For our last blog of 2018 we have brought together a series of late 19th and early 20th century images of winter at Eton from the Photographic Archive.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!
Eton’s chief Great War memorial was a large-scale bursary scheme for the sons of Old Etonians who had been killed, wounded or incapacitated in the war. It was decided early on that, in addition, there would also be a ‘permanent and visible record’ of the service and sacrifice of 1,157 old boys and Eton masters who died and 5,660 who served. A significant element of this is the beautiful calligraphic manuscript List of Etonians who fought in the Great War, 1914-1919, also known as the Libro d’oro.
Graily Hewitt, Illuminated frontispiece of the List of Etonians who fought in the Great War, 1914 -1919, Treyford, Sussex, 1923.
The gold (oro) in the name refers to the colour used to highlight the names of those who died, as well as military honours bestowed. This manuscript was written on vellum by Graily Hewitt (1864-1952), a central figure in the revival of the art of calligraphy in this country. It is based on a printed war list compiled by house master E.L. Vaughan, and honours all Old Etonians who served in the British armed forces during the war. Appended are the names of those who served in non-military units such as the Red Cross, and also those interned in Germany.
The manuscript list of service is displayed in triple columns of blue (leaving dates and house masters’ initials), black (names) or gold (names of the fallen, and honours), and red (rank and details of service).
The record of service is bookended by two poems by Old Etonians. The manuscript opens with ‘Into Battle’ by Julian Grenfell (1888-1915), written in Flanders in April 1915, just weeks before he died of wounds sustained in fighting. The book closes with the words to ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’, by Sir Cecil Spring Rice (1859-1918), an earlier poem which he had re-written in 1918 in view of the losses of the war, and which became a well-known patriotic hymn after being set to music in 1921 by Gustav Holst (1874-1934).
The Libro d’oro, bound in a fine black goatskin binding by Douglas Cockerell (1870-1945), has been displayed in the war memorial side chapel in Eton’s College Chapel since 1923, the year of its completion.
Rachel Bond
College Librarian
On 26th and 27th June 2017, a unique event took place at Eton. For the first time over 400 of Eton’s silver trophy cups were gathered for inspection in one place. The resemblance to Aladdin’s cave was truly remarkable, with every table top in the Charteris Rooms covered in silver. I would like to thank all the house masters who (at a very busy time of year) willingly transported all their silver cups to the Charteris Rooms for inspection. The project has been driven by the fact that many of the cups bear the scars of having been presented to boys over the years, and the older cups (and hence the most prestigious) have become very frail.
Aladdin’s cave: the silver cups being audited in the Charteris Rooms at Eton
We had three aims: the first was to make an accurate record. Simon Dean has created a digital record containing information of location, a photograph of each cup, dimensions, weight, silver marks and a description of the condition. This is an ongoing process as the cups change hands from year to year.
The second aim was to start a rolling programme of restoration. David Cawte, silver expert with a lifetime of experience in mending silver, will take a selection of cups each year for restoration.
The third aim was to begin collecting for the Eton College Archives the records of sporting events held on these trophies. The immense scale of the information contained on both the cups themselves and the inscribed bases will be collected for the archives over the years to come.
The earliest dates recorded on these cups are from the late 1850s and early 1860s. Given that sport at Eton existed well before this it is clear that they represent a change in the way sport at Eton was being run. To have trophy cups being presented for house sport it is necessary to have a house system in place and this developed at Eton in a piecemeal fashion over the course of the 19th century as the school steadily bought out the dames who ran boarding houses and replaced them with assistant masters.
The cups record intensely fought sporting battles between houses. As an example, the senior cricket trophy was first presented in 1860. In 1861 it was won by the Rev. W. B. Marriott’s House captained by R.A.H. Mitchell, who was to become one of the most significant names in the history of Eton cricket. In 1866 he returned to Eton as an assistant master and his coaching resulted in his house winning the senior cricket successively from 1881 to 1887. The 1,500m trophy is a large, elaborate wine cooler originally presented in 1856. It records both great sporting achievement and great heroism. G.K. Dunning won the cup outright in 1913 by winning the race three times. Also recorded on the base is a note to the effect that H.E. Maudslay, who also won the cup outright in 1940, later took part in the famous 1943 raid on the Eder dam where he was sadly killed.
