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.
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.
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.