Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton CollegeNevill, Ralph
History
Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton College
Nevill, Ralph
Eton College
Before the reforms made in College in 1845 most of the King’s scholars,
it must be confessed, were more of the class intended by Henry VI. than
has since been the case. In latter years many Collegers have belonged
to well-to-do or even rich families, whereas the Foundation was
specially intended for poor boys. In the early part of the nineteenth
century a certain proportion of those in College were the sons of
Eton or Windsor doctors or solicitors, royal servants, or successful
tradesmen. Besides these there were sons of Eton masters and boys of
impoverished country squires. The former class of boys, however, were
in some way made to feel that they were not the equals of the sons
of gentlemen, and subjected to petty humiliations which did their
schoolfellows small honour.
Besides being exposed to physical violence, small boys, especially if
they were clever, were sometimes made to do work for stupid big ones.
A certain lazy lout, however, was once well served out by his victim.
In difficulties as to the composition of a set of verses, the bully one
day got hold of a smaller schoolmate, and under the threat of a severe
licking got him to do the verses for him. When, however, the bully came
to showing up the lines which he had not done, and which he had not
even troubled to read, they were found to be so grossly indecent and
outrageous in tone that the master who looked at them at once declared
the writer should be flogged. At first the bully did not dare admit
that they were not of his own making, but eventually at the block he
admitted the fraud, with the result that the boy who had played him the
trick was also punished. It is to be hoped, however, that the bully
received the more severe thrashing of the two.
When the celebrated Porson was a Colleger, one of his contemporaries
was Charles Simeon, known as “Snowball” Simeon, the ugliest boy in
College, who afterwards became an earnest Evangelical preacher. In
after life he looked back upon the doings in Long Chamber and its
lawless rowdyism with horror, and once told a friend that he would be
tempted even to murder his own son sooner than let him see in College
the sights he had seen.
[SN: A RUNAWAY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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