Chapter VI
.
II OLD CUSTOMS AND WAYS
During George the Third’s reign Eton enjoyed a special share of royal favour. Dr. Goodall, if he had been an easy-going Headmaster, was in many respects an ideal Provost, who notoriously possessed many of the qualifications of a courtier; whilst Dr. Langford, Lower Master for many years, was such a favourite with the King that the latter used to send for him to come down to Weymouth and preach. The sunshine of royalty in which Etonians basked not unnaturally aroused some jealousy; and one critic--an old Westminster boy--declared that the vicinity of Windsor Castle was of no benefit to the discipline and good order of Eton School.
[SN: GEORGE III. AND THE BOYS]
A constant patron of boys and masters, George III. hardly ever passed the College without stopping to chat with some of them. He was very fond of stag-hunting, and as one of the favourite places for the deer to be thrown off was between Slough and Langley Broom, he very often came through Eton; the appearance of the green-tilted cart about nine o’clock was certain evidence that the King would pass some time before eleven. It became a custom for the boys to wait for him seated on the wall in front of the school. He generally arrived, escorted by his attendants, the master of the hounds, and some of the neighbouring gentry, old Davis, the huntsman, with the stag-hounds, going on before. Occasionally the King’s beloved daughter, the Princess Amelia, whose early death he so deeply deplored, came too.
Near the wall, hat in hand, the Eton boys greeted their monarch, who almost invariably stopped to ask various questions of those who had the good fortune to attract his attention. These were mostly some of the young nobility, with whose parents His Majesty was acquainted, and whom, if once introduced to him, his peculiarly retentive memory never allowed him to forget.
Picking out some boy he would jokingly say:
“Well, well, when were you flogged last, eh--eh? Your master is very kind to you all, is he not? Have you had any rebellions lately, eh--eh? Naughty boys, you know, sometimes. Should you not like to have a holiday, if I hear a good character of you, eh--eh? Well, well, we will see about it, but be good boys. Who is to have the Montem this year?”
On being told he would remark:
“Lucky fellow, lucky fellow.”
The royal visit was a general topic of conversation during the day, and though one of such frequent occurrence--nay, almost every week during the hunting season--still was it always attended with delight, and the anticipation of something good to follow. It was highly amusing to hear the various remarks made by some of the boys who happened not to have been present at the time of the royal cavalcade passing, and who, of course, were anxious to hear what had occurred.
“Well, what did old George say? Did he say that he would ask for a holiday for us? By Jove, I hope that he will, for I want to ride Steven’s new chestnut to Egham.”
“You be hanged,” a companion would retort; “I want to go to Langley to see my aunt, who has promised to give me syllabubs, the first ‘_after four_’ that I can go.”
Another perhaps wanted to have a drive to Virginia Water, a favourite excursion with the boys. Such and the like expectations of holiday happiness were as often anticipated, and frequently realised, by the ride of kindly old George III. through the town of Eton.
[Illustration: _Eton College from Crown Corner._ _From an eighteenth-century print lent by Walter Burns, Esq._]
In a regulation costume of knee-breeches and black silk stockings (any holes in the latter being concealed by ink) the Eton boys going up to the Castle would stroll about the terrace, which, like the river, was “in bounds” though the approaches to it were not. There the King mixed freely with them, asking any one he did not know by sight, “What’s your name? Who’s your tutor? Who’s your dame?” And on receiving the answer he would generally remark: “_Very_ good tutor, _very_ good dame.”
[SN: MONTEM PARADE]
On the evening of the picturesque “Montem,” the terrace was the scene of what was called “Montem parade,” in which the fantastic costumes of the boys were conspicuous features. On one occasion George III. kept all the boys to supper at the Castle, taking care, however, to forget all about the masters, who were consequently annoyed. The old king more than once interfered to prevent Eton boys from being punished, and actually gave one offender who had been expelled for poaching in the Home Park a commission in the Guards.
William the Fourth also took a great interest in Eton, as did Queen Victoria, who sometimes sent for privileged boys. On one occasion she attended speeches, and all the school considered it a compliment when she invited Dr. Hawtrey to tea. In the earlier portion of her reign, whenever she passed through Eton she was loudly cheered by the Etonians, and would check the speed of her carriage out of consideration for those who ran beside it.
The memory of George III., as every one knows, is still preserved at Eton by the celebration of his birthday--June 4th. What, however, every one does not know is that the present costume of the Eton boys--black jackets and tail coats--is in reality but a sort of perpetual mourning for the old king.
At the end of the eighteenth century the costume of an Etonian consisted of a blue coat, knee breeches, white waistcoat and ruffled shirt, but a few years later white ducks and pantaloons began to be worn by Oppidans, though the Collegers were compelled to adhere to the older dress for some time longer.
After 1820 the smaller boys wore jackets and black slip-knot ties (handkerchiefs they were called at first), the bigger ones swallow-tailed dress-coats and spotless white ties. For a considerable period the latter had no collars, but stiff neckcloths about a yard long, tied twice round. The first boy who started a single tie and collar was one of the master’s sons, and at first the innovation was regarded with disfavour as much too free-and-easy. The masters kept a sharp eye upon the boys’ tails, any one attempting something like a “morning” coat being at once called to account and told by his tutor not to “dress himself like a bargeman.” No objection, however, was made to an indulgence in studs, bunches of charms, and other jewellery; and many boys decorated their coats with summer flowers, in the arrangement of which they showed some taste.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century morning coats took the place of the swallow-tails. Since then, with the exception of a diminution in the height of the top hat, which in the late fifties of the last century was preposterous, the dress of an Etonian has remained pretty well unchanged, though, of course, from time to time there have been varying fashions as regards waistcoats. Thirty years ago the most popular of these were those made of a sort of corduroy relieved by coloured silk. At present, I understand, some perturbation has been caused amongst the upper boys by a report that the Headmaster proposes to prohibit every sort of fancy waistcoat; but it is to be hoped that such an interference with Etonian liberty will not be carried into effect.
[SN: FADS]
The custom of swells wearing stick-up collars, instead of the turn-down ones worn by their undistinguished schoolfellows, is now of some antiquity and appears likely to last.
Up to about fifty or sixty years ago Eton boys never wore greatcoats at all. The famous Headmaster, Dr. Keate, was a warm supporter of this Spartan habit, which underwent only gradual modification as time went on; for, even after greatcoats were allowed the boys very seldom wore them, and never by any chance put them on unless they were sure that some of the swells of the school had given them a lead. So strong is the force of custom in this matter, that when a few years ago the Headmaster issued a circular that every boy, no matter his place in the school, was to wear a greatcoat whenever he liked, no notice whatever was taken of it, the old state of affairs continuing to exist. Another curious usage is that which ordains that no boy except a swell may carry his umbrella rolled up, akin to which was the idea, prevalent thirty years ago, and very likely prevalent to-day, that turning up the bottom of the trousers must not be attempted by any but those occupying a distinguished position in the school.
Before the era of steam, wonderful costumes were worn by Eton boys as they started away for the holidays. On Election Monday the whole road from Barnes Pool Bridge to Weston’s Yard would be filled with a crowd of vehicles, whilst round the corner of the Slough Road, where the new schools now stand, just beyond Spier’s sock shop, a number of youths, gorgeously dressed in green coats with brass buttons, white breeches, top-boots and spurs, would take horse and ride away to town, much to the admiration of a crowd of lower boys. At Spier’s, at the corner opposite the entrance to Weston’s Yard, Collegers were in the habit of leaving their gowns when going out of bounds towards Slough. Shelley as an Eton boy was a great frequenter of this sock shop, where the excellent brown bread and butter and a pretty girl, Martha--the Hebe of Spier’s--as he called her, made a great impression upon his youthful mind.
Farther away down Datchet Lane on breaking-up day, sporting spirits would find traps of various sorts waiting for them--tandems were occasionally driven by Eton boys during the school-time, fags being taken out to act as tigers on surreptitious drives to Salt Hill or to Marsh’s Inn at Maidenhead, once a favourite place of resort on account of the cock-pit there. On one of these outings in a curricle, a horse bolted, and the driver, brutalized by terror, ordered his fag to jump on the horse’s back and saw at his bit. The foolhardy feat was accomplished, and the horse stopped, but the small boy’s arms were almost pulled out of their sockets, and one of them got badly dislocated. According to one account it was Mr. Gladstone, then an Eton boy, who tried to rectify the injury before a doctor arrived.
[SN: TRADITIONS]
The old Eton traditions were essentially aristocratic in their nature, as was only natural considering that the vast majority of the boys sent to the school were of good birth. Whilst amongst themselves the boys were highly intolerant of all assumptions of superiority not based upon the distinctions of good fellowship and physical prowess, they were rather prone to regard the rest of the world with easy and good-natured contempt; indeed they thought themselves the finest fellows in the world, and little was done by the authorities to dispel such an idea. According to a certain standpoint, this, no doubt, was mere snobbishness, the main object of a favourite form of modern altruism being to assume that the lowest is better than the highest, and give way to everybody no matter who. It is, however, to be hoped that the latter spirit--the spirit of defeat, not of victory--will not be allowed to annihilate that individualism and independence which has ever been held dear by those educated amidst Eton’s classic shades. In former days, no doubt, somewhat extravagant respect was paid to rank; but it must be remembered that the aristocracy were at that time the real leaders of the country, and titles not merely honorary labels purchased by “plebeian money bags,” through contributions to their party war chests. For the most part they then carried with them real territorial power.
In its main features, the Eton of our forefathers was a true democracy, though one enclosed in an aristocratic frame. In spite of Socialists and sentimentalists “all men are born unequal,” and our ancestors were fully alive to the odious affectation of ignoring social distinctions which always have existed, and always must exist in every society.
[SN: BADGE GIVING]
The position of noblemen, as they were called (this included the eldest sons of Peers), at Eton, then, somewhat resembled that of the gentlemen commoners at the University. Like the latter, they had to pay for their privileges, double fees being exacted from their parents’ pockets. The privileges in question, it should be added, hurt nobody. On the festivals of St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. David, and, if in the school-time, St. George, the Headmaster entertained Scotch, Irish, Welsh or English boys of high birth at breakfast, and on such days he and the Lower Master wore an appropriate “badge,” presented to them by the boy who was highest in rank of the nation which was celebrating its patron saint. Not infrequently the boy’s tutor was presented with one of these badges, sometimes quite valuable gifts, costing five or six pounds apiece. There was no fixed pattern, the design being always left to the boy’s own taste, or to that of his parents; care, however, was taken to introduce the shamrock, thistle, or leek, according to the day which was to be celebrated.
The quaint old usage was formerly quite a feature of the school-time during which it took place. As late as 1862 a London newspaper gave an account of its observance. In that year, on St. Patrick’s day, Lord Langford, as the highest Irish nobleman who was an Eton boy at the time, presented badges of St. Patrick, beautifully embroidered in silver, to the Headmaster, the Reverend E. Balston, and to the Lower Master, the Reverend W. Carter, both of whom wore these badges throughout the day. On the same date, according to ancient custom, twenty-four noblemen and gentlemen, as they were termed--that is to say, Eton boys--attended a great breakfast given by the Headmaster.
Why such an inoffensive and pretty custom was ever allowed to become obsolete it is difficult to understand.
According to one account, the individual responsible for the discontinuance was the late Duke of Sutherland, who, when it came to the turn of his son, Lord Stafford, to present the badge, discouraged him from carrying out the old usage, which he branded as mere nonsense. Probably the cost of the badges contributed to the discontinuance of their presentation. It seems a pity that a fixed pattern worth some trifling sum was not adopted in order to prevent extravagance.
Though the badges seem still to have been given up to the middle sixties of the last century, by 1879--amongst the boys at least--all tradition of anything of the sort had died away. One who had been at Eton about 1866 told the writer that he had a vague remembrance of hearing of the custom, but it had then ceased to be observed.
It should be added that Dr. Hawtrey, in his monument in the College Chapel, is represented wearing the badge of Scotland and the motto _Nemo me impune lacessit_.
[SN: PRIVATE TUTORS]
Till about 1835, noblemen who came to Eton usually brought private tutors with them, and boarded at dames: they were not obliged to have school tutors. The most distinguished of these private tutors would appear to have been John Moultrie, who in 1822 acted in this capacity to Lord Craven, who three years later presented him with the living of Rugby. As a youthful Colleger Moultrie had shown considerable poetic power, and had he died at an early age speculation might have been busy as to the great poems which English literature had lost through his death. His early reputation rested chiefly on “My Brother’s Grave,” in the style of Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon,” first published in the College Magazine and then in the _Etonian_. Often reprinted since, it is probably the most widely read of his writings. He was a warm lover of Eton, and paid a fine tribute of affection to his old school in an introduction to an edition of Gray. Bringing private tutors to Eton seems to have entailed considerably great cost, for the Duke of Atholl told William Evans that his expenses under this system were £1000 a year! Dr. Hawtrey, it was, who made the rule that every boy should have a school tutor, after which the custom of bringing private tutors practically ceased. Even in the sixties, however, it survived in a modified way. Lord Blandford, Lord Lorne, his brother, Lord Archibald Campbell, and his cousin, Lord Ronald Leveson Gower, all had private tutors--the last three, indeed, lived with one in a house by themselves. George Monckton, afterwards Lord Galway, who was at Eton about the same time, also enjoyed the same dubious advantage.
[SN: CHAPEL]
As has already been mentioned at page 28, up to about 1845, boys who were noblemen, sons of peers or baronets, sat in the stalls (ruthlessly torn down during the so-called “restoration” of 1845-47) at the west end of the chapel, near the Provost and Headmaster; and, according to custom, a newcomer distributed packets of almonds and raisins to his companions in the other seats of honour. Originally, it would seem, this curious usage was limited to the Sixth Form boys, who also followed it when for the first time they took their places as such. Considerable obscurity, however, surrounds the whole subject of “chapel sock,” as it was called; probably it was the continuance of some medieval custom, the meaning of which had disappeared ages before. The eating of almonds and raisins during divine worship seems very strange to those of a later generation; in former times, however, it must be remembered the chapel was sometimes used for other purposes besides the celebration of services. The election of the College Fellows, for instance, took place there, and sometimes some of the electors tucked themselves up as well as they could and went to sleep. The general tone of the school up to about seventy years ago was not very religious, or, it is to be feared, very reverent; there was, indeed, too much chapel and too little devotion.
