniana;  
and it has been fully described by Sir H. Maxwell Lyte. « The 
first part of the document deals with usages observed at Eton 
during each month of the year, while the second sketches the 
lire of the Eton coIleger during each hour of every week-day. 
Eton and Winchester are so closely related that neither can 
regard what concerns the early history of the other as alienum 
a se ; and this particular document throws light perpetually 
on the lire and customs of the Winchester scholar. It is 
therefore not wholly irrelevant, in a book about Winchester 

 M. L. p. 169.--Malim was afterwards High Master of St. Paul's (1573- 
1581), and the historian of that school gives reasons for believing that his Eton 
headmastership began "not later than 1561 " (McDonnell, p. 125). It began 
earlier; the Consutudinarium, which bears Malim's naine on the fly-leaf, 
cannot (as we shall see) bave been compiled later than 1560. 
 CXVIII. pp. 477-89. The saine volume contains an Indenture of the 
Eton Bursars of receipts from the Michaelmas of 1 Eliz. to the following 
Michaelmas (1560). 
a Har]. MSS. 7044. « pp. 87_9c,. 
 No. 5, pp. 65-711. « M. L. chaptcr viii. 
549 



550 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

College, to ask the question, For what purpose was the 
Consuetudinarium written ? 
To that question Sir E. Creasy gives no answer. Sir H. 
Maxwell L)oEe, followed by Mr. Wasey Sterry 1 and the editor 
of Etoniana, thinks that the document " was prepared for the 
Royal Commissioners who visited Eton in 1561 ", while Mr. 
MeDonnell suggests, as an alternative possibility, that " it 
was lnerely eompiled by the new head master for the purpose 
of informing himself of the conditions on whieh he was taking 
on the school and of the mode in whieh he was to be direeted 
in its government ,,.2 This latter suggestion may be safely 
dismissed ; Malim was an old Etonian, and would hardly have 
written a long statement to inform himself about matters 
with which he was perfeetly familiar. That the Consuetudi- 
narium was produced beïore the Visitors, of whom Arehbishop 
Parker was the chier, is extreme]y probable ; but these 
Visitors were not eommissioned til] 1561, a when there is 
reason to believe that the document had already served its 
primary purpose. 
In 1560 Statures were dram up for " the College of the 
Blessed Peter at Westminster, founded by the most illustrious 
Queen Elizabeth ". I print in parallel eoltmms a ïew passages 
from these Statures and from the Consuetudinarium. 

From the Consuetudinarium 
Etoncnse 
Horâ Quintâ.--Unus ex cubi- 
culi proepositis (qui omnes qua- 
tuor sunt numero) cui hoc 
munus illa Hebdomada ob- 
jecerit, Surgite, intonat. Illi 
onmes statim pariter consur- 
gunt ; fundentes interim, dura 
se vestiunt, preces, quas suis 
5cibus tmusquisque ordJtur, ac 
ceteri omnes alternis versibus 
subsequuntur. Finitis preci- 
bus Icctos sternunt. Inde unus- 
quisque quantum pulveris et 
sordium sub suo lecto est, in 
 Annals o Eton College, p. 76. 

From the Westminster 
Statures 
Hora 5  unus ex cubiculi 
praepositis, qui otaries quatuor 
sunt numero, qui hoc munus illa 
hebdomada obierit, Surgite in- 
tonet. Illi omnes statim con- 
surgant fundentes, flexis geni- 
bus, matutinas preces, quas 
suis x4cibus unusquisque ordia- 
tut, ac caeteri omnes alternis 
versibus subsequantur. 
Finitis precibus lectos sternant. 
Inde unusquisque, quantum 
pulveris et sordium sub suo 
lecto est, in cubiculi medium 
 MeI)onnell, p. 126. 

a M. L. p. 166. 



VII 

ETON CONS UET UDIN,4RI UM 

551 

cubiculi medium profert .... 
Tunc omnes bini longo ordine 
lavatum manus descendunt. A 
lavando reversi scholam in- 
grediuntur, ac suum quisque 
locum capescit [sic] (Etoniana, 
p. 69). 

proferat .... Tum omnes bini 
longo ordine lavatum manus 
descendant ; a lavando reversi 
scholam ingrediantur, ac suum 
locum quisque capcssat (E.C. 
p. 506). 

In diebus Martis et Jovis 
superiores ordines themata sibi 
proposita carnfinibus conclu- 
dunt. Reliqui duo soluta ora- 
tione eadem conscribunt. 
In diebus Lunoe et Martis 
proelcgit Ludimagistcr 
4' Tcrentium. 
5" Justinum historicum, de 
Amicitia, vel alios pro 
suo arbitrio. 
6 ° et 7" Coesaris commen- 
taria, Oflïcia Ciceronis, 

(Etoniana, pp. 69, 70.) 

In diebus Martis et Jovis 
superiores ordines themata sibi 
proposita carminibus conclu- 
dant, rcliqui duo soluta oratione 
eadcm conscribant. 
In diebus Lunae et Martis 
praelegat ludimaster : 

4 ° Terentium, Salustium et 
Graecam grammati- 
cana. 
-- 5" Justinum, Ciceronem de 
 Amicitia, et Isocratem. 
© 6 ° ct 7" Caesaris Cornmcn- 
taria, Titum Li,ium, 
Demosthenem et IIo- 
merum. 
(E.C.p. 5o8.) 

Diebus vero Veneris post 
lectionem quam pridiè habue- 
rant recitatam, qui grave ali- 
quod crimen commiserunt, accu- 
santur. Correctiones vocant ; 
dant enim malefactorum dignas 
poenas (Etoniana, p. 71). 

Die Veneris Corrcctioncs. 
Diebus Vcneris post lectionem, 
quam pridie habuerant, recita- 
tam, qui grave aliquod crimen 
commiserunt, accusantur [?] ; 
aequum enim est malefactorum 
dignas dent poenas (E.C.p. 514). 

Scholoe Etoncnsis proeposi- 
torcs è pueris constituuntur 4% 
Auloe moderator unus. 
Temph duo. 
Campi 4% 
Cubiculi 4% 
Oppidanorum duo. 
Immundorum et sordidorum 

 [' Scholae 4. 
. J Aulae 1. 
  Templi 2. 
 | Cubiculi 4. 
_  Campi 4. 
 [ Oppidanorum 2. 
Immundorum et sordidorum 
puerorum, qui manus et faciem 



552 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE A,,. v 

pucrorum qui faciem et manus 
non lavant,.., unus (Etoni- 
ana, p. 71). 

non lavant .... unus, qui 
etiam sit censor morum (E.C. 
p. 518). 

These extracts show, xvhat the entire documents show 
more fully, (1) that the educational system of Eton was to be 
elosely followed af Westminster, but that mueh more rime 
was to be found for Greek ; and (2) that what was the daily 
routine of Eton life in 1560 was fo be that of Westminster life 
from 1560 onvards; large parts of the Statures are taken 
straight from the Consuetudinarium, the indicatives of the 
latter becoming subjunctives in the former. 1 It seems prob- 
able that the purpose which the Consuetudinariun in faet 
served was also that whieh if was intended to serve. Dr. 
Bill, xvho drev up the Westminster Statures, e drew them up, 
we may safely assume, in aecordance with the wishes of Queen 
Elizabeth, the founder (or re-founder) of the School, who 
loved Eton and vho loved Greek. Bill was in 1560 both 
Provost of Eton and Dean of Westminster. I suggest that 
as Provost he invited the Hcad Master fo supply him with 
a detailed statement of faets relating to Eton customs and 
Eton teaching, so that he might as Dean ineorporate them as 
preeepts into the nev Statures of Westminster, vith sueh 
revisious as would seeure more teaching of Greek. If this 
explanation is correct, the origin of the Consuetudinarium is 
like that of the statements of Eton and Winehester usages 
vhich vere compiled by the Head Masters Richard Cox and 
John Tvyehener for Saffron Walden School in 1530. a A 
similar statement was probably compiled by Cox's predecessor 
John Goldvyn for Cuckfield School a few years earlier. 
 Readers of Mathew's poem will note that many Winchester usages of 
1647 were already Eton usages in 1560 ; frorn whieh faet it may be inferred 
that sonne of them at least rnay be as old as, or older than, the foundation of 
Eton. See above, pp. 326, 345. 
 G.P.S.p. 228. 
a Sec Mr. Leach's accounts of these statements in V.H. pp. 296-300 ; for 
Cuc -kfield School sec I/.H. Bucks, ii. pp. 176-81. 



APPENDIX VIII 

LETTERS O WARDEN HARRIS 

SEVERAL letters of John Harris, Warden from 1630 to 1658, 
have been preserved by the College, but they have in many 
cases been mutilated, tattered, or otherwise defaced. Some 
of them are mainly or wholly concerned with college business ; 
of these I bave ruade occasional use in Part II. Others are 
familiar letters to his sons John and Thomas at Nexv College ; 
and as these latter, apart from their interest as specimens of 
the Warden's latinity, have biographical, Wykehamical, and 
sometimes historical importance, and have not hitberto been 
printed or even mentioned by Wykehamical writers, I print 
them here, adding some explanatory notes. I omit one 
letter, written to Thomas " upon his doeing his Laxv Exercise 
at Oxon ", as too technical. 
The first seven letters are to the Warden's eldest son John ; 
they were written between June 1641 and April 1643. Born 
in 1623 or 1624, John was a scholar of Winchester from 1637 
to 1639, when he went to New College, where he became a 
full Fellow in 1641. His father seems to have regarded him 
as a scholar pure and simple, quite out of place " among the 
swords and guns of soldiers ". Yet a note written by a well- 
informed contemporary (possibly Harris's successor, Warden 
Burt--see above, p. 46) shows that John was capable of 
playing a bold part in the troubles of the rime : 

A second considerable argument of his [The Warden's] Loialty 
was his consenting to his eldest sons exploit of redeeming the 
Kings life when the Army was having him up to London to the 
intended murder or execution upon the sentence of the High Court 
of Justice in which hec well knew that he ventured the sequestra- 
553 



ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE ^. 

tion of ail that estate he had laely settled upon him upon his being 
ejeeted new Coll. 

It would, I may say in passing, be an interesting task to 
examine the attitude of the great Warden towards politieal 
and religious parties. The statements eommonly made upon 
the subjeet, sueh as that he was "Puritanieal," that " during 
the civil war he sided with the Presbyterians," must by no 
means be aeeepted without reserve. 
Thomas Harris, to whom Letter VIII. was written in 
was some rive years younger than John. He too was a 
seholar first of Winehester and then of New College; the 
eireumstanees under whieh he was to beeome a full Fellow 
are the subjeet of the letter. 

LETTER I 
Epistolam quam ad nie misisti D. Joh. Cheke militis accepi, 
et quidem non sine lacrymis pedegi. Nam sive is Langbainus 
sit, sive quis alius, qui eam typis edidit, ira in proefatione sua 
ad vivum depinxit illorum temporum calamitatem et ad hec 
nostra accommodavit, ut utrobique iacentes Musas, labentem 
Remp., populum ad exitium sponte ruentem, plane stupidus 
sit qui non videat, plane ferreus qui non ex animo lamentetur. 
Inerebuit apud nos rumor, Cantabrigioe hoc armo Comitia aut 
nu]la fore, aut novo quodam apparatu, ieiuniis non conviviis, 
planctu non plausu celebranda. Mirum ni et vos idem 
statuatis, idque senatusconsulto Academico. Sois enim 
Romoe olim, tumultuante populo et urbe ad seditionem spec- 
tante, nihil usitatius fuisse quam ut iustitium publice in- 
diceretur. Londini quid agatur non dubito quin frequentibus 
ad vos literis sit perlatum .... 
Jun. 22. 1641. 