The base of the Aquatics cup, with decorative details of rushes and waterlily leaves
Trophies were presented for many reasons and by different people. The lower boy cricket cup was donated to the school in 1866 by Oscar Browning, assistant master. In the same year his house, captained by W.H. Hay, is recorded as having won the cup. Therefore perhaps not such a disinterested gift! After the First World War a number of cups were given as memorials to boys who died. A pair of challenge cups for the Junior 4s has a poignant memorial to ‘George William Taylor, Lieutenant Royal Field Artillery who died of wounds in Flanders on 11th November 1917. From his mother to the oarsmen on the river he loved so well.’
The majority of the cups are not particularly significant artistically. However, a few trophy cups are notable pieces of craftsmanship. The Aquatics cup is a great, urn-shaped vessel with continuous scenes of Eton rowing running round its sides surmounted by a lid with the image of Old Father Thames. Sadly, it has suffered badly by being over-cleaned and much of the sharp decorative detail has worn away. Another discovery was that both The Patagonian League cup (for junior football) and the trophy for the quickest 50 in an XI match have silver marks identifying them as being made by Omar Ramsden (a famous Arts and Crafts silver maker) in 1918 and 1935 respectively.
The Patagonian League trophy, showing its battle scars
These cups are a significant resource. The information that they hold about the history of sport at Eton, its matches, feats of skill, famous sporting heroes and great achievements are a remarkable record of the development of sport at Eton over 150 years. A programme of restoration has begun and I hope that over the next few years the cups will begin to improve in appearance and therefore be held in the appreciation that they deserve.
By Shauna Gailey, Keeper of Silver
Newspaper cutting from 1964 about The College Boys
It seems that Eton in the mid-1960s was a fertile source of creativity in contemporary music – pop music to be exact, boasting around a dozen home-grown pop groups. One of these has come to light in copies of material recently given to the Archives by the widow of a former group member, Jamie Graham. Jamie’s group had the eponymous name “The College Boys” (formerly the rather more edgy “Nick and the Neolithics”). The group made it into several newspapers, including the national “Daily Sketch”, and even released a song – “I Just Don’t Understand” – on the Columbia Record label. In a letter to the donor, one of the group members (Micky Astor) refers to the group’s ‘one fan’ (pictured below).
A photograph of The College Boys’ “one fan”
Not only do written records of “The College Boys” activities survive, but you can actually listen to “I Just Don’t Understand” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts4sS6Wj18A
Catchy, isn’t it?!
Label from The College Boys’ 1964 single, ‘I Just Don’t Understand’, written by Jamie Graham.
By Jane Sellek, College Archivist (cover)
“All boys should have a competent knowledge of Mathematics before leaving school.”
Edward Hawtrey, Head Master of Eton, 1851
Eton College Library and Archive were recently approached by the Reading Euclid research project (based at the University of Oxford) for material relating to the role of the mathematician Euclid in the curriculum at Eton between 1500 and 1800. Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, written in Alexandria around 300BCE, was a crucial text in the mathematical culture of early modern Britain, read by almost everyone with an interest in geometry. It would be reasonable to expect Euclid to have been read and taught at Eton College.
It was with some regret, therefore, that we had to disclose that – unlike other historic schools like Westminster College and Christ’s Hospital – Eton only began to offer mathematics in the 1820s, and did not make maths compulsory until 1894. Until then the curriculum was almost entirely focused on classical texts, with other subjects like maths and modern languages being ‘extras’ for which boys’ parents would pay additional fees.
Whilst we have very little evidence of early modern students at Eton reading Euclid, we know that the picture was very different for the academic community around the college. Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622) was a mathematician and classical scholar as well as Provost of Eton from 1595. He was a key figure in the study of mathematics in England, both publishing on Euclid and endowing two professorships at Oxford University in geometry and astronomy. William Oughtred (c.1575-1660) was born at Eton, the son of a writing master, and went on to publish a series of works which helped to promote the study of geometry amongst the English gentry.
Eton College Library holds early modern copies of Euclid and Oughtred, including the six books displayed below. These books are included in the Seeing Euclid networked exhibition which has been curated by the Reading Euclid project from libraries across Britain and Ireland.
Fb.7.3. Euclid, Eukleidou ton pente kai deka stoicheion, ek ton tou theonos synodion to proton (Strasbourg, 1564). This copy has clearly been well used. It is rather dirty, but also bears annotations, some of which appear to be entirely unrelated to Euclid! The title page bears a line from the Christian hymn, the Te Deum (‘Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father’) and individual letters perhaps meant as calligraphic exercises. There are lists and geometric diagrams in the margins throughout the text. And the verso of the title page bears the ownership inscription of William Tonstall dated 1631. This copy was given to Eton in 1751 by a Fellow of the College, John Reynolds (1671-1758).