Two long collegiate services on Sundays and whole holidays, and one on every half-holiday, made the boys tired of the whole thing. New boys sometimes did take prayer-books in with them the first Sunday, but never ventured to defy public opinion to that extent a second time. Some of the Upper School were nearly nineteen years old, but amongst them taking the sacrament was almost unheard of. The chaplain (or “Conduct” as he was called) often misconducted himself by gabbling and skipping--whilst the masters, perched in desks aloft, kept themselves just awake by watching boys whom they “spited.” The boys themselves had their own resources wherewith “to palliate dullness, and give time a shove.” Kneeling with head down, as if in deep devotion, many a one of them contrived to carve his initials on his seat without being observed, and very few took the least interest in the service. As for the interminable sermons, those they frankly disliked and despised, the preachers being generally prosy and sometimes incoherent. As a fellow of some originality said in one of his quaint discourses, the hearts of the boys were like gooseberry tarts without sugar, and the vast majority took little trouble to conceal their dislike for chapel during the “restoration,” when the school attended service in a temporary building. The forms on which they sat there being somewhat flimsy, every effort was made to smash as many as possible, in order that boys might have an excuse for absenting themselves owing to lack of seats.
Most of the congregation looked upon the enormously lengthy services as so much extra school and took no interest in the responses, for years uttered by an old clerk named Gray, who was an Eton institution dating from 1809. With the lapse of years he had become somewhat deaf, and consequently made occasional blunders which were a constant source of amusement. Especially did his hearers delight in old Gray’s performances on certain festivals, such as the service for the queen’s accession, when he generally canonized her twice in the same verse of the Psalm. “And blessed be the name of Her Majesty for ever, and all the earth shall be full of Her Majesty.”
On the whole, the service was not conducted in a very reverent or attractive manner, and the impression which it would have seemed to convey was that every one, including the “Conduct,” was anxious to get through it as quickly as possible. A great day, however, was Oak Apple day, when the picturesque old service in memory of the Restoration of Charles II. was duly gone through, all the boys sporting oak leaves as a memento of the Merry Monarch of joyous memory. On all other occasions, however, the services proceeded with monotonous and unvarying regularity, which more or less still prevailed in the writer’s Eton days thirty years ago, though at that time they had been considerably brightened and no irreverence prevailed.
The chapel bell always stopped five minutes before the hour, but the Provost and Fellows never made their appearance till just as the clock struck; it seemed to be the object of all the bigger boys in the school to come in as nearly as possible at the same time as the College authorities did, yet without running it so fine as to cause a disagreeable rush at the last moment. These loiterers, always the “swells” of the school, took their places just before the entry upon their heels of the Sixth Form boys, who always headed the procession, which was closed by the Provost. His entry was the signal for the commencement of the service, and the “Conduct” or chaplain whose turn it was at once began. Everything was got through at a pretty good pace, though after about 1840 no slovenliness was to be observed.
[SN: A FATAL SQUIB]
From time to time, of course, even in the days when irreverence was common, the boys were moved by some extraordinary service which impressed the most unthinking minds. One of these occasions was the funeral service of a boy named Grieve, son of the English physician to the Czar of Russia, at the commencement of the nineteenth century. On the 5th of November, then a day of much riot at Eton, poor Grieve had filled his pockets with what proved to him the instruments of death, in order to enjoy the frolics of the evening, which were suddenly ended when a young nobleman unluckily “squibbed,” as it was called, his unfortunate friend. Some of the fireworks which were in his pocket immediately ignited, which, communicating to the rest their deadly errand, exploded, and literally tore off a portion of flesh from his bones. The poor fellow’s screams were dreadful, and he died in four days’ time.
This sad affair threw a gloom over the school for a long time, and games and sports were almost forgotten. When the day came for Grieve’s burial, its awe was strongly augmented by the solemnity with which the funeral service (that most beautiful and sublime selection of prayers) was read by the headmaster, Dr. Goodall; indeed, among the whole body of upwards of five hundred boys, not a dry eye was to be seen. One of these has left on record how to his dying day he could never forget the impression made on his mind, when, with a trembling anticipation of the approaching procession, he heard the first words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and his poignant emotion as the funeral procession slowly wound into the chapel and the sky-blue coffin[2] broke upon his sight.
An old Eton Sunday institution was “prose,” held in Upper School, where the Headmaster would read a few pithy moral sentences. As a rule it is to be feared these were pearls thrown before swine, and the swine-herd seemed to feel disgusted as he threw them. He then gave out the subjects of exercises for the ensuing week, and informed the boys what would be the amount of holidays in it.
In the old days a number of the Eton masters were not the earnest men who are to be found in the school to-day. At a time when the aristocracy possessed great power, it was not extraordinary that young noblemen should have been treated with a great measure of leniency. A certain tutor, for instance, behaved with great philosophy when one of his pupils, belonging to a great family, rolled him down the hundred steps, and reaped the reward by afterwards rising to a position of high eminence in the Church. Not a few masters were shackled by hide-bound conservatism, whilst a certain type of eighteenth century pedagogue was quite unfitted to inculcate learning.
Lo! on a pile of dusty folios thron’d, Her Janus brows with dog’s-ear’d fool’s-cap crown’d, Fenc’d with a footstool, that no step should go Too rashly near, nor crush her gouty toe, Obese Tuition sits, and ever drips An inky slaver from her bloated lips! Unwholesome vapours round her presence shed, Dim ev’ry eye, and muddle ev’ry head, Stunt the young shoots, which smil’d with promise once, And breathe a deeper dulness on the dunce.
It is not fair to criticise the old Eton masters too severely, but undoubtedly some were incompetent. They were quite content that matters should proceed as they understood they had proceeded in the past, and thought it no part of their duty to attempt improvement in the time-honoured curriculum which for generations had been in vogue at “Eton School.”
[SN: A BABY OPPIDAN]
In the early twenties of the nineteenth century, boys who were mere children, hardly out of petticoats, were sent to Eton in order that they might gradually work their way up and get to King’s. Oppidans also were then very young, a child aged four and a half being admitted in 1820. At that time a boy could rise to the top of the school merely by seniority, due importance not being attached to hard work and sound scholarship. The “trials” were then more or less nominal, but the curious thing is, that in spite of all this Eton produced some very fine classical scholars, while the vast majority of the boys were better acquainted with Latin and Greek than their successors who went to Eton when a more exacting curriculum came into force. In 1827 there were no examinations after the Fifth Form was reached, nor any distinction attainable except that of being sent up “for good,” the reward for which then was a sovereign, and every third time, a book.
When a master came across some peculiarly good set of verses he would send them up to the Headmaster “for good”; in due course the writer would be called up by the Head, who would compliment him and read out the lines to the assembled boys in Upper School. A guinea was afterwards given to the boy by his dame. Sending up “for good” seems now on the increase, but in my own school-days one seldom heard of any one achieving such a distinction, whilst sending up “for play” was rarer still. In the past, getting into Sixth Form did not change an Eton boy’s life nearly so much as it does to-day. True, he had his seat in the stalls in chapel, and came into church later than any one else except the Provost and Fellows; in Upper School on certain public occasions, he had also the honour of making speeches. Beyond this, however, and the release from shirking the masters, his position was in no wise altered or improved.
Fifty years ago Eton in respect to school work somewhat resembled an oriental state in which the first symptoms of modernisation are beginning to appear. In the main the old classical traditions commanded a rigid adherence, boys with a totally insufficient knowledge of Greek being by a polite fiction supposed to be able to construe Homer with ease, whilst dunces who could not write a sentence in correct English were every week obliged to show up a copy of Latin verses. The wonder is how all this was ever done at all, but done it was; and, considering the vast ignorance of the majority, who frankly regarded the whole thing with a sort of good-humoured contempt, done fairly well. Perhaps this was in no small degree owing to the fact that in almost every house there was some easy-going clever boy who, having received a good grounding at a private school, was able and ready to help his less gifted schoolfellows.
[SN: MAP MAKING]
One of the great features of school work was the execution of a map once every week, illustrating various countries as they were in classical times. Occasionally boys with a turn for drawing would decorate the margins of their maps with some fanciful device. As a rule, the masters extended a good-humoured toleration to this practice, which often bore some reference to current events. At the time when a coming prize-fight was exciting great interest in sporting circles, a boy decorated the top of his map with portraits of the two fistic heroes of the day. This, however, was little appreciated by his master. A more clever form of decoration was the picture of an eight-oar manned by masters and steered by Dr. Keate which a clever pupil of the Doctor drew in the middle of the Mediterranean with _Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat aequor_ inscribed beneath the boat. All the maps were shown up on the same day, when “Map Morning,” as it was called, filled the school yard.
The old system of sending mere children to Eton lasted up to about half a century ago. In 1857 boys went still there as young as nine or ten, nor was it uncommon to see children of seven or eight in the Lower School. Many stayed at Eton till they were eighteen, after having worked their way up from the First Form to Doctor’s Division, at the rate of two removes a year--a process which, including three years’ inevitable stoppage in Upper Fifth, required more than ten years to accomplish. In the school list for Election, 1834, Lower School has shrunk to a very small number. The first part of it, Third Form, contains but three boys; the second division, seven. “Sense” and “Nonsense,” which come next, have but six between them; there is no one in Second Form, and in First Form only two.
Up to the early ’sixties of the last century, certain divisions of Third Form retained some quaint old titles--the first sections being called Upper Greek, Lower Greek, “Sense” and “Nonsense.” Lower Remove, Upper and Lower Remove in the Second Form and First Form completed the tail-end of the school. “Sense” and “Nonsense,” it should be added, received their quaint titles because boys in the latter were doomed to a sort of “poetical purgatory,” and only wrote “nonsense” verses; that is, Latin compositions which scanned as verse, but contained no ideas; in which respect the effusions in question resembled the productions of some living bards.
[SN: LOWER SCHOOL]
When Mr. John Hawtrey was an Eton master, Lower School, somewhat altering its constitution, became larger again; the boys in it, mostly very young, being all together in his house at the corner of Keate’s Lane, where he kept what was practically a private school apart. His boys were not allowed the same amount of liberty as those in other houses: they took breakfast and tea in common, and generally played their games in Mr. Hawtrey’s private field. On reaching the Upper School they usually went to other houses.
The curriculum of Lower School was entirely different from that followed by the Upper Forms. In “Nonsense” the boys, besides being taught to write nonsense verses, grappled with intricacies of the old “Eton Latin Grammar.” After this they were promoted to “Sense,” when the nonsense verses were discarded; Lower Greek and Upper Greek did very elementary work.
After Mr. John Hawtrey had left Eton to set up a preparatory school at Aldin House, Slough, Lower School once more became small. In 1868, just previous to its abolition, it contained 69 boys. The school list had then ceased to give the old terms, Upper Greek, “Sense,” and “Nonsense.” Shortly after First and Second Forms were abolished and Fourth Form placed under control of the Lower Master, the Reverend Francis Edward Durnford, so well known as “Judy” to several generations of Etonians. Third Form still continued to exist in the writer’s day (1879 to 1883); but it then seldom contained more than two or three boys. Since that time it has varied in number, sometimes amounting to ten or a dozen, or, as at present (1911), eight. It is interesting to note that there are now more than sixty assistant masters, as compared with ten in 1834. In the same time the number of boys at Eton has more than doubled.
[SN: SHIRKING]
Up to the end of the nineteenth century there was a glaring inconsistency in various unwritten regulations which ruled the Eton boy out of school. Certain ordinances were seemingly moulded upon an Hibernian model, many things being forbidden in theory though allowed in practice. Up to 1860 everything beyond Barnes Pool Bridge was considered out of bounds, though the river and terrace of Windsor Castle were not. The boys, of course, went up town freely, most of the shops they used being in the High Street beyond the bridge, and so the ridiculous custom of “shirking” grew up. When an Eton boy up town perceived a master he would get behind a lamp-post or rush into a shop, the merest pretext of concealment from view being, as a rule, sufficient to prevent the “beak” from taking any notice of him, for it was not etiquette for masters to see boys, provided “shirking” was observed. A number of extraordinary usages prevailed in connection with the somewhat senseless custom. For instance, it was not the thing for a master to turn round to look out for a boy following behind--the whole system was ludicrous. One boy, seeing a master enter a confectioner’s shop, where he was eating an ice, escaped notice by shutting one eye and holding up the spoon in front of the other!
At one time Sixth Form boys had to be “shirked” like the masters, but this seems to have been very laxly observed, “liberties,” that is to say exemptions, being often granted.
Another great inconsistency was that though by the laws of the school, no Eton boy might enter the Christopher, there were very few Etonians who were not thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the old town, where at one time Upper boys had regular dinners which were known to the whole school.
[SN: WINDSOR FAIR]
Though “shirking” as a general rule ensured a boy’s immunity from punishment when out of bounds, it ceased to exercise its charm at Windsor Fair (abolished about 1871), which was strictly prohibited. Nevertheless, the boys attended it in flocks, part of their amusement consisting in dodging the masters.
It was highly characteristic of the old-fashioned Eton system, that though the Fair was strictly forbidden, no efforts at all were made to prevent boys from going there, though they were often severely punished if caught. Not a few of the masters, however, almost openly tolerated such transgressions, and a few even made a point of giving their pupils double pocket-money in Fair week. It must be remembered that at that time all the masters were old Etonians, having passed their lives between the school and King’s. Consequently they were generally imbued with the old traditions, and had never come across any external influences likely to alter a point of view adopted when they themselves were being trained by masters of an old-fashioned Conservative type.
At the Fair a large quantity of pocket-money was expended at the various booths, the keepers of which, of course, at once recognised an Eton boy, whom all the professional tricksters of the place looked upon as their surest game. Every device was put before him, and all sorts of temptations held out to induce him to stop and have a trial, as they called it, of his luck. Cards, rings, coins, everything in fact was made into an instrument for gaining a little money during this harvest of inexperience.
