Object Literature
The names inscribed to the top include Baring, Brocklebank, Buxton, Elliot, Buckley, Godsal, Knowles, French-Blake, Hoare, Fairbairn, Warburton, Umley and many others, with dates mainly being 1896 and 1897 with one being earlier at 1873.
Lids and table tops were the primary graffitied objects in schools in this period. The graffiti here is carved with a tool fit for the purpose, probably a wood chisel which leaves a characteristic wedge-shaped groove in the hard oak.
A poem, published in The Radleian in 1890, describes how to spend the time between 5.30 and 6.30pm ‘almost the only hour many fellows get to themselves all day:’
I scream, I hoot, I whistle,
In gossip I rejoice;
I talk the last school scandal,
I love my own sweet voice.
I cut the desks and hack them,
I feel the thirst for fame;
I carve in two-inch letters
My valuable name.
These are ownership marks, or memorial inscriptions for public consumption; they are not about rebellion, moreover the relationship between schoolboy and classroom, and between schoolboy and teacher…. the temporary and the permanent; anonymity and making your mark.
A unique table that never gets tiresome.