What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

The Warden’s nickname, borne among sundry generations of Wykehamists, was Tupto (τυπτω), as we always supposed from that Greek verb used as the example in the Greek grammar. But I have heard from those of an earlier generation that it was quasi dicas “tiptoe,” from the fact of his father having been a dancing-master. The former derivation seems to me the more plausible.

“Tupto” very rarely came to college chapel, and when he did so in his episcopal wig and lawn sleeves, it was felt by us that his presence gave a very marked additional solemnity to the occasion. Though assuredly far from being a model bishop according to the estimate of these latter days, I believe him to have been a very good man. He lived and died a bachelor, having at a very early period of his life undertaken the support of a brother’s widow and family, who had been left unprovided for. And it was reported among Wykehamists of an earlier generation than mine that never was husband so severely ruled by a wife as the Bishop was by his sister-in-law. “Peace to his manes,” as old Cramer, the pianist, used to say, always pronouncing it monosyllabically, “mains”! His rule of Winchester College was a long and prosperous one; and as long as it lasted he was able to carry out his favourite maxim, “No innovation!”

But when old Tupto went over to the majority, the spirit of innovation, so long repressed, began to exert itself in many directions. I am told for instance that it has been found too much for young Wykehamists of the present generation to wait for their breakfasts till ten in the morning, and that the excursion to “morning hills” before breakfast is declared to be too much for their strength. Well, I wish it may answer, as Sterne’s Uncle Toby said. But I do not think that the college during the latter years of our century can show better bills of health than it did in its earlier decades.

The dormitory arrangements are much changed, I believe, and it may be worth while to record a few reminiscences of what they were in my day.

The second or inner quadrangle of the college buildings was formed by the chapel and hall and kitchen on one side, and on the other three by the lodgings of the fellows and the “hostiarius” on the first floor, and the “chambers” of the scholars on the ground floor. These chambers were seven in number. They contained therefore on an average ten beds each. But they were by no means equal in size. The largest, “seventh” (for they were all known by their numbers), held thirteen beds; the smallest, “fifth,” only eight. A few years before my time, that side of the quadrangle under which were situated the “first” and “second” chambers was burned. And the beds and other arrangements in these two chambers were of a more modern model. In the other five the old bedsteads remained as they had been from time immemorial. They were of solid oak of two to three inches thickness in every part, and were black with age. The part which held the bed was a box, about six feet and a half long, by three wide, with solid sides some six inches deep, and supported on four massive legs. But at the head for about eighteen inches or so these sides were raised to a height of about four or five feet, and covered in. The whole construction was massive, and afforded an extremely snug and comfortable sleeping place, which was much preferred to the iron bedsteads in the two new chambers. Older bones might perhaps have found the oak planking under the bed somewhat hard, but we were entirely unconscious of any such objection.

The door in every chamber was well screened from the beds. There was a huge fireplace with heavy iron dogs, on which we burned in winter large faggots about four feet long. Four of such faggots was the allowance for each evening, and it was abundantly sufficient. It was the duty of the bedmakers, whose operations were all performed when we were in school, to put four faggots in each chamber, which we used at our discretion—i. e. at the discretion of the prefects in the chamber. As the eighteen prefects were distributed among the seven chambers, there were three prefects in each of the larger, and two in each of the smaller chambers. By the side of each bed was a little desk, with a cupboard above, which was called a “toys,” in which each boy kept the books he needed for work “in chambers,” and any other private property. For his clothes he had also by his bedside a large chest, of a make contemporary with the bedstead, which served him also for a seat at the desk of the “toys.” In the middle of the chamber was a pillar, around which were hung our surplices. Over the huge fireplace was an iron sconce fixed in the wall, in which a rushlight, called by us a “functure” was burned all night. And the “prefect in course” was responsible for its being kept duly burning. The nightly rounds of the “hostiarius” were not frequent, but he might come at any minute of any night. Suddenly his pass key would be heard in the door—for it was the rule that every chamber door should be kept locked all night; he came in with a lanthorn in his hand, and if all was right, i. e. if the functure was duly burning, every boy in his bed, and his candle put out, he merely looked around and passed on to another chamber. If otherwise, the “prefect in course” had an interview with him on the following morning. These chamber doors, which, as I have said, it was the rule to keep always locked during the night, were exceedingly massive, ironbound, and with enormous locks and hinges. Now there was a tradition in college that a certain former “senior prefect in third” (subaudi chamber) had carried the door of that chamber round the quadrangle. The Atlas thus remembered was a minor canon of the cathedral, when I was “senior prefect in third,” and the tradition of his prowess excited my emulation. So I had the door in question taken from its hinges and laid upon my bent back, and caused the door of “fourth” to be carefully placed on the top of it, and so carried both doors round the quadrangle, thus outdoing the minor canon by a hundred per cent. In due proportion the feat should surely have made me in time a canon! But it has not done so. I think, however, that I might challenge any one of my schoolfellows of the present generation, whose constitutions are cared for by the early breakfasts, which we did not get, to do likewise—supposing, that is, the old doors to be still in existence, and in statu quo. From seven to eight we were, or ought to have been, at work, seated at our “toys” in chambers. And during that hour no “inferior” could leave the chamber without the permission of the “prefect in course.” At eight we went into chapel—or rather into the ante-chapel only—for short prayers, and after that till nine we were free to do as we pleased. Some would walk up and down “sands,” as the broad flagstone pavement below the chapel wall was called.

Each prefect in the chamber had a little table, at which he sat during the evening, and which in the morning served as a washing-stand, on which it was the duty of the “junior,” who was his “valet,” to place his basin and washing things. But all “inferiors” had to perform their ablutions at the “conduit” in the open quadrangle. In severe or wet weather this was not Sybaritic! But again I say that it would have been difficult to find a healthier collection of boys than we were.

The discipline which regulated that part of college life spent “in chambers,” must have been, I think, much more lax at a former day, than it was in my time, for I remember to have heard my father, who was in college under Dr. Warton, say that Tom Warton, the head master’s brother (and the well-known author of the History of Poetry) used frequently to be with the boys “in chambers” of an evening; that he would often knock off a companion’s “verse task” for him, and that the Doctor the next morning would recognise “that rascal Tom’s work.” Now in my day it would have been altogether impossible and out of the question for any outsider, however much an old Wykehamist, and brother of the master, to be with us in chambers.

There was an anecdote current I remember among Wykehamists of that generation respecting “that rascal Tom,” to the effect that he narrowly missed becoming head of Trinity, of which college at Oxford he was a fellow, under the following circumstances. There was a certain fellow of the college, whose name need not here be recorded, rather famous among his contemporaries for the reverse of wisdom or intelligence. Upon one occasion, Tom Warton, sitting in his stall in chapel close to the gentleman in question, who was reading the Psalms, and when the latter came to the verse, “Lord, thou knowest my simpleness,” was so indiscreet as to mutter in an almost audible tone, “Ay! we all know that!” But it so chanced that not very long afterwards there was an election for the presidentship of the college, and Warton, who was a very popular man, was one of two candidates. The college, however, was very closely divided between them, and “that rascal Tom” had to apply to his “simple” colleague for his vote. “Not so simple as all that, Mr. Warton!” was the reply; and the story goes that the historian of poetry lost his election by that one vote.

And this college chapel anecdote reminds me to say, before concluding my Wiccamical reminiscences, a few words about our chapel-going in the olden time. In this department also very much of change has taken place, doubtless here at least for the better.