The rifle gallery, where they gave two shots for a penny, was a favourite resort, and every stall which the boys passed, whatever was the sort of trumpery with which it was filled, formed an excuse for loitering to examine what there was. Dolls and knives and penny trumpets and rattles, all required attention; boxes and brooches were haggled over, and rings, and even rags, minutely inspected.
The Fair consisted of a number of booths stretching from the Town Hall to Castle Yard. There were the usual shows, and in the eighteenth century a bull bait on Bachelors’ Acre, the place of which, in latter years, was taken by roulette. This game, of course, run by doubtful characters, was highly attractive to certain venturesome Etonians--there was real danger in it, for a boy caught playing was turned down to a lower form as well as whipped.
Though many boys were flogged for going to this October festival, it was always a source of great delight to the school, for it gave rise to many jokes.
It was a common practice for boys to purchase all sorts of mechanical toys--jumping frogs and the like--there, and surreptitiously introduce them upon some master’s desk. On one occasion, a perfect menagerie was successfully planted on the table before Dr. Hawtrey’s very nose, and all the punishment the culprits received for their tomfoolery was his withering remark, “Babies!”
As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century the old Windsor Theatre was often visited by Etonians. The gallery, indeed, seems to have been more or less reserved for their use. By the middle of the century, however, the boys had long ceased to indulge in this amusement, but up to the late seventies a considerable number frequented Windsor races, at that time an open meeting.
In 1879, the writer’s first year at Eton, an idea prevailed that if we could run there and back without missing Absence, such a visit was not forbidden. Be this as it may, the writer, with a friend, did run there and back, the only unpleasant consequence being the loss of some pocket-money. In the following year, besides the notice prohibiting boys from being on the Windsor bank of the river during the races (which, nevertheless, did not prevent a considerable number from crossing over), drastic measures were taken by the authorities to prevent Etonians from going there on foot, which, owing to the vigilance of masters in Windsor, had to be abandoned altogether. It was no unheard-of thing for a boy in those days to run to Ascot races and get back in time for Absence--then at six. This, of course, was contrived by getting lifts on the way, and though some were caught and punished, quite a number indulged in what was to them an exciting adventure. Two or three got to the races by assuming a disguise, whilst others were picked up and hidden in carriages and traps by obliging elder brothers or old Etonians. One boy--Bathurst by name--according to current report, so tickled young Lady Savernake by his impersonation of a nigger-minstrel that she gave him a £5 piece.
[SN: PIG FAIR]
In Eton itself up to the ’thirties of the last century, every Ash Wednesday there was held a Pig Fair, just outside Upper School; this, of course, led to great disorder--the boys delighting in letting the pigs loose, and chasing them in all directions. At the last of these Fairs in Keate’s time, a boy actually rode a pig from the gate of Weston’s Yard to the Christopher, at the identical moment when Keate came out of Keate’s Lane on the way to chapel, his gown flying in the wind. Keate took little notice of this at the time, merely remarking, “Pigs will squeak, and boys will laugh; don’t do it again.”
When Gladstone was a boy at Eton, considerable brutality existed in connection with the Fair. The boys, according to old custom, hustling the drovers and then cutting off the tails of the pigs. Gladstone boldly denounced such cruelty, and gave considerable offence by declaring that the boys who were foremost in this kind of butchery were the first to quake at the consequences of detection. He dared them, if they were proud of their work, to sport the trophies of it in their hats. On the following Ash Wednesday he found three newly amputated pig-tails hung in a bunch on his door, with a paper inscribed:
“Quisquis amat porcos, porcis amabitur illis; Cauda sit exemplum ter repetita tibi.”
Underneath these lines the future Prime Minister wrote a challenge to the pig-torturers, inviting them to come forward and take a receipt for their offering, which he would mark “in good round hand upon your faces.” The pig-baiting, however, continued till Dr. Hawtrey did away with the Fair.
Even in the rough old times the life of the Oppidans was pleasant enough; a totally different state of affairs prevailing amongst them from that which flourished in Long Chamber, where small collegers were so roughly treated that many of them preferred to be Oppidans till such time as they had attained a place in the school which would guarantee them against being bullied.
Amongst the Oppidans, indeed, there would seem never to have been any bullying at all, whilst their health and comfort was looked after pretty much as it is to-day. Nevertheless, in old days, they had a far greater knowledge of the stern facts of life than is at present the case. Their rambles round the slums of Windsor--visits to the Fair and contact with the rough and undesirable characters of the vicinity--taught them what human nature really is, while the fighting, which was then recognised, precluded all trace of namby-pambyism. In those days Eton sent forth few sentimentalists into the great world, but it undoubtedly furnished England with the very best type of officer to meet the enemy in the Peninsular and at Waterloo. It was an era when the sickening cant of humanitarianism, born of luxury and weakness, had not yet arisen to emasculate and enfeeble the British race.
[SN: FAGGING]
Fagging at Eton seems never to have degenerated into brutality. In former times, however, fags had to perform many services which sound strange to modern ears. An Etonian, for instance, who had been fag to the future Wellington, it is said, used to declare that the chief service he had to perform was that of bed-warmer, for the Fifth Form then made the Lower boys lie for a time in their beds to take off the chill. This story, however, is probably legendary, fagging amongst the Oppidans having generally been limited to getting breakfasts from sock shops, taking messages, and cooking. Fag-masters have seldom been anything but considerate, and the old joke of sending a green newcomer (after his first fortnight of immunity from fagging) to Layton’s, the confectioner on Windsor Hill, for a pennyworth of pigeon milk, has probably never been put into practice.
As long as a hundred years ago cases of bullying out of College were sternly repressed by the boys themselves. At that time a great sensation was caused because a boy high in the Fifth Form flicked with a wet towel the bare back of his fag, who complained after Absence to the captain of the school. The circumstances soon got wind, and nearly the whole school followed the captain to the bully’s dame’s, which was Raguineau’s. He was pulled out of his room, and most soundly horsewhipped close by one of the large elms, to the delight of all.
Though the accommodation was not uncomfortable, the boys’ rooms were then, as a rule, smaller and less luxurious than is the case to-day, the windows being often barred like those of a prison or a lunatic asylum. The furniture was all of the commonest wood, and consisted of a table, two chairs (well carved by preceding generations), a bureau--a sort of _multum in parvo_ for books, clothes, and everything else--and a large press which turned into a bed; this, small boys always regarded with misgiving, it being a practice for raiding parties to shut the occupier up in it.
In 1825 some of the rooms were as small as five feet by six, some were not carpeted, and a few of those on the ground floor were unpleasant owing to the contents of pails descending from the upper windows.
On the fifth of November the Lower boys revenged their wrongs by making a bonfire of their Greek grammars in the school-yard; and later in the year, when the snow came, they would industriously collect it in the house, in order that in the evening they might overwhelm some little fellow and his books with a pile of it.
Very early rising was then the rule, and in winter boys got up by candle-light. The Fourth Form had an infliction called “Long-morning.” They had to be in school by half-past seven, but when the masters overslept themselves there was a “run”--_i.e._ no school. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was an earlier school still, at six o’clock.
[SN: NICKNAMES]
Nicknames have always been popular at Eton, many of them enduring in after-life. Thomas James, who in 1766 wrote an account of the school, was nicknamed Mordecai and Pasteboard, whilst the three brothers Pott were called Quart, Pint, and Gill.
About the middle of the eighteenth century nicknames both for masters and boys were very common. Certain masters were then called Pernypopax Dampier, Gronkey Graham, Pogy Roberts, Buck Ekins, Bantam Sumner, and Wigblock Prior. The following are some boys’ nicknames:--Bacchus Browning (Earl Powis), Square Buckeridge, Tiger Clive, King Cole, Mother and Hoppy Cotes, Damme Duer, Dapper Dubery, Baboon FitzHugh, Chob and Chuff Hunter, Toby Liddell, Squashey Pollard, Codger Praed, Hog Weston, Gobbo Young, and Woglog Calley.
In old days many Eton nicknames were superior, and often elegantly classical. At one time a boy named M’Guire was well known in the school, because, if prizes had been given for knock-knees he would have carried off the first prize anywhere. Homer has a stock of phrases with which he is apt to fill up his verse, just as lawyers use “common forms” for their prose. One of these, frequently occurring in the description of a hero, is _phaidima guia_ (beautiful limbs), and Paddy M’Guire bore the appropriate name of “Phaidima Guia.”
A peculiarly happy nickname was Lapis Lazuli or Cornelius a lapide, applied to a boy (Newcastle scholar), in after-life well known to Etonians as the Rev. E. D. Stone. He recently contributed some most interesting recollections of Eton to an attractive book written by Mr. Christopher Stone, his son.
One of the most apt nicknames ever bestowed on any boy was Verd Antique, applied to the eldest of five brothers Green, who were at Eton at the same time--the other four being known as Maximus, Major, Minor, and Minimus.
Slang, though fairly prevalent then, in later years was of a different kind. It would appear that Eton boys did not then say “burry” for “bureau,” nor “brolly” for “umbrella,” whilst “footer” for “football” was unknown. A favourite old Eton colloquialism, “con,” a word equivalent in its meaning to chum and pal, has now long died out, whilst “pec” used for money was about obsolete thirty years ago. “Scug,” an untidy boy, and “scuggish,” bad form, words which were constantly in the mouths of Etonians of two or three generations back, are now, I believe, much less used by Upper boys. “Sock,” a term denoting all kinds of dainties, still exists, but masters are called “ushers” instead of “beaks.” “Gig,” an old piece of Eton slang which comprehended all that was ridiculous, all that was to be laughed at and plagued, has long ceased to be used.
[SN: DAMES AND TUTORS]
A curious and old-fashioned word once in constant use amongst Eton boys, but now quite obsolete, was “brozier”--this indicated a boy who had spent his pocket-money, and was without means of obtaining “sock.” Brozier was also used in connection with a disconcerting manœuvre sometimes executed by boys at the expense of a dame. When one of these ladies had gained the reputation of not providing sufficient food at the usual meals, and of keeping an ill-stocked larder, an organised attempt would be made to eat her “out of house and home”--as the supply of provisions became exhausted, more would be demanded in the most pointed manner--this was known as “Brozier my dame.”
One of these ladies, possessed of great strength of mind and resource, being exposed to a determined attempt of this kind, turned the tide just as her boys--though nearly choked in the moment of victory--were winning the battle. Whispering two words to her maid, the latter disappeared only to return with an enormous cheese, as strong as it was big. This the dame cut away liberally, saying with a smile, that it must not be spared, for there was another bigger one handy. The boys never tried a brozier with her again. This lady had a happy knack of managing her boys, and after getting them flogged relentlessly on slight provocation, would, in spite of themselves, laugh them out of all ill-humour.
The earliest “Tutor’s” house on record seems to have been kept by W. H. Roberts, a master who took a few pupils in 1760. When the eighteenth century had got fairly under way, the Oppidans were in all probability distributed amongst “dames” and tutors in much the same way as has prevailed in recent times.
Of late, however, a dame has come to be merely the technical name of a house-master who has no regular “division” or class in the school. They are often mathematical masters, or teachers of special subjects. In old days many ladies used to keep boarding-houses for the boys, which of course gave rise to the name of “dame.” Miss Evans, who died in 1906, was the last of these. She was universally respected and beloved, and occupied a unique position in Eton life,--her name will long survive.
One of the most celebrated dames of other days was Miss Angelo, a pretty woman who, it is said, was made an Eton dame owing to the good offices of George the Fourth when Prince of Wales. This lady’s pony chaise and fur tippet were familiar to several generations of Etonians, among whom she bore the nickname of the Duchess of Eton. She belonged to the famous family which furnished four generations of fencing-masters to the school.
[SN: LEAVING BOOKS]
Old Eton was full of peculiar customs--bad, good, and indifferent. Amongst the latter was the giving of Leaving-Books. Often a popular boy would go away from Eton with quite a fine little library of these, and towards the end of each school-time there was some rivalry and excitement about these collections. Williams’ (the bookseller) shop became resplendent at such times, the books being all handsomely bound and mostly gilt, and varying in price from a guinea upwards. Eventually, however, the gifts became absurdly numerous, and in 1868 the custom was abolished by Dr. Hornby--mainly, I believe, on the score of economy. It might have been better, perhaps, to have limited the price of the books, for these gifts were productive of kindly feelings. The receiver always shook hands with the donor and requested him to write his name in the book, and the collection formed a pleasant remembrance of Eton in after years, and a memorial of friendship with schoolfellows.
Every boy who gave a leaving-book had to be thanked and shaken hands with. And in the last week of the Half boys came and wrote their names in their respective books “after two,” when those leaving Eton were expected to be in their rooms, where various dainties were provided. After the names had been signed there was more shaking of hands.
Another old usage, now very rightly abolished, was “Leaving-Money.” In former days an Oppidan, as he said good-bye to the Headmaster, would leave, in an envelope, a sum, the amount of which depended upon the generosity of his parents.
The recognised method for a boy to present this donation was to hold the envelope inside his hat, which he would place for a moment on the table, and so unostentatiously deposit his offering.
The position of a Headmaster receiving such gifts was rather awkward, and Dr. Hawtrey, a man of great delicacy and refinement of manner, used to ignore them as far as was possible. At the end of the Summer Half, he would observe, “It’s rather warm, I think I’ll open the window,” and as he did so, the envelope was furtively laid upon the table. When the next boy who was leaving was ushered in, the same process was gone through, except that the Doctor would observe, “Don’t you think it’s rather cold? I think I’d better shut the window.”
[SN: THE LONG GLASS]
A distinctly bad old custom, which prevailed up to quite recent times, was the draining of the “Long Glass” at Tap--that curious Eton institution where the Upper part of the school are still allowed to obtain chops, steaks, bread and cheese, beer and cider. Though the long glass is still preserved, I believe it has not been used for many a long year, a circumstance which can arouse nothing but gratification amongst all sensible people.
At one time there was “Long-Glass” drinking once or twice a week during the Summer Half. Nearly a yard long, and holding a quart, the glass in question somewhat resembles a coach-horn with a bulb instead of an opening at the large end. Aspirants to the honour of draining it attended in an upper room of Tap after two, each with a napkin tied round his neck. The object was to drain the glass without removing it from the lips, and without spilling any of its contents, which was extremely hard, for when the contents of the tubular portion of the glass had been sucked down, the beer in the globe would remain for a moment as if congealed there; and if the glass was tilted up a little, and shaken, the beer would give a gurgle and suddenly splutter all over his face and clothes. Only by holding the Long Glass at a certain angle could a catastrophe be avoided.