[Sir John Cheke, who " taught Cambridge and King Edward 
Greek ", was deprived of the provostship of King's and committed 
to the Tower in July 1553, on the charge of having espoused the 
cause of Lady Jane Grey. In September 1554 he received pardon 
and leave to travel abroad ; but in May 1556 he was lured to 
Brussels, arrested by order of Philip II., conveyed in a waggon to 
the nearest harbour, and again consigned to the Tower. He was 



-,,, LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 555 

there indueed to abjure Protestantism and foreed to make publie 
recantation belote the whole Court. Set at liberty, he pined away 
with regret and shame, and died on September 18, 1557. His 
Hurt of Seàition, how greivous it is to a Common-wealth was pub- 
lished in London in 1549 ; it was reprinted, vith a short lire of the 
author, at Oxford in 1641. The name of the editor does hot 
appear on the title-page of the reprint, but the Warden is no doubt 
right in his guess ; the British Museum catalogue refers the editor- 
ship to Dr. Gerard Langbaine. Langbaine eombined the offices 
of Viear of Crosthwaite, Cumberland, and Provost of Queen's 
College, Oxford ; he lived at Oxford, and died in February 165 
"of an extreme cold taken sitting in the University Library ".-- 
Wqaether the persistent rumour which Harris mentions proved true 
I cannot say ; but two years later (3une 12, 1643) a Grace passed 
the Senate at Cambridge dispensing with the Commencement 
ceremovàes : " At a rime when studies are at an end and men's 
minds are so deeply stirred and dejected .... when the hope has 
vanished of assembling those whose presenee bas been wont to 
shed lustre on your comitia, may it please you that . . . proceed- 
ings be privately held . . . on the 3rd and 4th oî July, and that on 
this occasion the public celebration yield to private calamities " 
(Mullinger, University of Cambridge, iii. p. 0.48) ; a similar Gracc 
was passed in 1655 (ibid. p. 322).--The test of the letter has been 
ruthlessly cut away, just as it becomes most interesting ; a few 
words, with the date, are preserved in the margin (Licet ipsa terra 
commoveatur, non . . .). June 22, 1641, was the day on which the 
Tonnage and Poundage Bill became an Act; Strafford had been 
executed in the previous month.] 

LETTER II 

Respiravi iam aliquantum, mi Joannes, a domesticis 
negotiis, et a rationibus pecuniariis que mihi intercesserant 
cum eeclesia [.9]. Nunc igitur aveo audire quid agas, et, 
siquid apud nos novi occurreret, libenter impertirem. 
Officiarii (si id scitu dignum) in ecclesia designati sunt D r 
Meetkirkius, Vicedecanus ; D r Bucknerus, Receptor ; et 
Thesaurarius D r Oliverus. In Collegio comitia creandis 
magistratibus (dabis veniam, si in rem nostram verbis abutar 
Livianis) paulo serius habita sunt; nam ineunte demum 
mense Decembri Vicecustos omnium consensu electus est M r 
Witherus. De Bursariis aliquandiu certatum, non tam quis 



556 ABOUT WINCHESTER 

eo potiretur munere, quam quis evaderet. Nam M r John- 
sonus, quanquam haud penitus aversabatur offieium, tamen 
(quod septuagenarius esset) paulo remissius petebat. Itaque 
de ponte deieetus est haud invitus. Nain 

Sieut fortis equus, spatio qui soepe supremo 
Vicit Olympia, nunc senio confectu' quieseit, 

sic .... 

Decemb. 7. 16141]. 

[This letter, the least important of the series, has been mutilated, 
like Letter I. The annual election of Vice-Dean, Receptor, and 
Treasurer by the Dean and Chapter was fixed by Henry VIII.'s 
Statures for Novcmbcr 25 (Winchester Cathedral Documents, i. 
p. 128}. The Statutes of thc College enjoin, without fLxing a day, 
the annual election of a Sub-¥arden, a Sacrist, and two Bursars by 
the Warden and Fellows (Rubrics X., XI.). For Dr. Meetkerke 
see Letter III. ; of Mr. Wither (whose acquaintance we have made 
already--above, p. 251) it is recorded in Cloisters that he spent more 
than thirty years (1622-56) B.ursar I coetera«e Colleg I munia obeundo. 
For the Warden's play with the proverb seæagenarios de ponte 
(deicere}, and the custom which gave fise to it, see Lewis and 
Short's Latin-English Dictionary, s.r. sexagenarius. The year of 
the letter is fixed by the allusion to George Johnson, who was born 
in 1570or 1571 and died in1642(W.S, pp. 11,151). LikeWilliam 
Wither, he held a College living xfith lais fellowship ; he was ad- 
monished by Axchbishop Laud in 1608 fo attend Chapel more 
diligently " than formedy he bath done " (quoted in Annals, 
p. 820, from Wilkdns's Concilia).] 

LETTER III 

Hesternum diem, mi Joannes, sicut moris est conviviis 
insumpsimus. Orationem habuit satis elegantem Jo. New- 
berius. Atque hic iam puerilibus officiis satis se defunctum 
putat. Oxoniam spectat. Quid vero agit Dionysius rester ? 
--superatne, et vescitur aura ,ZEtherea ?--nam ante unum 
aut alterum mensem hic de eo poene eonelamatum fuerat. 
Certe miseret me illius tare iniquoe sortis, eui non lieet in- 
gratam hane et iamdiu inutilem eorporis sareinam deponere, 
quin potius viro et videnti tanquam in sareophago tabes- 
cendum est. Subveniat flli mature 



,,, LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 557 
oS'ipp.,v 00. Eucharistica vestra Oxoniensia perlegi, sed et 
Irenodiam Cantabrigiensem, verum hic carmina D "i Lermardi 
statim deprehendi, illic tua desidero, nec tua solum sed 
Wicchamicorum poene omnium. Hac et aliis de causis quoe 
scripsistis hoc tempore nobis certe haud nimium placent. 
Nain et plerique vestrum bilis plus satis effunditis, et patrio 
sermoni nimium indulgetis, et (quod tibi in aurem dictum 
sit) ipsa poetica facultate a Cantabrigiensibus superamini. 
Ne tamen hanc ob rem nimis se efferant Cantabrigienses, 
observatum est ex eorum numero Waidsonum quendam 
carmina Groeca, quoe D r Meetkerkius noster ante annos viginti 
conscripserat, quoeque adhuc extant in ara Jacobi, hic iam 
nimis aperto plagio nobis obtulisse pro suis. Scripseram ego 
non ira pridem ad D. Lennardum epistolam, quam, quia non 
satis compertum habui quo in loco degeret, e manibus meis 
nondum emisi. Ianl veto commodum videtur ut tu illanl 
deferas per tabellarium Cantabrigiensem, qui, ut opinor, vos 
alternis septimanis invisit. Forsan et tu aliquid addes de 
tuo, illique hunc partum suum poeticum gratulaberis ; nain 
quum ego nleas scriberem literas nondum prodierat. 
Natalitias hasce ferias non chartis opinor aut aleoe destinas, 
sed severioribus studiis ; ne tanlen aut ignis largior tibi desit 
aut aliquid eorum quoe spectant ad refectionem corporis, en 
tibi sex libras quas dedi servo M ri Hollovoei ad te perferendas. 
Harum unam dabis M r° Bresloeo addita salure plurima; 
reliquas in tuum usure servabis. Si quid ex hesternis nostris 
dapibus tibi fragnlentum obtigerit, boni consule et raie. 
Tuvs J. H. 
Deeemb. 17. [1641]. 
[The year is fixcd by the allusions to John Newberie and to the 
Eucharistica and Irenodia.--The namc of John Newberie, who 
"feels that he has done with school and looks forward to Oxfford ", 
stood second on the roll ad Oxon. of 1641 ; he must bave gone to 
Oxford early in 1642. Though he was not Founder's kin, his 
" suflïciently eloquent oration ", delivered on Dccember 16, 1641, 
was the Fundatoris Laudes {see above, p. 401) ; the accounts for 
the first quarter of the bursarial year 1651-2 contain thc entry, 
" Sol. Nuberie pro oratione habita in laudem Fundatoris, O. 13. 4 ".-- 
The Eucharistica and the Irenodia are collections of verses, pub- 
lished in November 1651 at Oxford and Cambridge respectively, 
in cclebration of the exoptatissimus & auspicatissimus reditzts of 



558 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 
Charles I. from Scotland. Of the 100 pieces in the Oxford collec- 
tion 64 are in Latin, 28 in English (patrio sermoni nimium indul- 
get/s, says thc Warden), 6 in Greek, and 2 in Hebrew ; ordy four of 
them were contributed by Wykehamists and, of the four, two are 
by the Warden of New College (see Madan, Oxford Books, ii. pp. 149- 
151). The Cambridge collection consists of nearly 100 pages of 
verses in Greck, Latin, Hebrew, English, and Anglo-Saxon (Mul- 
lingcr, iii. p. 220).--The Jacobi ,4fa is an Oxford collection, pub- 
lished on the auspicatissimus reditus of James I. from Scotland in 
1617. Its title-page contains a woodcut of a horned altar bearing 
tire ; on the front of the altar are the words Deo Reduci. Varden 
Haxris, when Proctor of the University, had contributed some 
elegiacs and some very elegant alcaics to this volume, of which 
no doubt hc had a copy at hand ; hence he was able to detect at 
once the unblushing plagiarism from " out own D r. Meetkerke" 
Meetkerke of Christ Church was not a Vykehamist ; he was " our 
own " because he had been a Prebendary of the Cathedral since 
1630; he was now Vice-Dean (see Letter II.). He was a con- 
tributor to many Oxford collections, and had written three pieces 
for the .4fa, one in Greek, one in Latin, and one in French. The 
French piece plays rather happfly with the double meaning of 
aimant : 
Nous sommes tous Aimants, et vers le Nord 
Auons eu l'oeil tours d'tre entier accord.-- 
The tabellarius Cantabrigiensis who carried letters between Oxord 
and Cambridge visited Oxford, it will be observed, ordy once a 
fortnight. The Warden's information in these letters is offert hot 
up to date ; one special cause of this fact appears from the first 
sentence of Letter IV.--" Our yesterday's feast ", from which 
John gets a " fragment ", is no doubt the distribution of a dividend 
af the College Meeting of December 16.--Of Holloway and Bresloeus 
I "know nothing; nor (beyond what the letter says) of Lcnnard 
and the unhappy Dionysius rester.] 

LETTER IV 
Natalicios hosce dies (mi Joannes) satis hilariter transegi- 
mus, eo tantum beati, quod viis omnibus nive occlusis nemo 
ad nos permeare potuit, qui triste aliquod nuncium adferret. 
Nain alioqui Londini que turbe qui motus sacrum hoc tempus 
funestarunt! Subit mihi interdum memoria belli illius 
Quadragesimalis, quod Oxonii tantis animis gessistis superiori 



v LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 559 

anno: fuit illud quidem per se ludicrum et umbratile ; sed 
tamen maioris fortasse belli, eiusque civilis, omen et exordium. 
Faxit Deus, ne vobis, qui lingua adhuc pugnare consuevistis, 
nunc armis digladiari, et (ut ait ille) " Libros Paneti, Socrati- 
cam et domum, Mutare loricis Iberis " necesse sit. Apud nos 
nihil hoc tcmpore novi contigit ; utinam ne apud vos quidem. 
Nain Cantabrigie audio, non Schismaticos modo, sed lnani- 
festos Hoereticos ipsa pulpita invasisse, qui scilicet affirment 
Christum, quum humanam naturam susciperet, abiecisse 
divinam, in ipsum Dci odium incurrisse, et alias nescio quas 
blasphemias quarum me piger meminisse. Quidam nuper 
in comitiis Episcopos illos omnes qui Petitioni subscripserant 
tanquam insanos et furiosos ad Anticyras, sire ut ipsius verbis 
utar Bethlemum, ablegandos censuit: quid istis racles, 
quibus ipsum concionari insanire est! Sed tempero me (mi 
Joannes) et tibi ac meis onmibus temperamentum illud opto, 
quod est huic tempori imprimis necessarium. Satis ubique 
pugnarum et litium, nobis (siquid virium est) pro pace omnino 
pugnandum arque contendendum est. De re privata nihil 
est quod scribam; pecunias accepisti in sumptus tuos 
necessarias ; si quid insuper meo iussu erogasti, ubi rationes 
accepero, satisfiet. Vale. 
TuJs Jon. HAm«s. 
Jauar. 11. [164½]. 

