As the weather turns cooler and there is a distinct ‘start of term’ feeling in the air, the College prepares to welcome new and returning students. This year there will be 117 freshers matriculating (ie. formally entering the University), a marked increase on the solitary undergraduate who started his career at the College in its first year. Sir Henry Hoo Keate matriculated on 6 September 1714, but was joined at the newly founded Worcester College by seven undergraduates who had transferred from Gloucester Hall or other colleges in Oxford.

Bursar’s Book, 1714-15, BUR 1/1/1

The names of those first undergraduates at Worcester College can be seen listed in the Bursar’s account book, recording the payment of their ‘caution money’, or deposit. Historically Worcester was a small and poor college and its early administrators were understandably concerned with ensuring that the bills of its members were paid in a timely fashion, so the only lists of early College members that survive in the Archives are therefore in Bursar’s books or battels books.

Entrances and Degrees book, 1782-1896

Records dedicated to listing entrances to the College begin in 1782 and show that the numbers matriculating were still low throughout the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were 8 new undergraduates in 1795 and 100 years later still only 15 in 1895 and, although there was the occasional bumper crop of over 25 new students such as in 1896, at the turn of the twentieth century it was still considered a good year if the intake was more than 17. The 1900 freshers photograph, the earliest example in the Archives, shows 16 undergraduates sitting in front of staircase 9 in the main quad.

Entrances and Degrees book, 1782-1896

Worcester College Freshers 1900, PDR 27/12

Prior to the 1990s the College did not routinely keep freshers photographs, which were organised for sale to undergraduates, so we have been dependent on donations for those in the collections. There is a description of the taking of the 1911 freshers photograph in the diary kept by William Elmhirst during his freshman year and donated to the Archives in 1967:

Freshers photo taken in a storm of sugar & bread from upper windows, quite 1lb of sugar. Photo men quite plaintive.

(Monday 16 October 1911, Diary of William Elmhirst, PDR 6/1)

Although William Elmhirst goes on to record that the photograph was “very good, must get one”, it does not appear in his photograph album, which was given to the Archives with his diary. We are fortunate, however, that another member of his year, Joseph Talbot, had also donated several photographs to the Archives, including the freshers photograph for 1911. It shows the 26 students who matriculated that year, including William Elmhirst (second row down, fourth from left) and Joseph Talbot (seated at front left), outside the doorway to staircase 7. It also clearly shows quite large chunks of bread at their feet. It is no wonder that the photographers were “quite plaintive”.

Worcester College Freshers 1911, PDR 10/1

William Elmhirst’s diary is a treasure trove of information about the experience of undergraduates shortly before the First World War. The day after the freshers photograph was taken he records that the 1911 cohort put on “white tie & cap & gown” and went to their matriculation ceremony: “Quite short & sweet, short Latin speech, all over in 15 mins”.

The experiences William Elmhirst describes in his diary remain recognisable to the freshers of today. He describes arriving in College and unpacking his belongings, followed by days meeting new friends, signing up for clubs and societies (with the exception of the Oxford Union which he considered “not worth it & besides heavy sub”), and overspending on gowns, clothing and other necessities – on his first full day in Oxford he notes he had already “spent all my spare money in the morning”. Somehow he also finds time to meet his tutors and attend lectures, and to buy text books from Blackwells, although he often doesn’t sit down to start his reading until after 11pm.

Along with the experiences freshers photographs also remain recognisable, although the numbers they contain expanded rapidly after both the First and Second World Wars, as servicemen returned and more young people began to attend university. Worcester was able to capitalise on its large gardens and build additional accommodation outside the main quad for the first time, allowing it to expand student numbers further; the Nuffield Building, outside which matriculation photographs have been taken since the 1970s, was completed in 1939.

One important and notable change to the student body came in 1979, when the admission of women to the College saw 30 women take their place in the freshers photograph for that year.

Matriculation photographs are now transferred to the College Archives each year, and we welcome this year’s intake as they become part of a long-standing College history, stretching back to the first Worcester undergraduate 304 years ago.

Emma Goodrum, Archivist

The 1979 Worcester College Freshers photograph has been reproduced by kind permission of Gillman & Soame photographers and can be re-ordered by visiting www.gsimagebank.co.uk/worc using token log in r2l9im2018 or telephone 01869 328200

Bibliography

• Jonathan Bate and Jessica Goodman (eds.), Worcester: Portrait of an Oxford College (London, 2014)
• William Elmhirst, A Freshman’s Diary 1911-1912 (Oxford, 1969)