Fa.4.6. Euclid, Eukleidou stoicheion biblia 13 (London, 1620). This copy belonged to two seventeenth-century Etonians: Richard Herbert, second Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1600?-1655) and his friend William Browne. The inscription indicates that Herbert gave the book to Browne in 1623 whilst they were both at Eton. The volume later belonged to John Free (dated 1738) and Rowland Ingram, reaching Eton in 1962.
Fa4.4. Euclid, Eukleidou stoicheion bibl. 15 ek ton theonos synousion (Basel, 1533). A copy of Euclid’s works which was in Eton College Library in the early seventeenth century. It has a typical ‘Eton binding’ of the period, with a large blind-stamped centrepiece of the College arms, broad fillet border, and the traces of clasps and a plate for a chain which were later removed. The title-page verso bears the engraved armorial bookplate of the College.
Ib1.1.51. Eton’s copy of Oughtred’s ‘The circles of proportion and the horizontal instrument’ (London, 1633) bears intriguing signs of its mathematical use in the seventeenth century. It is bound in a contemporary limp parchment with two other mathematical treatise of the period, and its front board bears a rosette which has clearly been inscribed with a set of compasses. A user has used the front flyleaf to inscribe a series of sums and drawn two architectural cornices with circles and rules marking out their proportions, demonstrating the importance of mathematically determined harmony in classical architecture. This copy arrived in Eton in 1909 as a gift.
Gb.7.25 and Gb.4.23: Two further copies of works by ‘Willelmo Oughtred Ætonensi’, with an engraved portrait of Oughtred and woodcut geometric diagrams.
By Lucy Gwynn, Deputy Librarian
In the summer of 1917 Eric Arthur Blair signed the entrance book for Eton College. The volume is just one of the treasures on display in Eton College Library to mark the 101st anniversary since Blair – now better known as George Orwell – crossed School Yard for the first time as a King’s
Eton College entrance book for 1917, with Eric Blair’s signature
The display was assembled to complement the Orwell101 school conference and the unveiling of the bust of George Orwell in School Library. While Orwell probably never laid eyes on the inside of College Library himself, on 3 May this year his son, grandson and great-grandson all came to see the display that covers Orwell’s life from his Eton days to his journalism and writing career.
Starting with a mark-book, where we find Blair coming second to bottom in Classics (a subject you feel he would have happily placed in Room 101), it moves on to records of a Wall Game in his final year where Blair was one of a few in the game’s history to score a goal.
College mark-book for 1917 showing Eric Blair second from the bottom of the class
Further highlights of the display include items relating to Orwell’s investigative journalism, among them first editions of The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and examples of his literary journalism which cover a broad range of subjects. There are also personal letters from Orwell and his wife Eileen, written while they were in Marrakesh and touching on Orwell’s ill health that he would suffer from for the rest of his life.
Orwell’s early essays displayed in College Library
Finally, the better-known role of Orwell the novelist is presented through multiple editions of his familiar works of Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949), including a number of foreign translations, as well as his lesser-known novels such as Coming Up for Air.
Throughout the display, Orwell’s popularity and impact can also be seen, for example through the editions of Down and Out in Paris and London and The Lion and the Unicorn that Alun Lewis and Sidney Keyes respectively took with them to the First World War.
His academic reputation at Eton was somewhat mixed, but his reputation as a writer is never in doubt. After the publication of Animal Farm his Eton tutor, A.F. Gow, asked Orwell for a copy of the book. Orwell duly obliged, but rather than sign the copy ‘Eric Blair’, as Gow would have known him, he signed it ‘Geo. Orwell’ and left his Eton days behind.
The Orwell101 display in College Library
By Ceri Sugg, Project Archivist
The display will be on show to visitors to College Library on the Fourth of June. Orwell’s time at Eton is also the subject of an article by our Archives Assistant Georgina Robinson in the Collections Journal. Please contact us to request a copy of the Journal.
To celebrate the long-awaited arrival of Spring, we have woven together some objects from the collections in a wreath for Flora, goddess of the season. We include some prints by the Suffolk artist J.G. Lubbock. Here’s to the warmer weather!
