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Trinity Student Pranks

A History of Mischief and Mayhem

The History Press

THE BIRTH OF A UNIVERSITY AND OF PRANKERY

In 1592, Trinity was established to provide a centre of learning for the members of the new Protestant gentry of Ireland. Protestantism was still moderately young at that time, and by no means solidified within England's dominions, and Queen Elizabeth was dedicated to the cause of creating an educated, loyal professional class across her realm. Conceived as the 'mother of a university', Trinity was meant to be the first of many constituent colleges in a broader University of Dublin, as was the case with the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. It began as a small square of red-brick buildings, one example of which remains today in the form of the Rubrics dormitory.

Trinity remained a very small institution for much of its first century of existence. This was not the fault of the College administration, but was rather the product of significant political instability during the period. Twice the College came under existential threat; first, when the central government collapsed in 1641 after the failed Irish uprising, which led to the vicious suppression under Cromwell, and second, when the brief Jacobite government of 1689 closed the College and expelled all the students and Fellows. Fortunately for the future of Trinity, the library was spared in both these upheavals and remained the nucleus for the university moving forward.

The extent and extremity of the political crisis in Ireland throughout the seventeenth century has left little information on typical student life outside what is recorded in the dry history texts. What little is known of the early days, such as they were, are recorded somewhat anecdotally much later on. What is known is that what passed for pranks and mischief was of a much darker sort than would today be considered the norm, no doubt due to the darker and more lawless times in which the early students lived.

Revenge

One account of an early prank involved two students setting upon a path of revenge against a Fellow of the College who had marked them harshly in their exams. They contrived to send the lecturer a false summons into the city, pretending to have important business with him. Disguising themselves as coalporters, the two students waited for the Fellow to pass by them in the street and set upon him from behind, shouting and sputtering that the Fellow had been carousing with one of their wives. After roughing the man up they made good their escape. Following the incident, the poor academic did not leave the grounds of the College for some years.

Rustication

A term that deserves mentioning, and which came into the common parlance during this early period of the University, and that would find ample use in the hands of its disciplinarians for over two centuries, is the concept of rustication. Were a student to step too far out of line, he would be sent back down to the country, and thus rusticated. The fear of such punishment was one of the only things that could keep the boisterous students in line, but oftentimes it would prove still not enough.

While stories and evidence of pranks and mischief from this early period are scant on the ground, it was because of the chaos that the next century, in which order was restored in practical terms yet in which the spirit of lawlessness remained, would become a fertile ground for pranks never again rivalled.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MAYHEM: TRINITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

After a prolonged succession dispute in England, culminating in the Jacobite Rebellion and the Battle of the Boyne, Irish society was severely divided in the early eighteenth century; a state of affairs that would continue with varying severity for decades. This division was acutely visible inside the walls of Trinity College. The sons of Jacobites made up a large proportion of the student body and were angry and noisome students who proved an unruly lot, especially when set against the more staunchly loyalist of their fellow students. Worse still, the College administration, led by the austere and stern Provost Richard Baldwin, represented a bulwark of loyalist opinion. The unfortunate result was that a large number of students came to hold the authorities of the College in contempt. Anarchy truly reigned in the halls, even as it had been restored to the streets of Dublin with the reassertion of English political dominion.

The disorder was increased yet further by apathy amongst the general College academic staff. Peter Boyle, in a paper on the life and times of Provost Baldwin, describes the attitude of the teaching staff in ungenerous terms: 'We are told that the lecturers didn't lecture, and that the Fellows neither prayed in Chapel nor dined in Hall'. Yet it was largely thanks to this political conflict and administrative neglect that this period became the golden age of pranks and mischief in Trinity College.

The Junior Dean

One major example of student mischief in this period involved the Junior Dean, who was tasked with responsibility for discipline and perennial enemy of student fun, publicly reprimanding a student for poor behaviour. Conventionally, a student so chastened would flee to his room to lick his wounds after a harsh scolding, but this time things went very differently. Enraged at the Dean's words, the student and his friends proceeded to hurl stones and other heavy objects at the poor administrator. The Junior Dean fled the scene, but the students were not done. Gathering friends, they stormed off to the main entrance of the College where they attempted to burn the front gate down. Angered at the students' outrageous behaviour, the Board publicly offered a reward for any information about who had led the arson attempt. No one was forthcoming, as several students offered their own higher reward for the hides of anyone who talked to the Board.

