Part 5

Of late, however, a dame has come to be merely the technical name of a house-master who has no regular “division” or class in the school. They are often mathematical masters, or teachers of special subjects. In old days many ladies used to keep boarding-houses for the boys, which of course gave rise to the name of “dame.” Miss Evans, who died in 1906, was the last of these. She was universally respected and beloved, and occupied a unique position in Eton life,--her name will long survive.

One of the most celebrated dames of other days was Miss Angelo, a pretty woman who, it is said, was made an Eton dame owing to the good offices of George the Fourth when Prince of Wales. This lady’s pony chaise and fur tippet were familiar to several generations of Etonians, among whom she bore the nickname of the Duchess of Eton. She belonged to the famous family which furnished four generations of fencing-masters to the school.

[SN: LEAVING BOOKS]

Old Eton was full of peculiar customs--bad, good, and indifferent. Amongst the latter was the giving of Leaving-Books. Often a popular boy would go away from Eton with quite a fine little library of these, and towards the end of each school-time there was some rivalry and excitement about these collections. Williams’ (the bookseller) shop became resplendent at such times, the books being all handsomely bound and mostly gilt, and varying in price from a guinea upwards. Eventually, however, the gifts became absurdly numerous, and in 1868 the custom was abolished by Dr. Hornby--mainly, I believe, on the score of economy. It might have been better, perhaps, to have limited the price of the books, for these gifts were productive of kindly feelings. The receiver always shook hands with the donor and requested him to write his name in the book, and the collection formed a pleasant remembrance of Eton in after years, and a memorial of friendship with schoolfellows.

Every boy who gave a leaving-book had to be thanked and shaken hands with. And in the last week of the Half boys came and wrote their names in their respective books “after two,” when those leaving Eton were expected to be in their rooms, where various dainties were provided. After the names had been signed there was more shaking of hands.

Another old usage, now very rightly abolished, was “Leaving-Money.” In former days an Oppidan, as he said good-bye to the Headmaster, would leave, in an envelope, a sum, the amount of which depended upon the generosity of his parents.

The recognised method for a boy to present this donation was to hold the envelope inside his hat, which he would place for a moment on the table, and so unostentatiously deposit his offering.

The position of a Headmaster receiving such gifts was rather awkward, and Dr. Hawtrey, a man of great delicacy and refinement of manner, used to ignore them as far as was possible. At the end of the Summer Half, he would observe, “It’s rather warm, I think I’ll open the window,” and as he did so, the envelope was furtively laid upon the table. When the next boy who was leaving was ushered in, the same process was gone through, except that the Doctor would observe, “Don’t you think it’s rather cold? I think I’d better shut the window.”

[SN: THE LONG GLASS]

A distinctly bad old custom, which prevailed up to quite recent times, was the draining of the “Long Glass” at Tap--that curious Eton institution where the Upper part of the school are still allowed to obtain chops, steaks, bread and cheese, beer and cider. Though the long glass is still preserved, I believe it has not been used for many a long year, a circumstance which can arouse nothing but gratification amongst all sensible people.

At one time there was “Long-Glass” drinking once or twice a week during the Summer Half. Nearly a yard long, and holding a quart, the glass in question somewhat resembles a coach-horn with a bulb instead of an opening at the large end. Aspirants to the honour of draining it attended in an upper room of Tap after two, each with a napkin tied round his neck. The object was to drain the glass without removing it from the lips, and without spilling any of its contents, which was extremely hard, for when the contents of the tubular portion of the glass had been sucked down, the beer in the globe would remain for a moment as if congealed there; and if the glass was tilted up a little, and shaken, the beer would give a gurgle and suddenly splutter all over his face and clothes. Only by holding the Long Glass at a certain angle could a catastrophe be avoided.

The results of this rather disgusting practice were often to be clearly discerned on the coats and waistcoats of boys emerging from Tap, and it is to be hoped that, unlike some other old Eton customs which deserve revival, it will remain merely a memory of a more intemperate age.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] It seems to have been an old custom for boys who died at Eton to be buried thus.

