N o .124
T he T rusty S ervant
‘Debauched, Sir, debauched’:
Sydney Smith at Winchester
This is an abridged version of a talk given by
the former Fellows’ Librarian, Dr Geoffrey
Day, to the Sydney Smith Association in
York, in September 2016:
When Tennyson first visited Winchester
he solicited the views of his coachman.
The reply was succinct: ‘Debauched,
Sir, debauched. Like all cathedral cities.’
When Sydney Smith arrived in 1782 the
College was close to its nadir. By leaving
in 1788 he avoided probably the worst
year in its 600-year history (that of the
Rebellion), but only by five years. There
was, indubitably, debauchery.
We have remarkable evidence of
Winchester life in the years Smith was
a scholar. There is in the Archives a
15th-century copy on vellum of the
Statutes. During the 1780s this volume
was used by scholars to practise spelling
four-letter words, doodling, drawing
simple caricatures, recording events in
College life, and making caustic remarks
about those who had offended them.
What could be regarded as vandalism
has become, with the passage of time,
an interesting historical source. Most
accounts of school life are written years
later, often through rose-coloured
spectacles: the marginalia in this MS
show the reality of late-18 th -century
Winchester College.
Details support Tennyson’s coachman’s
view: ‘Tyrwhitt goes every night to an
evil place more properly an house of ill
fame’ - Richard Tyrwhitt, who arrived in
the same year as Smith, left Winchester
at the age of 15; and of Robert Sturges,
who was no more than 16 when he left
the year before Smith arrived, we are
told, ‘Sturges was Clapp’d damnably
last August … Do little children such
diseases know?’
There are unnecessarily violent acts:
‘Talbot that little infant destroy’d 3
young Pigs, by kicking ‘em against the
Barn door’. And academic standards are
derided: ‘Be it known to Posterity that in
October 85 a famous Grecian by name
Maltby Came to this School - which
was then in a State of Digeneracy &
Corruption with regard to Literature &
every other virtue The only Geniuses of
the School were Mr G Wells & Newton
Ogle’. This is almost certainly in the
hand of the said Ogle, son of the Dean
of Winchester and subsequently Richard
Brinsley Sheridan’s brother-in-law. Other
margina lia are concerned with quotidian
trivia: the boys had pets, rather unusual
ones, including a badger and an eagle.
They got up to complicated pranks: on
24 th October (year unspecified) John
Wooll, Aulae Prae, with three others,
after drinking claret at the White Hart
in Winchester, ordered a chaise to take
them to Southampton, where Wooll
passed himself off as ‘Lord Brook’. When
the Lord Chief Justice visited the school
the boys expected him to announce at
least a half-day’s holiday. He gave 1s.
3d. towards the cost of apples. They
made their views very clear. And in an
annotation with a degree of pronoun
confusion, we are told that Dr Warton
found Ogle under his bed - or possibly
that Ogle found Warton under his bed.
Not only do we not know who was
actually under the bed - it is not entirely
clear whether ‘his’ means the bed of Ogle
or the Master. Though as he was then in
his third year at Winchester, it is almost
certain that Sydney Smith knew.
The Master in Smith’s time, Joseph
Warton, entered Winchester as a scholar
in 1736 and went up to Oriel in 1740.
His translation of the Eclogues and
Georgics of Virgil, published in 1753, led
to an honorary MA from Oxford. His
appointment as Second Master in 1755
seems to have been a result of this work
5
and of his connections: he was a member
of The Club, a friend of Johnson,
Garrick, and Goldsmith among others.
Warton succeeded Dr John Burton
as Master in 1766 and held that post
until his 71 st year. He was spectacularly
inadequate: it is recorded that a boy
threw a Latin dictionary at Warton’s
head during a lesson; the inaccuracy of
his scholarship was a serious obstacle to
pedagogic success.
Clearly Winchester was fairly uncivilised
at the time, and it is hardly surprising
that Smith’s brother, Courtney, who
came to the College in 1783, was so
miserable that he ran away - twice.
The true depths were plumbed in 1793
and 1818, both of which years saw
serious rebellions. On the first occasion
the flashpoint was the imposition of a
general punishment for the breaking of
bounds by a single boy who had gone to
listen to the Buckinghamshire Militia
band in the cathedral close. The boys
sent a formal complaint to the Warden,
who rebuffed them. They then occupied
Inner Gate and armed themselves with
large flints from Chamber Court. Half
of the Court is now set with cobbles,
replacing the boys’ weapons. Local
military leaders offered help, but the
siege was brought to a negotiated close.
35 boys left the school, out of a total of
70 scholars, as a direct result. Warton
was blamed for allowing matters to get
to such a state, and he retired later that
year from a post for which he had never
been fitted.
The 1818 rebellion was even more
violent; the cause even more trivial.
In an effort to improve discipline the
Master announced that henceforth
boys would not be permitted to have a
look-out posted outside School to warn
of his approach. The boys barricaded