The Public School Word-book / A conribution to to a historical glossary of words phrases and turns of expression obsolete and in current use peculiar to our great public schools together with some that have been or are modish at the universities

by John Stephen Farmer

c. 1840. MANSFIELD, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 30. The eight senior præfects were said to have “full power,” and had some slight privileges not enjoyed by the remaining ten, who were generally called BLUCHERS.

1864. Blackwood, p. 86. The remaining eight college præfects (called in Winchester tongue, BLUCHERS) have a more limited authority, confined to Chambers and the Quadrangle.

1867. Collins, The Public Schools, p. 55. The remaining eight college prefects (called in Winchester tongue BLUCHERS) have a more limited authority, confined to chambers and the quadrangle; the form of making these is—“Præficio te sociis concameralibus.” At least two prefects are located in each of the seven chambers—one from the first seven in rank, and one from the next seven. The juniors are also divided into ranks of seven, and out of each rank the prefects, according to their seniority, chose one each to fill up the numbers in their own chamber; so that each chamber has, to a certain extent, ties and associations of its own.

Blue, subs. 1. (Christ’s Hospital).—A scholar of Christ’s Hospital; a blue-coat boy. [Derived from the colour of the clothes—a blue drugget gown or body with ample skirts to it, a yellow vest underneath in winter time, small-clothes of Russia duck, worsted yellow stockings, a leathern girdle, and a little black worsted cap, usually carried in the hand, being the complete costume. This was the ordinary dress of children in humble life during the reigns of the Tudors.] See Appendix.

1834. W. Trollope (Title), Christ’s Hospital ... with Memoirs of Eminent Blues. Ibid. At the Spital did they first earn the title of BLUE by appearing in raiment of that hue. Hitherto they had worn russet cotton. The bands are supposed to be a relic of the ruff, as the girdle was of the hempen cord. The ruff was regal, or reginal, and the cord monkish, so a BLUE hovers ’twixt palace and monastery (one picture pourtrays the dresses of the various Orders of Friars).

1877. W. H. Blanch, Blue-Coat Boys, p. 33. To some extent it holds also with regard to Civil Engineers, amongst whom, however, one well-known name is that of a BLUE.

1895. Gleanings from “The Blue” Dedication. To all Blues Past and Present this Book is dedicated.

2. (University).—A member of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. [The colours for inter-University sports are dark and light blue respectively.]

To get one’s blue, verb. phr. (University).—To be selected as a competitor in inter-University sports: cf. “to get silk” (of Q.C.’s). [From the University colours.]

1899. Stonyhurst Mag., Feb., p. 194. The expression “to get a BLUE” is a phrase which is universally recognised as applying to the athletics and games of the sister Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, and to them only. As an ardent Oxford man I do not appreciate his compliment; as an old Stonyhurst boy, I cannot but deplore his servility.