MICHAELMAS TERM 2003 ISSUE 12 Academics in Oxford have the great challenge of attempting to find, by the fairest means possible, the cleverest students of their Editorial generation. If we do that, we can continue to have the great pleasure My predecessors as co-editors of the College, or if you prefer, the of teaching men and women with an amazing range of talents, which House part of Christ Church Matters, have emphasised such themes are far from being confined to those of academic performance. It’s not as the College as community, the idiosyncratic views of Tutors and surprising then, that through journals like this, we can share our Professors, (particularly when the prospect of retirement gives them common interest in reading about the activities of our graduates long the moment to express them), the amazing interest of scholarly after the three or four years of the reading, writing, – and dialogue research of various kinds, our funding uncertainties, which seem to with tutors – which lead to an Oxford degree are over. In various be both political and perennial, and of course the great importance ways, the conversation can continue. It is a great pleasure for the of our Old Members, who are the basis for a strong sense of historical members of the present Governing Body to be in touch with people continuity, and who encourage us with their welcome expressions who are so very interesting. of gratitude, and their interestingly anecdotal accounts of their time CHRISTOPHER BUTLER here. So our editorial policy is not likely to change. Tutor in English & Co-Editor First Impressions of Christ Church I was once in Green Park underground station four guinea-fowl; two other children have standing by a ticket machine which was more or less left home. We have inherited experiencing some form of difficulty. An from the Drurys a cat, a thorough and official came along, banged on the machine amusing hand-over and some sharp tools and shouted ‘Jack’, at which the front opened in the Deanery workshop. and Jack emerged. There was applause. I have made another discovery, something My first impression of Christ Church has been which is obvious to everyone who reads of a place which people see as ancient, Christ Church Matters, namely that the beautiful, venerable and perhaps somewhat boundaries of the House are wide and hard being included in an event here and was told inactive, whereas in reality all kinds of to define. They include 7,500 Old Members, “But you are one of us”. creative and indeed human activities go on a number of Friends and then also many There are current and future challenges on behind the façade. Buildings are significant families of current members who have just a number of fronts, including our response to and many people have an affection for them, begun to receive this magazine. Just about the White Paper on Higher Education, but I yet the purposeful community which my first duty was to speak at a Gaudy for a can report that the College is in good health flourishes here must claim priority. recent group of Old Members: those who left and feeling robust about its future and that of about ten years ago. What they said and We moved from St Albans (where I was Dean the University. of the cathedral) in mid September and are what many others have written, shows that now well settled at the corner of Tom Quad. there is a context of strong support for I look forward to meeting Old Members and ‘We’ includes Rhona, my wife, Hugh, our the College. One person who wrote was over Friends of the House. seventeen-year-old son, eight chickens and the moon when he expressed his gratitude for CHRISTOPHER LEWIS Dean of Christ Church the onset of civil war, the cost of living at Christ butter. Cost was not the only issue; according to Church was rising daily, and the Students felt that the 108 undergraduates who signed the petition Cardinal Sins their stipends, fixed for decades, were not of 4 March 1865, the quality of dinners and the NOTES FROM THE ARCHIVES keeping pace. The Civil War and Commonwealth beer were well below par. Auditors were called Historically, seems to have been a great period for petitioning; in to investigate, but the results were undergraduates perhaps the national mood of discontent had unsatisfactory; the report presented to the Dean at Christ Church percolated through the College walls. In 1643, only dealt with the method of accounting. The often resorted to with the Civil War in full swing, and with the issue reached the press; correspondence appeared petitions to make King and Court in residence at Christ Church, in The Times and other London papers (and was their voices heard. the Students once more berated the Dean and soon published in pamphlet form, a copy of An example that Chapter for reducing their commons to one meal which survives in the archive) – largely because Members might a day ‘farre below what they conceive as their one of the prime instigators of the petition was remember was the one handed into the Censors due’ especially as ‘the greatest part of them [were] the eldest son of the proprietor of The Times - in 1968 campaigning for the preservation of the in Armes’. Seven years later, they were asking for and, like so many small things that go public, grass in Tom Quad against the encroachments of corn rents to be more equally distributed to the row took on bigger proportions than one the motor car. The tale of the undergraduates’ provide better stipends for college curates and suspects that the undergraduates intended. success is recorded in the 2002 Annual Report. improved accommodation for themselves. The debate became entangled with the wider Some petitions have met with failure, others with In 1651 there were complaints that stipends issue of the constitution of the College. In its repercussions beyond their original intent. were not being paid on time and, just before the original intent, the petition of 4 March was successful; in December 1865, the Censors and In 1643, the Students (who were not, of course, Restoration, in 1659, the Students petitioned for the GB then) complained that their 9oz daily canonries to be filled by Students and for the the Treasurer recommended the creation of the allowance of bread was insufficient. They were restoration of sermons in Latin. office of Steward, the remuneration of the reprimanded for being greedy at this ‘time of But the petition which had perhaps the most catering staff by fixed salaries, and the fixing of dearth’ by no lesser men than the Archbishop of dramatic effects for Christ Church prompted the the cost of dinner. On 11 December, the Canterbury and the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. celebrated ‘Bread and Butter Row’ of 1865. The Treasurer, Robert Faussett, was elected Steward. Forty-five years later, on 25 January 1641, another food and drink that undergraduates consumed The ‘Bread and Butter Row’ had become, though, petition asked the Dean and Chapter for an was purchased wholesale by the butler, the more than just a dispute over the cost of lunch; improvement in the Students’ allowance. manciple, and the cook wholesale, who then it was a crucial factor in the reorganisation of The prices that they paid for their food and drink, charged the students whatever price they felt they Christ Church’s whole constitution. wood and coal, were fixed against the price of could get away with. The butler was making a JUDITH CURTHOYS corn in Oxford market. As grain prices rose with 60% profit on the market price of bread and Archivist page 1 MICHAELMAS TERM 2003 ISSUE 12 A Christ Church Chorister We are all familiar with the stereotypical image Hall could not have been of angelic boy choristers, dressed in cassocks more different. In the first and surplices, peering innocently over the edge the choir featured with the of the choir stalls. As for the ethereal sounds BBC Concert Orchestra in a they make, Old Members of the College will Christmas programme recall hearing them as punctuations of their compèred by Howard daily routine at Christ Church, early in the Goodall. The following morning for those who lived in Meadow month we returned to join Buildings, throughout the day for those in with the choir of King’s St. Aldate’s, or possibly at Evensong time, College, Cambridge and the crossing Tom Quad before dinner. These London Philharmonic mysterious sounds are built into the fabric of Orchestra under the baton Christ Church; they have been at the heart of Kurt Masur to sing J. S. of its life since its foundation. But you may be Bach’s St Matthew Passion surprised to discover what lies behind them in German. This was a and what is involved in a typical year for a mammoth undertaking Christ Church chorister these days. which involved several Christ Church Choristers at the Installation of the Dean When William Walton, probably our most rehearsals spread over four days. The intensive immersion in one of religious fervour, resulting in music of striking famous former Christ Church chorister, wrote dramatic force. to his mother about his experiences here, history’s greatest works of art engaged the Television recording makes very different his childish economy of language touchingly imagination of all the boys from the nine-year demands. Here the priority is to achieve revealed an enthusiasm for singing in the olds upwards, inspiring an extraordinarily perfection in the visual medium, whilst not Cathedral which is felt by most choristers.