Bullingdon toffs innocent of rioting, OK

Oxford’s Bullingdon Club has landed in the news as the alma mater of New Torydom, but its reputation as the home of hard-drinking hoorays was made on the night of May 11, 1894, when 468 windows were broken in the Peckwater Quad of Christ Church in the space of 15 minutes.

The Dean, Francis Paget, rusticated 12 Bullingdon members and, a few days later, two pranksters who were caught posting “To Let” signs in the windows of their rooms.

But it seems that, for once, the Bullingdons were not the main culprits.

An  extraordinary letter from the Dean to Lord Archibald Campbell, father of one of the rusticated students, surfaced in The Times, kicking off an unholy row which raged in the Letters page for weeks.

Apparently, the Bullingdons had returned from one of their dinners to find the window-smashing in full progress. Some of them, and their guests, joined in the fun, but the Dean admitted in his letter that the men he’d rusticated were innocent; he’d punished them on the principle that they should have been responsible for the behaviour of their friends, who would probably never be identified.

I believe that those who have been sent down did not bear part in doing the damage … I am heartily sorry that … those who have had to suffer for the misconduct of men with whom they were associated have been mistaken for the actual doers of the mischief. I hope you will make any use you please of this letter in order to correct any such mistake.

There are two interpretations you could put on this letter. Either the Dean was a complete idiot, because Campbell did exactly what he suggested and brought the skies down on his head; or he was going into it with his eyes open, hoping for a good punch up with the rich and powerful whose offspring had been making college life purgatory with their drunken shenanigans.

Whatever, it backfired with a vengeance. On July 3, the big guns piled in. A letter condemning the Dean was signed by 21 nobs including a duke, a bunch of lords, a Lord Justice-General, a Colonel of the Coldstream Guards and Uncle Tom Cobley.

And then the floodgates opened. There were a few voices of moderation, and even a letter or two in support; but the vast majority condemned the Dean. There was horror that the dignity of the “House” had been damaged, and that Cambridge had been given a chance to gloat.

The Times, in a leading article, eloquently described the ruined lives of the rusticated undergraduates:

the punishment of rustication is no trifle. It forfeits a man's "term," and dislocates, sometimes to his great detriment, his examination arrangements; not to mention the traditional feeling at Oxford and outside, that the punishment implies much that is discreditable.

and their total innocence:

Sometimes, no doubt, Bullingdon men return from their gatherings in a state of exhilaration; but it is not asserted that this was the case on May 11.

And ended up by giving the Dean and the college a good wigging:

He has to govern a large and rather heterogeneous college, which contains a number of rich men who have never learned to work at school and who will not work at Oxford. We have nothing but respect for the Dean's efforts to get some amount of study, some sacrifice of their pleasures, out of these difficult subjects. But he does not make his task easier by grave errors of judgment; and if by any chance he has advisers who consistently support and encourage those errors, the sooner he can induce them to choose another sphere of activity the better it will be for Christ Church.

But the mud stuck. The good question is whether the club has survived for so long despite its reputation, or because of it. One for the Shadow Chancellor maybe.

• Read Sarah Ebner on what the Bullingdon Club says about Oxford and the Tory party today at the School Gate blog

Comments

[JY]

The most striking thing about that post seems to be the fact that Oxford has reinvented its image from age to age by oscillating i.e. between snobby shennigans and more egalitarian (ahem, think economically sensible?) drunken pursuits.

The continual disappearance of traffic cones and their reappearance along college quads was probably the best indicator of a good night out!

Just wondering ; the donation appeal letter has gone out, wonder how the moneyed alumni have responded?