III DR. KEATE--FLOGGING AND FIGHTING

At the end of the eighteenth century the Eton boys had become somewhat difficult to control. Heath and Goodall had both been Headmasters fond of comfort and ease, and in order to keep things from drifting into a state of open disorder, ignored many infractions of discipline. In consequence of this they both enjoyed a fair measure of personal popularity--the parents would seem to have known little about what was going on, for, in spite of the continued deterioration in discipline, the numbers of the school continued to rise.

[SN: DR. KEATE]

When Keate became Headmaster in 1809, he found himself confronted by a somewhat difficult situation. A man of unflinching character, he had at first to suffer for the weakness of his predecessors and, owing to his stern methods, incurred unpopularity which it took some time to efface.

No one who had ever come in contact with Keate ever forgot him, for his appearance was exceedingly striking. He was a small man, little more than five feet high, short-necked, short-legged, thick-set, powerful, and very active, whilst within his small frame was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. His countenance resembled that of a bull-dog, and he also had something of that animal’s mouth. Indeed, it was said in the school that old Keate could pin and hold a bull with his teeth. His iron sway was to many a very unpleasant change, after the long, mild reign of Dr. Goodall, whose temper, character, and conduct corresponded precisely with his name, and under whom Keate had been master of the Lower School. He was at first, there can be little doubt, too severe; discipline, wholesome and necessary in moderation, being carried by him to an excess; on one morning alone he is said to have flogged eighty boys. Flogging, indeed, may be said to have been the head and front, or rather the head and tail, of his system. Like Dr. Busby, the famous Headmaster of Westminster School, he never spoilt the child by sparing the rod. According to Dr. Johnson, Busby used to call that instrument of correction his sieve, and declare that whoever did not pass through it was no boy for him. Keate, although rigid, rough, and despotical, was on the whole not unjust, nor devoid of kindness, a proof of which is that, after twenty-five years, he retired fairly triumphant, applauded and respected by the vast majority of those with whom he had come in contact. During one of the frequent visits which he paid to Eton after his retirement, his grim old face was seen looking down on the boats in Boveney Lock, whereupon the crews stood up and cheered their old master with a will.

Much has been written of the curious appearance of the famous Headmaster, who has been said to have worn a fancy dress partly resembling the costume of Napoleon and partly that of a widow woman. This was a great exaggeration. It is true he wore a huge cocked hat; this was not from eccentricity, but because he was a Conservative and respected tradition--it had long been the custom for the Head- and Lower-Masters at Eton to wear such a head-dress, and Keate merely retained it after it had become obsolete with the rest of the world.

[SN: THE ROUGH OLD DAYS]

As a rule the famous Headmaster wore an angry look, whilst ever ready to explode into a rage, though occasionally flashes of unexpected good-nature would temper his attitude of unwavering severity. This, however, was seldom, his command over his good temper being so complete that he scarcely ever allowed it to appear. On the other hand he could not be put out of humour, being always in the ill-humour which he thought fitting for a Headmaster. He had a fine voice, which he could modulate with great skill; but he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, and the latter was his almost invariable way of speaking to boys to inspire respect. His red shaggy eyebrows were so prominent that he habitually used them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object towards which he wished to direct attention. The rest of his features were equally striking in their way, and highly characteristic of the man.

Dr. Keate was not devoid of sense of humour. On one occasion when he had set a certain form an essay on “_Temere nil facias_,” one boy named Rashleigh failed to send in any work at all. The Doctor, who of all men was the last to be trifled with in such matters, sent for the delinquent, and, glowering with ferocity, demanded the meaning of such conduct. The culprit, however, was quite undismayed and replied, “Sir, you told me yourself not to do it.”

“What do you mean?” retorted Keate in tones of thunder.

“Why, sir,” replied the boy, “in setting the theme you said, ‘Do nothing rashly,’ and I have obeyed you.” This display of ready wit, it is said, secured the offender’s pardon.

