THE BURGON SOCIETY — for the study of academical dress —

BURGON NOTES – Issue 50 – Winter, 2019/20

FROM THE CHAIRMAN COLLECTIONS The end of 2019 brought a flurry of activity to the The Society is very fortunate to have received Society. We held our very successful first Archive several interesting and important donations of Visit (see below) and October saw our annual in recent months. Congregation, this year held at the of Through contacts at the University of Birmingham. The Society was delighted to Cambridge, the Society has been gifted the PhD welcome five new fellows: Valentina Grub, David (pictured) and of Prof. David Quy, Byron Rangiwai, and Alexander Yen, by Crighton, renowned mathematician and submission; and Chris Bottley honoris causa. sometime Master of Jesus College. Prof. Chris has given Burgon Society members an Crighton received his PhD in mathematics from exclusive offer from William Northam & Co. (see Imperial College London in 1969. Being below). University of London PhD robes, they are claret I am always delighted to see so many in the Cambridge shape [d1] faced and lined familiar faces at these events and also to claret silk with a 1” stripe of the faculty colour on welcome new members too. Despite being a the outside of the facings. However, the faculty small interest area, the engagement of our colour on the robes seems to be orange (for members is fantastic. This has recently been commerce) and on the hood russet brown (for demonstrated by three of our members - Alice arts). One might have expected yellow for Hynes FBS, Chris Williams, and Terry Barcock - in his case… Suggestions on a postcard. who have volunteered their services to the upkeep of the archive. They now form the Archive Oversight Group and have already improved its preservation and curation. I would ask any other members who wish to get involved to consider running for the positions of Secretary and Treasurer at the AGM. The Society really does need your help and expertise. If you haven’t already, do head to our website www.burgon.org.uk which we have recently renovated. As this is the most outward facing aspect of the Society, it’s important that we show we are an active and engaged Society. Analysis of the website data shows our reach is truly global and people come to us to read our research on academic dress. The new website brings the browsing experience up to modern Photograph courtesy of Andrew North expectations and makes navigation much easier. As we head into 2020, the Society turns We have also generously been gifted the 20 years old. This is a true testament to all our academic dress (pictured) of the late Rev. Prof. founding fellows, past and present committee John Rogerson DD by his widow. These include members, fellows, and members alike. I just fine Manchester Victoria DD robes from the want to take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ 1970s. A rare set of academic dress which will to everyone who has made the Burgon Society make a good addition to the archive. what it is today. Andrew North Andrew North

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The manager put a price of £45 on the item and allowed me to take it to display at our Congregation in October. Members at the Birmingham event agreed that it would be good to have it for the collection and several contributed towards the cost so that it could be kept for the Society’s archive. Alex Kerr

ARCHIVE VISIT REPORT A small group (because of the limited space in the archives) of people made their way to Bedford for the very first Archive Visit in September. The day started with members allowed to browse the collection. Many items caused discussion amongst the group who saw so many unusual or rare and hoods. Photographs courtesy of Andrew North Some items were selected for a mini ‘show-and-tell’ including some of the more VINTAGE BIRMINGHAM LLD BONNET infamous ones like the old Sussex BA hood and I visit Oxfam’s Broad Street shop in Oxford in the Aston University gown. early September to identify the academic dress Martin Lewis FBS, who kindly hosted the items about to be put on sale for the new visit, treated the group to a presentation on some university year. This time I made a significant recent officers’ robes he had designed for a find (pictured). In a box of ordinary square caps Nigerian university and showed us the there was a well-made velvet bonnet in very good University of Exeter officers’ robes he now holds condition with gold cord and tassels. It was lined for the University. with bronze-green watered silk and labelled Ede, We certainly hope to put on such an event Son and Ravenscroft. This meant that it was for in the future, so watch this space. an LLD of the University of Birmingham and had Andrew North been made between 1902 and 1921, when the firm traded under that name. CONGREGATION REPORT On 12th October members and fellows gathered in the Senate Chamber of the University of Birmingham for the Society’s annual Congregation. The day started with an enlightening presentation by Jayne Ball of H. Tempest Ltd. on Designing New Academic Dress in which she detailed developments at the University of Central Lancashire and the Royal College of Physicians. After lunch came the Congregation itself. This saw the admission of four new fellows by submission: Valentina Grub for A Brief History of Academic Dress in the Middle East and the

Maghreb, David Quy for An Overview of the History of Academic Dress of the University of Exeter since its Foundation by Royal Charter in 1955, Byron Rangiwai (in absentia) for Kākahu and Gown: The Incorporation of Kākahu into Academical Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand with an Example of a Kākahu Worn at a City University of New York Graduation Ceremony in 2006—An Interview with Sarah Smith (published work) and Alexander Yen for Lumen ex Oriente: Academic Dress of the University of Hong Kong, 1911– Photographs courtesy of Martin Lewis 1941.

