It is very difficult nowadays to be sent down from Cambridge for any form of misbehaviour, as I was told by a Fellow of my old college, St. John’s, the other day.  But, if James Gillray (1756?-1815) is to be believed, things were very different some two hundred years ago.

I first came across his series of etchings from 1806, ‘The Rake’s Progress at the University‘, in the late 1950s at Fisher House, the Catholic Chaplaincy for the University of Cambridge.  They were hung up in the cafe/bar area where students would meet for breakfast after mass, (and were, no doubt, the personal property of Monsignor Alfred Gilbey of the wine and gin family, who served as Chaplain for a full 100 terms until he resigned over the question of allowing women to attend services at Fisher House).

Whether the prints on display were meant to be a subtle hint that we should do everything possible to conform to contemporary mores I do not know. But the undergraduate of 150 years before my time had to tread very carefully indeed, it would seem. Literally so in the case of the offence illustrated above: walking on the grass in any of the college courts. (This is, to this day, a privilege restricted to Senior Members of the College, the Master and Fellows).  As the couplet beneath the etching puts it:

Ah me, that thou the Freshman’s Guide should’st read,

Yet dare upon the hallowed grass to tread.

(click here to see the full set of five prints)

Here are the other three ‘offenses’ in the series, with comments on how relevant, if at all, they were to the Cambridge I got to know:

(1) Ah me! what perils doth that Youth encounter

Who dares within the Fellows Bog to enter.

I doubt if there were special lavatories (or ‘bogs) for Fellows in my time.  In fact lavatories of any sort were few and far between. During my first year, when I shared rooms in Third Court, we were supposed to cross the court to use the lavatories - still extant, but modernised - in the northern corner of the court, with windows overlooking the Cam. According to “St John’s College Cambridge: a History” - published last year as part of the celebration of the quincentenary of the College’s foundation, and edited by Peter Linehan - this is the exact spot where a ‘capacious privy’ was built in 1569, as a result of ‘a surge of student numbers’ in the 16th century.

By the 1950s undergraduates were generally lodged two to a set, each with his own small bedroom. The new History records that in the 17th century, however, “only Fellows of doctoral rank or College preachers might have a room to themselves” while the poor students  “were squeezed in, sometimes two to a bed, or else in ‘truckle beds’ that were tucked under the larger beds in the day, or perhaps in a bed in the ‘cockloft’ under the eaves, reached by a ladder.”  I can’t imagine that too many, especially if lodged in First Court, would have made their way to the Third Court, especially at night; they would have been more likely to have used a chamber pot, especially if they were more privileged undergraduates who could have called on the services of a ‘sizar’ , that is to say, a poorer student who acted as a servant to other students in return for an allowance towards college expenses and whose duties might well have including emptying the pot.

In 1746, in fact, a chamber pot featured prominently in a notorious case involving the alleged murder of one St John’s sizar, James Ashton, by another, John Brinkley.  As the History summarises the facts,

Ashton and Brinkley had evidently been close friends. On 9 March 1746 at about midnight Brinkley called on an undergraduate described as Mr C, who had the room next to Ashton in the First Court, saying that the porter should be summoned because Ashton was bleeding to death. Brinkley claimed that he and Ashton had been ‘lying together’ at Ashton’s desire, and that Ashton had got out of bed and somehow injured himself on the chamber-pot, which was found to be broken into pieces, some of them jagged. It was said by some that Ashton had been trying to shake off the attentions of Brinkley. The state of forensic science at that time left the doctors unable to determine whether the chamber-pot could have done the damage, and the evidence against Brinkley was insufficient to convict him. But he was generally considered guilty, was evidently sent down, and disappeared.

The idea of actually having lavatory or bathing facilities in one’s rooms was as laughably unlikely in the 1800s (or, indeed, in the 1950s) as allowing women in the college as undergraduates.

(2) The Master’s Wig the guilty wight appals

Who brings his dog within the college walls.

The History records a large number of offences committed by undergraduates in the 18th century. They “missed chapel, swore, got drunk, slept out of college, fornicated, went to London without permission, occasionally rioted.”  It also appeared that “receiving a girl in  one’s room, whether or not ‘disguised as a man’, ensured expulsion, as did the single instance of ‘melting down a College silver spoon and selling part of it’”.

The problem was that each College customarily decided what constituted a punishable offence, and what sanctions - from fines to expulsion - were appropriate.  To remedy this, in 1750 the Senate drew up a code of eighteen regulations governing the conduct of all students at the University.  One of these stated that “every person in statu pupillari appearing with a gun or keeping or procuring other persons to keep sporting dogs for his use during his residence .. shall forfeit the sum of ten shillings for every offence”.

No mention of bringing dogs in general into College, and the one belonging to our unfortunate undergraduate doesn’t seem likely to frighten anything, not even a baby rabbit.

(3) Expulsion waits that Son of Alma Mater
Who dares to show his face in boot or gaiter.