lits contents fix the date of this letter to the January of 164_. 
On December 29, 1641, twelve bishops presented a petition to the 
king concerning the violence which (so they said) awaited them 
at the doors of the House of Lords ; announced their intention to 
absent themselves from its deliberations, and declared null and 
void every Bill which might bc passed in their absence. The im- 
peachment of these bishops was moved next day in the Lower 
House ; only one voice was raised in their favour, that of a member 
who declared "that he did hot bclieve that they were guilty of 
treason, but that they wcre stark mad " ; he "thercfore dcsired 
that they might be sent to Bcdlam " (Gardiner, Hist. of England 
160s-, x. pp. 122, 125).--It was difficult to travel or to circulate 
news at the beginning of the fateful January of 164½. On thc 6th 
" Captain Robert Slyngesbie writes to Sir John Pennington : The 
house is yet very thin, about 200 of them are in the country, who 
cannot corne up by reason of the great floods " (Calendar of State 
Papers, Domestic) ; on the llth the Surrey and Hampshire roads 



560 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE *PP. 
wcrc " blockcd with ShOW ". Had thc Wardcn more rcccnt ncws 
from London than that of Dcccmbcr 30 ? or had his hilarity hot 
yct bcen intcrruptcd by bis hcaring of the attempted arrcst of the 
rive mcmbcrs, just a wcck bcfore hc wrotc ? Hc cannot have 
known in any case that on January 10 thc king had Icft London, 
" ncvcr to sec Whitchall again till hc cntcrcd it as a prisoncr to 
prcparc for dcath ".--Thc Oxford bellum quadragesimale " of last 
ycar " was pcrhaps too ludicrun et unbratile for thc notice of 
historians ; I know nothing of thc Cambridgc hcrctical prcachers.] 

LETTER V 
No CXl)CCtaS opinor (mi Joanncs) ut ad te pcrgam 
Hcbraice scribcrc. Nain (proetcrquan quod res ipsa satis 
molesta est et diflïcilis) nimis profecto arctarem animi nci 
sensa, si ihil apud te pronerem, nisi quod illo idiomate com- 
mode possct exprini. Quanquam cxcrcitatis forte hec omnia 
prompta sunt ac facilia. Atqui tu et cgo adhuc tirocs sumus. 
Non /»utabam te, cu bibliorum mcorum volumcn alterum 
pctcrcs, pure Hcbraicum voluisse; itaque interlineare misi, 
quo si eatcnus uti possis, ut rccolas ea quoe mecum una legisti, 
satisfccisti expectationi mcoe. Nain et nunc aliquid temporis 
Philosophioe tribucndum, cuius studia a te tamdiu intermissa 
sunt. Mcrcurium Aulicum (quoad Diaria sua vulgavit) nunc 
intcgrum /»ossidco, scd postcrioribus hisce scptimanis viliore 
charta cxcusum, undc coiicio non omnium rcrum apud vos 
abunde esse. De conflictu duorum exercituum Cirencestrioe 
hoc tenpore ncscio quid nagnum et horrendum expectamus. 
Faxit Dcus ut in bonum ccdat. Quanquam ego sane clades 
istas intcrnccilaS et lanienas hominum in quamcunque partem 
incidcrint vehemcnter horreo. Sapicnter et caute, ut mihi 
videtur, consanguineus noster Joannes hoc tempore jacuisse 
toro tutius existimat, Quam manibus clypeos, &c. Nam 
quod de morbo iactitat, aut simulatum est aut cette in 
holninem simulatorem et fallacem incidit. Decem solidos, 
ais, a te nutuos accepit. Quoeso ne expectes ut solvat, nain 
quicquid a me erat solvendum, iam ante accepit, misso ad hoc 
nuncio speciali, qui me de morbo eius certiorem faceret. 
Quid enim oegrotanti negarem? Vides quam nihil sit 
crcdendum huic veteratori. Sed tamen bono sis animo ; tibi 
hoc quicquid est strategenatis fraudi non erit, sed in me faba 



m LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 561 
cudctur. Sunt tibi in manibus quinque solidi quos miseram 
Guliclmo King. ttos tibi habe, reliquos propedicm mittam 
per manus )[i May. Sic tibi rationes tuoe optime constabunt. 
Vale. Tui amantissimus 
J. tt. 
«larlii 28. 1643. 

[Du_ring the peace negotiations at Oxford (February 1, 16] 
to the following April 15) John Harris the younger is quictly at 
work on Hebrew, in which he is, and his fathcr professes to bc, 
a firo.--The Mercurius ..lulicus, lately printed (it appears) on cheap 
papcr, described itself as " a Dirnall, Communicating the intelli- 
gcnce and affairs of thc Court to the test of thc Kingdome ": it was 
the chier royalist newspapcr during the Civil War, and was pub- 
lished at Oxford weekly, with occasional gaps, from January 164 
to the end of 1645 (Madan, Oxford Books, il. pp. 491-6).--Ciren- 
cester was recovered by Prince Rupert on Fcbruary 2, 164, when 
800 of the townspcople were killcd and 1100 were marched off 
towards Oxford (Gardiner, Civil War, i. p. 86); " jo)fful tidings 
of the taking of Ccester by prince Robert on Candlcmas day " 
reachcd O.xford the day following (Wood's Lire and Times, ed. 
Clark, i. p. 87). Writing nearly two months latcr the Wardcn is 
expecting to hear of another bloody conflict for the town, but no 
such conflict seems to have occurred.--The cosanguieus Joannes 
noster, for whose crafty ways the writcr has a certain amused 
tolerance, is perhaps the John Harris of W.S.p. 175 ; this third 
John Harris, " of St. Dunstan in the West ", was at the time a 
Fellow of New Collcge, and was some four years older than his 
younger namesake.--In mefaba cudetur, " the bean will be cracked 
on my head ", i.e. " I shall be the loser ", is from Tercnce (Eun. 
ii. iii. 80) ; the origin of the phrase is unknown.--The Mr. May who 
contemplates a visit to Oxford, which the next lettcr shows that 
he paid, was a Fellow of Winchester ; I -know nothing of William 
King.] 

LETTER VI 

Video te (mi Joannes) de Repub. plane mecum sentire ; 
nam quum de paee nihil posses scribere de reliquis tantum 
non tacere maluisti. Expectabam tamen ut diarium saltem 
mitteres quod novissime prodierat ; sed de eo nos ad Jacobum 
Petreium remittis ; ego hactenus non vidi hominem. Quoeso 
igitur ut in posterum celeriore utaris nuncio, nec Mercurio tuo 
20 



562 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

alas proecidas. De Colloquio pacis iam ingens apud nos 
expectatio est. Faxit Deus ne Parturiant montes--. Illud 
unum me in spem erigit nonnullam, quod qui Delegati a 
Parliamento missi sunt, viri habeantur suopte ingenio moderati 
et pacifici. Vereor autem ne quam minimum illorum arbitrio 
sit relictum. Audio etiam nuper auctum esse Delegatorum 
numerum. Aveo scire qui sint illi Adscriptitii; nam in eo 
forte haud parum momenti est. Aiunt hic rem totam 
(quoniam quadriduo non potuit) decemdiali tamen spacio 
finiendam esse; exercitu interim utroque, prout voluerit, 
grassante. At ego et longiori tempore opus esse arbitror, si 
de pace serio agatur ; et militum animos induciis aliqua ex 
parte nmlliendos. Quis enim e proelio statim se contulit ad 
convivia .9 Verum hoec Deo permittenda sunt, qui et tem- 
pestates subito vertit in 7«,i,71v. Tu. quod lacis, Pacem 
assiduis votis capessas. Idem et ego facio, et ut puto omnes 
pli. Libros quos hic reliquisti cupio scire an velis Oxoniam 
transmissos. Potui nunc misisse Robinsoni cistoe inclusos. 
Potero forte et alias cum vestibus quoe hinc ad 3I ru Mayum 
deferendoe sunt, proxima, ni fallor, hebdomade. Sed nihil 
faciendum putavi te inconsulto. Vale. Tuus Jo. H. 

.4pril. 4. 1048. 

[This letter presents little or no dittàculty. The peace negotia- 
tions (see note to Letter V.), which, in spite of the inge,s erpectatio 
at Winchester, had never promised well, were now breaking down. 
The Parliamentary Delegates sent to Oxfford in January had in- 
cluded the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Holland, and 
Shrewsbury, and eight members of the House of Commons ; one 
of these was Waller, " who had long been secretly working " for 
the king (Gardiner, Civil lt'ar, i. p. 89). On February 28 " Sir 
Peter Killegrewe came from the parlament unto the court to Oxon 
for a sale conduct for certain lords & others of the bouse of Coin- 
ruons to corne to Oxford concerning the cessation of armes for the 
treatie " ; among these adscriptitii were Harris's friend Lord Saye 
and " Mr. Hamden ", " against whom his majestic hath excepted 
as utterly dislikinge them " (Wood's Life and Times, i. p. 90). If 
Parliament refused to put others in their place, the Warden's 
misgi5ng was justified.--I cannot identify the James Pctre (?) 
of this letter. The Robinson in whose cista young Harris's books 
might have been sent to Oxfford must be the Antony Robinson of 



w LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 563 
w.ç. p. 178 ; lais naine stood fourth on the roll ad Oon. of 1642, 
and a vacancy for him at New College may have just occurred.] 

LETTER VII 
Optabam quidem (mi Joannes), quamdiu spes aliqua pacis 
affulsit, te illic esse, unde posses faustum illud mmcium ad 
nos quam celerrime transmittere. Ntmc autem video omnia 
ad bellum spectare. Malo igitur ut de reditu cogites. Nam 
quid tu facias inter strictos militum enses et bombardas ? 
Quanquam ne nos hic quidem extra telorum iactum consisti- 
mus. Verum quo minus muniti stunus fossis et moenibus, eo 
tutiores nos esse arbitror ab obsidione, que nescio an vobis 
iam Oxonie immineat. Nain Readingum iam aliquot 
millibus obsessum accepimus. Quod si vobis eadem Martis 
subeunda est alea, cupio ut te quam primum subtrahas peri- 
culo. Et quidem equam tuam hodie ad te misissem, nisi 
territus Odesius rumore belli, et nescio quot militum qui 
dicebantur Newberiam advenisse, ab instituto ithlere des- 
titisset. Nunc autem amicus tuus et familiaris Richardesius 
equum suum quo vehitur Oxoniam tibi utendum offert ; fac 
igitur ut iter tuum huc acceleres. Quod si timeas tibi a 
militibus Newberianis, commodum forte erit eam viam 
capessere, que per Hungcrfordium huc ducit et Andoveriam. 
Erit illic hospita, que sat scio te perhumaniter excipiet.--Dum 
hoec scribo, ecce Stephanus vester mihi literas affert de morte 
consocii tui Rogeri Blake. Heu quam crebra inter vos 
funera! quam vereor ne vos invaserit morbus aliquis con- 
tagiosus et epidemicus. Utcunque sit, festina, mi Joannes, 
et ad nos advola. Siquid habeas pecunie, depone apud 
M u Denis Pretorium virum [?] in partem summe a me 
debite. Et cura ut scribatur quicquid sit in dorso obliga- 
tionis mee. Salutant te otaries nostrates. Vale. 
Tuus J. H. 
April. 29. 1643. 
lA fortnight bcforc the date of this lettcr the negotiations had 
bcen brokcn off ; the Wardcn, who had heard that thc Rotmdhcads 
wcre bcsieging Reading, fcars that Oxford may soon bc attacked. 
Thc letter was written on Apri129. Esscx had laid sicgc to Rcading 
on April 15, and, though the Wardcn docs hot yct know it, the 



564 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

garrison had capitulated on the 26th (Gardiner, Civil War, i. pp. 
128-9) ; if was not, however, till June 18 that the Parliameat's 
advanced guard appeared at VVheatley, near the royal post at 
Shotover, a few mlles from Oxford (ibid. p. 150). Under the 
circumstances known to him the Varden advises John to come 
home at once ; he is to choose the longer route by Hungcrford and 
Andovcr, if the direct route by Newbury seems dangerous.--The 
timorous Oàesius, who starts for Oxford and turns back, may be 
idcntified with the Roger Oads or Oades who is often mentioned 
in the College accounts. We hear of him as " carrying victuals 
to Crawley " for the scholars during the plague of 1666 (see above, 
p. 487) ; as receiving " relef " three rimes in that year from the 
churchwardens of St. Peter Chesil--his fe was one of the plague's 
victims (Williams, Hanpshire Churchwardens' Accounts, p. 230); 
as carrying round "the letters of the autumn progress ", in Hamp- 
sbire and elsewhere, in 1668. Perhaps, as Mr. Holgate guessed, 
he was the Rogerus of Domum.--Bonbaràa is Milton's word for 
gmpowder in his delightful epigrams In Inventorem Bombardoe 
and In Proditionen Bombardicarn ; more ordinarily it means a gun, 
and Harris uses it in that sense. I find an item in the College 
accounts for 166-5 "'pro bumbardo equino ,ocat. a carbine ".- 
Richards, who solves a diflïculty by offering the loan of the horse 
which he ridcs fo Oxford, may be the Jcrman Richards of Yaver- 
land, Isle of Wight, who was at the time, as Roger Blake had 
rccently been, a Fcllow of New College (W.S.p. 175).Ve need 
not trouble about Stephanus rester and Mr. Denis ; why is the 
latter callcd vir proetorius ?] 