The results of this rather disgusting practice were often to be clearly discerned on the coats and waistcoats of boys emerging from Tap, and it is to be hoped that, unlike some other old Eton customs which deserve revival, it will remain merely a memory of a more intemperate age.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] It seems to have been an old custom for boys who died at Eton to be buried thus.
III DR. KEATE--FLOGGING AND FIGHTING
At the end of the eighteenth century the Eton boys had become somewhat difficult to control. Heath and Goodall had both been Headmasters fond of comfort and ease, and in order to keep things from drifting into a state of open disorder, ignored many infractions of discipline. In consequence of this they both enjoyed a fair measure of personal popularity--the parents would seem to have known little about what was going on, for, in spite of the continued deterioration in discipline, the numbers of the school continued to rise.
[SN: DR. KEATE]
When Keate became Headmaster in 1809, he found himself confronted by a somewhat difficult situation. A man of unflinching character, he had at first to suffer for the weakness of his predecessors and, owing to his stern methods, incurred unpopularity which it took some time to efface.
No one who had ever come in contact with Keate ever forgot him, for his appearance was exceedingly striking. He was a small man, little more than five feet high, short-necked, short-legged, thick-set, powerful, and very active, whilst within his small frame was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. His countenance resembled that of a bull-dog, and he also had something of that animal’s mouth. Indeed, it was said in the school that old Keate could pin and hold a bull with his teeth. His iron sway was to many a very unpleasant change, after the long, mild reign of Dr. Goodall, whose temper, character, and conduct corresponded precisely with his name, and under whom Keate had been master of the Lower School. He was at first, there can be little doubt, too severe; discipline, wholesome and necessary in moderation, being carried by him to an excess; on one morning alone he is said to have flogged eighty boys. Flogging, indeed, may be said to have been the head and front, or rather the head and tail, of his system. Like Dr. Busby, the famous Headmaster of Westminster School, he never spoilt the child by sparing the rod. According to Dr. Johnson, Busby used to call that instrument of correction his sieve, and declare that whoever did not pass through it was no boy for him. Keate, although rigid, rough, and despotical, was on the whole not unjust, nor devoid of kindness, a proof of which is that, after twenty-five years, he retired fairly triumphant, applauded and respected by the vast majority of those with whom he had come in contact. During one of the frequent visits which he paid to Eton after his retirement, his grim old face was seen looking down on the boats in Boveney Lock, whereupon the crews stood up and cheered their old master with a will.
Much has been written of the curious appearance of the famous Headmaster, who has been said to have worn a fancy dress partly resembling the costume of Napoleon and partly that of a widow woman. This was a great exaggeration. It is true he wore a huge cocked hat; this was not from eccentricity, but because he was a Conservative and respected tradition--it had long been the custom for the Head- and Lower-Masters at Eton to wear such a head-dress, and Keate merely retained it after it had become obsolete with the rest of the world.
[SN: THE ROUGH OLD DAYS]
As a rule the famous Headmaster wore an angry look, whilst ever ready to explode into a rage, though occasionally flashes of unexpected good-nature would temper his attitude of unwavering severity. This, however, was seldom, his command over his good temper being so complete that he scarcely ever allowed it to appear. On the other hand he could not be put out of humour, being always in the ill-humour which he thought fitting for a Headmaster. He had a fine voice, which he could modulate with great skill; but he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, and the latter was his almost invariable way of speaking to boys to inspire respect. His red shaggy eyebrows were so prominent that he habitually used them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object towards which he wished to direct attention. The rest of his features were equally striking in their way, and highly characteristic of the man.
Dr. Keate was not devoid of sense of humour. On one occasion when he had set a certain form an essay on “_Temere nil facias_,” one boy named Rashleigh failed to send in any work at all. The Doctor, who of all men was the last to be trifled with in such matters, sent for the delinquent, and, glowering with ferocity, demanded the meaning of such conduct. The culprit, however, was quite undismayed and replied, “Sir, you told me yourself not to do it.”
“What do you mean?” retorted Keate in tones of thunder.
“Why, sir,” replied the boy, “in setting the theme you said, ‘Do nothing rashly,’ and I have obeyed you.” This display of ready wit, it is said, secured the offender’s pardon.
When Keate assumed the Headmastership the whole public-school system had remained behind the age, and many of the manners and customs of barbarous times still continued at schools long after home life and manners had become civilised. There is no reason to suppose that Dr. Keate was in any way of a brutal disposition or wanting in natural affections. He had to deal with a very difficult situation, and it is greatly to his credit that he maintained the prestige and increased the numbers of Eton in spite of almost insurmountable difficulties.
When, for instance, it became clear to the boys that the easy-going state of affairs which had prevailed under Dr. Goodall had come to an end, the school was thrown into a state of latent rebellion. One of the first innovations imposed by Keate was to impose an “absence” the evening after what was then known as “long church.”
The first time this was put into force the whole school booed the Headmaster as he opened his mouth, and it took him two hours to get through calling the “absence,” though various tutors did all they could to help him detect the boys who were the ringleaders of the disorder. After trying to discover the principal culprits and failing, Keate finally determined to punish the last remove of the Upper Fifth and the whole of the Lower Fifth (there was then no Middle Division), whom he considered responsible for the outbreak, by making them attend a five-o’clock “absence.” Some ninety boys absented themselves, or rather hid behind the trees in the playing fields where this “absence” was called, and purposely did not answer their names. The situation was grave, and at first it seemed likely that all of these rebels would be expelled; eventually, however, Keate determined to be more lenient and merely announced that he would “flog the lot.”
[SN: SWISHING WHOLESALE]
When the first batch came up for punishment in the library a scene of riot took place, and as the first boy knelt down on the block a shower of eggs smashed round Keate; in fact, after three victims had suffered, the Headmaster’s clothes had got into such a state owing to the unsavoury missiles hurled at him, that he had to go home and change. On his return, however, he was seen to be accompanied by a number of assistant masters, and owing to their aid in keeping order he had finished swishing the whole of the ninety boys by eight o’clock that evening.
The masters must have had their work cut out to subdue the insubordination of such turbulent boys. Though the number of these boys was close on 500--later, from 1821 to 1827, it varied between 528 and 612--at no time were there more than nine assistants, including the Lower Master. While some of the forms in the Lower School only had twenty or thirty boys, certain divisions in the Upper School were of quite unwieldy size. In 1820 Dr. Keate’s own division had swelled to 198. He then relieved himself by creating the Middle Division of the Fifth, but he continued to keep about 100 boys under his own charge at the end of Upper School, where much disorder prevailed.
All sorts of jokes and tricks were indulged in, and about 1810 it became a regular practice during the Winter Half to try and put out the candles in the two great chandeliers. There had originally been three of these, but according to tradition the third had been broken in the great rebellion some thirty years before. On one occasion a huge stone that was shied at the chandelier went within an inch of Keate’s head and cracked the panel behind him. Having somehow got to know the culprit, Keate let it be known that it was a boy at a certain dame’s, at the same time declaring that the only chance the boy had was to give himself up and trust to his leniency; otherwise he would be expelled. The boy was George Dallas, a straightforward fellow. He immediately went to Keate, confessed, and solemnly assured the Doctor that he had never intended to hurt him. Keate said he believed him, but of course Dallas must know that the lightest punishment he deserved was a good flogging, and that flogging he got.
A large part of the boys’ time seems to have been spent devising ingenious forms of annoying Keate, who sat enthroned in a spacious elevated desk, enclosed on all sides, like a pew, with two doors, one on each side. One fine morning he entered Upper School, and, going to his desk, tried to open one door, and found it was fastened. He went round, grinning, growling, and snarling, to the other side; the door there had been screwed up too. The desk was up to the breast of a tall man and as high as Keate’s head; nevertheless, laying his hand on the top of it, he lightly vaulted in, the feat being saluted with loud cheers and a hearty laugh. This made the Doctor more angry than ever. “I will make some of you suffer,” he said, and he did; for the next day, to the general astonishment, he called up all the boys who had been concerned in the screwing up and soundly flogged them. The secret of this was that Cartland, Keate’s servant, suspecting that mischief was afoot, secreting himself between the ceiling and roof of Upper School, had witnessed the whole screwing-up process through the rose from which hung a chandelier, and carefully noted down the names of the boys concerned.
Another time a huge mastiff was put under Keate’s seat, but the Doctor was fiercer than the dog, which ran away, frightened at his angry gaze.
[SN: THIS ISN’T A GIRLS’ SCHOOL]
One of the old school, Keate had no sympathy with innovations. Though he himself is said to have always carried an umbrella in sunshine as well as rain, he could not bear to see a boy with one. “Wet, sir? Don’t talk to me of weather, sir,” he would say; “you must make the best of it. This isn’t a girls’ school.” By way of paying their Headmaster out for such a remark, a party of boys once made an expedition to the neighbouring village of Upton, took down a large board inscribed in smart gilt letters “Seminary for Young Ladies,” and fixed it up over the great west entrance into the school-yard, where it met the Doctor’s angry eyes in the morning.
In spite of his stern disposition and rough ways Keate was highly sensitive as to ridicule, and especially disliked attempts to caricature his appearance.
When the informer in the celebrated case of the Cato Street conspirators--an Italian image-man by trade, and a very clever one--made his appearance at Eton one day with a tray full of plaster busts of the well-known Doctor, cocked hat and all, Keate was very much annoyed to find that his likeness was selling like wildfire amongst the boys. There seemed to be only one way of preventing the wholesale popularisation of his dumpy figure, so, buying up what was left of the Italian’s stock, he had the figures taken to his backyard and broken up.
One or two boys had the temerity to personate Keate. Lord Douro, son of the Iron Duke, dressed in an exact copy of the Doctor’s robes and hat, actually painted the Headmaster’s door red one night, to the amazement of a few persons who saw him.
In some verse commemorating this feat, the watchmen were supposed to be summoned before a conclave of masters the next morning to describe what they had seen:--
“We both last night Saw him--the Doctor--in his own cocked-hat, His bands, his breeches, and his bombasine, Paint his own door-post red.” Then great the wrath, And great the marvel of that conclave; all Turned their cold eyes on him, their dreaded chief, Convicted on such damning evidence Of this irreverend deed.
Keate never discovered the culprit till years after when, as a Canon of Windsor, he was entertaining Lord Douro at dinner. The latter, speaking of Eton days, alluded to the door-painting incident, and was about to make a full confession when Keate became so red in the face that he thought it wiser to desist.
[SN: AMATEUR FLOGGING]
Lord Abingdon was another Eton boy noted for his mimicry of Keate; indeed, dressed up in a cocked hat and gown made expressly for him, his disguise was so perfect that he actually went round one night and called “Absence” at the different dames’ houses without being detected. Years later, after a dinner-party at his home in Oxfordshire, his Lordship would dress up as Keate, and, birch in hand, enact a scene in the “library” for the edification of visitors. On one of these occasions he persuaded one of them to “go down” on a block, made in exact imitation of that at Eton, which stood in the room, whilst two others “held him down,” and the story goes that the noble host pitched into his guest with such hearty goodwill that, when allowed to get up, the latter was so sore in more ways than one that he called for his carriage and drove off in a great rage.
Though boys mimicked and laughed at Keate behind his back, very few had the courage to stand up to him face to face. One of the few, however, who did so was Charles Fox Townshend, the founder of “Pop,” who, “staying out” on account of indisposition, refused to write out and translate the lessons of the day, in consequence of which he was in due course summoned to the awful presence of the redoubtable Headmaster. In the well-known tones of thunder which made four generations of Etonians tremble, Keate demanded the meaning of such conduct. “Don’t speak so loud, Dr. Keate,” replied Townshend, “or you will make my head ache. If I had felt fit to write out and translate the lesson I should have gone into school, but I did not feel well enough, so I stayed out.” The famous Headmaster, it is said, was so dumbfoundered by the readiness of the delinquent’s reply that he let him go without any punishment.
On the whole, Keate does not seem to have been an ill-natured man, for, in spite of his occasional fits of ferocity, he was held in considerable esteem by a large number of the boys. They bore him no ill-will for the floggings he had caused them to undergo, and, when he left Eton in 1834, presented him with a gift testifying their appreciation of his merits. This consisted of a silver reproduction of the Warwick Vase, on the pedestal of which was inscribed--
PRESENTED BY THE EXISTING MEMBERS OF ETON SCHOOL TO THE REVD. JOHN KEATE, D.D. ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE HEADMASTERSHIP JULY 30, 1834, AS A TESTIMONY OF THE HIGH SENSE THEY ENTERTAIN OF HIS EXQUISITE TASTE AND ACCURATE SCHOLARSHIP SO LONG AND SO SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO THEIR IMPROVEMENT AND OF THE FIRM YET PARENTAL EXERCISE OF HIS AUTHORITY WHICH HAS CONCILIATED THE AFFECTION WHILE IT HAS COMMANDED THE RESPECT OF HIS SCHOLARS.
[SN: AN AMUSING DINNER]
Keate was in Paris soon after Waterloo, and there he met a number of old pupils to whom he had administered castigations. The latter determined to give their former pedagogue a dinner, which in due course took place at the Restaurant Beauvilliers, then one of the best dining-places in Paris, the hosts being Lord Sunderland, Lord James Stuart, and other scions of the aristocracy. The banquet was a most jovial one, and Keate did full justice to its excellence, drinking every kind of toast, and making a most suitable speech, which appropriately ended with “Floreat Etona.” After dinner a good deal of chaff began to fly around the table, and the guest of the evening was told of many Eton happenings which he had never heard before. For the first time he learnt of how two of his masters had secretly contrived to go up to London every Saturday in order to dine with Arnold and Kean at Drury Lane, surreptitious suppers at the “Christopher” were described, whilst tales of tandem expeditions, fights with bargees, and poaching excursions in Windsor Park reached his somewhat astonished ears. The old man, however, took everything in excellent part, merely remarking that all he had heard but inspired him with regrets that he had not flogged the assembled company as much as they appeared to have deserved. On leaving, he thanked his hosts in a few well-turned phrases, and, parting from them on excellent terms, went home amidst loud cheers.