When Keate assumed the Headmastership the whole public-school system had remained behind the age, and many of the manners and customs of barbarous times still continued at schools long after home life and manners had become civilised. There is no reason to suppose that Dr. Keate was in any way of a brutal disposition or wanting in natural affections. He had to deal with a very difficult situation, and it is greatly to his credit that he maintained the prestige and increased the numbers of Eton in spite of almost insurmountable difficulties.

When, for instance, it became clear to the boys that the easy-going state of affairs which had prevailed under Dr. Goodall had come to an end, the school was thrown into a state of latent rebellion. One of the first innovations imposed by Keate was to impose an “absence” the evening after what was then known as “long church.”

The first time this was put into force the whole school booed the Headmaster as he opened his mouth, and it took him two hours to get through calling the “absence,” though various tutors did all they could to help him detect the boys who were the ringleaders of the disorder. After trying to discover the principal culprits and failing, Keate finally determined to punish the last remove of the Upper Fifth and the whole of the Lower Fifth (there was then no Middle Division), whom he considered responsible for the outbreak, by making them attend a five-o’clock “absence.” Some ninety boys absented themselves, or rather hid behind the trees in the playing fields where this “absence” was called, and purposely did not answer their names. The situation was grave, and at first it seemed likely that all of these rebels would be expelled; eventually, however, Keate determined to be more lenient and merely announced that he would “flog the lot.”

[SN: SWISHING WHOLESALE]

When the first batch came up for punishment in the library a scene of riot took place, and as the first boy knelt down on the block a shower of eggs smashed round Keate; in fact, after three victims had suffered, the Headmaster’s clothes had got into such a state owing to the unsavoury missiles hurled at him, that he had to go home and change. On his return, however, he was seen to be accompanied by a number of assistant masters, and owing to their aid in keeping order he had finished swishing the whole of the ninety boys by eight o’clock that evening.

The masters must have had their work cut out to subdue the insubordination of such turbulent boys. Though the number of these boys was close on 500--later, from 1821 to 1827, it varied between 528 and 612--at no time were there more than nine assistants, including the Lower Master. While some of the forms in the Lower School only had twenty or thirty boys, certain divisions in the Upper School were of quite unwieldy size. In 1820 Dr. Keate’s own division had swelled to 198. He then relieved himself by creating the Middle Division of the Fifth, but he continued to keep about 100 boys under his own charge at the end of Upper School, where much disorder prevailed.

All sorts of jokes and tricks were indulged in, and about 1810 it became a regular practice during the Winter Half to try and put out the candles in the two great chandeliers. There had originally been three of these, but according to tradition the third had been broken in the great rebellion some thirty years before. On one occasion a huge stone that was shied at the chandelier went within an inch of Keate’s head and cracked the panel behind him. Having somehow got to know the culprit, Keate let it be known that it was a boy at a certain dame’s, at the same time declaring that the only chance the boy had was to give himself up and trust to his leniency; otherwise he would be expelled. The boy was George Dallas, a straightforward fellow. He immediately went to Keate, confessed, and solemnly assured the Doctor that he had never intended to hurt him. Keate said he believed him, but of course Dallas must know that the lightest punishment he deserved was a good flogging, and that flogging he got.

A large part of the boys’ time seems to have been spent devising ingenious forms of annoying Keate, who sat enthroned in a spacious elevated desk, enclosed on all sides, like a pew, with two doors, one on each side. One fine morning he entered Upper School, and, going to his desk, tried to open one door, and found it was fastened. He went round, grinning, growling, and snarling, to the other side; the door there had been screwed up too. The desk was up to the breast of a tall man and as high as Keate’s head; nevertheless, laying his hand on the top of it, he lightly vaulted in, the feat being saluted with loud cheers and a hearty laugh. This made the Doctor more angry than ever. “I will make some of you suffer,” he said, and he did; for the next day, to the general astonishment, he called up all the boys who had been concerned in the screwing up and soundly flogged them. The secret of this was that Cartland, Keate’s servant, suspecting that mischief was afoot, secreting himself between the ceiling and roof of Upper School, had witnessed the whole screwing-up process through the rose from which hung a chandelier, and carefully noted down the names of the boys concerned.

