COLLEGE ROOMS.

2T would appear from the

four Prizing (ie. Appraising) Books and the similar book called Transfer Book which are all in the College Treasury, and together cover the period from 1597 to 1788, that up to the last hundred years all the rooms in the College were distributed among the Fellows. Each Fellow was allowed to take pupils, and, in the earlier days at any rate, each pupil had his own 'study' or compartment under lock and key in the rooms of his Tutor. For example, take the inventory of 1632 of the room now called F 1, First Court, at present occupied by J. P. F. L. De Castro.

"Imprimis 2 casements, a lock and 2 keyes to the Chamber dore, 3 window leaves, 2 bords in the windowes with ledges with whole glasse in all ye windowes, a handle of the dore and a wanstok portall* with all necessary irons, alsoe a massy forme, a dore to ye coalshouse, a plate aboue the portall with a dore opening into ye chamber.

In the studdy next ye Court, 3 shelves, one long desk, a table, a wooden casement, a lock and key, a lege to ye windowe, a cubbart in the window with a dore.

In the studdy next ye Lane, A lock and key, 7 slewes,† one casement, a leafe, flore raysed.

In the lane-studdy next ye kitchen, 4 shelves, one table, one seate, lock and key, new glass in the window without a casement, and a loft to ly in, a cubbart under ye table with a falling bord, a payre of gimmers."+

* It would seem that the 'portall' was the 'oak,' the 'dore,' the inner door.

† I cannot explain this word.
‡'gimmer, a hinge.' (Halliwell).

With such arrangements throughout it would be possible for the College to contain a great number of students, even in the days when it consisted of only two Courts.

From the Prizing Books, as will now be understood, we can find out what Fellow was holding a particular set of rooms at any given date: but we cannot find out the names of the pupils who shared his rooms with him, nor in many cases in which particular room out of several the Fellow himself resided.

In the old days of which we are speaking, what was treated as a single set of rooms often embraced two or three modern sets. For example, rooms on the highest floor in each Court were in general called 'garrets,' and were considered as going with the rooms below them, (in fact in the First Court, though not in the Second, the only access to the garrets was from the rooms below). As the garrets did not count separately, a staircase contained a smaller number of sets of rooms than at present. Thus the staircases (as now existing) of the First Court comprised in the seventeenth century only twenty-five 'chambers.' At present we count on the same staircases forty 'sets of rooms.'

The original names of our first three courts were the Old Court, the New Court, and the Library Court, respectively.

Neither for staircases or chambers was there in early times any system of lettering or numbering employed. Accordingly a particular chamber could only be denoted by the most cumbrous description. For example, what we call C 4, Second Court (occupied by Mr Graves), was described as The Upper Chamber over the Gallery over the great midle doore on the left-hand goeing up, and even then the Court is omitted. Instead of K 1, Second Court (occupied by C. W. G. Lewis), we have The low Chamber on the left-hand of the entrance into the Southwest corner in the new Court: instead of D 5 (occupied by A. R. R. Hutton), we have The Uppermost Chamber

or Cockloft over ye Cloyster, being ye next save one to ye Bridge. (The rooms in the highest story of the Third Court seem to have had a separate existence from the beginning, and not to have been mere annexes to the rooms below them.)

In the 18th century a system of numeration was introduced. The Chambers with their annexed garrets remained as before, but they were now denoted by a single system of numeration running through the three courts. Thus, what had been called The low Chamber next the Chapel (B 1, First Court) was called 1. The numbers ran round the Court in the opposite direction to the present system of lettering, ending up with the buildings (now destroyed) behind the old Chapel. Thus, F 3 was called 22, but F 4 above it was not numbered, but merely described as Garret to 22. The last chamber numbered in the First Court was 35, the old Organ Chamber of the Chapel, which was lived in even into the present century. The numbers from 36 to 41 were for some reason given to the six rooms under the Library, two of which were entered from the Second Court. The room now lettered N, but then apparently considered as on our O staircase, was 42. After this the numbers ran round the Second Court just in the opposite direction to our lettering, and then similarly round the Third Court. The last room (C 6) was numbered 103.

During the century 1680-1780 gradual changes took place in the collegiate system. Undergraduates were as a rule under one or other of two principal Tutors, though other Fellows still occasionally had pupils. Instead of living in the Tutor's rooms, students occupied rooms apart from their Tutor, at first two or three 'chumming' together, afterwards singly as at present. Probably the latter change was connected with the decline in numbers of our students in the eighteenth century. From 1715 while the First and Second Court rooms were assigned to the Fellows, the rooms in the

Third Court were occupied by junior members of the College.

About 1788 which is the date of the last entries in the Transfer Book, it would seem that the garrets were first treated as independent rooms, and those in the First Court had new means of access made to them. For example the rooms we call A 2, 3, 4 First Court, which had been garrets to B 2 and B 3, were now for the first time approached from the turret staircase. Still, however, from B staircase we can clearly see what the old arrangement was.*

The rooms previously annexed as garrets to the chambers below were now separately enumerated, though, not to disturb the system of numeration, they were denoted by the number of the room to which they had been attached with B or C added. Thus the room (F 4, First Court), previously called Garret to 22 was now called 22 B.

Our present system of lettering the staircases, and numbering the rooms on each separately, seems to have been introduced about 1830, that is, at the time of the opening of the New Court.

One might have thought that from the time of the institution of the Tutorial system, we should have ready to hand a record of the successive occupants of all our rooms. Unfortunately that is not the case. The College never troubled to keep such a record, and the only books in which such facts were enshrined were taken away by successive Tutors on their retirement as their private property and probably in almost every case destroyed.

The lists issued with the present number of the Eagle have therefore been compiled with some difficulty, and are still sadly imperfect. For the history of the last thirty or forty years I am deeply indebted to Messrs

* Much of the above is taken from Mr Torry's Founders and Benefactors of St John's College, Eagle Vol. xiv. p 345, Vol. xv. p 1, &c.

John Swan and Son and Messrs Bulstrode, who have both allowed me to make full use of their Valuation Books. Information in regard to the earlier part of the century has been derived partly from slight memoranda preserved in the College records and elsewhere, partly from personal sources.

The lists are now issued provisionally in the hope that fresh information will be called forth to make them more complete. The present instalment embraces the Second and Third Courts. At the head of each list I have put not only the present denotation of the rooms, but the old description and (in a square bracket) the number by which they were denoted in the period before 1830.

Wherever I am not certain that one occupant directly succeeded another, I have left a gap between the names. In many cases I have no doubt that no such gap really existed. The date before the names gives generally the date of commencing residence. Thus, M 42' means that the occupant came in in Michaelmas Term 1842. But 'c 20' merely means that the occupant was there about 1820, and I have no information when his tenancy began or when it expired. When a tenant was a Fellow or Master of Arts during some part of his tenancy, I have generally given him the prefix Mr.' To avoid confusion, I have not given this prefix to Fellow Commoners, although they are strictly speaking entitled to it.

Information of any kind tending to make the lists more accurate, or to throw light on the after history of the Johnians therein named, will be most welcome. It is intended to bring out the lists hereafter in a more complete form.

G. C. M. S.

VOL. XVII.

XXX