LETTER VIII 

Non dubito, mi Thoma, quin literas nostras libenter legas, 
et, ubi otium est, rescribas ; verum id tuna eomnaodius flet 
quuna, enaensis Probationis fluctibus, velut in tranquillo 
navigabis. Interea nolui fratrena tuuna absque epistola 
dimittere. Nec enim ille, ut Odesius noster, hoe onere se 
gravatum sentier. Çideo te (nana de fortunis tuis soleo eogita- 
tiones meas etiana in longinqua prenfittere) video, inquam, 
te inter Artiuna et 3uris Civilis professionem adhue aneipitena 
pendere ; quod si runaor ille verus sit, qui ad nos perfertur 
de Saeheverilli interitu, ad Leges eerto eertius tanquana ad 
Insulas darnnaberis. Equidena doleo hae in re vieena tuam, 
non tam quod tu Artium subsidio eariturus sis (seio enim te 



v,,, LETTERS OF WARDEN HARRIS 565 
ctiam Juristam fllis opcram daturum) quam quod ipse Artcs 
te olim cariture sint professorc. Nam quocunquc te rapict 
sivc sors sivc impctus animi tui, non dubito quin in profcssionc 
tua rpG,oç «« KOpVba['Oç sis futurus. Interim vero, ut solent 
ii, qui e domo quam eondtLxerant brevi sibi migrandum 
sentiunt, quiequid in edibus eommodum, quiequid in hortis 
rarum aut delieatum est, eolligere et sarcinis imponere, loeum 
quo adeunt deportandum ; ira suadeo ut tu onmia Artium 
penetralia rimeris, sed et hortos Aristotelieos penitus perd- 
tusque perlustres, ut siquid illie inveneris usui tuo inservi- 
turum in Juristarum eastra deferas. Feeerunt hoe olim 
Langfordii fratres, aliique quos nominare possem magni et 
excellentes viri, partim adhue superstites, partira 
Sed rides elaudendam esse epistolam, nec enim expeetas credo 
dt)Tp«çov. Et quidem me deleetant non tam prolixe quam 
erebre et frequentes litere. Vale. 
Tuus Jom HARRIS. 
W¢ro.w Co. 
Jan. 29. 1646 Il.e. 164,]. 

[Thomas Harris, to whom this letter was written, was at the 
rime still a seholar or probationary-Iellow oî New College, but 
was soon to beeome a Iull Fellow and (as his father says) navigare 
in tranquillo.--The letter is eoneerned with an interesting eonse- 
quenee oî certain provisions oî Wykeham's New College Statures 
(RR. I., VIII.). Of the seventy Fellows of New College twenty 
were to be " Jurists ", i.e. students, ten of Ciil, ten of Canon Law ; 
the remainder were to be " Artists ", i.e. they were to study Arts 
or Philosophy, and aîterwards Theology. No one eould beeome 
a Jurist who had hOt served two years' probation as an Artist, 
unless indeed a vaeancy occurred among the Jurists whieh eould 
not be otherwise filled ; in that case the senior probationer beeame 
a Jurist, whether he desired to beeome one or not, on pain oî îor- 
îeiting his fellowship. A Jurist, Erasmus Saeheverell, had just 
died when the Warden wrote; that meant, apparently, that 
Thomas Harris, being senior probationer, must fill the vaeancy. 
He would have preferred, and his father would bave preferred, 
that he should get his full fellowship as an Artist; the father 
whimsically compares his son's probable îate to a damrtatio ad 
Insulas. These isles of the unblessed are, I suppose, the Inaule 
oÎ Plautus (4sin. i. 1.21) : mills in which slaves were forced to 
grind under the lash.--Thomas became, as the Warden anticipated, 



INDEX 

[Incidental references in the te.t and notes, especially to authorities, are 
often disregarded.] 

Abbot, George (Archbishop), 242-3 
" Accusations ", 121, 193, 325, 326 
Ad Portas spceches, 313, 390, 401-3 
Adams, H. C., on Ioding of com- 
moners, 78, 492, 496 ; on pre- 
fectorial system, 112 ; on fagging, 
126; on School, 234 ; on deriva- 
tion of "books", 277-8, of 
"'remedy", 330 ; on date of 
Tabula l.egltntl, 344, 545-6 ; ou 
scrutinies, 406 ; on Domum, 409. 
,Cee also 263, 268, 359 
Addington, Henry (Lord Sidmouth), 
90, 313 
Ailmer, John. See Musoe Sacroe 
AIbert, Prince, 476 
Alcinous, gardens of, 481 
Ail Souls College, 145, 196, 242, 245, 
452, 471,472 
Almoner, 468-70 
Atlagttostes, 143, 146 
André, Bernard, 38 
Andrewes, Lancelot (Bishop), 75, 
427 
Aqueduct. Sec CondtLit 
" Arbours ", 357 
.4rma scholas'lica, 120, 245, 247, 322, 
546 
Arnold, Matthew, 307 
Arnold, Thomas, 63-4, 125, 255, 307, 
308, 310, 319, 512, 516 
Arthur, Prince (son of Henry VII.), 
38 
Ascham, 14oger, 38, 39, 288, 299, 
304-5, 311,325 
Assistant Masters, c. iv., 442, 446 
Astley, Mr., 89 
Austen, Janc, 418 
Austen Leigh, R. A., 33, 281, 306, 
431 
Au! Disce, 225, 227, 237, 322 
Awdry, William, 95, 510 
AyIiffe, WiIliam, 71 

Babb, Bernard (?), 302 
Badger, Villiam, 42 
Badger-hunts, 354, 355-6 
Baker, John (Warden), 323 
Ball Court, 228, 369, 375-7, 414 
Bancroft, 14ichard (Archbishop), 172, 
185, 212, 220, 395, J00 
Barrer, R. S. (Warden). 62, 110, 129, 
138, 140, 159, 180, 190, 211, 213, 
230, 255, 262, 274, 320, 356, 362, 
493-4, 502 
Barton, Philip, 220, 524 
Bathing, 124, 342, 350-2 
Bathurst, AIgernon, 308 
'" Battlings ", 89, 127 
Beaufort, Cardinal, 86, 279, 506 
Beaulieu Abbey, 188 
Becket, Thomas à (Archbishop), 540 
Bedford, J. G., 349 
Bedford School, 209 
Bed-n3akers, 158, 166, 167, 202, 213, 
473 
Bedsteads and bedding, 160-2 
Bedyl, John, 381,471 
Beer, 175, 180, 195, 199-203, 212 
Beeston, Henry (Head Master), 47, 
75, 226, 324 
Bells, Chapel, 477 
Beloe, 14. D., 512 
Benson, A. C., 480 
Bernard, John (Head Master), 37-8 
Betton and Fvans, Messrs., 479-80 
'" Bevers ", 196-8, 270 
Bible-Clerk, c. viii., 187, 323, 326, 
327 
Bible-reading in Hall, 145, 146, 188-9, 
548 ; in chambers, 159-60 
" Bibling ", c. xiv., 143, 146, 241 
Bifurcation, 514, 517 
Bitg, Henry (Warden), 36, 61, 70, 
185, 204, 213, 217-19, 252, 507 
Bigg Vither, V. H. V., 129 
Bill, William (Dean), 552 

573 



574 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Bflson, Thomas (Head Master, War- 
den, and Bishop), 184, 812, 886, 445 
Bishop, John, 446 
Bishop of Winchestcr as Visitor, 
209-10, 2]2, 404-5 
Blackstone, Charles, 86, 824, 858, 
488, 507 
BIomfield, R. T., 285 
Board of Education, 517 
Bodleian Notes. See Godwin, Joseph 
Bond Letters, 90, 121, 140, 258, 810, 
313, 351-2, 397, 407, 419, 432, 
477. 490-1, 501 
" Books "', c. xxi. 
"' Books-chambers ", 157, 273-5 
Bower, T. Ve., 317, 320, 395, 492 
Bowles, V¢illiam, 252, 369-71, 377-8, 
481,571 
Bowles, W. L., 369, 409 
Boy-tutors, 86-8, 114, 115, 275, 305 
Bramston, J. T., 510 
Brasenose College, 24'i, 2=$5 
Brathwa.oEe, Thomas (VCarden), 261 
Breakfast, c. xi., 
Breakfast fags, 180 
Brewhouse, 457, 472 
Brodrick, Hon. G. C., 404 
Brougham, Lord. 99-100, 217 
Bruce. Lord, 418 
Buckland, F. T., 129, 357, 361 
Bullying, 115, 121, 125, 157 
Burge, H. M. {Head Master and 
Bishop), 57, 337 
Bursars' Meadow. 205, 502 
Burt, William (Head Master and 
,Varden), 5, 46, 47, 73, 75, 87, 144), 
185, 282, 49, 533, 553 
Burton, John (Head Master), 50, 
52-3, 60-1, 72, 73, 76-8, 84, 89, 
11-$-16, 209, 229, -$60, 490, 492, 
499. 507, app. ix. 
Burv St. Edmunds School, 423 
Busy, lichard, 315 
Bute, Lord, 53. 568 
Butterfield, "tVilliam, 232, 478 
B.Ton, Lord, 108 
Cambridge University, 315-16, 351, 
554-5, 559 
Camden, Villiam, 298 
Canterbury School, 34, 69, 1-$7, 276, 
280, 309, 541 
Carmelite Friary, 365, 482 
Carrni»a lViccarnica, 421 
CariSe, ,V. D., 480-1 
Catechetical Lectures, 251, 25=$ 
Cathedral, attendance at, c. xTiii. ; 
organ, 448 ; choristers, 464 ; offi- 
ciais, 555-6 
Cathedral Grammar Schools, 272, 
280, 283, 292, 311, -$71, 472, 541. 
Sce also Canterbury School 

