Tom Butler's Schooldays - Part 9: Ward No. XV

[steepholm]

[The second half of my great-grandfather's account concerns his time at Christ's Hospital's school for older boys at Newgate, London, from 1855 on. As before, I'll be putting up excerpts that seem particularly striking, but this first section is Introductory.]

The Wards of Christ's Hospital, London, were 16 in number containing about 50 boys in each Ward. There was also a Sick Ward. I was placed in Ward XV, the Nurse of which was Mrs Stag, and after the Pigging (Removal to another Ward) in Ward X. Of these two Wards alone I can write, having had no experience of the rest except the Sick Ward. The rooms of Nurse Stag, and the bed and study of the Grecian* of the Ward may first of all be mentioned. The Grecian's study was small and his bed was outside it. The bed had a curtain round it to make it private. The Grecian had a swob (servant), some lad of the Ward, whose social extraction no doubt was plebeian. The swob made the Grecian's bed, blacked his boots, and when called, obeyed his orders. The Grecian had a lofty manner like that of a giraffe, and was a grand being. He took no notice of anyone in the Ward except his swob. It seemed very wonderful to the boys of No. XV that the Grecian in his study had actually condescended to have a pleasant little chat with this servant, and moreover, the swob boasted, "He put some lavender-water upon my handkerchief."

Nurse Stag was able to be more sociable. She told us that she had visited Rome, and that in one of the Churches there the head of John the Baptist was shown to her and to other visitors. The exhibitor was doubtless a wag, for, when she made the objection, "I have already seen the Baptist's head in another Church and he cannot have had two heads!", she received the reply, "O yes, one of the heads belonged to him when he was a young man, and the other when he was older!"

Her sociability also was shown by the following. There was a lad who had a gift for public speaking. He delivered a mock sermon on the words, "They are coming!" which he said he took for his text, meaning that the French were coming to invade England. The Nurse came down from her rooms and listened to the sermon throughout. At that time the mind of the Christ's Hospital boys was much upon the Napoleonic wars. It was the absurd idea of these boys that one British soldier could chase a hundred Frenchmen. Another lad was a good entertainer. He sang "The Cork leg" with perfect action,** and he admirably imitated Mr Keymer, the Grammar School Master of Christ's Hospital, Hertford.

It was one of the duties of the Nurse to be present with the lads when they washed. There was no objection to this, for they only washed the head and neck and feet, and she directed them to show the neck to her after it had been washed. "You hav'n't washed your neck," she said to one. "Yes, I have, Mum." "Go and wash it again, I could sow mustard and cress in it." He did not wash it again, but after a time showed it to her once more. Then she said, "It's beautiful now." The place in which the boys washed was a long room called "The Lavatory" containing a row of taps with a gutter underneath. The washing in the Lavatory was a pleasant affair. The boys, bared down to the waist, placed the neck and the head under the row of taps of running warm water, and they helped one another to dry the head, holding a towel tight and drawing it backwards and forwards over the head. The ground of the Lavatory was slimy, but that did not matter, for before drying a foot, they could hold it under a tap, and the slime was removed into the gutter.

Every boy had a face-flannel. It was not really wanted, for he could lather his hands and use them better. But one thing was important. If he took it from its numbered peg in the Ward cupboard, he had to be careful to take it back again. Otherwise he gave trouble to Mrs Stag , and committed what, in her theology, was a grievous sin. This Nurse, not knowing better, did a dangerous thing. She put a nail on to the end of a long stick reaching almost the length of the Ward to give a reminder to anyone at a distance who was not listening to her. It swayed up and came own with a force that she did not intend.

* This is one school term TRB did not seem to think it necessary to translate - and indeed, it's right there in the OED: B.2.b "A boy in the highest class at Christ's Hospital (the Blue-coat School)." But I'd love to know how it arose. Perhaps in the past Greek was taught only to the senior scholars?

** If you, dear reader, wish to emulate him in singing this steampunk version of "The Red Shoes", this is a good place to start.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Wow, these are fascinating.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I do love the care he puts into describing the everyday material things that many people would pass over - even the action the boys used in drying their hair.

As for that nurse and her stick, it reminded me of my own German teacher at school, who did something similar with a window hook. We ascribed this to his having been a POW and wanting revenge, but at least he didn't put a nail in it.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Eugh.

