Tom Butler’s Schooldays - Part 1

This little chap is my great-grandfather, Thomas Robinson Butler, in a photograph taken in about 1855. The curious garb he wears is the bluecoat uniform of Christ’s Hospital, where he was a boarder from 1853-61, first at the school for younger boys in Hertford, and later at Newgate. As readers of this journal will know, the adult Thomas became an assiduous collector and transcriber of others’ words, but I did not realise until the other day (when I visited my aunt on the way to Blackpool) that in 1920, aged 73, he wrote a lengthy account of his own schooldays. The original manuscript was donated to Christ’s Hospital itself in the 1950s, but they made a typed transcript, which I have borrowed for a while.

It makes fascinating reading for anyone who’s interested in what life was like at a public school at this period. The typescript is 94 pages long, but I thought it might be interesting to put up a few of the highlights. Corporal punishment, weird schoolboy customs, food and the lack of it, and dubious teaching methods all figure largely, but for today I shall start, as Thomas himself does, with words...

( Matching Slang )

Tom Butler’s Schooldays - Part 1

This little chap is my great-grandfather, Thomas Robinson Butler, in a photograph taken in about 1855. The curious garb he wears is the bluecoat uniform of Christ’s Hospital, where he was a boarder from 1853-61, first at the school for younger boys in Hertford, and later at Newgate. As readers of this journal will know, the adult Thomas became an assiduous collector and transcriber of others’ words, but I did not realise until the other day (when I visited my aunt on the way to Blackpool) that in 1920, aged 73, he wrote a lengthy account of his own schooldays. The original manuscript was donated to Christ’s Hospital itself in the 1950s, but they made a typed transcript, which I have borrowed for a while.

It makes fascinating reading for anyone who’s interested in what life was like at a public school at this period. The typescript is 94 pages long, but I thought it might be interesting to put up a few of the highlights. Corporal punishment, weird schoolboy customs, food and the lack of it, and dubious teaching methods all figure largely, but for today I shall start, as Thomas himself does, with words...

( Matching Slang )