Cato, Dionysius, 287, 302 
Cattell, W. B., 121 
Cellar, 475 
Cena. qee Supper 
Charnber Court, c. ix., 118, 476 
Charnbers, c. ix., 113, 117-18, 207, 
241,274 
Chandler, Thomas, 290, 344, 358 
Chantries Act, 441 
Chantry, 441, 475 
Chapel, 477-81 
Chaplains, 252, 439-42 
Charles I., 9, 10, 245, 553-4 
Charles II., 106 ; lais palace, 225, 234 
Cheke, Sir John, 299, 314, 554-5 
Chernocke House, 498 
Cheyney, Thomas {Head Master), 50, 
237 
Ch]chester Cathedral, 277, 533 
" Ch]ldren ", 106-7 ; of Electors, 
835, 406-7 
Ch]tty, Herbert, 38, 68, 187, 192, 
220-1, 382, 39], 401, 413, 441, 
443, 4-45, 458, 530, 535, 5443 
Christ Church, 223, 243 
Christ's Hospital, 145, 287 
Christmas holidays, 4,8, 433-6 
Chronograms, 45 
" Church Money ", 261 
Cippenham, 161,485 
Cirencester, 560-1 
Ci»il ,Var, 9, 281-2, 47, app. viii. 
Clarke, Jeremiah, 46 
Clarke, Liscombe, 214, 538, 5=$1 
Classical authors read, c. x:xii., 248-9, 
301-4 
Classicu8, 284 
Class-rooms, 144, 230-3 
' Clean straw ", 161 
' Cleopatra ", 475-6 
Clerks of the Chapel, 442-=$, 47 
Cloister Time, c. x.-x.i., 429 
Cloisters, c..x.d., 268, 474-5 
" Clump ", 358, 364, 571 
Coal and charcoal, use of, 381-2 
Cocked bats, 266 
Cockerell, C. 1., 98, 152. 22-$, 535 
Colet, John, 52, 69, 73, 98, 163, 
216-17, 286, 290, 292, 331-3, -$22-3 
College, abolition of, suggested, 101-2 
College li-ings, 216 
College oflïcers, c. vil., 153, 501 
College Street. See Vinchester 
Streets 
College Tutor, 116 
Collier, J. F., 107 
Collins, Thomas, 79, 208-9, 828, 491 
Comissatio, 196 
Comitia Wiccamica, 891, 400, 405 
Common Room, Fellows', 206 
'" Cornmon Time ", 274 
Commoner Field, 359, 500 



INDEX 575 

Commoner Speaking, 314-15 
Commoners, cc. xxxix., xl., 53, 62-3, 
73-9, 82-4, 230, 352, 387, 397 ; 
number of, sec Number; filii 
nobilium, 223, 505, 507-8, 543-4 ; 
"' street commoners ", 53, 490-1 ; 
commoners and " Hills ", 352, and 
'" Meads ", 375 
Commoners' College. See Com- 
moners, Old 
Commoners' Court, 499 
Commoners, Middle, 497 
Commoners, New, 205, 232, 493-9 
Commoners, Old, 52-3, 78-9, 204, 
496, 499-502, app. ix. 
" Con ", 128 
Conducts, 439 
Conduit, 6, 158, 180, 476-7 
Constitutions of Clarendon, 539 
Consuetudinarium Elonense (chier 
source of information about Eton 
College). app. vil. 
Cooks, 443, 471 
Cooth, Charles, 397, 491 
Copleston, J. G., 90, 254, 355 
Corderius, 183, 196-7,250-1,287 
Coryat, Thomas (?), 21-$ 
Ctton. J. S., 4-6, 42. 223, 237 
Cox, Richard, 110, 287, 552 
Coxed, John (Warden), 61, 78 
Cra[legh, Thomas de (Varden), 40 
Cranmer, Thomas (Archbishop), 196, 
541 
Crawley, 487, 564 
Creasy, Sir Edward, 110. 549, 550 
Cricket, 356, 359, 429 ; cricket- 
fagginz, 129-30, 132 
Cromweil, Oliver, 9, 
Cromwell, Thomas, 176 
Cuckfield School, 283, 287, 552 
Cu]ver House, 155, 510 
Culver's Close, 510 
Culverlea, 510 
Curfew, 198, 379 
Custos (Eton), 284 
" Dais ". 187 
Darcy, Richard (Head Master), 222 
Day-boys, 44, 86, 223, 279, 506 
De Collegio lVittoniens, passim : date 
and authorship, 3-10 
Declamations, 311-14 
Delation, 119, 547 
Description of lVinchestero See War- 
ton, Thomas 
Dinner, c. xii., 213-15 
'" Dispers ", 193, 214 
Disraeli's Coningsby, 345 
Distichs, 52, 237. See also Jolmson, 
Christopher 
Dobins, Guido, 67, 82-4 
Dobson, John (Warden), 61 

Domum, 409-15, 428 
Domum Ball, 415-17 
Domum Day, 396, 431 
Domum Dinner, 41, 187, 189 
Domum Tree, 413 
Domum-calIing on Hills, 126, 348, 
357-8 
Dressiness of scholars, 239 
Du Boulay, J. T. H., 173, 498, 510 
Duncan, P. B., 320 
Early rising, c. x., 177 
Easter holidays, 48, 418, 430, 436-7 
Easter Monday, 341,435, 436 
Easter "lime, 389 
Edward VI., 294 
Edward VI.'s Commissioncrs, 186, 
188, 249, 258, 259 
Edward VI.'s Injunctions, 188, 451, 
462 
Edward VII., I94 
Elcho (David), Lord, 72 
EIdon, Lord, 495 
Election, c..x_-,:xii., 426,432 
Election Chamber : the electors, 103, 
396 ; the room, 164, 231 
Election Cup, 41 
Election Grace, 187, 446 
Election holidays, 79, 430-2 
Eligibility for scholarships, 103 
Elizabeth, Queen, 40-1, 294-5, 324, 
552 
" Elizabeth and Jacob ", 401 
" Ends", 116, 195 
Erasmus, 69, 241,249, 290, 297, 303 
356, 5-$6-8 
Eton Collee: Head Masters and the 
provosship, 58 ; the ttostiarius, 
68, 70 ; assistant masters, 88 ; 
pr(epositor and proepositus, 110-11 ; 
proepostors of forms, 111,276, 284 ; 
cricket-fagging, 129 ; specialized 
prepositors, 133-5, 139 ; Long 
Chamber, 134, 154 ; Latin speak- 
ing, 134, 238 ; Bible-reading, 146 ; 
Bibler, 146 ; early rising, 158, 
168-9, 171 ; breakfast, 177 ; houx 
of dinner, 183 ; Fellows desert 
Hall, 184 ; " bevers "', 196-8 ; 
Upper School, 226 ; flogging, 2il, 
325; holidays (vacations), 241, 
427, 431-5 ; need of a soc/u, 244 ; 
notes of serrnons required, 251 ; 
boy-tutors, 275 ; seventh form, 
281 ; lower forms, 281 ; promo- 
tion, 283 ; custos, 284 ; curriculum 
and introduction of Greek, c. x_-xii. ; 
Latin verse composition, 306 ; 
declamations, 311-12, 314 ; intro- 
duction of mathematics, 316, 319 ; 
accusations, 326 ; holyday - holi- 
days, 333-4, 337 ; lilontem, 345-6, 



576 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

431, 482 ; Election, 391, 393, 395, 
401, 407 ; gowns of scholars, 453 ; 
lodgiag of choristers, 457 ; ser- 
vants, 465, 471, 472 ; infirmary, 
482 ; refuges during plague, 485-6 ; 
Consueludinarium, s.r. ,çee also 
88, 39, 48, 52, 95, 148, 160, 161, 
2{12. 228, 258, 255,272-8, 277,285, 
309, 359, 439, 442, 443, 444, 448, 
452, 458, 505 
Eton v. Harrow, 108 
Exeats, c. x»xiv. 
Ex"ira Masters, 92, 816 
Eyre, Christopher, 71-2, 76-7, 89, 
114, 460 
Faing, 125-31, 132, 180, 213 
FafftZots, 164-5, 211,381 
'" Fardels ", 887, 897 
Fearon, IV. A. (Head Master), on 
number of prefects, 113 ; abolishes 
Bible-Clerk, 144 ; his boarding- 
house arrangements, 155 ; ou 
Sunday at Winehester, 248 ; in- 
stitutes new Cathedral service, 
264-5 : improves bathing-place, 
351 : revives Morning Hills, 864: 
his eleetion to a scholarship, 398 ; 
revives Ad Portas, 401 ; restores 
('hant-, 475 ; aainst increase of 
numbers, 512. ,S'ee also 110, 510 
Felloxvs. their chambers, 151, 206; 
their Common Hoom, 206 ; Bigg's 
ex-postulations with, 217- 19 ; 
IJreaching, 9, 250, 252-8, 259 ; 
cease to reside, 370 ; also 85, 86, 
74, 185, 444). See also Warden and 
Fcllows, Regulations 
Fellowships, number of, 100-1 ; 
elections to, 216, 220-1,566 
" Fever Time ", 886-7 
Fire of 1737, 165 ; of 1815, 162, 
165-6 
Fireplaces in Chambers, 164, 207 ; 
in I[all. 381-3 ; in School, 207, 227 
Fires in Hall, 379-83 
Fisb days, 179 
Fisher, H. A. L., 53, 568 
Fitzherbert, Nicholas, 285 
Fives Courts, 503 
Fleshmonger, William (Dean), 160-2, 
207 
Flint Court., 190 
" FIodstock "', 535 
FIogging. See Biblin 
Football, 856, 359 ; football-fagging, 
129, 130 
Forde. William, 68-9 
Forms, c. x.'. 
Founder's kin, 86-7, 103, ll7, 434 
Fowkes, Thomas, 71 
Freeman, E. A., 126, 540 

French Mastcrs, 94, 315 
Freshfield, Edwin, 449, 475 
riday fasts, 179, 181 ; floggings, 325 
l'romond, John, 453-4, 475 ; Fro- 
mond's priest, 41 
Fuller, John, 99 
" Functure ", 163 
Fundator Speech, 401,557 
Furneaux, Henry, 808 
Gabell, H. D. (Head Master), 51, 
91, 229, 254, 272, 827-8, 852, 491, 
492 -8 
Gale, Frederick, 855 
Gaines, development of, 859-61 ; 
gaines and sports on Hills, 855-7 
Gardens, scholars', 138 
Garite, le, 585 
" Gatherings," 809-11 
George III., 199, 234, 858,874 
George IV., 421 
Georgites, 72 
" Gispins "' (or " jacks "'), 195 
Glee Club, 232 
Glyd, Hichard, 44 
Goddard, W. S. (Head Master), 51-2, 
79-80. 91, 94, 123, 210, 229, 822, 
360, 420. 461, 492 
Goddard Scholarship, 51 
Godson's map, 228, 376, 418, 534 
Godwin. Joseph (Bodleian notes), 
126, 256, 270, 272, 278, 280, 297, 
8{)1-10, 824, 835, 848, 857, 428, 
434 
Going Circum, 267-9 
Golding, Christopher (Varden), 61 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 89 
"' Good Friday Prose ", 437, 503 
" Good Friday Passage "', 370, 437 
Governing Body of 1871, 81-2, 101-2 
Gowns of posers, 390 ; of quiristers, 
453-4, 538 ; of scholars, 102-3, 
453-4 
Grace in Hall, 186-7 
Grass Court, 205, 869, 502 
Gratuities, 52, 208-10 
" Great Death", 40.6, 486 
Greek, Introduction of, c. xxii. 
Greek titles, 85, 467 
Green, J. R., 182 
Grocyn, SVilliam, 289-91 
Grotius, 258-4 ; "" Grotius Time ", 
254 
Guernsev, 104 
Guildforl School, 168 
Gunner's Hole, 851 
Gunpowder Plot sermon, 252, 401 
Hair-cutting, 120, 245, 247, 470-1 
Hall, c. xdi., 222-8, 882-8 
Hallam, Henry., 288 
IIampshire Chronicle, The, 66, 165, 