Young Bucks

The students of this era did not make the College the only site of their mayhem. Jonathan Bardon, in his A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes, describes the general behaviour of the rowdy Trinity student thus:

Sons of nobles and gentlemen for the most part, they strode about wearing gowns trimmed with gold or silver according to rank. Some could afford to dine at the Eagle Tavern, home of the notorious Hell-Fire Club, or risk a duel at Lucas's Coffee-House on Cork Hill.

Others would eat beefsteaks in The Old Sot's Hole on Essex Bridge or mingle with the humbler classes in the ale-houses of Winetavern Street. Generally known as 'bucks', they were often eager to join fights in the narrow streets, wielding the heavy keys to their rooms as weapons.

These young bucks made a habit of mischief and trouble for which the College became famous. Those sons of gentlemen who wore special braiding on their robes to mark them out from the common students were the worst of the lot and were true terrors outside of Trinity's walls. Turning their hats and robes inside out to evade easy identification, they threw stones at passers-by from their carriages as they rode through the streets of Dublin.

A Riot at the Smock Alley Theatre

The students of Trinity often came into direct conflict with the city authorities as a result of their obscene behaviour. On one occasion, in 1747, a student of Trinity found himself at odds with Thomas Sheridan, the manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, an establishment that hosted many of Ireland's great playwrights of the era, when he was refused admission backstage. The custom of the time in such theatres was for members of the public to be able to pay for the privilege of going backstage to meet and hobnob with the actors, a practice that Sheridan had recently dispensed with. Upon hearing that he would not be admitted, the student, who was severely inebriated at the time, proceeded to lead a group of his friends in tearing up the theatre.

Abduction of the Bailiff

On another occasion, again in 1747, a student who had run up a number of bills in the city found himself arrested on campus and removed to languish in jail. The students of the College, aroused to anger by what they considered to be an unjustified imprisonment, took to the streets and began a rampage. They started by abducting the bailiff who had arrested their friend and brought him back to College, where they proceeded to hold his head under the communal water pump, nearly drowning the man (this treatment was apparently a popular one among students for punishing their peers who had transgressed for various reasons). Not satisfied with kidnapping, the student mob continued in their ruckus with a violent and fiery riot in the city, culminating in the storming of the jail where their fellow student was held. Provost Baldwin was hard pressed to deal with the situation.

Harried by the city fathers and constabulary, the Provost was not able to exact much justice from his young charges. A number of students were reprimanded, amongst them a young Oliver Goldsmith who would go on to be one of Ireland's great poets and playwrights.

While a strict man, Provost Baldwin did not always face off against the riotous students for whom he was responsible. As Peter Boyle recounted in a presentation on the life of Baldwin, the Provost defended a number of students against the deputies of the Lord Mayor who demanded their arrest after a particularly nasty fight between the young gentlemen of the College and some workmen of the city.

The Provost refused the Mayor's demand, claiming that the students must surely have been provoked by some insult, and sent the despondent city official reeling back to the city hall. Baldwin's defence of the students led some of them to commission a portrait of the Provost in gratitude, one that hangs in the College still today.

Trinity Students Versus Dublin Gangs

Conflicts between Trinity students and Dublin gangs were also rife in this period of lawlessness. The streets of Dublin were crowded with groups of thugs, mostly consisting of younger members of the various trade guilds. The most famous gang conflict during this era was the result of a lengthy feud; on one side stood the Butchers, and on the other were the Tailors and the Weavers, who were known collectively as the Liberty Boys. The Butchers in particular were known for their brutality, and it was said that they hung their captured enemies by their jaws on hooks in their meat lockers. Boyle describes pitched battles in the streets, in which 'up to 1,000 men sometimes engaged in vicious street fighting that could last the whole day'. Many foolhardy Trinity bucks sought out these groups and took ample part in their brutal combats. After one particularly nasty confrontation with the Butchers, a few Trinity students were captured and carried off to the meat locker.

Fearing their fellow students would suffer a terrible fate at the Butchers' hands, a group set out from College on a rescue mission. They found their friends had been spared a grisly fate, and had merely been hung on the hooks by their belts.

These gang fights were common and could break out at almost any time. A procession of students heading to St Patrick's Cathedral during the Lenten season was attacked by a gang of Butchers. Provost Baldwin was amongst the throng of students, and the young men, upon seeing the danger, closed ranks to defend their leader. But the Provost would not be held back when the students under his charge were in danger and strode to the front of the procession. A man of prodigious bravery, Baldwin is reported to have shouted, 'Follow me, my lads, and I'll head you, and I'll fight for you till I die', before charging into the fray. The Provost's fury was enough to send the Butchers reeling, and Trinity won the day. A student who witnessed Baldwin's leadership that day described him as being 'brave as a lion'. Courageous he must have been, as few academics would likely be said to be able to hold their own against an angry gang and to lead an army of students into battle.