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This was followed by Fr Philip Goff’s presentation of Chris Bottley (Director of William Northam & Co.) for the fellowship honoris causa. Our President, Prof. Graham Zellick, then delivered his address which included a round-up of news items featuring academical dress in the past year such as the scandal surrounding the Rothenstein mural at the University of Southampton. After the ceremony attendees enjoyed Alex Kerr’s lecture entitled University of Birmingham Academic Dress and Arthur Casey’s Reminiscences of Degree Days at Birmingham. Throughout the day members enjoyed a display of Birmingham hoods and gowns from the Society’s archive, kindly arranged by Andrew North. These were supplemented by items loaned by the President, who is an honorary graduate of the University of Birmingham, and by the University itself which supplied its mace- bearer’s gown.

Photographs courtesy of Caleb Wright

COSPROP WORKING PARTY REPORT On 30th October a group of five Burgon Society members spent the day at Cosprop (Bruce Christianson, Paul Coxon, Alice Hynes, Nicholas Jackson, and Alex Kerr). Cosprop are one of the world’s leading costumiers to film, television and theatre, and are a corporate member of the Burgon Society. Our hosts were Elizabeth Owen and Barbara Kloos, and our task was to continue the work of identifying and cataloguing the wide range of academic dress residing in the Cosprop wardrobe. As well as two rails filled with gowns, the items to be classified included that best-of-all treat, a box of assorted unidentified hoods. During the course of the day we catalogued over fifty academic gowns. A similar number of gowns was instead identified as likely to be legal dress or livery, or as theatrical costumes - some for teachers or dons, others more likely vampires. Several dozen gowns remain to be examined, and we plan another visit in the first quarter of 2020 - if you might be interested in participating in this please contact Bruce Christianson: [email protected] Meanwhile, we include here pictures of a few of the items that we are still puzzling over.

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Do get in touch with us if you have any Nick Groves thinks the first may be a suggestions about what they might be. pulpit gown, perhaps American. He identifies The first is a black gown with Geneva- the second as the hood for an HonRSCM. This is style sleeves like those on an ICC doctoral gown, the original royal blue, which was later replaced narrow red binding down the facings and three with a light shade, and with the silver lining gone red twisted cords and buttons on the yoke. The pink; this might date it to the 1960s. The third is second is a blue [f1] hood lined and bound silver- a mystery. Nick suggests it might be for Lincoln pinkish silk. The third is a black [f1] hood lined Theological College (Scholae Cancellarii)—black black shiny silk, bordered petrol blue. bordered peacock blue, with the black lining a later addition. Looking into Smith’s Academic Dress, Bruce wonders whether it might be Australian, the colour and width of the part- lining being diagnostic: Queensland BEcon— 4” kingfisher blue; or BPharm—4” salvia blue; Newcastle BCom—6” turquoise; Adelaide BEcon—6” helvetica blue; and there are more possibilities... Bruce Christianson and Alex Kerr

THE SUSSEX BA AND THE GREY AMESS The original hood for the Sussex University BA (pictured) was described by Shaw as lined with squares of grey nylon fur and, more succinctly, by Franklyn as ‘a freak’. But sometimes when new appear to innovate, they are actually reaching back into an older pool of tradition. To give one example, pointed out by Dr Nicholas Groves in his book on the Academic Dress of the University of East Anglia. The UEA hoods with the silk ‘lining’ draped on the outside of the shell bear a remarkable visual resemblance to Loggan’s 1675 engraving of the Oxford MA, wearing his hood inside out as was the fashion at the time – and as the Oxford proctors still do.

Photographs courtesy of Alex Kerr Photograph courtesy of Alex Kerr

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Could something similar have happened OXFORD DCL PORTRAIT with the Sussex BA? Certainly, as Shaw observes, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1819–1914) some aspects of Sussex academic dress, such as (pictured) was Professor of Logic and the pileus hat and the doctoral (ribbon) Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh seem intended to resonate with old continental from 1856; he served as Dean of Arts for over traditions. three decades. He was created Doctor of Civil During the Middle Ages, the academic Law by the University of Oxford in 1883.1 hood came to be worn at religious services as an Although he held other doctoral degrees, Fraser alternative to the grey amess (pictured). For sat for a portrait wearing his DCL gown example, Thomas Rotherham’s 1479 statutes for (pictured); a review of its exhibition by the Royal Lincoln College, Oxford say ‘The Rector should Scottish in 1890 appears below: wear an amess if he has one, if not then the hood of his degree, and the Fellows in like manner.’ ‘There are several portraits in this room which are worthy of notice, the best of them being the work of George Reid, R.S.A., who is now the foremost of Scottish portrait painters. His method of overcoming the difficulties of academical costume is shown in his portrait of “Professor A. C. Fraser, LL.D.” (171), who is shown in his Professorial robes, where crude scarlets impinge upon delicate shades of crimson. Why a Professor of Logic should enshroud himself in frippery of this kind we know not, but so it is, and the junior artist may learn from this picture how such a barbaric combination may be made inoffensive.’2

