Part 17

The 4th of June and Election Saturday were celebrated by the Procession of Boats in gala dress and by fireworks from the Eyot. Previous to 1814 all the rowers in each boat had a fancy dress appropriate to the boat. In after years the crews wore blue jackets with anchors embroidered on the outside arm, clad in which they pulled all the way up to Surly. In 1828 checked shirts were introduced, and this fashion has continued ever since. On special days the boats had tillers fashioned as serpents, and garlanded with oak leaves, instead of the ordinary wooden tiller or the rudder lines and yokes which they used in the races. On the 4th of June and on Election Saturday the crews donned a special costume, the main features of which were a dark-blue jacket with brass buttons, hanging loose in front in order to show the distinctive pattern of the shirt, over which the silken handkerchief worn round the neck hung. Up to about 1828 the coxswains of boats on such great days wore fancy costumes, but after that date every coxswain was dressed as a naval officer, increasing in rank according to the precedence to which his boat was entitled, and this custom is still followed on the 4th of June. A somewhat curious coincidence in connection with the boats is that Lord Rosebery, Lord St. Aldwyn, and Lord Coventry in their Eton days all rowed bow in the _Monarch_--the ten-oar which seems always to have been one of the boats.

The great event for Eton oarsmen was formerly the annual race against Westminster, which in the early part of the nineteenth century excited the greatest interest. The proceedings in connection with the selection of the eight which was to try conclusions with the London school provoked much the same interest and enthusiasm as that now evoked with regard to the Eton crew to be sent to Henley. The series of contests with Westminster seems to have commenced in 1829 with a race for £100 a side. A regular course of training was always undergone, and for a number of years the match was the great event of the summer half. As time went on, however, it was discontinued, though revived in 1860 as part of certain concessions made by the then headmaster, Dr. Goodford, in consideration of the abolition of “Check” nights and “Oppidan Dinner.”

[SN: “OPPIDAN DINNER”]

“Oppidan Dinner” was a survival of the eighteenth century, and seemingly originated at the old Christopher. In later days, however, it was held at the White Hart at Windsor, the number of boys sitting down being usually about fifty, each of whom paid something like eighteen shillings a head, which charge included wine. The time for this dinner was at the end of the summer half, and those who took part in it were members of the Upper boats’ eleven and Sixth Form and a few other Upper boys. The captain of the boats managed everything, and sat at the head of the long table in a room which stretched right through the inn, one end looking out upon the castle. The dinner began at four in the afternoon, an adjournment to Eton taking place for six o’clock Absence, after which, about 6.30, the boys returned to the White Hart for what was called “dessert,” though every one expected to drink rather than to eat. The chief show on the table consisted of decanters and glasses, all of a very cheap sort, it being well understood that few would survive the wholesale breakage which almost invariably followed the annual feast. Toasts were then given, the captain of the boats rising first of all to propose “The Queen.” This was drunk standing, amidst an accompaniment of cheers. “The Prince of Wales and the rest of the Royal Family” followed, after which the boys waited eagerly for the toasts which had more immediate reference to their own particular interests and the songs which formed part of the evening’s programme. The proceedings invariably closed with “Floreat Etona,” the drinking of which was the signal for breaking up. This toast not unnaturally evoked wild enthusiasm, and at one time it was the custom for every one to fling their glasses down and dash them to pieces on the table. About half-past eight the diners returned to Eton in very hilarious mood, the captain of the boats and other popular athletes being generally subjected to a very enthusiastic “hoisting.”

[SN: CHANGES]

The Eton authorities, though perfectly aware of this somewhat Bacchanalian feast, never took any notice of it till it was abolished in 1860. As, however, old drinking customs decreased, it became clear that Oppidan Dinner was destined to disappear, and its existence was threatened years before it was done away with. It was notorious that as a result of this banquet a number of boys came to Absence in a very fuddled condition, and the headmaster, when calling over the names, had to keep his eyes well fixed on the list for fear of seeing behaviour of which he would have been obliged to take notice. At Lock-Up time things were worse still, and of the reeling crowd who surged down the High Street some occasionally became so violent that it took six or seven boys to get them to bed.