Another time a huge mastiff was put under Keate’s seat, but the Doctor was fiercer than the dog, which ran away, frightened at his angry gaze.

[SN: THIS ISN’T A GIRLS’ SCHOOL]

One of the old school, Keate had no sympathy with innovations. Though he himself is said to have always carried an umbrella in sunshine as well as rain, he could not bear to see a boy with one. “Wet, sir? Don’t talk to me of weather, sir,” he would say; “you must make the best of it. This isn’t a girls’ school.” By way of paying their Headmaster out for such a remark, a party of boys once made an expedition to the neighbouring village of Upton, took down a large board inscribed in smart gilt letters “Seminary for Young Ladies,” and fixed it up over the great west entrance into the school-yard, where it met the Doctor’s angry eyes in the morning.

In spite of his stern disposition and rough ways Keate was highly sensitive as to ridicule, and especially disliked attempts to caricature his appearance.

When the informer in the celebrated case of the Cato Street conspirators--an Italian image-man by trade, and a very clever one--made his appearance at Eton one day with a tray full of plaster busts of the well-known Doctor, cocked hat and all, Keate was very much annoyed to find that his likeness was selling like wildfire amongst the boys. There seemed to be only one way of preventing the wholesale popularisation of his dumpy figure, so, buying up what was left of the Italian’s stock, he had the figures taken to his backyard and broken up.

One or two boys had the temerity to personate Keate. Lord Douro, son of the Iron Duke, dressed in an exact copy of the Doctor’s robes and hat, actually painted the Headmaster’s door red one night, to the amazement of a few persons who saw him.

In some verse commemorating this feat, the watchmen were supposed to be summoned before a conclave of masters the next morning to describe what they had seen:--

“We both last night Saw him--the Doctor--in his own cocked-hat, His bands, his breeches, and his bombasine, Paint his own door-post red.” Then great the wrath, And great the marvel of that conclave; all Turned their cold eyes on him, their dreaded chief, Convicted on such damning evidence Of this irreverend deed.

Keate never discovered the culprit till years after when, as a Canon of Windsor, he was entertaining Lord Douro at dinner. The latter, speaking of Eton days, alluded to the door-painting incident, and was about to make a full confession when Keate became so red in the face that he thought it wiser to desist.

[SN: AMATEUR FLOGGING]

Lord Abingdon was another Eton boy noted for his mimicry of Keate; indeed, dressed up in a cocked hat and gown made expressly for him, his disguise was so perfect that he actually went round one night and called “Absence” at the different dames’ houses without being detected. Years later, after a dinner-party at his home in Oxfordshire, his Lordship would dress up as Keate, and, birch in hand, enact a scene in the “library” for the edification of visitors. On one of these occasions he persuaded one of them to “go down” on a block, made in exact imitation of that at Eton, which stood in the room, whilst two others “held him down,” and the story goes that the noble host pitched into his guest with such hearty goodwill that, when allowed to get up, the latter was so sore in more ways than one that he called for his carriage and drove off in a great rage.

Though boys mimicked and laughed at Keate behind his back, very few had the courage to stand up to him face to face. One of the few, however, who did so was Charles Fox Townshend, the founder of “Pop,” who, “staying out” on account of indisposition, refused to write out and translate the lessons of the day, in consequence of which he was in due course summoned to the awful presence of the redoubtable Headmaster. In the well-known tones of thunder which made four generations of Etonians tremble, Keate demanded the meaning of such conduct. “Don’t speak so loud, Dr. Keate,” replied Townshend, “or you will make my head ache. If I had felt fit to write out and translate the lesson I should have gone into school, but I did not feel well enough, so I stayed out.” The famous Headmaster, it is said, was so dumbfoundered by the readiness of the delinquent’s reply that he let him go without any punishment.

