Goldsmiths History Project

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Goldsmiths students misbehavin’ – College rules and what happened to those who broke them.

These male seniors of 1908 were labelled ‘The Not Innocents.’ We have no information about why they earned this nickname. Image: Goldsmiths College archives.

Is there a spirit connected with being a Goldsmiths’ student that is somewhat distinctive, radical, questioning, and protesting?

Beyond any desire to ‘brand’ and make distinctive something about Goldsmiths, it is a question with no easy answer.

It might be foolish to generalise. In the photograph above these are men behaving badly for a brief moment: sticking their tongues out, pulling rude faces, making somewhat impolite gestures with their hands, and in one case smoking a cigarette and pipe at the same time.

But there are events and evidence of a tradition that could suggest something.

The Warden, Ross Chesterman (1953-74) recalled deciding to ring up the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Mark, in the late 1960s when some of ‘our students occasionally got into mild trouble with the police, usually because of demonstrations.’

Mark had a fearsome reputation. The local police commander was certainly in fear of him: ‘When the Commissioner Mr Mark says jump, you don’t think about it or argue, you bloody well jump!’

Caroline C. Graveson, first Woman’s Vice Principal of Goldsmiths’ College, University of London on her appointment in 1905 with the women staff. Centre front row. The picture was taken at the entrance to the women’s corridor on the east side of the building

Caroline Graveson’s appointment as women’s Vice Principal of Goldsmiths’ College in 1905 received national newspaper exultation.

The Daily Telegraph and London Evening Standard said ‘it was one of the most valuable and important among those now open to women.’

Some of Caroline Graveson’s first women teacher training students in 1905-6.

She remained one of the most important women in British Higher Education during the Edwardian period, through the First World War and continuing through the 1920s and 30s until her retirement at the end of 1934.

A typically distracted pose of Caroline Graveson in group photographs

During the Great War, Goldsmiths became virtually an all-woman’s place with most men students and staff joining the armed forces. By 1916 the roll call of students was 268 women to 20 men.

It was a pioneering training college centre for educating teachers because it was the first to be co-educational and non-denominational. This meant it could admit students with non-Christian backgrounds such as Jews and Muslims, and it partnered with the prestigious Art School and thriving adult evening educational programme started by the Goldsmiths Company’s Technical and Recreative Institute in 1891. It was also run by the University of London- the most important and influential university in Great Britain outside Oxford and Cambridge.

Caroline was one of the first women members of the British Psychological Society- a reflection of the College’s commitment to researching and teaching educational psychology.

She spoke fluent German because she had been a student at German universities for 2 years between 1896-98.

The men staff and students of the Goldsmiths’ Training Department 1907. William Thomas Young is the lecturer sitting centre of the front row, 7th from left and right.

One day in the middle of July 1917 a telegram boy delivered the message to Mrs Hilda Young that her husband, Lieutenant William Thomas Young, had been killed in action.

It is impossible to imagine the shock and grief of such news; particularly when she was caring for their infant daughter, Diana, born just over a year before.

He had been blown up by shell fire on the 12th of July while serving with number 12 Heavy Battery, the Royal Garrison Artillery during the battle of Passchendaele.

It was also the first day the German Army had deployed mustard gas.

He was 36-years-old and had been hailed as one of the country’s most promising scholars of English Literature.

He had been lecturer in English at the University of London, Goldsmiths’ College since September 1906 and he was also Joint Editor of the prestigious Cambridge Anthologies.

Goldsmiths’ women students and staff 1905-7. Three of the men, including the Warden, William Loring and Vice Principal Thomas Raymont still managed to ‘inveigle’ themselves into the frame. You can see them standing at the back to the far left and right.

Three of his books, poetry during the age of Shakespeare, the poetry of Robert Browning, and a ‘Primer of English Literature’ had been published by Cambridge University Press and formed the core of the English syllabus in schools and colleges throughout the country.

Advanced Music Class Goldsmiths College 1929-31. This animated and lively group photo features two mischievous double bass players at either end – the instrument that Spike Milligan took with him on the tram to his evening orchestral music class in the middle 1930s. Image: Goldsmiths, University of London.

Spike Milligan (1918-2002) is credited with revolutionising British comedy through his chaotic, surrealist, and subversive imagination.

He created the seminal radio comedy The Goon Show (1951-60), and wrote more than 50 books including six on his Second World War experiences.

To say he was larger and crazier than life itself would be an understatement.

And he was also a student of Goldsmiths College.

Joan Eardley’s 1943 prize-winning self portrait at Glasgow School of Art – seen as the precursor to her powerful and enduring social portraiture of children in the Townhead area of Glasgow. Included for criticism and review.

The Times newspaper called Joan Eardley (1921-1963) one of Britain’s ‘pre-eminent artists of the 20th century.’

