Abstract:Every year the ancient historians of all the universities of the British Isles used to gather for curious ritual in the small market town of Wellingborough. The ritual was known as a visit to the beca...Every year the ancient historians of all the universities of the British Isles used to gather for curious ritual in the small market town of Wellingborough. The ritual was known as a visit to the because once there had been small and rather seedy zoo in the town, whose animals were held by the more irreverent younger members to resemble their senior colleagues; the zoo had long since disappeared.2 The occasion originated in the 1920s when the first triumvirate, Hugh Last, Norman Baynes, and Frank Adcock, controllers of the Cambridge Ancient History, decided to hold an annual meeting at place equidistant from their respective universities of Oxford, London, and Cambridge; here the triumvirs would hold court, and dispense their patronage: each young initiate would have to undergo the terrifying experience of being taken aside by one of his elders, and questioned closely on the subject of his research. Originally the event had been held in Tring, but an unfortunate incident induced by alcohol had caused change of venue. Bedford had then been chosen; this had to be abandoned when the management introduced music in the bar, which was incompatible with learned conversation. When I first visited the zoo, only Adcock survived; but the ritual was firmly fixed, and so well established that it was agreed no change was possible until his death. Two rules gave the occasion its especial character. No woman, however eminent, was ever permitted to attend (does this explain the absence of women from the Cambridge Ancient History?3); and no formal business of any sort,Read More
Publication Year: 1991
Publication Date: 1991-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 10
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