The last Oppidan Dinner of 1859, however, was by all accounts the most sober on record. Indeed an aged waiter at the White Hart was moved almost to tears at the small amount which had been drunk. Those who took part in it were of more serious disposition and mind than their rollicking predecessors of former days, and most people agreed that the dinner had become an anachronism. When, however, in the following year R. H. Blake-Humfrey, captain of the boats, in unison with the present Provost, Mr. Warre (who had then just come to Eton as a master), concurred in its suppression, not a few were taken by surprise, whilst many an old Etonian of the old school shook his head and murmured that Eton was going to the dogs.

In return for the abolition of “Oppidan Dinner” and “Check” nights, it was agreed that the eight should be allowed annually to row at Henley, whilst “boating bills” were instituted so as to put aquatics on the same footing as cricket with respect to exemptions from six o’clock Absence. It was also laid down that, on days in the summer half when there was no five o’clock school, the crews of two eight oars should be excused from “Absence” on condition of their undertaking to row to within sight of Cookham Lock. The “strokes” of the two boats were made responsible, on their words of honour, to see that the conditions were fulfilled. In addition to this, the whole of the High Street, as far as Windsor Bridge, was placed within bounds, so that boys going to the “Brocas” or returning from it were no longer obliged to “shirk” when they met masters. Finally the annual boat race with Westminster was to be revived. That very year a race was duly rowed between Eton and Westminster at Putney, in which Eton won very easily. There was, however, nothing extraordinary about this, for since the old days when Eton and Westminster had been rival schools the former had greatly increased in size. Westminster had in reality barely a chance, for it had been only with considerable difficulty that an eight had been got together at all. Though some of the Westminster oars were good men, the crews that rowed against Eton from 1860 to 1864 were entirely outmatched in weight and strength. In addition to which, in 1861 and 1862 the Eton eight possessed a tower of strength in their captain and stroke, Mr. R. H. Blake-Humfrey, who, it should be added, has, in his introduction to the _Eton Boating Book_, given such a clear and excellent account of the early history of Eton rowing. The race between the two schools did not take place in 1863; instead, the Westminster boys came down to Eton on Election Saturday and had supper with the Eton crews in the meadow opposite Surly Hall. Rowing back to Windsor, the visitors very nearly became involved in what might have been a serious catastrophe, for the cox of the Westminster eight, not being used to the river, steered the wrong side of the posts above Boveney Lock, and but for the warning shout of the steerer of the Eton eight, the Westminster boat would probably have gone over the Weir. The match of 1864, in which Eton won by 27 seconds, was the last occasion upon which the two eights met. Since then the schools have developed in different directions, with the result that the old cordial relations are now in all probability for ever at an end.

Modern Eton has produced several famous oarsmen--notably Mr. S. D. Muttlebury, whose first triumph was winning the “Lower boy pulling” with S. S. Sharpe in 1881. The present boating colours are the Eight, Upper Boat Choices, Upper Boats, Lower Boat Choices, Lower Boats, the latter of which all adopted the old Defiance colour in 1885. For this and other information I have to thank Mr. F. F. V. Scrulton, the present captain of the boats.

