To look upon a group photograph of the Collegers of fifty years ago
brings many memories to the mind. E. C. Selwyn, before we met at Eton,
had been my schoolfellow at Blackheath Proprietary School, of which his
father was headmaster; and our friendly relations were renewed from
time to time till his death in 1919. As I once reminded him, we had but
two quarrels--the first when we were freshmen at Cambridge, about Moses,
in whom I had been rash enough to say that I “did not believe”; and the
second, at a later period, because I _did_ believe in Mr. H. M. Hyndman,
of whose socialist doctrines Selwyn as vehemently disapproved. Long
years afterwards I made what I thought was a fair proposal to him--that
if he would give up Moses, I would give up the other patriarch, and so
our two small disagreements would be mutually adjusted; but his answer
was that, though Moses need no longer delay a settlement, he could not
agree to Mr. Hyndman being given up, because his patriotic conduct
during the Great War had shown him in a new light.
We used to call Selwyn “bishop” in those days, either because of a
distant relationship to Dr. G. A. Selwyn, the well-known Bishop of
Lichfield, or because we thought him almost certainly destined to attain
to episcopal rank: his scholarship, not to mention his defence of Moses,
seemed to warrant no less. J. E. C. Welldon, who _did_ become a bishop,
was another most genial schoolfellow, famous in the football field no
less than in the examination room. I remember running second to him in a
handicap quarter-mile race, in which he was allowed a good many yards’
start, and with that advantage just managed to keep the rest of us in
the rear. Herbert Paul, unlike Welldon or Selwyn, was by no means
designated for a bishopric. I recall him, a sceptic even in boyhood,
standing in Upper Passage, where Collegers often held informal
discussion, as, with thumbs in waistcoat pockets, he would hold forth,
already a fearless disputant, on matters human and divine.
Among other figures in the group are Dr. Ryle, Dean of Westminster; Sir
Richmond Ritchie; Mr. George Campbell Macaulay; Mr. C. Lowry, head of
Tonbridge School; Dr. Burrows, Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Harmer, Bishop
of Rochester; Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, Chairman of the Prison Commission;
Mr. E. C. Tennyson-d’Eyncourt; Rev. J. H. J. Ellison, late Vicar of
Windsor; Sir Lionel Carden, of Mexican fame; and others who in various
ways have become distinguished.
Very provocative of reminiscence, too, are the illustrations, printed in
books about Eton, of the College servants, the College buildings, and
many well-remembered faces and scenes. Take, for example, a picture of
“Old College Servants” in Mr. Ralph Nevill’s _Floreat Etona_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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