[joyeuce]

Forester has Hornblower say that he was a Grecian at school, and the text makes it reasonably clear that he had indeed studied Greek. I don't recall whether there is any indication that he was at Christ's Hospital though.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting - thank you! It turns out (via the internet) that Forester's elder brother Hugh attended Christ's Hospital, and that CSF also won a scholarship there, though at the last minute he was sent to a different school for financial reasons. Either way, he would certainly have known of the CH usage through his brother. Hard to say whether that affected his choice of word for Hornblower, or whether he simply meant that Hornblower studied Greek, or whether "Grecian" was a term used at other schools besides Christ's Hospital (though the OED entry suggests perhaps not).

[sovay]

If you, dear reader, wish to emulate him in singing this steampunk version of "The Red Shoes", this is a good place to start.

That's really impressive.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I know! I've been rooting around and most sources on the web seem to agree it's an Irish song, but I've not found anything yet about the date. The link I provided gives "Flashes of Merriment" as a source, and according to the BL catalogue a book of "humorous fireworks" (by Jeremy Squib, Engineer) was published under that name around 1770. But is that too early for a song that contains lines such as:

Each joint was as strong as an iron beam,
And the springs were a compound of clockwork and steam

To say nothing of the macabre, Terminator-ish vision that it ends with?

[sovay]

The link I provided gives "Flashes of Merriment" as a source, and according to the BL catalogue a book of "humorous fireworks" (by Jeremy Squib, Engineer) was published under that name around 1770. But is that too early for a song that contains lines such as

I started by trying to check the dates for "A Lord of Steam and Iron (The Monster Science)," which is the other ridiculously steampunky folksong I know; unfortunately, while everyone seems to agree that it appeared first as a poem in The Potter's Examiner, nobody seems to know when. (The 1830's is the earliest reasonable estimate according to Mudcat.) Throwing "The Cork Leg" into Google Books was marginally more helpful, in that it tells me the song was alluded to in print in 1838 (The Gentleman's Magazine), collected as early as 1853 (Davidson's Universal Melodist), and that Henry Clay Barnabee (publishing his memoirs in 1913) is very proud that his definitive performance of the ballad was appreciated by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I suppose the question is whether there was an earlier, perhaps less mechanically wacky version of the same name. I can't find anything resembling a first-run broadside or sheet music.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for "The Lord of Steam and Iron"! And for your researches: one of those Google Books results seems to push it back as far as 1820, but it's hard to know how reliable that is. There's an 1835 copy in the BL, though; and another ballad about a riot at Edinburgh University, dated 1838 and to be sung to the tune of "The Cork Leg", suggesting that it was fairly well known then.

In other printings it seems to have been sold with songs called "The Wonderful Wig" and "The Steam Arm", suggesting that there's a whole sub-genre of pre-music hall prosthetic comedy awaiting some PhD student with an interest in abjection. Anyway, it turns out that the music was by Jonathan Blewitt (1782-1853), who wrote for Drury Lane and whose other credits include "The Song of the Shirt". The words are by Thomas Hudson (1791-1844), who was "one of the stars of the very early music hall/ supper clubs and indeed for many years ran his own theatrical tavern near Covent Garden and is considered one of the original constituents that developed into the music hall", and who "published his songs yearly from 1818-31." Or so says the catalogue of a seller of antiquarian music hall songs. I guess that gives us a date somewhere between 1818 and 1835.

I was rather hoping that H. C. Andersen heard it sung by Dickens when he went on that disastrous visit in 1847 (because after all, you just know that Dickens would have insisted on performing it) and was inspired to write "The Red Shoes" as a result. Unfortunately HCA's book came out in 1845. Another imaginary conversation gagged; another letter to Notes & Queries unwritten.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Sorry - I misspoke. HCA first came to England in 1847, but his visit to Dickens was ten years later. It makes no difference to my poor little theory, though.

[sovay]

In other printings it seems to have been sold with songs called "The Wonderful Wig" and "The Steam Arm", suggesting that there's a whole sub-genre of pre-music hall prosthetic comedy awaiting some PhD student with an interest in abjection.

There is also at least one nineteenth-century novelty song about a steam-powered vibrator, which I heard once and have never been able to decide if I actually want to track down; it probably left me with enough brain damage the first time around.

The words are by Thomas Hudson (1791-1844), who was "one of the stars of the very early music hall/ supper clubs and indeed for many years ran his own theatrical tavern near Covent Garden and is considered one of the original constituents that developed into the music hall"

That's cool.

I was rather hoping that H. C. Andersen heard it sung by Dickens when he went on that disastrous visit in 1847 (because after all, you just know that Dickens would have insisted on performing it) and was inspired to write "The Red Shoes" as a result.

Alas. I would have approved of that.