[SN: SWIMMING]

Swimming has always been in great favour with Eton boys, but in old days the authorities paid no attention to it, and no effort was made to check boys who could not swim from risking their lives. There appears, however, to have been some regular bathing-place as long ago as 1529, for it is chronicled that in that year a boy was drowned at “le watering place,” the site of which, however, is unknown. The first teacher apparently was a Frenchman named Champeau, nicknamed by the boys Slipgibbet, who about 1829 taught swimming with corks, which state of affairs continued till all unauthorised teachers of natation were swept away. Champeau, also playfully known as Shampoo, gave his lessons at the spot opposite to “Athens.” The old Frenchman must have been a competent teacher, for three miles was often accomplished by some of his pupils, and headers off Windsor Bridge were not uncommon. Nevertheless, fatal accidents intermittently occurred. In the early part of the nineteenth century a boy was drowned close to Boveney Meads, in the presence of many big schoolfellows, of whom not one could dive to bring up the body, though it could be plainly seen by those who stooped over the sides of the boats--fortunately at that time broad of beam, otherwise more boys would probably have perished. Sixty or seventy years earlier young Barnard (afterwards Dr. Barnard, Headmaster and Provost) had only escaped a watery grave owing to the successful efforts of his schoolfellow, Jacob Bryant, a delicate boy but a good swimmer. In later years Bryant became a scholar and philologist well in advance of his age. The average of deaths from drowning was once, it is said, about one boy in three years. This bad state of affairs was ended in 1840 when George Augustus Selwyn, with William Evans, organised swimming and instituted the “passing” at “Cuckoo Weir,” which has now become one of the regular features of a “wet bob’s” career.

The Upper Collegers at one time bathed at the oak in the playing fields, the Lower at a spot not far away, which bore the significant name of “Deadman’s Hole.” Near by was the old wharf, done away with in 1840, where the Collegers used to keep their boats. In those days, however, they went but little on the river, preferring to concentrate their energies in preparing for the annual matches at cricket and football with the Oppidans. The rivalry was then very keen, and in winter was even shown by fierce snowball fights, in which both sides often suffered severely. It may seem strange that seventy boys could face six hundred, but some of the biggest boys in the school were Collegers, as they were not superannuated until they were nineteen.

About 1828 the annual matches, both at cricket and football, between the Oppidans and Collegers were done away with. They were always the most stoutly contested games of the year, and put both parties on their mettle far beyond the excitement of any other match. A good deal of bitterness was sometimes displayed, and now and then a smack on the head or a designed “shin” were given and received; but, on the whole, these matches did something to draw Oppidans and Collegers together, and their abolition is to be deplored, though, in the present age, the great excess of Oppidans would, it must be confessed, have rendered their continuance difficult.

[SN: ST. ANDREW’S DAY]

Of all the various contests which formerly took place between Collegers and Oppidans the annual match at the wall on St. Andrew’s Day alone survives, and has lost none of its interest, though the two elevens are chosen from seventy Collegers and from close on a thousand Oppidans. In reality the chances of victory are in a great degree equalised owing to the fact that whilst the Collegers have every opportunity of playing the game during the whole of the time--usually about six years--during which they remain at Eton, only a small number of Oppidans play at all till within two years of their leaving school. It would here be superfluous to enter upon any detailed description of the game. [SN: THE “WALL”] Suffice it to say that it is played within a narrow strip of ground some twenty feet wide and close up against the old wall built in 1717, the goals being the tree with a white mark at the end towards Slough, and the door of Weston’s Yard at the Eton end. The origin of this peculiar form of football is very obscure. Mr. E. C. Benthall, K.S., Keeper of the Wall in the present year, 1911, who has most obligingly furnished me with some interesting information, believes that it originated from “passage football,” and doubts if it was ever played very seriously till about one hundred years ago, at which time it was an entirely different game from what it is now. In spite of its quaint terms, it would seem to be of no great antiquity, at least in anything like its present form. The wall itself dates from 1717, but about the earliest record of any regular game there dates from the first decade of the nineteenth century, at which time any one who chose seems to have been allowed to play, with the result that there were usually eighteen or twenty a side. It was then practically the only form of football popular at Eton, though occasionally something approaching to the modern “Field Game” was played in the open. Till 1841, however, such forms of relaxation were discouraged by the masters. Nevertheless, on the piece of grass between the path and the river in Lower Club the Collegers, up till about 1863, played a variety known as “Lower College.” This was probably a link between the field and wall games, for it had “shies” and “goals.” In early days the wall game was played on a much wider strip of ground than is at present the case. The bully was not its essential feature, and the ball was often run down the whole length of the wall. Sixty years or so ago matches of Dames _v._ Tutors were occasionally played, and during one of these the ball somehow was pitched right on the top of the wall, along which it ran for some eight yards before coming to a dead standstill on the top.