The 1750 Senate regulations, it appears, did specify in detail “the proper dress for Fellow-Commoners, BAs, noblemen and Scholars”, though not - it seems - for the common run of undergraduates, to which category our unfortunate student belongs, I would imagine.

Two hundred and so years later, when I matriculated (i.e. came up to the University), there was one part of the dress code which was strictly applied: wearing a gown. 

Here are three of us wearing gowns on the day we were awarded our degrees in 1960 (on the lower photo I’m on the left, with Barry Davies in the middle and David Skey on the right).  And, here’s pictorial proof of what proud mamas wore on such occasions at the start of the 60s:

I gather that students are still required to wear gowns on such formal occasions. But in my day the wearing of academic dress (gown and, for men, jacket, shirt and tie) was mandatory on all of the following occasions: attending lectures or tutorials; visiting one’s tutor or supervisor; dining in Hall; leaving one’s College after dark.

Many of us didn’t bother putting on a gown when we went into town in the evenings.  We ran the risk, however, of  being caught by a university officer known as a Proctor, one of whom would patrol the streets of central Cambridge after dark accompanied by a pair of top-hatted ‘Bulldogs’. Here are some Proctors and Bulldogs from the 18th century onwards.

                                                           

The convention, in my time, was that  if a Proctor saw a young man not in academic dress whom he suspected of being a student he would send a Bulldog over who would politely enquire, “Excuse me, sir. Are you a member of the University?”  The convention required that you would admit that you were, which would lead to a fine of 7/6d (the then equivalent of three eighths of a pound), I seem to recall.

If, however, you were spotted in the distance, it was equally likely that you would make off at high speed, hoping to outrun the often rather portly Bulldogs.   If caught, you were not liable to pay a higher fine, so running away made financial sense.  I never was caught.

I did, however, find myself in some dispute with the authorities of my College over what constituted correct academic dress. This involved, as I said earlier, wearing not just an undergraduate gown but also collar and tie, and I rarely wore a tie, generally sporting a roll-neck pullover.  When I was told that a tie was mandatory and that I would be denied access to Hall unless wearing one, I took to wearing a shirt and tie beneath the pullover, the top of which - on entering Hall - I pulled down to show the tie off.  This, too, was considered unsatisfactory so, if wearing a roll-neck, I would drape the tie over the pullover, which - grudgingly - was judged to be on the borderline of acceptability.

(Just deciding not to dine in Hall at all was not really an option. You were allowed to ‘sign out’ of Hall twice a week, but were charged for five dinners, whether you dined in or not).

But the tie question was only part of it.  In those days the vast majority of students wore jackets, shirts, ties and conventional trousers as a matter of course. I was one of hardly more than 50 people in a student body of some 8 or 9 thousand who, equally regularly, wore jeans (skin-tight jeans, of course, this being the late 50s.)  And jeans were a real no no, it was decided.  So, four or five of us in the College would arrive at Hall bejeaned, holding a pair of trousers wide enough to slip over our jeans before entering Hall.  As for my zip-up black leather jacket (one of maybe half a dozen in the University), I can’t remember if this was tolerated - when worn with shirt and tie - or if I had to concede defeat for once.

But at least we weren’t fined, let alone sent down for our infringements of the sartorial code, unlike Gillray’s poor undergraduate who was

Convened for wearing gaiters - sad offense!

Expelled - nor e’en permitted a defense.

I have just learned from Fr Alban McCoy, current Catholic Chaplain to the University of Cambridge, that the Gillrays are no longer to be found at Fisher House.  He suspects that, after Monsignor Gilbey left, they may well have gone to Peterhouse, which has various Stuart portraits from the Monsignor’s collection.  I am sad to learn that they are not on display for the entertainment and delight of the current crop of undergraduates.  They certainly affected me enough for me to have bought a set at an antique fair in Harrogate back in 1970.

At least I thought that I had bought a complete set.  There were four of them, one for each of the different offences.  And when, on leaving London for our much smaller cottage, I decided to donate them to my old College, everyone concerned assumed it was the full set.  Appropriately enough, they were put up in the rooms of the Dean, the College official responsible for discipline, where they are still to be found.

But a few months ago, thanks to the internet, I discovered that (oddly, since a set of five seems counter-intuitive) there is a final, fifth print, the one illustrated above, where the poor lad (and he could have been quite desperately young back in the early 19th century) stands, head bowed, waiting to hear the judgment of the Master and Fellows. Expelled, nor e’en permitted a defense.

Again thanks to the internet, however, I managed to find a good copy of the final print and, last Tuesday, handed it over to the Master, Professor Christopher Dobson, and the College Librarian, Dr Mark Nicholls.  Next time I visit Cambridge I hope to see it framed to match the existing four prints.  Perhaps they could be hung in a place where undergraduates may, more easily, discover what perils their errant predecessors encountered.