Of course, the reviewer is incorrect in stating that he is wearing ‘professorial robes’ but the review is nonetheless telling about artistic representations of academical dress. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Jonathan C. Cooper Photograph courtesy of Missguided

This amess was usually made of fur from the small grey squirrel: indeed the word miniver derives from the Middle French for small (menu) grey squirrel fur (vair), and Cinderella’s slippers may once have been grey and furry (vair) rather than glass (verre). In the course of the English Reformation the amess was suppressed, while the academic hood was not, leading to the eventual incorporation of the hood into Anglican choir dress in place of the amess. Might the Sussex BA hood have been inspired by a picture of the old grey amess, worn like a hood, with its squares of grey fur? A modern gilet (pictured) with the grey faux fur separated into squares suggests individual pelts, in a similar manner to the other pictures. The original Sussex BA hood was itself suppressed in 2004, but the fur of the small grey nylon squirrel remains very much in demand. Bruce Christianson Image courtesy of the University of Edinburgh

1. Alumni Oxonienses, vol. 6, p. 491. 2. The Dundee Advertiser, 15th February 1890, p. 5.

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MYLES BURNYEAT NORTHAM OFFER This photograph accompanied the obituary of William Northam & Co. have generously offered the philosopher Prof. Myles Burnyeat published Burgon Society members a 20% discount off any in The Daily Telegraph on 8th October 2019. purchase of new academic dress, on the condition that the purchase is for personal use and not financial gain. Orders will need to be placed through William Northam’s Oxford office to process the discount. Contact: [email protected] and quote discount reference code: Burgon1096.

SPRING CONFERENCE AND AGM London, 18th April 2020 A programme of short presentations is planned, with the Society’s AGM held at the end of the morning session. Details and booking arrangements will be circulated nearer the time. The venue will be Deloitte LLP, 1 Little New Street, London EC4A 3TR. The day will include talks on gown sleeves in the 19th century (Bruce Christianson) and on academic dress of the University of Sussex (Malcolm Kemp), of the University of Hong Kong (Alexander Yen), and in the Middle East and the Maghreb (Valentina Grub). Chris Williams will talk about recent acquisitions for the Burgon Society Collection. The programme is nearly full. However, Photograph courtesy of the University of St Andrews if you would like to offer a paper or suggest a topic for next year’s conference, please contact Wrongly described as at All Souls, he is Dr Jonathan Cooper: [email protected] actually shown standing in the quadrangle of St Salvator’s College soon after the University of St CONGREGATION Andrews had conferred on him the honorary Cambridge, 10th October 2020 degree of Doctor of Letters in 2012. Of interest This year Congregation will be held at Gonville to Burgon Society members is that (like all of the and Caius College, Cambridge. We hope to see as University’s honorary graduates) he is clad in the many as possible attend the Society’s primary undress doctor’s gown, on which the sleeve ceremonial occasion. Further details will appear buttons and those all the way down the front in forthcoming issues of Burgon Notes. match the main colour of the hood. I believe that of the ‘old Scottish four’ only St Andrews DATES FOR YOUR DIARY IN 2021 preserves use of this gown as distinct from the 17th April 2021: Spring Conference and AGM dress gown. 9th October 2021: Congregation During my undergraduate years 1953– 57, my regent was Dr David Jack, Reader in Copy for the next edition of Burgon Notes Natural Philosophy, a delightful man. Along should be submitted to the editor no later with his wife, I and others were treated with than 29th February, please. Copy and warm hospitality. He held a St Andrews PhD. At pictures should be sent to: chapel services and also when regents were [email protected] invited to formal dinners in St Salvator’s Hall, he invariably wore the undress gown, its tiny round fabric-covered buttons and front buttonholes matching the blue of his hood. Students whose regents were present were invited ahead of dinner for a glass of sherry in the regents’ room on the ground floor facing the lawn. In that way I saw his undress gown at close quarters several times. Alan Robertson 6