Life Stories from St John’s: the famous & the forgotten

MS 338 & Elizabeth Griffin’s Son

MS 338: Elizabeth Griffin, Letter to her son (England, 1810)

Parent’s Letter No. 2

In 1970 electricians discovered a fragment of a letter underneath the floorboards of St John’s President Lodgings, which was given to the Library for safekeeping. It has turned out to be a rare piece of historical evidence from the domestic staff working at St John’s College, dating back to the Georgian era.

The letter was written by one Elizabeth Griffin on 27 November 1810 to her son, who appears to have been a ‘college servant’ at St John’s. The letter must have accompanied a parcel containing the two shirts, three neckerchiefs(?), three pairs of stockings, and two pocket handkerchiefs listed by his mother.

Due to the fragmentary nature of the letter we can only assume that the sentence following the list of items sent reads: ‘I should be glad if you would write to let m[e know] how you like your place.’ The word ‘place’ means ‘job, employment’ in this context (Oxford English Dictionary). It sounds as if this is a new employment for Elizabeth’s son, or perhaps even his first employment.

Interestingly, despite the differences in language and style, the concerns of this early 19th century working class parent of a ‘college servant’ are not miles away from that of the early 17th century rich parent of a College student: practical items are sent, enquiries about welfare made, and other family members are mentioned.

Unfortunately, it has not been possible to identify Elizabeth Griffin or her son, who remains unnamed in the letter. The circumstances of his background and the precise nature of employment at St John’s College remain unknown.

Domestic Staff at Oxford Colleges

As this letter illustrates, the truly forgotten members of St John’s College are the historic domestic staff, who worked hard to make the lives of the scholars and fellows as comfortable as possible.

Until 1780 and 1799 respectively, the two lowest classes among the Oxford students were required to work in service of the College or for individual members as a means of paying for their education (Landow 2012). Those were the battelers (also ‘under-commoners’, Hegarty 2011, p. lxiii) and, one step lower at the very bottom of the hierarchy, servitors, i.e. those ‘performing  menial duties […] to support himself in study’ (Hegarty 2011, p. lxxvii).

In the late 18th century ‘staircase scouts, or bedmakers’ undertook duties previously performed by servitors or the junior members’ private servants (Curthoys 1997, p. 156). Although colleges collected fixed charges for these services, scouts could improve their income by requesting additional charges and make profits when providing supplies, by commissions from tradesmen for recommendations, and various perquisites (Curthoys 1997, p. 156). By the mid-19th century, colleges depended on hosts of servants to fulfil the domestic wishes of their junior members and gradually tried to gain control over the domestic service system (Curthoys 1997, p. 156).

Unfortunately, there is no clue whether Elizabeth Griffin’s son was a member of St John’s domestic staff or a private servant of a junior or senior member, or perhaps, given the location in which the letter was found, even one of President Michael Marlow’s servants. It is merely evident that he would not have been an undergraduate working to pay for his university education.

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Clara Pusey, Christ Church Express No. 1

It is quite difficult to find any detailed information about domestic staff at Oxford colleges before the Victorian era and any visual sources usually only date back to the Edwardian era.

Incidentally, the second sketch of the series shows the St John’s academic Henry Longueville Mansel (1820-1871), like Pusey a theologian, as a visitor at the Pusey family’s table. It is fair to assume that similar scenes would have played out also at St John’s and the other Oxford colleges.

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