No doubt he owed a good part of the popularity which, in spite of his sternness, he eventually obtained to the attractions of Mrs. Keate, who was a very fascinating woman. In the year 1814, during a match with Epsom, the Eton champion, John Harding, scored 74--an extraordinary number in those days, when the bowling generally beat the bat. It called forth a poem from a clever Colleger (“Marshal” Stone), in which were the following lines. The Doctor saw them and was vastly amused:--
No vulgar wood was the bat of might That swung in the grasp of Harding wight; No vulgar maker’s name it wore, Nor vulgar was the name it bore. It was a bat full fair to see, And it drove the balls right lustily; Without a flaw, without a speck, Smoothe as fair Hebe’s ivory neck-- It was withal so light, so neat, The Harding called it--Mrs. Keate.
When the allied sovereigns were present at a fête in the gardens at Frogmore in 1815, the King of Prussia is said to have gone up and kissed Mrs. Keate, making the excuse of her remarkable likeness to his Queen.
All sorts of stories have been told of Keate’s fondness for wielding the birch. “Remember, boys,” he is once supposed to have said, “you are to be pure in heart, or I’ll flog you till you are.”
He certainly did castigate an enormous number of Etonians, amongst them, it is said, half the Ministers, Secretaries, Bishops, Generals, and Dukes of the earlier portion of the nineteenth century; but, nevertheless, the boys in his own division were usually punished by having to write out impositions, and were not flogged except for some very flagrant offence, such as intoxication.
Keate, as Headmaster of Eton, it must be remembered, was chief executioner, and had to do justice when a boy was complained of by any assistant master.
The school had drifted into very slack ways, and Keate, who possessed a very intimate knowledge of Eton, realised that leniency would merely make matters worse. Consequently he rather favoured drastic measures, and in spite of adverse criticism his system had a good effect. It has often been urged that it failed because the boys at times openly defied his authority. In the earlier days of his rule this was occasionally the case, and gross insubordination prevailed, though it never reached such a point as it had attained in the days of Keate’s predecessors. On the other hand, when the stern old Headmaster handed over the reins of power to Dr. Hawtrey, the school had become quite orderly and controlled.
[SN: NAPOLEONIC METHODS]
Though, as has already been said, not much given to flogging boys under his immediate control, he was a firm believer in the efficacy of the birch for almost every kind of offence, and was quite ready to be a ruthless executioner in order to facilitate the work of his subordinates.
His methods were entirely Napoleonic, and when flogging boys who had committed some unusually heinous offence, by way of making an impression on their minds as well as their bodies, he used to accompany his infliction of punishment with a number of cutting remarks punctuated by strokes of the birch: “A disgrace to your friends” (swish, swish), “Ruin to your parents” (swish, swish, swish, swish), “You’ll come to the gallows at last!” and so forth.
Flogging at Eton was once described by the _Edinburgh Review_ as “an operation performed on the naked back by the Headmaster himself, who is always a gentleman, and sometimes a high dignitary of the Church.”
The Eton boys of the past took their floggings very lightly. One of them having, it is said, been flogged by the Headmaster by mistake for another boy, though he knew that he had done nothing to deserve his castigation, made no attempt whatever to escape it. When, however, the real culprit was discovered an investigation took place, and the flogged one’s tutor then asked, “Why did you not explain to the Headmaster that you had never been complained of?”
“Well, sir,” was the reply, “I have been complained of so often that once more or less didn’t seem to matter much; besides, I thought that very likely some master I had forgotten about might have complained of me after all.”
[Illustration: Headmaster’s Room, showing Swishing Block and Birches.]
Like many others, Fielding, a typical Englishman of a long-past age, was in after life proud of having been flogged. Alluding to Eton in his introduction to the thirteenth book of _Tom Jones_ he says, “Thee in thy favourite fields, where the limpid, gently rolling Thames washes thy Etonian banks, in early youth I have worshipped. To thee, at thy birchen altar, with true Spartan devotion, I have sacrificed my blood.”
[SN: REFUSING TO GO DOWN]
In later times, however, a certain number of boys have shown an invincible dislike of being birched, and some have actually preferred to undergo expulsion rather than kneel at the block. The 4th Marquis of Ailesbury (notorious for his follies) when a boy at Eton, having been complained of, ran away in order to avoid a punishment to which he declared he would never submit. This, I believe, happened twice, after which he was at last obliged to confront the Lower Master, who administered a certain number of strokes. On rising from the block, however, the irrepressible culprit made use of such language that his sojourn at Eton was at once cut short. In most cases, however, fear of expulsion has generally made those summoned to the block submit. A peculiar case was that of a boy high up in the school, and a well-known swell at athletics, who, going up to Oxford in order to matriculate, instead of returning to Eton directly the examination was over, outstayed his leave and remained for some days amusing himself with a Christchurch friend. As a consequent result, when he did return the voice of a praepostor was heard inquiring “Is ---- in this division? He is to stay.” The culprit, who considered himself a grown man, at first stoutly declared that nothing would induce him to undergo a flogging, and it required a good deal of persuasion to make him realise that continued resistance would entail his going away from Eton without a leaving book; that is to say, practical expulsion, which is liable to injure a boy’s prospects in after life. Eventually, concluding that it would be best to submit, he duly paid the required visit to the library, where Dr. Balston officiated in a most sympathetic but efficient manner.
In rougher days, scapegraces used to make a flogging the occasion for all sorts of jokes. One boy, for instance, got a friend who had some knowledge of art to paint a rough portrait of the Headmaster on that portion of his body which has always been associated with the punishment of youth. When the Head was about to deliver his blows he was at first considerably taken aback by being confronted by his own likeness upon such an unconventional background. However, he rose to the occasion, and, with the aid of a couple of birches, completely obliterated all trace of any portrait.
In the case of big boys there is some humiliation in being flogged. A certain captain of the boats, who had indulged too freely in champagne, a very tall and powerful young man, about to be flogged by Dr. Hawtrey, begged hard that he should receive his punishment in private, and thus escape the degradation of being observed on the block by a large crowd of boys looking through the open door. The Headmaster, however, would not hear of this for a moment, declaring that publicity was the chief part of the punishment.
[SN: SABBATH CASTIGATION]
When Election Saturday was in full swing, a certain number of boys made a point of indulging in insubordination, thinking that so close to the end of the half they would escape punishment. Some of the masters, however, made a point of punishing irregularities at such a time with ruthless determination, and never failed to complain of any boy whom they found to be intoxicated on Election Saturday, with the result that floggings on the Sunday (the boys then went home on the Monday) were not infrequent.
In order to castigate such offenders. Dr. Goodford would be ready in his room on Sunday, where he would sometimes attend at 10.30 at night, in order to flog boys going by an early train next day. Even those leaving Eton altogether had to submit, for otherwise they would have been ranked as being expelled. Mr. Brinsley Richards tells of a boy, nearly six feet high, and with a moustache, who debated in agony of mind whether he would take a swishing on the night before leaving the school. He had actually got a commission in the cavalry; his uniforms were ordered, and he was to join his regiment in ten days; but on Election Saturday night he got uproariously drunk, was seen by a strict master, and put in the bill. He duly surrendered to his fate, received twelve cuts with “two birches,” and the following day took leave of Dr. Goodford on the pleasantest terms possible.
Dr. Goodford seems to have taken a genial view of flogging; on the morning of one St. Andrew’s Day he swished a Scotch boy who was coming to breakfast with him, and greeted him later on at that meal with a cheery “Here we are again!”
An amusing story used to be told of a boy just about to leave Eton who, having refused to be flogged, on his arrival at home discovered, to his horror, that his refusal to bow to constituted authority would prevent him from being allowed to enter the career upon which he had set his heart. Hoping to put matters right, he at once set out for Eton, only to find on his arrival there that the Headmaster had gone to Switzerland. The ingenious youth, determined to get flogged, then somehow procured two birches and hurried off to Geneva, only to find that the Head had gone on to Lucerne. To that city he too followed, but, missing the pedagogue whom he sought, again had to continue his pursuit, which eventually ended in the refectory of the Monastery of Mont St. Bernard, where he eventually persuaded the Doctor to administer the sought-for flogging amidst a circle of edified monks. The ordeal over, the Headmaster was presented with the leaving fee, which was then customary, in return handing the relieved youth a leaving book in the shape of a _Guide_ to the Alps, which happened to be the only volume procurable.
[SN: A SWISHING TRADITION]
During the writer’s school days at Eton, though flogging was in full swing, the castigations administered by Dr. Hornby--and he speaks from personal experience--were not severe. On the other hand the Lower Master, the Rev. J. L. Joynes, tempered the severity of his floggings according to the offence which they were intended to correct. On one occasion the writer remembers him laying with a will into a boy who is now a distinguished officer. The latter, however, although he received some thirty-two strokes, administered with two birches (the first one after a time became useless owing to the force with which it was used), never flinched in the least, though this “real flogging” must have occasioned considerable pain, very different from the mild sensation produced by the usual ones--often little more than a disagreeable form. At that time the tradition still prevailed that the wielder of the rod whilst “swishing” was not allowed to lift his hand above his shoulder. Though, as far as the writer can remember, this rule was adhered to by the executioner, he has since heard that the sole foundation for the idea was a curious underhand motion of the right arm peculiar to Dr. Hawtrey which his successors seem to have copied.
From time to time more or less public protests have been made against the use of the birch, which has always been an object of detestation in the eyes of sentimentalists and professional humanitarians.
In 1856 a long correspondence appeared in the _Times_ dealing with the question of flogging. This arose out of the case of a boy named Morgan Thomas, whose father upheld him in not submitting to be flogged.
A report that in future no Upper boys will be flogged, recently called forth some controversy in the newspapers, most old Etonians being, it would appear, of opinion that the abolition of the birch and the substitution of other punishments, including, I believe, caning, are to be deplored. The inevitable sentimentalist, however, was of course well to the front, declaring that “birching, or even caning, is out of date, it being much better to bring boys up to do the right thing and to avoid doing the wrong thing from a sense of honour and pledge.” Apparently this gentleman was under the impression that such a method of education was a new and entire innovation!
In future it appears that amongst Upper boys, flogging is to be supplanted by something resembling the painful process once known as a “College hiding.” At the time when Oppidan Fourth Form boys used to delight in jeering at Tugs, a good many, being captured by Collegers, were dragged off and given a number of cuts with a cane--a far more painful ordeal, it was said, than an ordinary swishing by the Headmaster.
[SN: ABDUCTING THE BLOCK]
On the evening of the 12th May 1836 three old Etonians--Lord Waterford, Lord Alford, and Mr. J. H. Jesse, who had been entertaining some boys to dinner at the Christopher after a boat race against Westminster, being in particularly high spirits, determined to have some fun before driving back to town. Not being able to get into Upper School (where the block was then kept) by the door, Mr. Jesse and Lord Waterford, at considerable risk, crept along the narrow stone ledge over the colonnade, and, entering Upper School by an open window, forced the lock of the door from within, and carried their prize off in triumph, in spite of an attempt to stop them on the part of the College watchman. The trophy, I believe, was never returned, and is still in existence at Curraghmore.
Though the abduction of the block was considered a capital joke, a more serious view was taken of another exploit afterwards perpetrated by Mr. Jesse. During Ascot week of the following year he contrived to wrench the sceptre from the hand of the statue of the founder in School Yard and get away with it. This aroused a very strong feeling of indignation amongst boys as well as masters, and the emblem of sovereignty was, in consequence, soon restored with an apology. This is the only time that the bronze effigy of Henry VI., erected by Provost Godolphin in the early years of the eighteenth century, has ever been molested.
The block in Lower School has also had its adventures. In or about 1863 a King’s scholar, Lewis by name, during some disturbance abstracted it--according to tradition to save it from being destroyed during some disorder. Whatever may have been the truth of the matter, he kept it, and when, a short time later, he obtained a Postmastership at Merton, took it away to Oxford with the rest of his belongings. On his death this block passed into the possession of Dr. Lewis, who lived in Glamorganshire; and when this gentleman died, Mr. F. T. Bircham, obtaining it from his widow, handed it back to the Headmaster of Eton on May 3, 1890.
The venerable, though somewhat gruesome relic in question is of some historical interest, for on it are carved a number of names, amongst them Milman, Lonsdale, Routh, Wellesley, and H. Hall (1773). It is to be hoped that, should Lower boys ever cease to need the discipline of the birch, this relic of sterner days will be kept in Lower School, with the old-world appearance of which it so well accords.
The present block, the one used in the library, was, I believe, abducted some three or four years ago, two boys having carried out the extraordinary feat of climbing into Upper School through a window and smuggling out the awesome relic of torture, which they eventually sent to the authorities of the British Museum, who returned it to the authorities of the school.
[SN: THE OFFICIAL BIRCHMAKER]
An important functionary in connection with Eton castigations has always been the Headmaster’s servant, rod-making being one of his traditional functions. Under Keate the office was held by Cartland, opprobriously nicknamed “Sly” by Collegers, who abhorred him. In Dr. Hawtrey’s day came Finmore, who, after the former’s death, continued in office as servant to Dr. Goodford. Part of the duties of the office lay in seeing that there were always at least half a dozen new rods in the cupboard of the “library,” Dr. Goodford being apt to get very angry if an execution had to be adjourned for want of birches. A dozen new rods were supposed to be at hand in the cupboard every morning, for there was no calculating the number of floggings that might be inflicted in a day. Finmore used to make the rods at his own house, with the help of his wife, and brought them to the library quietly after Lock Up, or in the morning before early school. Sometimes, however, when the supply of rods ran short Finmore had to bring in fresh birches in the middle of the day, which, for several reasons, was a somewhat hazardous task.