On the whole, Keate does not seem to have been an ill-natured man, for, in spite of his occasional fits of ferocity, he was held in considerable esteem by a large number of the boys. They bore him no ill-will for the floggings he had caused them to undergo, and, when he left Eton in 1834, presented him with a gift testifying their appreciation of his merits. This consisted of a silver reproduction of the Warwick Vase, on the pedestal of which was inscribed--

PRESENTED BY THE EXISTING MEMBERS OF ETON SCHOOL TO THE REVD. JOHN KEATE, D.D. ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE HEADMASTERSHIP JULY 30, 1834, AS A TESTIMONY OF THE HIGH SENSE THEY ENTERTAIN OF HIS EXQUISITE TASTE AND ACCURATE SCHOLARSHIP SO LONG AND SO SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO THEIR IMPROVEMENT AND OF THE FIRM YET PARENTAL EXERCISE OF HIS AUTHORITY WHICH HAS CONCILIATED THE AFFECTION WHILE IT HAS COMMANDED THE RESPECT OF HIS SCHOLARS.

[SN: AN AMUSING DINNER]

Keate was in Paris soon after Waterloo, and there he met a number of old pupils to whom he had administered castigations. The latter determined to give their former pedagogue a dinner, which in due course took place at the Restaurant Beauvilliers, then one of the best dining-places in Paris, the hosts being Lord Sunderland, Lord James Stuart, and other scions of the aristocracy. The banquet was a most jovial one, and Keate did full justice to its excellence, drinking every kind of toast, and making a most suitable speech, which appropriately ended with “Floreat Etona.” After dinner a good deal of chaff began to fly around the table, and the guest of the evening was told of many Eton happenings which he had never heard before. For the first time he learnt of how two of his masters had secretly contrived to go up to London every Saturday in order to dine with Arnold and Kean at Drury Lane, surreptitious suppers at the “Christopher” were described, whilst tales of tandem expeditions, fights with bargees, and poaching excursions in Windsor Park reached his somewhat astonished ears. The old man, however, took everything in excellent part, merely remarking that all he had heard but inspired him with regrets that he had not flogged the assembled company as much as they appeared to have deserved. On leaving, he thanked his hosts in a few well-turned phrases, and, parting from them on excellent terms, went home amidst loud cheers.

No doubt he owed a good part of the popularity which, in spite of his sternness, he eventually obtained to the attractions of Mrs. Keate, who was a very fascinating woman. In the year 1814, during a match with Epsom, the Eton champion, John Harding, scored 74--an extraordinary number in those days, when the bowling generally beat the bat. It called forth a poem from a clever Colleger (“Marshal” Stone), in which were the following lines. The Doctor saw them and was vastly amused:--

No vulgar wood was the bat of might That swung in the grasp of Harding wight; No vulgar maker’s name it wore, Nor vulgar was the name it bore. It was a bat full fair to see, And it drove the balls right lustily; Without a flaw, without a speck, Smoothe as fair Hebe’s ivory neck-- It was withal so light, so neat, The Harding called it--Mrs. Keate.

When the allied sovereigns were present at a fête in the gardens at Frogmore in 1815, the King of Prussia is said to have gone up and kissed Mrs. Keate, making the excuse of her remarkable likeness to his Queen.

All sorts of stories have been told of Keate’s fondness for wielding the birch. “Remember, boys,” he is once supposed to have said, “you are to be pure in heart, or I’ll flog you till you are.”

He certainly did castigate an enormous number of Etonians, amongst them, it is said, half the Ministers, Secretaries, Bishops, Generals, and Dukes of the earlier portion of the nineteenth century; but, nevertheless, the boys in his own division were usually punished by having to write out impositions, and were not flogged except for some very flagrant offence, such as intoxication.

Keate, as Headmaster of Eton, it must be remembered, was chief executioner, and had to do justice when a boy was complained of by any assistant master.