INDEX 

577 

199, 876, 403, 4]3, 414, 4]6, 419, 
429, 479-80 234 268 
Iardy H.J. 225, 233, , ,477 
IIarintn, Sr John, 40-1 
Harmar, John (Head Master and 
Warden), 43 
Harpsfield, Nicholas, 98 
Harpsicon, 446-7 
Harris, John (Warden), 10, 43, 45, 
140, 159, 238, 250, 251, 276, 282, 
293, 440, 447-50, 459, 467-8, 473, 
482-5, 532 ; his ietters, app. 4ii. 
Harris, John (the younger), app. viii. 
Harris, Thomas, app. viii. 
Harris, Wiiliam (Head Master), 47-50, 
73, 87-8, 211, 226, 238, 239, 241, 
2-$5, 813, 384, 389, 402, 428, 434 
Harris, William (joiner), 477 
Harrison's Description, 285 
Harrow Schooi, 238, 283, 287, 295, 
318, 356, 506 
Hatherley, Lord, 357, 499, 500 
Hats, wearing of, 24l-3, 353, 368, 
455 
Haverfieid, F. J., 50, 233, 234 
Hawkins, C. H., 92, 510 
Hawtrey, E. C., 95, 129, 399 
Hawtrey, Stephen, 319 
Head Master, cc. i., ii., 171, 185, 253, 
272, 280, 352-3, 4'7, 490, 516-18 
Head .Master's house, eaxlier, 492, 
568-9 ; present, 495-7 
Heathcote, Gilbert, 4, 139, 193, 201, 
39, 405, 
Heathcote, G. ,V., 4, 66, 127, 
Hebrew, 293, 560-1 
Henderson, C. C., 92-3, 214, 272, 885, 
451, 464, 500 
Henry VI., 37, 38, 133, 445 
Ilenry VIII., 258 
Heydon, Benjamin (Head Master), 
82-4 
Hih table, 117 
"" Hiiis ", cc. xxvi.-xxxii., 140, 174, 
326, 368 
lliçtory and Antiquities of Winchester, 
78, 90, 237, 387, 418, 418, 454 
IIoadley, Benjamin (Bishop), 59, 60, 
72, 208 
Hodgson, Francis, 95, 99, 399 
Holgate, C. W., 172, 229, 278, 308, 
401, 419, 471, 567, 568. See also 
Long Rolis 
Holidays (vacations), c. xxxiv., 48-9 
Hook, W. F. (Dean), 124, 242, 263, 
343, 857, 499, 500 
Hoole, Charles, 293, 298, 300 
Horman, Wiiliam (Head Master), 
38-9, 170, 276, 284, 288-9, 332 
Hornby, J. J., 95, 319 
Horne, Benjamin, 71, 88 
Horne, Robert (Bishop), 43, 69, 176, 

186, 189, 212, 239, 249, 259-60, 
273, 276, 297, 348, 352, 385, 4D0, 
433, 441, 4, 45, 478, 536 
llostiarius, the title, 65-6. See 
Second Master 
Huntingford, Edward, 124 
Huntingford, G. I. (Warden and 
Bishop), separates Coilege and 
commoners, 62, 502 ; revises 
Tabula Legum, 122, 237 ; on right 
of tunding, 122-4 ; opposes "" in- 
novation ", 158,180, 230 ; describes 
tire of 1815, 165-6 ; his ordinations, 
255 ; claires "' remedy "-granting 
power, 336 ; maintains exclusive 
right to Hills, 342-3 ; restores 
Meads, 374 ; on Chapei windows, 
479. See also 61, 62, 80, 90-1, 97, 
127, 221, 255, 261, 262, 309, 337, 
351, 382-3, 394, 403, 464 
Huntingford, G. V., 266 
Huntingford, Henry, 221 
Huntingford, Thomas, 355 
Hutton, John, 161, 298-9 
" Ichnography " of Old Commoners, 
534, 569 
Imber, John, 70, 279 
Inbreeding, 95, 513 
lformator, the title, 34-5. See Head 
Master 
Inoculation, 416 
Intuitu charitatis, 537-8 
Inventories, 67, 162, 191, 222, 22 
448, 468, 475, 483 
Ire, William (Head Master), 37 
Jacobites, 72. 261 
Jam Lucis, 266-7,  
James, Thomas, 33, 125, 177, 283, 306. 
314, 316, 336, 337. ce alto Eton 
College 
" Jentacular Confabdations ", 175 
Jentaculum, 175-6. See Breakfast 
Jesus Coilege, Cambridge, 176 
Johnson, Christopher Head Master), 
hot the author of De Collegio Win- 
toniensi, 3-4 ; his distichs, 37-8, 0, 
323, 522, 524 ; as Head Master, 42- 
43 ; his Themes, 42-3, 46, 57, 119, 
133, 140, 147-8, 156, 170-1, 176, 
189, 223, 238, 239, 240, 242, 24, 
280, 293-4, 312, 324, 325, 334-5, 
336, 338, 347, 357, 387, 391, 405, 
407, 428, 468, 486, 546-8 ; athor 
of Tabula Legum ? 237, app. ri. ; 
Iris De l'ila et Rebus, 522, 524 
Johnson, Gerge, 67, 556 
Jones, Thomas, 68, 83 
" Jorums ", 198, 202 
Joseph, H. W. B., 339 
Jurists and Artists, 564-6 
2 I' 



578 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Kcate, John, 254 
Ken, Thomas (Bishop), 74, 127, 152, 
156, 157, 159,226,267, 445, 457, 489 
" Ken " (chamber, 152 
Kennaway, Sir John, 495 
King, George, 444, 447-8 
King's Collcge, Cambridge, 152, 479 
Kingsgate llouse, 512 
Kingsgate Park, 367, 498 
Kingsgate Street. Sec Winchester 
Streets 
Kingsmen, 95 
Kirby, T. F., on ]odging commoners 
in College, 82-4 ; on tunding, 121 ; 
on rires of 1737 and 1815, 165 ; on 
'" bcvers", 197 ; on day-boys, 223, 
506 ; on disappearance of Iower 
forms, 278-9 ; on origin of " Hills ", 
344 ; on Ball Court, 375-6 ; on 
holidays, 424-5 ; on the organist, 
444-5 ; on Iodging quiristcrs, 456- 
457 ; on chapel wainscotting, 478 ; 
on Sick-house, 483-4 ; on Old Com- 
moners, 568. Sec a/so 6, 40, 41, 68, 
74, 75, 160, 164, 214, 227, 233-4, 
250, 332, 342, 372, 441, 447, -148, 
452, 458,477-8 
Kitchen, 475-6 
Kitchin, G. W. (Dean), 469, 482 
Knives and forks, 214-15 
La Croix, Octavius, 417 
Landor, W. S., 300 
Langbaine, Gerard, 554-5 
Lanio, 467-9 
Latin psalms, 160 
Latin speaking, 134, 238, 292, 304-5 
Laud, William (Archbishop), 185, 245, 
380, 556 
Lavender Meads, 366 
Leach, A. F., on date of poem, 6 ; on 
its characteristics, 9 ; on the title 
Hostiarius, 65 ; on assistant 
masters, 85, 88 ; on pauperes et 
indigentes, 105, app. v. ; on origin 
of prefects, 111 ; on fagging, 127 ; 
on Eton Long Chamber, 134, 154 ; 
on " clean straw ", 161 ; on School, 
234; on disappearance of Iower 
forms, 279-80, of seventh form, 
281 ; on introduction of Greek, 289- 
291 ; on trulgaria and ru/gus, 306 ; 
on flogffing, 325; on origin of 
" Hills " and 31ontem, 344-6, 358, 
364 ; on CIoister Time, 885-6, 388 ; 
on origin of Domum, 410-11 ; on 
holidays, 424. Sec also 38, 39, 68, 
99, 150, 222, 225, 227, 269,286, 287, 
296, 301, 331, 399, 481 
Leave-out Days, 337-8 
Lee, G. B. (Varden), 61, 62, 63, 66, 
158, 201, 406, 503 

Lee, Harry (Warden), 60, 61, 66, 79, 
369, 372, 412, 429, 462, 464 
Library ( = Chantry), 388, 475 
Lily, Vi]llam, 39, 290, 291 
Lipscombe, William, 415-16 
Lockburn, 368, 371, 571 
Locke, A. A., 415-16 
Logan's view, 166, 366, 476, 481, 
484, 570 
" Long Half ", 429, 436 
Long Parliament, 139-40 
Long Rolls, 66, 85, 87, 91,95,101,106, 
135, 140, 141, 142, 152, 153, 278, 
280, 406, 440, 443, 459-61, 463-4, 
467-8, 471, 489, 508 
Louvre in Hall, 382-3 
Love, Nicholas (Head Master and 
Warden), 331, 336 
Lowe, Robert (Lord Sherbrooke), 93, 
172, 252, 263, 270, 320, 360, 500 
Lowth, Robert (Bishop), 255, 478 
Lowth, Robert (the younger), 373-4, 
493, 499 
I.ouoEhe, John, 68-9 
Ludlow church, 480 
Macdonald, Alexander, 94 
Magdalen College, 112, 223, 42, 443, 
452, 458, 472, 488 
Ma.gd..alen College SIS., 7-9, app. 
1-, ll. 
5Iagdalen Itall, 246 
.'lagislri, 67, 243 
Malet, Sir Alexander, 90 
Malim, William, app. xii. 
Manciple, 471-2 
Mansfield, R. B., 129, 180, 406 
5laps in School, 7, 225 
«, Marbles", 8, 153, 154 
Marshal, 140 
Martial mornings, 303 
Martin's Lire of Wykeham, 506 
Mary, Princess (daughter of Henry 
VII.), 182 
Mary, Queen, 40-1,486 
"' Mat Money ", 261 
Mathematical Masters, 93, 316-21 
Mathematics, introduction of, 315-21 
Mathew, Robert, 7-10, 44-5, app. iii.; 
his poem, passim 
Maundevile, Sir John, 880 
Maxwell Lyre, Sir H. C., 70, 95, 99, 
129, 134, 154, 159, 177, 184, 312, 
345, 3.$6, 381, 391, 395, 42, 448, 
458, 457, 482, 550 
McDonnell, M. F. J., 291, 294, 295, 
318, 549-50 
Mead, Robert, 531 
" Meads ", c. xxix., 205, 206,228, 360, 
414, 435, 481-2, 504 
Meals, cc. xi., xii., xiii., 210-15 ; addi- 
tional, 127-8 



INDEX 

579 

" Medal Speaking", 418-21 
Meetkerke, Edward, 555-8 
"' Men " ( = boys), 107-8 
Meonstoke, 532-3 
Merchant Taylors School, 78, 292, 
332, 334 
.'lercurius Aulicus, 560, 561 
Mereda, 127, 159, 196, 198, 270 
Merton College, 111, 113, 404, 472, 
4,88 
Mew, Peter (Bishop), 4£)2-8 
Milner's History of Wichester, 98, 99, 
237 
Milton, 286, 800, 315 
' Misery Corner ", 849 
" Moab ", 158, 205 
Moberly, George (Head Master and 
Bishop), lais relations with Warden 
and Fellows, 60-4 ; on meanLqg of 
"' Masters" and '" Tutors ", 98 ; on 
science-teaching, 94 ; on appoint- 
ment of masters, 94-5 ; on pre- 
feetorial system, 111 ; on boy- 
tutors, 116; postpones hour of 
rising, 173 ; as preacher, 255-6 ; Iris 
Greek Testament lessons, 256 ; on 
Going Circum, 269 ; alters school- 
hours, 271 ; on flogging, 827, 828- 
829 ; on exanfination for scholar- 
ships, 399-400 ; starts Easter holi- 
days, 437 ; Iris '" Good Friday 
Prose ", 437 ; New Commoners, 
493-4, 497-9 ; on disestablishment 
of Commoners, 498-9 ; starts 
Tutors' Houses, 498, 509 ; pro- 
motes unity of school, 502-4  on 
numbers, 509. See alto 55, 58, 90, 
92, 129, 144, 174, 214, 232,254,283, 
815, 380, 496, 511, 517 
Moberly, G. H., 54$ 
Moberly, H. E., 498 
Moberly Library, 135-6, 232 
Moberly, Mrs. George, 414, 493, 496 
Modern Languages, teaching of, 315 
3lotem. See Eton College 
'" Monthly " examinations, 264 
More, John, 458 
More, Sir Thomas, 290 
Morland, Sir Samuel, 315-16 
Morley, George (Bishop), 223, 226, 
472, 533 
Morshead, E. D. A., 326 
Morshead, Frederick, 510 
Morys, John (Varden), 365, 506 
Motmdsmere, 486-7 
Mundy, F. N. C., 416 
z'tlusoe SacroE, 44-5, 236, 291,299-800, 
532 
Music, Master of, 446 
Names-cutting in Meads, 367 ; in 
Cloisters, 388 