The Guardian says she is:

“…the forgotten artist who captured Scotland’s life and soul, children from Glasgow’s slums, bleak seascapes, village fishermen at work … the vibrant visions of Joan Eardley are finding a new following.”

In recent years Scotland has staged major exhibitions of her work in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Officers of the 88th Regiment. Crimean War by Roger Fenton. Image: US Library of Congress, Public Domain.

Six young men educated in the corridors and rooms of the Richard Hoggart main building died a variety of horrible deaths between 1854 and 1855.

They were killed in the biggest clash of the superpowers of the Victorian Age.

This is the secret history of Goldsmiths’ Crimean War heroes.

They were students of the Royal Naval School, which occupied the neo-Wren style building designed by John Shaw Jr. between 1844 and 1889.

Sports Day on playing fields of Royal Naval School, New Cross. Image: Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 4th August 1883

The story of the Royal Naval School is as chaotic and ‘finger-tips on the cliff-edge’ as that of the College.

At that time what we now know as the Great Hall was a large quadrangle open to the sky where the likes of cadet pupils, Edward Carrington, Edwin Richards, R.O. Lewis, Richard Morris, Sidney Smith Boxer, and James Murray did their parade ground drill.

The teaching rooms off the ground floor corridors are where they were taught mathematics, technical drawing, navigation and the classics.

And the corridors and ante-rooms on the first floors of the current main building are where they slept in hammocks sometimes looking out of the large windows at a clear night sky filled with the Milky Way.

Winston_Churchill_statue,_Parliament_Square,_London_(cropped)

Parliament Square statue of Sir Winston Churchill by Goldsmiths College’s Head of Sculpture Ivor Roberts-Jones. Photo by Eluveitie – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

It was the worst day of their lives.

That was the sense of emotional and professional disaster for Goldsmiths Art School alumni Graham and Kathleen Sutherland in 1954.

The Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent round his official limousine with a letter furiously rejecting the portrait of him that Graham had been commissioned by Parliament to paint.

Winston had thundered:

“…there will be an acute difference of opinion about this portrait…it will bring an element of controversy into a function that was intended to be a matter of agreement between the Members of the House of Commons where I have lived my life … the painting, however masterly in execution, is not suitable…”

This was Parliament’s gift to celebrate the eightieth birthday of Britain’s war-time leader between 1940 and 1945.

Its unveiling a few days later in Westminster Hall would be another catastrophic humiliation for the Sutherlands; this time played out live on BBC television and reported in newsreel cinemas.

The irascible statesman, having been persuaded to avoid publicly rejecting the gift, used sarcasm to twist the knife into the portraitist he believed had made him look like a decrepit old man:

“…the portrait [turning to look at it] is a remarkable example of modern art. [Haughty laughter as well as applause] It certainly combines force and candour. These are qualities which no active member of either House can do without or should fear to meet.”

postcardofgoldsmithswithbeggartoleftofentrance

Entrance to Goldsmiths College – a picture taken between 1910 and 1912. Three small boys are standing left, right and centre. To the left of the entry route into the college you can see the figure of a man sitting on a box and the outline of his broom leaning against the wall.

In the early part of Goldsmiths history a character known as ‘The College Beggar’ occupied a makeshift box to the left of the college’s entrance.

Fully equipped with a broom stick he kept the pavement and drive-way of the college clear of rubbish for many years.

He has no name. In the portrait he looks distracted. It is possible his right arm is missing as it does not appear to be present in his apparently empty jacket and coat sleeve.

The ‘College Beggar’ outside the entrance of Goldsmiths College 1910-12.

He wears a big, shabby coat and bowler hat. He has a white, long, unkempt, and drooping moustache.

His boots or shoes are worn. His right eye is bright and focused on the camera, but his left eye is closed.

Perhaps he is a wounded and vagrant veteran from some Victorian colonial war.

Had he been a cadet in the Royal Naval School that inaugurated the building from 1844 and was grievously disabled in battle, losing an arm and an eye?

Ex-servicemen have always made up the ranks of the homeless in history.

Who was this elderly gentleman of the road who decided to make this position on Lewisham Way his home?

His presence and character had been so strong that somebody who worked in the college, and was ready to put together a photographic album of its staff, key interiors and locations, decided that he should be included.

That album was acquired by a former Director of Marketing, Recruitment and Communications, Vicky Annand, and donated to the College’s Special Collections and Archives.

Goldsmiths History Project

Primary page content

Goldsmiths students misbehavin’ – College rules and what happened to those who broke them.

Caroline Graveson- A founding conscience of Goldsmiths’ College

A greatly lamented Goldsmiths’ casualty of Passchendaele- William Thomas Young

Pizzicato on the double bass, Spike Milligan and Goldsmiths

The Goldsmiths’ terms of one of Scotland’s most celebrated 20th century artists

The secret history of Goldsmiths’ Crimean War heroes

Goldsmiths, Art and Winston Churchill

The mystery of Goldsmiths ‘College Beggar’