One afternoon, after three o’clock school, when there were only three birches available, six boys were up to be flogged. The Head flogged three of the culprits and adjourned the others till six o’clock, at the same time ordering the Sixth Form praepostor to be sure and tell Finmore that the cupboard must be replenished before six. Some Lower boys, however, getting wind of this, and hearing that Finmore was bound to come to the library between four and five, lay in wait for him, and in due course espied him hovering near the top of Keate’s Lane, empty-handed, but walking suspiciously near to a grocer’s cart making its way towards Weston’s Yard. Suddenly a shout was raised, and the crowd of boys, scampering off, stopped the cart just as it was turning into the yard, surrounded it yelling, and extracted from it six new birches wrapped in a cloth. Finmore, breathless and almost choking with emotion, vainly tried to save his rods. Half a dozen boys, however, soon ran off with one apiece, the unfortunate official being left to bewail his evil fate. In Dr. Hornby’s day the custodian of the birches was White, a spruce, neatly-dressed figure whom many old Etonians will still remember.
He it was who, in consideration of a fee of a guinea, saw that the names of boys leaving Eton were cut in Upper School. For a consideration he would also supply birches tied up with blue ribbon to any one desirous of carrying away such grim mementoes.
Whilst the block, for Lower boys at least, remains one of the features of Eton, fighting, once a characteristic institution of the school, has long disappeared, having seemingly fallen out of favour in the late fifties of the last century.
In the period preceding Waterloo the combats were fierce and frequent; there was one nearly every day, and so determined were the Etonians of that era that there is a case on record of two boys rising at six in the morning to begin the conflict, and sparring away for three hours!
[SN: “SIXPENNY CORNER”]
Whilst the Oppidans, according to immemorial custom, settled their differences in “Sixpenny Corner,” the Collegers fought their battles in Long Chamber. An unwritten code decreed that when a King’s scholar wished to fight he must ask permission of the Captain of the school to be allowed to do so after Lock Up, and this, as may be imagined, was never refused. About nine o’clock a fairly spacious ring was formed just below the second fireplace, boys standing on bedsteads placed around, holding candles, which enabled the combatants to see one another. It would appear that in the old fighting days the Collegers fought fewer battles than the Oppidans,--the fights of the former were usually short and sharp, the boys being so well acquainted with each other’s strength and powers, that after a round or two the fight was discontinued and the quarrel made up.
The old-fashioned encounters in “Sixpenny Corner,” which seem to have been conducted in a more or less formal style, were, of course, most frequent in the days when the Prize Ring occupied a prominent place amongst sports patronised by men of fashion.
Young Corinthians who had only just left school no doubt indoctrinated friends still at Eton with enthusiasm for the knights of the fist, and caused them to regard pugilism as a science worthy of attention.
A curious piece of etiquette in connection with fighting was, that if a Lower boy wanted to fight one in the Upper School, he could do so only after having obtained leave from the Captain of the school.
At one time Eton battles were fought with hats on, which caused the Westminster boys to declare that, owing to the damage inflicted upon knuckles by the hat brims, most Etonian encounters were not of a serious kind.
The Sixth Form and Upper boys were expected to see that fair-play was enforced, and that when one combatant was clearly overmatched and plainly worsted, a reconciliation took place. Both were made to shake hands, and having vented their ill-feeling in a manly and honourable way, they were afterwards often found to be the best of friends.
A great battle at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the fight between Calthorp and Forster.
“Sixpenny Corner,” at the angle where the wall game now takes place, was the traditional scene of battle, and here the great Duke of Wellington, as little Arthur Wellesley, fought Bobus Smith, brother of Sydney Smith, the fight, according to all accounts, ending in a draw.
A redoubtable pugilist was Stratford de Redcliffe, who emerged victor from many a tough contest. Less successful was Shelley, who is said to have received a severe thrashing from little Sir Thomas Styles. During another fight the youthful poet attracted a good deal of attention by refusing to rest on the knee of his second, preferring to stride round the ring quoting Homer! No wonder the boys used to call him “mad Shelley”! It must be remembered, however, that he was a constant butt for a large portion of the school. “My belief,” said Dr. Hawtrey, “is that what Shelley had to endure at Eton made him a perfect devil.”
[SN: THRASHING A LIFEGUARDSMAN]
In the early days of the nineteenth century a gigantic boy named Wyvill became celebrated for his fistic powers. He once gave a Lifeguardsman a severe thrashing in Windsor, and the soldier was so much upset that he went to the Headmaster, Dr. Goodall, to complain of his mauling. The latter, who hated to have to take notice of any Eton escapade, said, “My good fellow, how can you expect me to know what boy it was?” “Boy!” he answered with a country accent; “he is the biggest mun in the tuttens,” or two towns. And so Wyvill ever after went by the name of “the biggest mun in the tuttens.”
When a challenge had been given and accepted, the details of the forthcoming fight were arranged by friends, after which the combatants just walked into the playing fields with their seconds, stripped off their jackets, and went to work, the boys forming a ring, no other formalities being observed--hardly even a sponge or a watch. When a minute was supposed to have elapsed, one got up from his second’s knee and said, “Come on.” A little hot blood flowed, and as soon as either felt he had enough he had only to say so. Drawn battles were not common or popular, boys preferring to have matters brought to an issue. There was the most perfect fair-play, and if things were carried at all too far, interference was pretty sure to be at hand, though not otherwise. When, during a fight, Keate just showed himself at the corner of the playing fields, the hint was immediately taken.
Fights between Lower boys, it should be added, were deemed of small account, but a battle between two well-known Uppers always attracted a large crowd.
The most tragic fight which ever took place at Eton was a fierce battle between a small boy named Ashley Cooper and a big one named Wood (afterwards Sir A. Wood). For three hours the unequal combat was carried on, till, in the last round before Lock Up, the former fell senseless and had to be carried to his tutor’s house, where, half an hour later, he expired. His death, however, seems to have been caused by a quantity of brandy given him by his elder brother, rather than by the effects of the fight. Also, had medical attendance been procured, Cooper’s life would probably have been saved. After, however, he had been carried senseless to his house, every effort was made to conceal the state in which he was in, gloves being placed upon his hands so that their dreadful condition might not be visible. The boy died the same night.
The sequel of the encounter was a trial at Aylesbury, where, on March 9, 1825, Charles Alexander Wood, seventeen years old, was charged before Mr. Justice Gazelee with the manslaughter of the Hon. Francis Ashley Cooper, after a quarrel in the Eton playing fields. The fight, it was proved, had been conducted in the strictest accordance with the rules of the Prize Ring, which at that time still flourished. No less than sixty rounds were shown to have been fought with the fiercest determination--the time occupied, two hours. Cooper, who was two years younger than his antagonist, had been given nearly a pint of brandy to enable him to continue the struggle against a more powerful opponent. Wood was, of course, acquitted; besides which, Cooper’s brother entirely exonerated him, taking all the blame on himself for having administered the brandy.
[SN: AN ILLEGIBLE INSCRIPTION]
This battle--the most serious schoolboy fight which ever took place--probably had some effect in decreasing the popularity of fistic encounters. It certainly created a great sensation, being, according to some, commemorated by an inscription (now illegible) upon the white stone let into the wall at Sixpenny Corner. The late Mr. Brownlow North, Lord Kintore tells me, declared that he had been a second at the fight, and remembered the insertion of the stone as a memorial.
The Gasworks eventually superseded “Sixpenny” as a fistic arena, though the time-honoured phrase, “Will you fight me in ‘Sixpenny’?” still remained the recognised form of challenge.
In 1858 fighting was already beginning to go out of fashion. In 1865, while the Public Schools Commissioners were sitting, they examined a Lower boy touching fights, and asked him if he had any theory to explain why regular stand-up fights had become so rare? The boy answered, “Oh! I suppose it’s because the fellows funk each other.”
The real reason of the disappearance of fighting was that it came to be thought bad form, and consequently no longer received any patronage from boys who were the swells of the school. Once it began to be considered “scuggish,” the fate of Eton pugilism was sealed, and though informal encounters occasionally occur--there was a determined battle near the railway arches in 1893--within the last forty years fighting has become a thing of the past.
IV “CADS,” AND THE “CHRISTOPHER”
Though a century or so ago fights and floggings were ordinary incidents of school life, a large number of boys contrived to make time pass very pleasantly indeed. At that time the sporting Etonian was quite a recognised type.
The following sketch, from the _Sporting Magazine_, of Etonian ways in 1799, whilst, of course, a somewhat exaggerated caricature, was evidently based upon a very solid substratum of truth:--
_Sunday._--Not well--church a bore--headache increased by bell--sent an excuse--up at ten--dressed by eleven--sipped tea in a back room--read half a page of _Sporting Magazine_--d--d good--much pleased with the Oxonian’s diary--walked to Castle--prayers with Bluster--rowed the cut of Bluster’s coat--bad taylor--smoked a Cockney, and his blue silks--kicked his wig in the kennel--teach the dog good manners--came down to dinner--no appetite--Dame’s hash, like shoe-leather--drank wine at the Christopher--bad port--waiter, jawed--shoved him out--during evening church, finished Oxonian diary--tight cock--wish I knew him--drank tea at Coker’s--bad company--Spanker and self adjourned to Cloisters--good fun--returned to Dame’s--sat with Pink--bad supper--four beer--rowed the maids--picked teeth--went to bed.
_Monday._--Waked at eight--keep up pretence of headache--up at ten--dressed by eleven--Smith’s burgamot, not so good as usual--breakfast--at one, walked to billiards--no one there--beat the marker.--Mem. Not go to Huddlestone’s again--came down--dinner better than usual--new cook--dull evening--went to bed early.
_Tuesday._--Sham leave--hunted with King’s hounds--Steven’s blood lame--d--d bore--forced to ride the grey--new boots--bad leather--cut Webb for the future, and employ Atkins--Alderman S----y, wretched quiz--his chesnut horse broke down--let him fall into a ditch--hat and wig, both lost--looked like a bumble bee in a tar pot--good hunt--hard riding--go along--keep moving.--Mem. Always row the Alderman and not forget to cram Pink--came home tired--sandwiches and wine at the White Hart--merry evening--got drunk--Dame jawed.
_Wednesday._--Whole school day--very dull--walked to Steven’s--Grey, knocked up--pain in my side--evening, cards, etc.--much better--betting in my favour--beat Dashall at cribbage--won nine shillings--lucky dog--went to bed in good spirits.
Elaborate hoaxes were common at the commencement of the nineteenth century. A young Etonian acquired a good deal of notoriety by sending the town-crier, whom he had fee’d for the purpose, to announce a general illumination in honour of the battle of Vittoria. It created quite a sensation in both Windsor and Eton; and although no one knew from whence the orders came, G. R.’s and coloured lamps in abundance were displayed in the windows of many of the houses. A meeting of the magistrates was hastily summoned, and the hoax was discovered. The writing gave a clue to the culprit, who in due course underwent the punishment usual in such cases.
[SN: SPORTING BOYS]
License which would be inconceivable at the present day prevailed--bull-baiting on Batchelor’s Acre and cock-fighting in Bedford’s Yard being quite ordinary amusements. Small wonder that at one time strong complaint was made as to the habits of the school. Ascot Races were regularly attended by many of the older boys. Hunting and tandem-driving were not uncommon. Henry Matthews, author of the _Diary of an Invalid_, a very clever and eccentric boy, drove a tandem right through Eton and Windsor; a later rival, however, of Keate’s day, when James Clegg of Windsor provided sporting boys with horses and traps, drove one through the school-yard. Billiards continued to be very popular, not only with the boys but with their Masters, who claimed “first turn” at the tables.
Copying the London bucks, Upper boys would sally out on dark nights and wrench bell-pulls and knockers from the dames’ houses, or make hay in the poultry-yard of old Pocock, the farmer at the corner of “Cut-throat” Lane, as Datchet Lane was then sometimes called.
Poaching expeditions in Windsor Park were quite common. On one occasion young Lord Baltimore and a companion, when out after game, were pursued by a Master. The young Peer, however, escaped, but eventually gave himself up in order to save his friend (who had refused to divulge his associate’s name) from expulsion.
Guns could then be hired for the purpose of shooting swallows and swifts on the Brocas bank, where a number of sporting “cads,” then known as “Private Tutors,” assisted in all sorts of sprees, providing dogs, fishing-tackle, badgers, ferrets, rats, fighting dogs, horses, and even, it is said, bulls for baiting.
Eighty or ninety years ago a dozen or more of such men were constantly to be seen loitering in front of the College every morning, making their arrangements with their pupils, the Oppidans, for a day’s sport, to commence the moment school was over. At one time they used actually to occupy a seat on the low wall in front of the College, but Dr. Keate interfered to expel the assemblage; nevertheless, they continued to carry on their intercourse with the boys, and walked about watching their opportunity for communication.
A number supplied cats for hunts upon the Brocas, while a number organised duck hunts, a duck being put into the river and hunted with considerable brutality. A few, however, escaped by diving and tiring the dogs out.
Some of these men were strange characters, who showed great recklessness when times were bad, and would be ready to let boys have a shot at them at a distance of seventy-five yards or so, three shillings a shot being the accepted price.
[SN: “PICKY POWELL”]
Others would jump from the middle of Windsor Bridge for a consideration. The stake-holder on such occasions was usually Jem Powell, known as “Picky” Powell, who about 1824 was celebrated in Eton for his “quart of sovereigns,” it being his invariable practice when elated--for Jem, needless to say, was no teetotaller--to march up and down in front of his house with a silver-gilt tankard filled with his savings, all in gold.
This Picky Powell would appear to be identical with the individual who, years later, enjoyed a considerable reputation as having been professional bowler to the school. During the annual matches with Harrow at Lord’s, Picky usually made a point of having an informal sparring match with a well-known Harrow “cad,” Billy Warner by name, who, like his bigger antagonist, was supposed to have been a notable cricketer in his youth. A favourite taunt of Picky’s which usually inaugurated hostilities was, “All the good I sees in ‘Arrow’ is that you can see Eton from it if ye go up into the churchyard.”
The last appearance of Powell at Lord’s appears to have been in 1858, when, as usual, he croaked defiance at his hereditary foe. On this occasion, however, no sparring was permitted, but Picky reaped a rich harvest of silver, bestowed upon him by old Etonians.