New College, 94, 95, 111,113,152,176, 
177, 188, 200, 223, 268, 312, 379, 
382, 40`1, 410, 412, 442, 443, 448, 
452, 456, 470, 472, 478, 581, 538, 
542, 565-6 
Newark School, 339-40 
Newberie, John, 556-7 
Ncwbury, 392, 396, 401, 563 
Newhouse, 378, 484 
Nicholas, John (Wardcn), 133, 158, 
178, 226, 261, 478, 570 
Nomination of scholars, 303, 398 
Non-licet Gate, 365, 370 
" 1otions ", 107, 322 
Nowell, Alexander (Dean), 199 ; his 
CatechisTn, 250, 276, 297 
Number of membcrs of SVvkeham's 
colleges, 97-9 ; of Fellows 97, 100 ; 
of scholars, 100-1 ; of quiristcrs, 
463-4 ; ofcommoners, c. xl., 47, 50, 
61, 76, 78, 87, 89, 91, 92, 99, 225, 
228-9, 489, 492, 497-8 

Oades, Roger, 563-4 
Ogle, Sir William, 46 
Olla. See "Tub" 
On-place "', 358 
Organ Room, 232, 4.76 
Organist, 97, 444-8 
Organs, 444-5, 446, 448 
Oricl College, 111, 488 
Ostiariu«, c. iii., 65, 118, 141, 327 
Oxforà and Cambridge verses, 557-8 
Oxford and the Civil War, app. viii. 
Oxford colleges, refuges of, during 
plague, 488 
Oxford University Commission, 100- 
101, 103, 399, 509 

Paedagogus, 34, 35, 65 
Palmer, Roundel! (Lord Selborne), 
230, 252, 254, 257, 263, -064, 310, 
314, 343, 349, 360-1, 493 
Parker, Matthew (Archbishop), 69, 
549, 550 
Pauperes et indigentes, 104-6, app. v. 
Peasants' Revoit, 540, 5.tl 
Peel, Sir Robert, 243 
Penrose, F. C., 235 
Pepys's Diary, 194, 316, 396, -t48 
Peregrine Piekle, 53 
"' Pernoctation abroad ", 75, 76, 118 
Phillips, Owen, 71 
Pila palmaria, 356 
Pinke, Robert, 441, 475 
Plague and epidemics, 393, 425-6 ; 
refuges during, 485-8 
Play-acting, 312, 433 
Pope, Sir Thomas, 288, 292 
Porter and barber, 470-1 
Posers (apposers, opposers, etc.), e. 



580 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Potengcr, John (Head Master), 5, 6, 
44-6, 75, 236, 291,299, 300, 324, 338 
Potenger, John (the younger), 87, 
115, 313, 489 
Proepositors, 109-11. See Prefects 
PrwpoMtu.% 110 
Prandium. See Dinner 
Prefeet of Hall, 121, 124, 136-7, 140, 
141, 142, 144, 149, 153, 1.54, 186, 
189, 193, 238, 326, 339, 352, 353, 
381, 461 
Prefect of Hal|'s bed, 151 
Prefect of Hall's book, 107, 110, 121, 
130, 144, 145, 149, 151, 165, 166, 
173, 182, 193, 242, 261, 274, 330, 
337, 350, 855, 362, 303, 407, 415, 
461 
Prefect of Library, 135-6, 153 
Prefect of School, 138-9, 142, 153, 157, 
166, 232, 338-9 
Prefcct of Tub, 135, 137-8, 142, 190-2, 
193 
Prcfccts, c. vi. ; in full power, 114, 
385 ; in halfpower, ll8 : Prefects" 
Ictters to the Varden, 122-4, 131, 
429, 435. Sec also 152-4, 273, 275, 
354-5, 357 
Prefects" Library, 135, 205, 231 
Prefects of Chapel, 139-41, 142, 144 
Prickard, A. O., 412, 504 
Prior's Barton, 367 
Promotion, 283-4, 318-19 
Public School Commissioners, 158, 
164, 319, 503 
Public Schools Act, 99, 151 
Pueri. 8ce "Childrcn" 
Pulpit in School, 166, 224, 227, 313 
" Pulpiteers ", 256 
Purnell, John, 59, 60 
Purncll, ,Villiam, 253 
Quecn's College, Oxford, 99, 176 
Quintilian, 236, 545 
Quiristers, c. -''xxi., 185, 195, 201, 
223, 449, 537-9 
Rashdall, Hastings, 238 
Rashdall and Rait's New College, 59, 
0.49, 403, 542 
Rcading, 563 
Reading, John, 409-10, 446 
Rebellions, 89-91, 122 
Rede, John (Hcad Mastcr and 
Warden), 38 
Rede, Sir Richard, 211 
R«galis platea, app. iv. 
Regulations and Resolutions of War- 
den and Fellows, 76, 106, 137, 139, 
154, 156, 158, 159, 164, 166, 172, 
180, 192, 193, 195, 201, 211, 227, 
230, 253, 267, 274, 340-1, 350, 368- 
369, 371-2, 435, 473, 481,494, 501 

Regu]ations of Governing Body of 
1871, 102, 116 
Remedies, c. xxv., 270, 273, 407-8 
Remedy-ring, 4-6, 136, 138, 338-9 
Remissions, 330-1, 386 ; tickets of 
remission, 328 
Rendall, M. J. (Head Master), 73, 
380, 480 
Repton, G. J., 495-7, 502 
Rhetorica brevLç. Sec Robinson, Hugh 
l{ich, Edward, 320, B23, 414 
Richardson, George, 94 
Ridding, C. H., 73, 266 
Ridding, George (Head Master and 
Bishop), "Second Founder ", 53-5 ; 
attitude towards old customs, 55-6 ; 
propagalor flnium, 54-5, 359 ; his 
Ad Wiccamicos, 56 ; appointment 
to headmastership, 73 ; limits 
cricket-fagging, 129; on fagging, 
132 ; abolishes use of surplices by 
scholars, 140 ; improves scholars' 
accommodation, 151 ; disestab- 
Iishes Commoners, 232, 499 ; his 
class-rooms, 232 ; abolishes Sunday 
lessons, 248 ; discontinues Jam 
Lucis, 266-7 ; prorides bathing- 
place, 351 ; abolishes '" Hills ", 362- 
363 ; increases number of com- 
moners, 509-12. 'ee a/so 57, 136, 
173, 271, 333, 516 
Ridding, Lady Laura, 204-5 
"" Riddings ", 54-5, 366 
Robinson, E. A., 103 
Robinson, Hugh (Head Master), 5, 43, 
75, 160, 181, 196. 225, 296 
" Roll of accused persons ", 120, 245- 
247, 461 
" Round Table", 187 
Rous, Francis, 158, 251 
Rowlands, George, 478 
Rugby School, 33, 57, 63-4, 89, 125, 
255, 300, 307, 316, 319, 436 
Rupert, Prince, 561 

Sacrist, 169, 556 
Saffron Walden School, 287, 552 
Saints" Days, 337-8 
,Salve Dira potens corner, 138 
ambuca, 447 
Sandwich School, 334 
Sargeaunt, John, 87, 126, 146, 178, 
184, 188, 200, 207, 217, 281, 317, 
382, 427, 487 
Saye and Scie, Lord, 133, 434, 562 
"Scheme ", 163, 170 
Schola .5Iusa, 458, 476 
Scholars, e. v. and passim 
Scholars' Register, 121,392, 530 
School, New, c. xv., 186, 150, 204, 
287, 460 ; lighting of, 157 ; warm- 
ing of, 207, 414 



INDEX 

581 

School, OId, c. xv., 118, 150, 155,204, 
2O6 
School Court Door, 62, 502 
School Passage, 370, 437 
School-days and school-hours, c. xx., 
Science, teachinl of, 92, 94, 231,517 
«, Scobs ", 143, 20,4, 225, 232 
Scott, Charles, 211 
" Scourgings ", 23 
Screen-wall in Outer Court, 457 
" Scrubbings ", 23 
Scrutiny, 403-6. See also Super- 
visors 
Second Master, c. iii., 186, 252, 253, 
254, 272, 280, 52, 439 
Second Master's house, 76-7, 81, 82-4, 
,çecunda Clçsis, 278, 461 
Secunda et Quarta Classis, 278, 462 
Seneschal of Hall, 192, 213, 424, 471 
Sergeant, E. W., 510 
Serrnons in Chapel, 250, 252, 253, 260, 
262, 433, 442 ; in Cathedral, c. 
XVlli o 
Servants, c. x.xxvii., 167 
Seventh Charnber, 222, 457. See also 
Chambers 
Seventh Charnber Passage, 150, 154, 
222 
Seventh Forrn, 281-2 
Seward, John, 67 
Scwell, J. E., 54, 361 
Shadwell, L. L., 10ô, 330, 335 
Shaftesbury, third Lord, 200 
Sherer, Moyle, 128, 354, 57, 398 
Sheridan, C. B., 
Sheridan, R. B., 420-1 
" Short Half ", 430 
Shrewsbury, St. Mary's Church, 480 
Shrewsbury School, 7, 33, 73, 139, 
163, 183, 295, 312, 340, 423, 487-8 
Sick-house, 204, 66, 386-7, 482-5 
Silkstead, 468, 487 
Sissrnorc, Henry, 477 
Sistern Chapel, 79, 491, 535, 571, 
al)p. ix. 
Sistern Spital, 74-7, 366, 492,494, 571, 
al)p. ix. 
Sixth Charnber, 136, 142, 239, 266. 
See a/so Charnbers 
Sixth Chambering, 
" Skirmishing on ", 58 
Slaughterhouse, 468-9 
Smallpox, 402 
Smith, Goldwin, 95 
Smith, W. P., 40, 294 
Socius, need of a, 120, 243-4, 353 
Solarium, 222 
Southampton School, 298, 313 
Southgate Corner, 510 
Southgate I-Iill, 173, 498 

Southgate House, 510 
Southwell Minster, 331 
Speed, Sarnuel, 72, 73, 77, 568 
Speed's Map, 358 
Speedyman, 400 
Spha, risterium, 376 
St. Albans School, 65, 147 
St. Elizabeth's College, 366 
St. Paul's School, 33, 52, 67, 98-9, 231, 
283, 290-1, B18, B96. Sec also 
Colet, John 
St. Stephen's Chapel, 366 
St. Swithun's Priory, 445, 469 
'" Standing-up ", 307-8 
Stanley, A. P. (Dean), 63-4 
Stanley, If, dward (Head Master), 43- 
44, 75, 171, 177, 276, 324" 
S/apleton, Thomas, 294 
Statures. See Wykeham's Statures 
Statutes of Governing Body of 1871, 
82, 101-2, 405 
Stephens, W. R. W. (Dcan), 263 
Sterry, Wasey, 11 l, 202, 255,282,401, 
407 
Stewart Memorial, 89 
Sfil)ends oï Masters, 207-]0 
Strect corrgnoners. Sec Commoners 
Sub-Warden, 36, 250 
Sumner, C. R. (Bishop), 399 
Sumner, Heywood, 164 
Sundays, ce. xvii., xviii. 
Sunnyside, 511 
Superisors, 91, 118, 120, 127, 140, 
176, 177, 184, 185, 195, ]99, 201, 
208-10, 212,213, 282, 67, 95, 396, 
444)-3, 456 
Supper, 193, 198 
Surplices, 139-4) 
Swanton, Francis, 93 
Sweeting, E. T., 94", 44,6, 447 
Table linen, 194" 
Tabula Legum, c. xvi., 119, 122, 156-8, 
185, 186, 189, 273, 344, 353, 354, 
app. vi.; metrical version, 185, 
236, 240, 246, 523-4 
Tait, A. C. (Archbishop), 319 
Tallow candles, 163 
Taunton, W. la., 1,7, 413 
Taylor, John, 164, 227, 254, 482 
Taylour, Christopher, 70 
Tea and coffee, 175, 180, 199 
Tea-room, 181,206, 388 
"Teml)e ", 481-2 
Ternl)le, Frederick (Archbishop), 319, 
516 
Templum (Chapel), 54,6 
Terry, Thomas, 88 
Thackeray's Esmond, 53, 367 
Tbemes. See Johnson, Christopher 
Thicknesse, George, 52 
Thorna» John (Bishop), 209-10,-212 