No doubt the chaotic days of the eighteenth century are long behind Trinity, which has since settled into the scholarly and introspective atmosphere expected of most great universities. Yet even though the College is no doubt a more refined place of learning in the absence of bucks and gangs and street riots, it is surely a less exciting place. It is certainly hard to imagine any of today's lecturers, let alone the Provost, fighting valiantly in the streets of Dublin, and it really is a pity. So here's to the spirit, if not the deeds, of Old Trinity.

GUNS, GHOSTS AND TALL TALES

The Murder of Edward Ford

In over 400 years of its history, Trinity has been host to many acts of violence and vandalism. In 1663, for example, a Fellow of the College by the name of Leckey was executed for treason for plotting against the King. Yet only once in its long history has Trinity been witness to a deliberate act of murder, albeit one that began as a prank.

Edward Ford was one of Trinity's brightest up-and-coming academics. As a student he was named a Foundation Scholar, an honour only afforded to the most gifted students after passing a gruelling set of examinations during their second year as undergraduates. He followed up his undergraduate studies with receipt of an MA, and was elected a Junior Fellow of the College in 1730, at the age of twenty-four.

However, despite his academic prowess, Ford was not a popular man. He quickly developed a reputation as a harsh disciplinarian who meddled often in the affairs of students, admonishing them for tardiness, drunkenness and other rule-breaking. On one occasion, Ford sought to investigate the vandalizing of a colleague's rooms, and confronted certain students. For these efforts Ford received a number of anonymous threatening letters. The students of the College came to despise Ford, and he became the object of much ridicule among the undergraduates who immensely disliked his frequent disruptions to their revelries. Ford's unpopularity with the student body would eventually boil over into a conflict that would become one of Trinity's most oft-told tales.

Late on the night of 7 March 1734, a small group of students coming home after a night of heavy drinking and carousing around the city, were accosted by one of the College porters at the Front Gate. It is unclear why, perhaps fuelled by the strong drink, but the students attacked the porter and beat him quite severely. Making their way across the Front Square towards their apartments, the gang was confronted by Ford who had been drawn by the sound of the commotion. Ford admonished the young men for their dissolute and disgraceful behaviour, haranguing them back to their apartments.

The students, however, had no plans of going to bed. Enraged by the abuse they had received from the hated lecturer, the students reconvened in one of the residential common rooms and there set upon a plan of revenge. They gathered outside Ford's apartment, which was located on the first floor of the Rubrics, the College's oldest building that housed much of the academic staff. The drunken students threw stones at Ford's window, breaking several panes. Drawn out by the commotion, Ford stood amid the shattered glass and shouted down at the rowdy group. Enraged, the young lecturer drew out the black-powder pistol he kept at his bedside and fired it at his rock-wielding assailants, grazing one of them. The students scattered at the sound of gunfire and fled back to their apartments once more.

However, a number of the students were still not chastened and happened to be in possession of pistols. A group of them gathered up their firearms and set off back to the Rubrics, ready for battle. Shouting at Ford to come and face them and hurling more debris at his window, they goaded their enemy to come out to his window. Ignoring the advice of a student on his floor to ignore the interlopers, Ford returned to the window clad in his nightgown to answer their challenge. The students outside proceeded to fire upon their much maligned lecturer, striking him in the chest. Seeing that they had hit their quarry, the drunken marauders scattered.

Upon hearing the gunshots, a number of students rushed up to find Ford lying in a pool of blood and broken glass. Ford asked them to bring a surgeon. Realizing the man was dying, they quickly called the College authorities who came to attend to the stricken lecturer. When the surgeon arrived he attempted to bleed the dying man, hardly useful for a man rapidly succumbing to blood loss. His last words were attributed be a wish that God forgive the students who had shot him.

The furore that arose from the slaying was immediate and intense. The porters were called out in force, and the police were brought into College. The students and staff who had been nearest the scene of the crime made accusations against certain students, and the investigators set out in pursuit. At the same time as the incident, a party was being held at the far end of the Rubrics, at which a number of students were found to be clinging to a punchbowl full of a brew toxic with alcohol. In the room the investigators also found powder and a pistol that had been fired recently. Some of these young men were named as the culprits in the foul murder. Several students were expelled. But the legal battle was yet to come.

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Excerpted from Trinity Student Pranks by John Engle. Copyright © 2013 John Engle. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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