[Illustration: Jack Hall, Fisherman of Eton. _Print lent by G. Culliford, Esq._]
A well-known character of the past on the Brocas was Jack Hall, nicknamed “Foxy Hall,” by all accounts the most worthy of Eton “cads,” and celebrated as an expert angler. His portrait, taken from an old print, is here reproduced. Others were Joe Cannon, Fish, “Shampo Carter” (who taught swimming in 1824 with the Headmaster’s permission), Jack Garraway, and the Anti-Catholic Jim Miller, the patriarch of “cads,” who signed a petition against Catholic Emancipation “upon principle.” “For,” he said, “when the d----d rogues burnt Cranmer and Ridley, they never paid for the fagots--unprincipled varmints!” A great deal of license was accorded to these wall loungers, most of whom were ready to abet the boys in every kind of mischief.
One of the most noted sporting “cads” was old Jimmy Flowers, whose speciality was badger-baiting on the Brocas, his stock-in-trade consisting of a badger in a sack and an old tub with one end knocked out. Dogs used to be put into the tub to fetch the badger out, the charge being sixpence, unless the fight with the badger lasted very long, when Old Jimmy used to exact a further fee. When the fun, if it can be called fun, had lasted long enough, the badger, whose opinion of the proceedings it would have been interesting to have heard, was replaced in the sack, and with a cheery “Good day, gentlemen, your dogs have had good sport,” Jimmy would walk away.
Another well-known character in the beginning of the nineteenth century was Old Matty Groves, who was much teased by the boys on account of his rooted antipathy to clergymen, whom he used to denounce as the “black slugs” of the country. He it was who led the procession which every seven years went round to beat the Eton boundary, and nailed up a cross of old iron hoops on a venerable willow near the grounds of Black Potts, where in after years Dr. Hornby had a retreat. Old Matty was very unconventional in his ways, and had been known in flood-time, when the stream was running strong, to plunge into it in his clothes at Barnes Pool Bridge and swim across to his cottage.
[SN: FLOODS]
Floods have always been liable to occur at Eton, though, for the most part, they have generally subsided before becoming serious. In 1809, however, there was a tremendous one, which carried away six of the central arches of the old “Fifteen Arch” Bridge on the Slough Road that spans the stream which feeds Fellows’ Pond. For five days the only communication with some of the boarding-houses was by boats and carts, and the school had practically a week’s holiday. The boys lay in bed till a late hour, and when they got up it was to play cards and get into other mischief. Driving down Eton Street in carts, with the risk of getting spilt into the water, was one of their favourite amusements.
Two subsequent floods have been almost, if not quite, as serious--one in 1852, the year that the Duke of Wellington died, and one in 1894, when all the boys had to be sent home. Many of the Masters, however, remained behind, and spent their time in rescuing people in the surrounding country and supplying them with food.
[SN: SPANKIE]
Though in 1829, owing to the adoption of stern measures, the “Private Tutors” under whose auspices many a boy had shot his first moor-hen and laid his first eel-pot were expelled from the College precincts, the “sock cads” continued to haunt the “wall” for many years later. The most celebrated of these, of course, was the famous Spankie, who flourished about half a century ago. Spankie never failed to appear in the playing fields during summer, whilst in winter he was more or less of a fixture at the wall. Of him was written, one summer’s day when the cricket was getting slow in Upper Club, the line, “Totaque tartiferis Spancheia fervet ahenis.” A ridiculous and unfounded school tradition declared that he was a son of a General le Marchant, and he was often playfully apostrophised by that name.
The principal characteristics of this worthy, besides a rubicund countenance, a long blue frock coat, and an old top hat (invariably worn on one side of his head), were extreme oiliness of manner, combined with an unlimited amount of cheek. His wares, chiefly tartlets of all sorts, were contained in a sort of huge tin can supported on legs. At the proper season he also sold pots of flowers.
Spankie was imbued with a tremendous veneration for the aristocracy, and prided himself upon his acquaintance with the history of every noble family in England. Rumour, indeed, declared that most of his time out of sock-selling hours was devoted to studying the _Peerage_ and the _Landed Gentry_, both of which works he was supposed to know pretty well by heart. This, no doubt, was a schoolboy exaggeration, but certain it was that Spankie had a curious and not inaccurate knowledge of the noble houses whose youthful scions furnished him with a comfortable income. It was a way of his to address the sons of distinguished people by their fathers’ names, whilst, it should be added, often fleecing them in a merciless manner, for, sad to tell, his methods were not above suspicion. A favourite trick was carefully to array a few very fine strawberries or cherries at the top of a pottle after filling up the lower portion with very inferior fruit; as, however, he made a practice of giving liberal tick, little was ever said about this. He made quite a comfortable fortune out of the Eton boys, as was realised when it became known that he had contributed no less than £50 to the fund for building a new parish church in the High Street.
By the lower members of the school Spankie was looked up to as a perfect oracle, for he seemed to know everything, could predict who would be members of the Eleven or Eight, and tell the name and history of the latest comer, stringing on to it, if necessary, a list of all his relations, with their various achievements. One of this celebrated sock cad’s chief peculiarities was that he could scarcely utter three consecutive words without a “sir” coming at the end of them; and it was marvellous how he could change them as easily as he did into “my lord” when any of the young aristocracy came up to him.
In addition to entertaining an unlimited respect for the British aristocracy, Spankie nurtured a deep contempt for trade, as the small sons of rich manufacturers, especially when they had failed to meet their liabilities, frequently had reason to know. “Good morning, sar,” Spankie would say to a scion of some house not unconnected with “cotton,” who might be rather backward in settling his debts. “Glad to see you back, sar. Bought some pocket-handkerchiefs at your establishment in the vacation, sar; cheap enough, only six shillings a dozen; but I don’t find them wash well, sar.”
According to some, Spankie made quite a comfortable little sum by supplying the names of visitors to Eton to the London papers, whilst rumour also declared that on occasion the College authorities employed him to trace and recapture runaways.
[SN: SOCK CADS]
One of Spankie’s best-known predecessors was a sock cad named Charley Pass, who was to be seen daily stationed at the wall near the gateway with a curious tin apparatus containing pies, kept hot by a charcoal brazier. He had a peculiar cry, somewhat resembling that of the long obsolete pieman. “Ham and Veal; Mutton Eel,” he would call out as the boys were emerging from school. Young Collegers who knew his ways would drive him to fury by shouting “and dog--that’s what I want.” Trotman with his barrow was also a familiar figure in the “forties.”
Another sock cad who had some pretensions to being a rival to Spankie was a hook-nosed little man known as Levi, the Jew. Spankie and he constantly indulged in verbal sparring, in which the Hebrew, who was a man of few words, as a rule got much the worst of it. On one occasion this so infuriated Levi that a battle royal ensued. Goaded to frenzy by some taunt of Spankie’s, Levi challenged him to come on, and an animated tussle ensued, speedily ended only by the appearance of one of the Masters, who, separating the combatants, thoroughly frightened both by declaring that he had a good mind to see that the two of them should be prevented from frequenting the neighbourhood of the wall. The idea of this thoroughly cowed even the irrepressible Spankie, and henceforth Levi and he lived at peace.
A less assertive character than either of the two worthies mentioned above was old Brion or Bryant, a white-headed sock cad whose invariable costume was a grey coat. According to current report he had no less than twenty-one children. His speciality lay in purveying small glasses of cherry jam dashed with cream at fourpence, which must have yielded him a good profit.
Bryant outdid the other sock cads in owning a huge barrow, which every day was wheeled to the wall. A portly, good-natured man, he was not as astute as Spankie, and consequently was frequently imposed upon by his young customers. Sometimes, however, he showed a keen aptitude for business. When, for instance, a little boy complained that he had given him but a small pennyworth of preserve in his jam-bun, he would evince the amiability of his intentions by saying, “I was afraid it might disagree with you, sir.”
Another well-known character in the sixties of the last century was an old lady known as “Missis,” who sat by the entrance to the school-yard selling apples, nuts, bullfinches, and dormice.
During more recent years there have been no sock cads of such marked individuality as those mentioned above, nor do they enjoy the privileges which were accorded to their predecessors of a more easy-going age, their appearance at the wall being discouraged. Some, however, still ply their trade in the playing fields and at the bathing-places. The most original of the modern school was “Hoppie.” Every portion of this worthy’s costume, according to his own account, had belonged to some prominent old Etonian. During the summer half he was a constant frequenter of “Upper Hope,” where perhaps he still parades “the Duke of Wellington’s coat” and “Lord Roberts’ trousers” as of yore.
Thirty years ago there were several individuals known as “Jobey”--a name taken from almost the last of the old Eton characters, “Jobey Joel,” who died not very long ago. He remembered the school when far more latitude was allowed the boys, and had many a queer tale to tell of that vanished institution, the Christopher, now but a fading memory in the minds of a few.
[SN: THE CHRISTOPHER]
The ancient hostelry in question would seem to have flourished as long ago as the sixteenth century. The mention of a certain Nicholas Williams lodging “ad signum Christoferi” occurs in the Eton Audit Book for 1523. The old inn served as a refuge to the “ever memorable” Eton Fellow, John Hales, who for his unwavering allegiance to the King was deprived of his fellowship.
In later days the Christopher became a great social centre of local life. All the coaches stopped at its door, and before Dr. Hawtrey abolished the Eton Market there was a weekly ordinary for farmers, and occasionally a hunt dinner, with noise enough to have driven the Muses back to Greece. Its rooms were in great request with parents come down to see their promising or unpromising offspring, whilst old Etonians revisiting Eton made the old place their headquarters as a matter of course.
“Lord! how great I used to think anybody just landed at the Christopher!” wrote Horace Walpole when he returned to his old school in 1746. The place recalled many memories of boyhood to his mind, and he declared that he felt “just like Noah, with all sorts of queer feels about him.”
Horace Walpole had passed some happy days at Eton, where one of his greatest friends was the studious and quiet Gray, who read Virgil for amusement out of school. The writer of the famous letters had a great affection for Eton, and Cambridge, as he said, seemed a wilderness to him as compared with the “dear scene” he had left. In after life the recollection of his school-days was ever keen. When, for instance, he first saw a balloon he declared that he was at once reminded of an Eton football. Though fond of reading, like many other Eton boys, the writer of the famous letters showed little enthusiasm for the school work.
“I remember,” says he, “when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that, for I was a blockhead, and pushed above my parts.”
Spending much of his time in the playing fields musing, he retained the recollection all his life.
“No old maid’s gown,” said he, “though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as these poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a visionary flock and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the cascade under the bridge. As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum.”
In Horace Walpole’s day Kendall, himself an old Etonian, presided over the Christopher. Later came Garraway and Jack Knight.
The rattling of coach wheels over the cobblestones outside the old inn was a never-failing source of excitement and interest to the boys. Most of them knew the drivers, whom they delighted to hail with volleys of chaff.
[SN: STAGE COACHMEN]
A famous Eton stage coachman was Jack Bowes of the “Original,” which started from the Bolt in Tun, Fleet Street, and called at Hatchett’s in Piccadilly. Often on his arrival at the Christopher, Bowes would be welcomed with a brisk fusillade fired by boys from pea-shooters. He had been a soldier and seen a good deal of service, and was a most popular character with all sorts of people, and especially with the relatives and fathers of Eton boys; for, like Moody, another Eton coachman, Bowes knew all that there was to be known about the College and its ways. He was a kindly man, and reassured many a small boy fresh from home and nervous as to the ordeal awaiting him when he reached the great public school. One idea which not a few new boys had firmly implanted upon their minds was that by way of initiation into the privilege of becoming an Etonian they would be pitched off Windsor Bridge and made to struggle for their life. There was, of course, not the slightest foundation for such an idea, which no doubt arose because in former days it was no very uncommon thing for Etonians, anxious to show their powers as swimmers, to take a header from the Bridge into the Thames beneath. Many indeed were experts at such feats.
Less kindly than Bowes were some of the hangers-on who gained a livelihood by lounging about the White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly, which was always a great rendezvous for all sorts of queer characters, itinerant orange-vendors and others, who flocked round the coaches hoping to make a more or less honest penny. Amongst these was one well-known individual who gained a livelihood by doing odd jobs in the way of carrying parcels and helping with luggage. He was especially active on days when the Eton boys were returning to school, and as he took some little fellow’s trunk to hoist it on to the coach would cheerfully impart the information that “he had never seen such a fine load of birch as had gone down the day before.”
“Bishop”--a particular kind of punch--and Bulstrode ale were the two beverages for which the Christopher was famous. Garraway brought the latter into fashion, and a huge amount of it was drunk, and though Garraway had only purchased a small stock of this famous old ale at the sale at Bulstrode, by some miraculous process it continued to be served out in plentiful quantities ever after. This became a standing joke against mine host of the Christopher, who afterwards made a speciality of an excellent tap, which he called the Queen’s, from some he had purchased at Windsor. This was sold in small quarts, at a shilling per jug.
[SN: THE OPPIDANS’ CLUB]
The old place was often quite full of undergraduates, young officers, and bucks come down to take a look at the school they had so recently left, and some of these young men, especially those from Oxford (where formerly so many Etonians went on account of its being the headquarters of classical learning) formed what was known as the “Oppidans’ Club.” The main object of this convivial association, which met in one of the cellars, next to consuming large quantities of port, was to sally out after nightfall and abduct the shops’ signs--barbers’ poles and other insignia of trade--from the houses in the High Street, afterwards bearing them back to the Christopher in triumph. The tradesmen bore these eccentricities with considerable fortitude, for in the end they were pretty sure not to suffer.
Representations to the masters and authorities were scarcely necessary to redress such whimsical grievances, the injured parties being well aware that they would receive due compensation. The next day the spoils and trophies were arranged in due form in the cellar at the old inn, which became well known by the name of “Oppidan’s Museum.” Here the merry wags were to be found in council, holding a court of claims, to which all the shopkeepers who had suffered any loss were successively summoned; and after pointing out from among the motley collection the article they claimed, and the price it originally cost, they were handsomely remunerated or the sign replaced. The good people of Eton generally chose the former, as it not only enabled them to sport a new sign, but to put a little profit upon the cost price of the old one. The trophies thus acquired were then packed up in hampers and despatched to Oxford, where they were on similar occasions not infrequently displayed or hung up in lieu of some well-known sign, such as the Mitre, etc., which had been removed during the night.