582 ABOUT WINCHESTER COLLEGE 

Thresher, J. H., 397, 504 
" Thule ", 151, 456 
Tirne-tables, 270-2 
Tomline, George (Bishop), 403 
Tower, rebuilding of, 181,388, 477 
"' Toys ", 162, 225 ; "" toy-rooms ", 
155 ; "toy-time ", 274-5 
Tracts, 7, 521 
Trees in Meads, 368, 372 
Trelawny, Jonathan (Bishop), 130, 
158, 172, °-07 
" Trench ", 124, 348, 353 
Trenchers, 193-4, 470 
Trevelyan, G. M., 258, 541 
Trinity Church ( = Cathedral), 260, 
Trinity Co]lege, Carnbridge, 194 
Trojan horse, 290 
Trollope, Anthony, 125, 202, 323,328 
Trollope, T. A., 125, 137, 190, 201-2, 
230, 231, 255, 277, 309, 320, 323, 
328, 361, 398, 464, 501 
Truckle-beds, 162 
Trussell, Villiarn, 68, 74 
"'Tub", 190-2; "' Tub Mess", 138 
Tucker, Villiarn, 294 
Tuckwcll, Villiarn. 129. 136, ]38, 252, 
256, 264, 308, 314, 321,326-7, 361, 
386, 391 
Tunbridge, 349, 351, 353, 356, 362 
'" Tunding", 119-25, 826, 362, 461 
" Turf", 361, 375 
Turner, E. J., 94. 510, 51l 
Turner, Francis (Bishop), 226 
Tutors, 92-3. Sec also Bov-tutors 
Tws.'chener , John (Head .iaster), 40, 
248, 276, 287, 333 
Untidiness of scholars, 239-40 
" Up to books ", 277 
Usher, the title, 66. Sec Second 
Master 
Valor EccleMa.ticus, 34 
"' Varyings ", 308-9 
Verney letters, 49, 71, 88, 185, 245-6, 
41 l, 428,431-2, 433-4, 489 
Verse-tasks, 305-6 
Villeins, 539-40 
Vincent, Williarn, 317 
Vitelli, Cornelio, 289 
l'ularia, 306. See also Horrnan, 
Williarn 
" Vulguses ", 305-7 
,VaineTiht, J. B., 41, (19 
Wa]cott, M. E. C., 52, 98, 160, 189, 
268, 277, 284, 385, 387-8, 410-11, 
444, 568 
Walford, J. D., 93, 231, 320, 477 
Ward, W. G., 349 
Warden, office of, 86, 57-60, 117, 171, 

886, 385 ; lodges commoners, 74 ; 
deserts Hall, 183-5, 380 ; his house 
and grounds, 205, 570 
Warden and FeIlows, c. xiv. ; agree- 
ment with Dobins, 82-4 ; appoint- 
ment of masters, 94-5 ; on nurnber 
of commoners, 229, 501 ; provide 
class- rooms, 230- 1 ; apprentice 
quixisters, 468 ; promote building 
of New Commoners, 493-4. Sec 
also 61, 62, 78, 76, 79, 80, 85, 100, 
150, 164, 172, 186, 399, 462. Sec 
also Regulations 
Warden's gallery, 231 
Warden's garden, 166, 205, 366, 872 
SVardenship of New Collcge, 57-60, 
183 
Warham, Williarn (Archbishop), 289 
Warner, R. T., 88, 411,436 
Warton, Joseph (Head Master),-50, 
51, 60, 61, 77, 78, 79, 90, 94, 208-9, 
229, 253, 414, 430, 434, 437, 490 
Warton, Thornas, 78, 109, 115, 128, 
268, 351, 354, 428, 454, 482 
Warton, Thornas (the younger), 267 
Washerwornen, 473 
Waynflete, Villiarn (Head Master and 
Bishop), 37, 175, 472 
Veeders, 190, 473 
Veelkes, Thornas, 446 
.Vesley, S. S., 446 
Vesley College, Dublin, 329 
West, Sir Algernon, 108 
Vestminster School : boy-tutors, 87, 
275 ; fagffing, 126 ; moderatores 
rempli, 139 ; early rising, 168-9 ; 
breakfast, 177 ; prebendaries desert 
Hall, 184 ; Bible-reading in Hall, 
188 ; " bevers", 196 ; consump- 
tion of beer, 200 ; stipends of 
rnasters, 207 ; class-roorns, 231 ; 
Latin speaking, 238 ; need of a 
socius, 244 ; notes of serrnons re- 
quired, 251 ; lower forms, 281 ; 
seventh forrn, 282 ; curriculum and 
introduction of Greek, c. x_xii. ; 
declarnations, 311-12 ; introduc- 
tion of rnathernatics, 315, 317, 818 ; 
flogging, 325 ; accusations, 326 ; 
plague and refuges during pla,oue, 
426-7, 487 ; teachin of choristers, 
459 ; statures of 1560, 550-2. Sec 
also 52, 146, 157, 160, 180, 254, 276, 
285, 334-6, 844, 382, 44)0, 434, 491 
,Vhigs and Tories, 72 
Vhipping, 302, 348. Sec also " Bib- 
ling " 
Vhit Monday, 341,435 
itaker, Williarn, 297, 299 
,ite, John (Head Master, Varden, 
and Bishop), 40-2 
Vitehead, Villiam, 219, 354 



INDEX 

583 

Whiting, Wilfiam, 458 
Vhitsuntide holidays, 48, 413, 424-31 
Vldttinton, Robert, 39, 288 
Whole l)uly of lan, 253 
tViccamical Chaplet, 347 
"Vickham, Edward, 93 
SVickham, E. C. (Dean), 107, 155, 231, 
386 
Wickham, H. J., 498 
,Vickhara's, 492 
Villiams, David (Head Master), 51, 
80, 197, 213, 254, 255, 309, 328, 
337, 350, 352, 359 
Williams, Letitia, 401 
Wilson, H. A., 7, 452 
"Vinchester, Charles I. at, 9, 10 ; 
Cromwell's attack upon, 9 
Vinchester churches and parish 
re¢isters : St. John's, 257 ; St. 
Maurice's, 67, 426, 487, 530-1 ; 
St. Michael's, 47 ; St. Swithun's, 
83 
Winchester MS., 4, app. i., ii. 
"Vinchester races, 418-20 
Vinchester streets, 5B4-6 ; Canon 
Street, 491, 536 ; College Strcet, 
app. iv. ; King Street, 536 ; 
Kingsgate Street, 366, 491, 535, 
536 ; 69 Kingsgate Street, 498, 
536 
Winston, Charles, 479 
Wither, V¢illiam, 251, 555-6 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 346 
Vomen-servants, 472-3 
V¢ood, Anthony, 47, 301, 388, 390 
Vordsworth, Charles (Bishop), 3, 4, 
5, 80. 94, 129, 130, 143, 153, 155, 
156, 343, 353, 359, 361, 498, 525, 
527 
Vordsworth, Christopher (Bishop), 
254-5, 359 
V¢ordsworth, Christopher (Canon), 
102, 108, 176, 194, 339 
'tVordsworth, John (Bishop), 397 
Votton, Sir Henry, 427 
Votton-under-Edge School, 423 
Vren, Sir Christopher, 234-5 
Wrench, 1. G. K., 277, 331 
Vriting masters, 316-20 
Wycliffe, John, 258 
Wykeham, William of, his Foundation 
Deed, 36, 538, 539 ; lais Register, 
67, 257 ; his wiil, 34, 67 

Wykeham's Statutes, 99, 215-17 ; 
scholars' copy of, 97, 109, 149, 355 ; 
Sub-Warden's copy of, 473. Refer- 
ences to particular 1Rubrics :-- 
I., 36, 65, 67, 97, 104, 439, 443, 
44, 451 
II., 87, 115, 440, 443, 459, 471, 
537, 542, 543 
III., 36, 67, 212, 391, 394, 396, 
398, 403, 405, 451, 539 
V., 542 
VI., 35, 60, 67 
VII., 36 
VIII., 221, 439, 442, 452, 466, 
537, 538 
X., 556 
XI., 556 
XII., 35, 65, 67, 209, 324 
XIIl., 117, 176, 210 
XIV., 36, 67, 117, 145, 183, 188, 
213, 4:9, 442, 471 
XV., 175, 198, 334, 379 
XVI., 223, 279, 505, 543 
XVII., 245, 344, 422, 471 
XIX., 542 
XX., 239 
XXIV., 121, 542, 543 
XXVI., 36, 67, 367, 440, 442, 465 
.NXVII., 67, 117, 440, 442, 452, 
453, 538 
XXVIII., 442 
XXIX., 117, 169, 257, 268, 440, 
442 
X., 357 
XXIiI., 216 
.-'XJV., 84, lll-12, 133, 150, 
160, 164, 206, 222, 440 
XXXV., 216 
XLII.. 97 
XLIII., 222, 344, 478, 545 
XLV., 465, 472-3 
Finis et Conclusio, 36, 104, 132, 
217 
Wykeamist, The, on suggested aboli- 
tion of College, 101 ; on grace-sing- 
ing, 187 ; on School, 232, 233-4 ; 
on " Hills ", 361-3 ; on quiristers, 
455 ; advocates destruction of Sick- 
house, 483 ; announces disestab- 
iishment of Conmoners, 510 
Yonge, C. M., 414 

THE END 

Prinled/. R. & R. CL.IK, L rr_-o, Edi,turgk, 



Fourth Edition, levised throuhout and (ïreatly Enlared. 

A HISTORY OF 
ETON COLLEGE 

(1440-1910) 
133." 
Sn H. C. MAXWELL LYTE K.C.B. 

WlTH ILLUSTRATIONS 
INCLUDING 7 IEW PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES BY 
FREDERICK L. GRIGGS 

,Super royal 8vo. 21s. net. 

DAILY TELEGRAPH.--" Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte's 'Hist«,ry of Eton 
College' may be said to bave taken its place as a standard work on thc 
subject, despite the many books that bave since come out on Eton. The 
present edition bas been revised throughout, considerably enlarged, and 
brought up to date, and in its new form should long continue to maintain 
its place. In all that concerns the early history of the College the author is 
particularly full, but no &spect of the subject fs neglected, and there fs much 
hot only about the successive masters and provost-% but also about the boys' 
studies, sports, and games, about famous Etonians, college periodicals, etc. 
This new edition, a very handsome volume, with many illustrations, should 
be welcomed by all loyal Etonians." 
,_PECTA TOR.--" The best of the histories of Eton." 
GUARDIAN.--" Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte's ' History of Eton' fs too well 
known to need any comment on its merits. The original edition of 1875 
became at once the recognised authority, and almost seemed to bave said the 
final word. But in succeeding years new sources of infornmtion became 
available, varying in importance from MSS. at Hatfield and Belvoir to 
books of Eton Reminiscences from which something could be gleaned, and 
of these the author made full use in successive editions, of which the tburth 
has now appeared." 
GLOBE.--" Every Etonian knows Sir Maxwell Lyte's cloEic history of 
the great School, and probably there are few who do hot possess a copy of 
one of the earlier editions. That, however, will hot prevent them from 
acquiring this, the latest edition, for Sir Maxwell bas hot only collected 
much additional material, but has checked and revised much of what he had 
previously written .... The present edition fs, we need hardly say, 
admirably produced, and the substitution of seven photogravures from the 
original drawings of Mr. F. L. Griggs, for four of the old wood-cuts of 
previous editions fs a distinct improvemenL" 
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "About Winchester College"

See other formats