The rules were then, of course, more elastic than those now in use, and since they were drawn up in 1849 the game has undergone various minor changes, including the curtailment of the space at the wall to its present limits and the toleration (about 1851) of “furking” the ball back in calx.

At one time considerable savagery seems to have been displayed by the rival teams, in consequence of which Dr. Hawtrey once suspended all play for three weeks, and in 1851 it was actually proposed to abolish the annual match on St. Andrew’s Day on account of the ill-feeling which was said to be engendered between Oppidans and Collegers. Of late years, however, the historic contest is remarkable for the good-humour shown by both sides. A quaint figure at the annual match from 1847 up to 1888, the year before he fell ill, was old Powell, whose old-fashioned velveteen coat and high top-hat were survivals of another age. During his long superintendence of the wall he had seen many generations of Collegers and Oppidans contending for goals and shies. After ten years of confinement and suffering he died in 1899.

The wall game is as different from any other form of football as it is possible to imagine. To one unacquainted with its intricacies, nothing can be more curious than the bully close up against the wall, and the efforts of those forming it to prevent kicks sending the ball out--that is to say, beyond the line marked as the limit within which play takes place. The rules really amount to a sort of complicated creed, which has been handed on from one generation of Collegers to another. A good deal of the game is mystifying to a spectator unacquainted with its intricacies. A “calx bully,” for instance, is highly difficult to explain, whilst the necessary preliminaries for a “shy” at goals are often, owing to the confusion of the struggle, visible only to the umpire. The summit of a wall-player’s ambition is to throw a “goal,” which feat, in the annual St. Andrew’s Day match, has only been accomplished three times within the last hundred years--in every case by a Colleger. W. Marcon threw one in 1842, when College won by a goal and 19 shies, 17 of which were got by H. Phillott in rapid succession. H. J. Mordaunt, captain of the eleven in 1886, threw another in 1885, when he hit the door just at the bottom. [SN: A HISTORIC GOAL] The name of this fine athlete, the writer (who knew him at Eton) is informed, is still a household word in College, where his goal is held in greater reverence than that scored in 1909. Mordaunt’s was an unaided effort, whilst the latter seems to have been rather lucky. Nevertheless, Finlay and Creasy deserved the greatest credit for their presence of mind. In 1858, it should be added, a throw by Hollingworth was disputed.

Though of all pastimes the wall game is least adapted for summer, time-honoured usage prescribed--and after a discontinuance for four years now once again prescribes--that at six o’clock on the morning of Ascension Day a mixed team of Collegers and Oppidans should meet at the “Wall.” The origin of this custom I have been unable to ascertain. Like the game played on the last evening of last summer half, it probably took its rise from boyish enthusiasm.

In connection with the wall game, the name of James Kenneth Stephen--the gifted J. K. S., who in his prime was so unfortunately snatched away by death--will never be forgotten. Captain of the College team in 1876-1877, he was a great supporter of “noster ludus muralis,” as he has left on record in his “Quo Musa Tendis,” one stanza of which runs--

There’s another wall with a field beside it, A wall not wholly unknown to fame, For a game’s played there which most who’ve tried it Declare is a truly noble game.

College, it is pleasant to know, seems unlikely ever to forget this true son of Eton, for on the evening of St. Andrew’s Day each of the wall team in turn drinks “In piam memoriam, J. K. S.,” every raising of the cup as it is passed around being followed by a cheer.

A brilliant young contemporary of J. K. S. who played at the wall in 1880 is happily still left to us. This is Mr. A. C. Benson, whose fine intellect and delightful achievements in the fields of literature have rendered his name well known to that greater public which joins with Etonians in admiration of his work.