Some Collegers once played a joke of this sort on Dr. Keate. A Windsor hatter, Jones by name, had outside his shop an immense tin three-cornered cocked hat as a sign, the exact counterpart, except much larger, of the one Keate wore. This was stolen one winter’s evening by a detachment of Collegers; they managed to send it to London, and thence, carefully packed, it was forwarded to Keate. Meanwhile, a letter was sent to Jones saying that the writer could give him some inkling of who was the thief, for that Dr. Keate had long been observed to eye this magnificent cocked hat with longing envy, and there was no doubt if a search warrant was procured, it would be found in the house of the Headmaster.
The cellar in which met the so-called “Oppidans’ Club” was known as “the Estaminet.” The usual fare here was bread and cheese, beer and porter, and in its general features it seems to have been the precursor of the present Tap. Lower boys had no share in its amenities. On occasion, however, stronger potations were indulged in, and of course this was more especially the case when old Etonians from the Universities were paying a visit to their old school.
[Illustration: THE OPPIDAN’S MUSEUM _or Eton Court of Claims at the Christopher_. _From a coloured print in the possession of the Rt. Honble. Lewis Harcourt, M.P._]
No doubt, these visitors had rather a demoralising effect upon the boys who stood by in admiration, envying the bucks who lounged over the rails of the gallery and indulged in chaff with those below, whilst they ogled any pretty girl who might chance to meet their roving glance, or chaffed any mischievous Etonians who hung about the old yard, occasionally pulling the bungs out of the casks which were ranged there.
In the old Christopher the assistant masters at one time had a room reserved for them in which they were wont to meet, whilst regular convivial assemblies were sometimes organised there by Eton boys, one of the chief being on St. Andrew’s Day, when Colleger had met Oppidan at the wall.
[SN: A RAID]
In its last years, when the famous hostelry began to be regarded as a great moral danger by the authorities, they began to make determined efforts to prevent boys from being within its doors, and one St. Andrew’s Day a raid was suddenly made. Just as the revelry had reached its height, Smut, otherwise known as Beelzebub, the head waiter, announced the appearance of a party of masters. Great confusion ensued, and as an ominous creaking of boots was heard on the staircase, the landlord’s daughter turned off the gas, and all was left in darkness. A stentorian voice was heard crying, “I require the landlord of this house to provide me with a light.” Meanwhile, one of the masters groped his way to the door of the banqueting-room and held it so that no one could pass. One of the raiding party, a master named Goodford, who afterwards became “Head,” greatly distinguished himself by embracing Smut, whom in the darkness he mistook for a boy trying to make his escape. However, he was rudely undeceived by a gruff voice grunting out, “Come, none of this nonsense!” At length a light was procured, and as the boys filed out, one by one, their names were entered in a “black list.”
The curious thing is that little organised effort seems ever to have been made to prevent boys from being allowed to enter the old inn; raiding them when within its walls naturally did little good; in fact, it merely stimulated the spirit of adventure and made them go there more. A cousin of the writer--well-known as master of the West Kent foxhounds--describing Eton life under Hawtrey, could not help speaking with glee of how he and a companion were the only boys out of twenty who managed to escape during one of these raids, the perilous method adopted having been to climb down a waterpipe and then drop into the yard at the back.
The Christopher finally ended its career as a hostelry in 1842, owing to the Crown giving up the lease to the College. Its abolition had been constantly urged ever since Dr. Hawtrey had become Headmaster. A violent foe to the old inn and its enemy, he branded it as the greatest evil in Eton life, and after it had been numbered with things of the past he was so pleased that, as a sort of thank-offering, he wanted it to be pulled down and a chapel of ease erected on the site. This scheme, however, was not carried out, St. John’s Church being built in the High Street instead and the Christopher turned into a boarding-house, the tap-room becoming a court of justice, where petty sessions were held.
Another part of the building was appropriated to the use of the Eton Debating Society, commonly called “Pop” (it is said, from “popina,” an eating-house), which celebrated its centenary in the present year. Its original domicile was over the small shop of Mrs. Hatton, the confectioner, quarters very useful for gratifying a love of “sock.” It is said that at the Saturday four-o’clock meetings the proceedings were often delayed by the consumption of ices and cakes and the drinking of cherry brandy.
[SN: WILLIAM JOHNSON]
The vestibule, where so many wild young bucks had kicked their heels, was turned into a pupil room, in which for a time presided one of the most gifted, if eccentric, Eton masters who ever existed, William Johnson (who afterwards changed his name to Cory), the author of _Ionica_ and of the Eton boating song. Highly unconventional in his ways, he could never remain unmoved when he heard the sound of drums outside in the street, indicating that some regiment was passing through the College. Eton has given many a gallant officer to England, and, as the large number of memorials in the Chapel shows, the roll of Etonian soldiers is associated with numberless glorious memories. These stirred the imaginative mind of the clever master, and, keenly desirous that the rising generation should imbibe a due portion of that martial ardour which was the heritage of their school, he would lead his pupils out to the archway, and, pointing to the passing regiment, proudly exclaim, “Boys, the British army!”
Mr. Johnson was an Eton master from 1845 to 1872, during which period he showed all the qualifications of a gifted teacher, though at times betraying considerable eccentricity. He was much given to introspection, and amused boys would often regale themselves with the sight of Billy Johnson, as they irreverently called him, standing wrapt in profound meditation all alone in the school-yard, totally oblivious of everything about him. He was very short-sighted, which gave rise to the story that he had been seen furiously rushing down Windsor Hill, making futile grabs at a fleeing hen, which he believed to be his hat, blown off by the wind. In school, owing to this infirmity, he was unable to perceive what boys were doing, and the carving of names and cutting into desks and forms was carried on in perfect safety beneath his very nose. Against positive disorder, however, he could well defend himself, and his paradoxical utterances and epigrammatic sayings kept even the most turbulent spirits in check.
His powers of satire were generally recognised as being highly formidable, and masters as well as boys sometimes felt the keen thrust of his rapier. In a school book, _Nuces_, written by him for the use of the lower forms, was to be found a sentence which Etonians universally agreed was a hit at a somewhat unpopular master, conspicuous for the length of his flowing beard. This ran: “Formerly wise men used to grow beards. Now other persons do so.”
[SN: THE BOATING SONG]
Though the poetical masterpiece of Mr. Johnson is the small volume entitled _Ionica_, which contains some beautiful verse, a more generally known composition of his is the Eton boating song, which has been carried by old Etonians practically all over the world. An interesting account of how this song came to be written is given by the Reverend A. C. Ainger in his admirable work on _Eton in Prose and Verse_. It would seem to have been composed in the winter of 1863 for the 4th of June of that year. Some little time later the words were printed in the third number of a periodical called the _Eton Scrap-book_, of which Everard Primrose was one of the joint-editors. A copy of the words were sent in 1865 to a subaltern in the Rifle Brigade, Algernon Drummond by name, who was then with his battalion at Nowshera, in India. This young officer, who, four or five years before, had been one of Johnson’s pupils, was haunted by the words till the tune came to them, and eventually, owing to him, a number of officers who had been at Eton made a practice of singing it nightly after mess. Gradually guests learnt it, with the result that old Etonians in other regiments took to singing the song which recalled to them their old school in distant England.
The composition of this boating song, it should be added, cost William Johnson much trouble and some sleepless nights; nevertheless, its final form contains some lines which are scarcely worthy of an author who, in _Ionica_, has shown himself a true poet. It must, however, be remembered that the song, as we have it, was never intended for the wide publicity which it so speedily attained. No doubt its popularity has been in a great measure caused by the charming tune to which it was set, whilst the whole-hearted and somewhat touching devotion to Eton expressed in the words makes an irresistible appeal to all true sons of the school, particularly to those who remember the days when, free from care, they passed many a happy hour
Skirting past the rushes, Ruffling o’er the weeds, Where the lock stream gushes, Where the cygnet feeds.
The fact that “the rushes” are now no more, having been entirely swept away by the great flood of 1894, will not cause Etonians of a later date to sing the words less heartily, and many a generation yet to come will probably continue to accord this boating song the appreciation which it first obtained nearly half a century ago.
No man, perhaps, ever expressed better the true Eton spirit than Mr. Johnson in some words he uttered a few months before his death. He was a sufferer from heart disease, and realised that his end might at any time occur. Declining a friend’s invitation, he said, “I think it unmannerly to drop down dead in another man’s grounds.”
The pupil room in which he sat has now ceased to serve that purpose; the old structure of the Christopher, having undergone further changes, is now used merely to accommodate masters, and has ceased to be an Eton house. The only external trace of the inn yard as it was, are some of the old balustrades of the ancient gallery facing the site of the livery stables which were swept away in 1901. Many will remember Charley Wise, the proprietor, who used to be such a familiar figure standing under the archway thirty years ago.
[SN: SHELLEY]
The original sign of the Christopher, it should be added, hangs at the modern Christopher in the High Street. Shelley, when an Eton boy, one night stole the great gilded bunch of grapes from this, and hung it in front of the Headmaster’s door, so that the astounded pedagogue ran into it as he was hurrying into school in the morning. The whole character of Shelley was a mass of contradictions, and he seems to have been far from happy at school, where he seldom joined in any sports; according to some he never went on the river, but this is doubtful. The young poet’s favourite ramble was Stoke Park and the picturesque churchyard close by, rendered famous for all time by Gray’s _Elegy_, of which Shelley is said to have been very fond.
As was shown by the incident of the Christopher’s grapes, Shelley, though as a rule of a meditative disposition, was on occasion given to playing pranks. He once bought a large brass cannon at an auction in Windsor, and harnessed many Lower boys to draw it down into College. It was captured by one of the tutors and kept till the holidays at Hexter’s. He was fond of experimenting in science, and set fire to a tree in south meadow by laying a train of gunpowder to it; another time, by means of an electrical machine, he flung his tutor against the wall.
This tutor’s name was Bethell, and, according to all accounts, he was a somewhat unattractive character. Amongst the boys he was known as “Vox et praeterea nihil” and “Botch” Bethell, because he was supposed always to be making errors or botches in altering their verses. His favourite phrase, which he used to alter as it might be for a long or a short verse, was for the former “sibi vindicat ipse,” for the latter “vindicat ipse sibi,” in consequence of which an impudent boy in his house, being one day asked at meal-time what he would take, said, “Sir, I vindicate to myself a slice of mutton.” Towards the boys under his charge Bethell was harsh, and sometimes even brutal. Meeting a Lower boy one day coming in with a bowl full of sausages covered by his hat to keep them warm, Bethell sternly inquired, “What have you got there?” The boy, fearing trouble, whimpered, “Nothing, sir,” upon which Bethell jerked up the bowl with his hand and sent hat and sausages flying into the road.
In Shelley’s day, life at Eton had changed a good deal, compared with that led some twenty years before, when Arthur Wellesley was a shy, retiring Lower boy, in whom neither masters nor schoolfellows saw any germs of future greatness.
[SN: THE GREAT DUKE]
He was about twelve years old when he went to Miss Naylor’s, and in spite of his shyness he is supposed to have taken part with his companions in several escapades. Traditions used to be current at Eton about his shooting expeditions up the river at unpermitted seasons and hours; and during the middle of the last century a tree standing near the site of his dame’s was known as “the Duke’s Tree,” because it was said that as a boy the old duke had been fond of climbing it. Arthur Wellesley was not very long at Eton, but nevertheless in after life he cherished a great love for the school to which in due course he sent his sons. One of his first acts on going down to visit them there was to take them to see the door at his old house where, when a boy, he had cut his own name. Though no great athlete himself, he fully appreciated the manly character induced by games and sport, and Creasy declares that not many years before his death he was passing by the playing fields, where numerous groups were happily busied at their games of cricket. Pointing to them, the old Field-Marshal said, “There grows the stuff that won Waterloo.”
The great Duke’s elder brother, Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquis of Wellesley, had, as is well known, a fanatical love for Eton, where, by his express wish, he was buried, his own beautiful Latin lines[3] recording the satisfaction with which he looked forward to resting there. According to a request which he left behind him, six weeping willows were planted in different parts of the playing fields, and a bench fixed at a particular spot which commanded his favourite view.
As an Eton boy he was a particularly fine elocutionist, as was shown by two recitations of his at Speeches on Election Monday 1778, before a large number of royal visitors; in Strafford’s dying speech he drew tears from the audience. David Garrick, hearing of it, complimented the youthful speaker on having done what he had never achieved, namely, made the King weep. To which the clever Etonian returned the graceful answer, “That is because you never spoke to him in the character of a fallen favourite.”
In many ways this brother of the Iron Duke may be considered the type of the perfect Etonian, and, as far as classical learning went, scarcely any boy educated at the school ever equalled him. When Dr. Goodall, a contemporary at Eton of Lord Wellesley, was examined in 1818 before the Education Committee of the House of Commons respecting the alleged passing over of Porson in giving promotions to King’s College, he at once declared that the celebrated Greek scholar was not by any means at the head of the Etonians of his day; and on being asked by Lord Brougham, the Chairman, to name his superior, he at once said, “Lord Wellesley.”
[SN: A SUGGESTION]
Curiously enough, there appears to be no record of where the young nobleman boarded. Presumably it was at Miss Naylor’s, where later came his illustrious brother. A commemorative tablet should surely be set up near the spot where those two great Etonians lived when Eton boys. The houses where a number of other prominent men spent their school days are for the most part known, and several others might be honoured in a similar manner, arousing a spirit of noble emulation and pride in a splendid record of those who have deserved well of their country.
A somewhat remarkable coincidence is that George Canning, Gladstone, and the late Lord Salisbury in turn boarded at the same house. In Canning’s time the dame was Mrs. Harrington, in Gladstone’s Mrs. Shurey, whilst in Lord Robert Cecil’s day the Rev. G. Cookesley was in control. Amongst modern politicians Lord Rosebery boarded at Vidal’s, Mr. Balfour at Miss Evans’s, Lord Curzon at Mr. Oscar Browning’s, and Mr. Lewis Harcourt at the Rev. A. C. Ainger’s. The room of the present Colonial Secretary was celebrated as being the best decorated in Eton. The writer has a vivid recollection of being impressed by the number of well-arranged pictures which he saw when, as a small boy, he enjoyed the honour of being asked to breakfast there. The whole place was full of evidences of the artistic taste which admittedly distinguished Mr. Harcourt as First Commissioner of Public Works.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] See