It should also be added that the statute which forbade Fellows of the College to hold benefices had long been treated with utter contempt, they holding them to any amount.
If, however, the Eton authorities had contented themselves with merely breaking the statutes in the way of malversation of funds and the like, no particular outcry would in all probability have arisen. It was Long Chamber, and the state of affairs within its walls, which excited such indignation amongst those who, denouncing it as a sort of Bastille, clamoured for reform. Originally all the seventy scholars seem to have slept in the long dormitory above Lower School, but after 1716 the number became limited to about fifty-two. In that year the Lower Master, Thomas Carter, having given up his two rooms at the east end, eighteen Collegers were located in the rooms in question, being henceforth known as Carter’s Chamber and Lower Chamber.
LONG CHAMBER
Long Chamber, about 172 feet long and 15 feet high, was in winter warmed, or rather not warmed, by two fire-places which were put in in 1784; before that there were no fires at all. Along each wall was a range of old oaken bedsteads which had been there for centuries, and between every bedstead a high desk, with a cupboard beneath, for each boy. The desk and cupboard, painted lead colour, contained all their belongings. There was no system of lighting except candles, to hold which no provision was made. The leaf of a book torn off, doubled, and a hole cut in the centre, formed the only candlestick which the Colleger had. If he wished to read in bed, the candle was removed from the pasteboard candlestick and stuck against the back of the old bedstead. Even if sleep overcame a boy reading in bed, and his candle burnt down to the wood, no harm came of it, the bedstead being well striped with charcoal, an evidence of the incombustible nature of the old oak. [After Long Chamber had been done away with, some little models of these ancient bedsteads were made out of wood black with age. The Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt’s Eton collection contains one.] All that happened was that it would not be long before he would be awakened by the unpleasant smell of the wood, or by a good tweak of the nose from his next-door neighbour, who would be angry at the annoyance. In winter the boys shivered with cold, most of the glass in the windows being usually broken.
There were but a very few chairs for the Sixth Form, and the barrack or prison (boys were locked into it at 6.30 in the evening), with the exception of a table with a basin for the highest boys, was totally devoid of washstands, Collegers having to perform such ablutions as they might deem necessary at the old pump in the cloisters. The walls and ceiling were full of the grime of ages, whilst the whole place as a general rule was in a state of intolerable filth. Once a year, however, some attempt was made to give Long Chamber a habitable appearance, and the time-honoured processes to which it was then subjected were generally sufficiently successful in making visitors who saw it believe that all was well enough. For a week before Election Saturday, which took place at the end of July, “rug-riding” was in full force. A number of Lower boys were tied up in big rugs and dragged with a rope by other fags up and down Long Chamber till the floor shone like a mirror; the spaces between the beds were also scrubbed to a corresponding glossiness. On the Thursday, waggon-loads of beech boughs, cut in the College woods at Hedgerley and Burnham, were brought in and the whole of Long Chamber decorated; the green rugs, edged with gold and embroidered with the College arms, given by the Duke of Cumberland in 1735, were then spread on the beds. A huge flag was hung from the Captain’s bed and the whole aspect of the room transformed. Nevertheless the dirt remained beneath.
Except at Election time Long Chamber was not accessible to visitors, and the King of Prussia himself was refused admission in 1842, on the plea that that portion of the College was never shown.
CARTER’S CHAMBER
Things in the two other rooms appropriated to the use of the King’s scholars were not much better, and an extraordinary state of affairs prevailed in Carter’s Chamber. Whenever the chimney there became at all foul, the boys used to set fire to it, and, being very large, the roar it made when blazing was tremendous, generally much to the annoyance of the Provost, part of whose lodge was close by. The fires in question were made with large beechen logs, placed upon iron dogs, and the Collegers used to roast potatoes among the ashes. One of these logs every Lower boy was compelled to saw up before he went to bed, with a saw that had no edge. This was one of the most unpleasant features of a Lower Colleger’s existence, for the thinnest logs were always chosen by the biggest boys, leaving the heaviest for poor little fellows hardly strong enough to lift them. Not infrequently would the latter dock themselves of part of their rolls for breakfast in order to be able to bribe another stronger boy to saw up their portion for them.
As regards food, the old-time Colleger was disgracefully treated, no breakfast at all being provided for him in College. Dinner in Hall consisted entirely of mutton until about 1840, when Provost Hodgson added roast and boiled beef, each one day in the week. Though the mutton is said to have been of excellent quality, the manner in which it was served made it often impossible for a young boy who had not a robust appetite to get any dinner at all that he could eat. The joints were served in messes, a leg or a shoulder serving for eight boys, a loin or neck for six, the best joints going to the elder boys. They were put upon the table, and the boys carved for themselves. The captain of the joint cut his own portion liberally from the best part, and passed it on to the next in seniority, who slashed away at it after his own taste. A junior fared badly if the joint happened to be a loin or a shoulder and he had not appetite enough for the fat and bones. The knives and forks often ran short, and boys were occasionally obliged to be content with the reversion of such adjuncts. On Sundays plum-pudding of a peculiar construction, by some considered very palatable, made of unchopped suet and unstoned raisins, made its appearance. Indifferent beer was drunk by the Collegers out of painted tin mugs. On Founder’s Day and Election Saturday half a chicken and pressed greens was served to every boy. Beyond this the fare provided, as has been said, consisted entirely and solely of mutton. In connection with this, however, it is but fair to remember that not a few boys objected to the beef which, at a yet earlier period, figured on the College menu. One of these, according to Sir Dudley Carleton, was the “dainty-mouthed” young Phil Lytton, son of Sir Rowland Lytton of Knebworth. Collegers whose purses permitted were allowed to purchase more or less savoury messes from the cook, one of whose most famed dishes was, for some unknown reason, known as “blue-pill.”