What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

Nine such election weeks did I see, counting from that which made me a Wykehamist in 1820 to that which saw me out a superannuate in 1828. I did not get a fellowship at New College, having narrowly missed it for want of a vacancy by one. I was much mortified at the time, but have seen long since that probably all was for the best for me. It was a mere chance, as has been shown at a former page, whether a boy at the head or nearly at the head of the school went to New College or not.

The interesting event of a vacancy having occurred at New College, whether by death, marriage, or the acceptance of a living, was announced by the arrival of “speedyman” at Winchester College. “Speedyman,” in conformity with immemorial usage, used to bring the news on foot from Oxford to Winchester. How well I remember the look of the man, as he used to arrive with all the appearance of having made a breathless journey, a spare, active-looking fellow, in brown cloth breeches and gaiters covered with dust. Of course letters telling the facts had long outstripped “speedyman.” But with the charming and reverent spirit of conservatism, which in those days ruled all things at Winchester, “speedyman” made his journey on foot all the same!

Of course one of the first matters in hand when this fateful messenger arrived was to regale him with college beer, and right good beer it was in those days. In connection with it may be mentioned the rather singular fact, that, whereas all other supplies from the college buttery to the boys—the bread, the cheese, the butter, the meat—were accurately measured, the beer was given absolutely ad libitum. In fact it was not given out at all, but taken. Thrice a day the way to the cellar was open, a back stair leading from the hall to the superb old vaulted cellar, with its central pillar and arches springing from it in every direction. All around were the hogsheads, and the proper tools for tapping one as soon as another should be out. And to this cellar the boys—or rather the junior boys at each mess—went freely to draw as much as they chose.

And the beer thus freely supplied was our only beverage, for not only was tea or coffee not furnished, it was not permitted. Some of the prefects (the eighteen first boys in college) would have “tea-messes,” provided out of their own pocket money, and served by their “fags.” But if, as would sometimes happen, either of the masters chanced to appear on the scene before the tea-things could be got out of the way, he used to smash them all, using his large pass key for the purpose, and saying “What are all these things, sir? William of Wykeham knew nothing, I think, of tea!”

We used to breakfast at ten, after morning school, on bread and butter and beer, having got up at half-past five, gone to chapel at half-past six, and into school at half-past seven. At a quarter to one we again went up into hall. It was a specialty of college phraseology to suppress the definite article. We always said “to hall,” “to meads” (the playground), “to school,” “to chambers,” and the like. The visit to hall at that time was properly for dinner, though it had long ceased to be such. The middle of the day “hall” served in my day only for the purpose of luncheon (though no such modern word was ever used), and only those “juniors” attended whose office it was to bring away the portions of bread and cheese and “bobs” (i.e. huge jugs) of beer for consumption in the afternoon.

Sunday formed an exception to this practice. We all went up into “hall” in the middle of the day on Sunday, and dined on roast beef, the noontide dinner consisting of roast beef on that day, boiled beef on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and baked plum pudding on Friday and Saturday. But the boiled beef, with the exception of certain portions reserved for the next morning’s breakfast of the seniors of the messes, or companies into which the “inferiors” (i.e., non-prefects) were divided, was not eaten, but given away. During the war Winchester had been one of the depots of French prisoners, and the beef in question was then given to them. When there were no more Frenchmen it was given to twenty-four old women who were appointed to do the weeding of the college quadrangles. It must be understood that this arrangement was entirely spontaneous on the part of the boys, though it would have been quite out of the question for any individual to say that he for his part would eat his own beef. How all this may be now I know not. Probably the college, under the enlightened guidance of Her Majesty’s Commissioners, have seen the propriety of providing the youthful Wykehamists with table napkins and caper sauce, while the old women go without their dole of beef. On the Friday and Saturday the pudding was carried down out of hall by the juniors for consumption during the afternoon.