College may well be proud of having produced two such men as these.

Till the middle of the fifties in the last century the wall game was also played at the red brick wall in front of the boys’ entrance to the house which about 1790 was built overlooking the Timbralls. For nearly a quarter of a century after play had ceased to take place there, the calces marked in chalk could still be discerned. The field game is a rather modern institution. As has before been said, ordinary football does not seem to have been very popular amongst Etonians of a hundred years ago, though in the last century it gradually rose in favour. A curious character of other days was old Strugnal, who was celebrated for tightening the bladder of a football by means of blowing through a piece of tobacco pipe placed in his mouth. On the whole, the annals of Eton football, a primitive form of which in the eighteenth century was known as “goals,” with the exception of some exciting house matches, do not possess any great interest.

[SN: CRICKET]

Cricket, unlike football, was popular at Eton over two hundred years ago, having been played as early as 1706, and in high favour in Horace Walpole’s day. About the first great Etonian cricketer was the eighth Lord Winchilsea, who afterwards became chief patron of the famous Hambledon Club. At one time he made an attempt to introduce an innovation by increasing the stumps to four, but the change was never popular, though in the match between the Gentlemen and Players in 1837, in order to equalise the contest, the latter undertook to defend four stumps instead of three. In 1751 three matches for £1500 were played between the Gentlemen of England and Eton College, Past and Present; the former won the stakes, winning two out of the three matches. The players were dressed in silk jackets, trousers, and velvet caps. In 1791 Lord Winchilsea made 54 runs in a contest between Old Etonians _versus_ the Gentlemen of England. This was played at old “Lord’s,” where Dorset Square now stands. In the same year the school beat the Maidenhead Club by four wickets. Keate was one of the seven Collegers playing, and scored 0 and 4, while in the second innings Way “nipped himself out” for 11. Five years later a match seems to have taken place against Westminster on Hounslow Heath, in defiance of the Headmaster’s strict orders; it resulted in the defeat of Eton and the flogging of all the Eleven!

In those days there was a good deal of jollity in connection with the cricket in the playing fields, and the boys were allowed to do many things which would be thought very reprehensible to-day. Up to about 1827, for instance, a beer tent used to be allowed when cricket matches were played. Two or three years later Eton cricket for some reason or other admittedly deteriorated, a disastrous state of affairs which was thus explained by one of the “cads” who used to hover about the shooting fields: “Lord, sir, they never has won a match since the beer tent got the sack, and never will no more.” This tent, where “beer and baccy” were the order of the day before it gave offence to the higher powers, was kept, at every match, by the veteran Jem Miller for the accommodation of the “cads,” Broconalian Club, and other loungers, and loudly and lustily did they cheer the boys with their stentorian lungs. It was from this tent that one of the best bowlers and batters Eton ever produced--in after years a prominent divine at King’s--was encouraged by the deafening shouts of “Goo it, my dear Harding; goo it, my dear boy,” when he scored 86 runs off his own bat against Messrs. Ward, Vigne, Tanner, and others of the Epsom Club. It was on this memorable day, too, that he made a tremendous hit over the shooting-field trees, high in the air, of course, when a bargeman from the tent, lost in amazement at the hit, thundered out, “There she goes for Chessy [Chertsey] Church, by Jingo!” it being a prominent mark on the river for the bargees.

[SN: “WATER BOILS,” “MAKE TEA”]

According to all accounts, cricket in those less strenuous days was not taken any too seriously. Boys did not change their clothing to play it, though they did so for football. Once during a match in Upper Club a fight was reported to be going on in the playing fields, and in a few minutes gentlemen, spectators, and cricketers not actually playing scampered over Sheep’s Bridge, eager to witness the contest. Formerly tea in Upper Club was made by fags. The well-known cries of “Water boils!” “Make tea!” originated during this now obsolete state of affairs.