At about a quarter-past six, at the conclusion of afternoon school, we went up into hall for dinner—originally, of course, supper. This consisted of mutton, roast or boiled, every evening of the year, with potatoes and beer. But it was such mutton as is not to be found in English butchers’ shops nowadays, scientific breeding having improved it from off the face of the land. It was small Southdown mutton, uncrossed by any of the coarser, rapidly-growing, and fat-making breeds. And that it should be such was insured by the curious rule, that, though only a given number of pounds of mutton were required and paid for to the contractor, the daily supply was always to be one sheep and a half. So that if large mutton was sent it was to the loss of the contractor.

Furthermore it was the duty of the “prefect of tub” to see that the mutton was in all ways satisfactory. The “prefect of tub” was one of the five boys at the head of the school; another was the “prefect of hall”; a third “prefect of school”; and the fourth and fifth “prefects of chapel.” These offices were all positions of emolument. That of the “prefect of tub” was far the most so, and was usually held by the senior college “founder,” or boy of “founder’s kin,” during his last year before going to New College. The titles of the other offices explain themselves, but that of “prefect of tub” requires some elucidation.

In the hall, placed just inside the screen which divided the buttery hatches from the body of the hall, there was an ancient covered “tub.” In the course of my eight years’ stay at Winchester this venerable tub—damnosa quid non diminuit dies?—had to be renewed. It was replaced by a much handsomer one; but, as I remember, the change had rather the effect on the popular mind in college of diminishing our confidence in the permanency of human institutions generally. The original purpose of this tub was to receive fragments and remains of food, together with such portions—“dispers” we called them—of the evening mutton supper as were not duly claimed by the destined recipient of them at his place at the table, that they might be given to the poor; and the “prefect of tub” was so called because it was part of his office to see that this was duly done. It was also his duty to preside over the distribution of the aforesaid “dispers”—not quasi dispars, as might be supposed by those who can appreciate the difference between a prime cut out of a leg of mutton and a bit of the breast of a sheep, but “dispers” from dispertio. Now the distribution in question was effected in this wise. The joints were cut up in the kitchen always accurately in the same manner. The leg made eight “dispers,” the shoulder seven, and so on. The “dispers” thus prepared were put into four immense pewter dishes, and these were carried up into hall by four choristers under the superintendence of the “prefect of tub” and distributed among the fifty-two “inferiors”—i.e., non-prefects. The eighteen prefects dined at two tables by themselves. Their joints were not cut into “dispers,” but were dressed by the cook according to their own orders, paid for by themselves according to an established tariff drawn with reference to the extra expense of the mode of preparation ordered. The long narrow tables were six in number, ranged on either side of the noble hall, exactly as in a monastic refectory. The dais was left unoccupied, save at election time, when the “high table” was spread there. At the first two tables on the left hand side as one entered the hall, the eighteen prefects dined.

This bloated aristocracy was supplied with plates to eat their dinner from. The populace—mere mutton consumere nati—the fifty-two inferiors, had only “trenchers,” flat pieces of wood about nine inches square. These fifty-two “inferiors” were divided into eight companies, and occupied the remaining four tables. But this division was so arranged that one of the eight seniors of the “inferiors” was at the head of each company, and one of the eight juniors at the bottom of each, the whole body being similarly distributed. And each of these companies occupied a different table every day, the party who sat at the lowest table on Monday occupying the highest on Tuesday, and so on. So that when the “prefect of tub” entered the hall at the head of the procession of four choristers, carrying the four “gomers” (such was the phrase) of dispers, he proceeded first to the table on the opposite side of the hall to that of the prefects, and saw that the senior of the mess occupying that table selected as many of the most eligible dispers as there were persons present. If any junior were absent by authority of, or on the business of, any prefect, his disper was allowed to be taken for him. This senior of the mess, it may be mentioned obiter was called, for some reason hidden in the obscurity of time, the “candlekeeper.” Assuredly neither he nor his office had any known connection with the keeping of candles. Any dispers remaining unclaimed at the end of his tour of the hall belonged to “the tub.”