...... N N I l l l 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 r----J Mr King Red Wine (Oxford) r----J Mr Roger I r l Not speclfled H Thomas Cornelias - French Red Wine H Not specified - Claret & Red Port f---l Claret l I 1760 1770 1780 Red Port H RedPort Mr Snow - Red Port >---------< BOTTLES 1712 - Pyman, for bottles £2.00.00 1727 - Bottles £1.01.02 1735 - Mrs Terry for 20 doz & 2 pint bottles £1.13.04 1 783 - Kencott for bottles ? 1814 Pike's bill for glass £12.00.00 ? 1833 - Loders & Gunner for glass £15.00.00 ?1833 - Pike for glass 14s ? 1836 - Loders for glass £1.18.00 1842 - William Cookes bill for wine bottles £6.18.00 1846 - Sutton for wine bottles £9.00.00 (Oxford) ? 1850 - Sutton (Oxford) Table 6.3 Suppliers of wine and bottles to Christ Church (Bursarial accounts, Christ Church Archives)
I l l I l l l 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 Amalgamated Into Sanders & Snow c. 1827 (Exeter) - Sherry, Lisbon, Port, Calcavella I Stamforth, Gilene & Ham forth f----- Ping (Oxford) - Calcavella, White Wine H Finch (Oxford) - Sherry f-----j Strong (Oxford) H Mott - Sherry H Curtis , Sherry Powell - Sherry H Henderson - Port, Sherry I I Wright & Co. >---------1 Claytleld Amalgamated 1823 (Bristol) - Madeira, Port, Sherry I I Keir & Co. (London) - Madeira f----"1 Grainger & CO. (Bristol) - Calcavella f------1 Wilson & Cutters, (London) - Claret f------1 Vicary & Bennet - Hock, Sauterne H Reilly, (Bath) - Bucellas I I Barret & Clay (London) - Madeira, Brandy, Port H Woodcock, - Claret r----J Helmers & CO., - Hock
X 1/3 xl AM 1921.1089 X 1/3 xl AM 1910.198 Figure 6.16 Two free blown bottles form Christ Church. Top c. 1750, Bottom c. 1790 123
ch:c~ C: Pt, 1771 AM 1896-1908.Ml54 AM 1896-1908.MlSS AM1944.9 Ch Ch CR . lilO Musewn of Oxford Figure 6 .17 Four detached, dated seals from Christ Church 124
that year by the college for the Chancellor Lord Grenville. Dated bottles from outside Oxford can also be tied with special events. Bottles belonging to the first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos of Stowe House, Buckingham are dated 183 7 and were used during the celebrations at the house to mark the coronation of Queen Victoria. Known celebrations at Christ Church were: 1810 Lord Grenville 1834 Duke of Wellington 1846 Tercentenary Gaudy 125
Corpus Christi College Corpus Christi College lies on Merton Street and is the smallest of the undergraduate colleges. It was founded in 1517 by Bishop Richard Fox. The earliest building on the site is the kitchen which is fifteenth century. The front quad, hall and chapel were built in 1517 but refaced in 1937. The fellows building was built in 1712. A column with sundials and a pelican on top was built in the front quad in 15 81 and has recently been restored. Figure 6.18 illustrates the one sealed bottle which is recorded as belonging to Corpus Christi College and bears the initials CC, CR From comparison with similar college bottles this probably dates from about 1770. Information in the Corpus Christi College archives relating to wine and bottles consists of common room wine accounts starting in 177 5. There must have been a previous wine account book, which no longer exists, because the accounts start with £129 13s 0d carried over from 1774. It is therefore impossible to know when the college first started to buy wine wholesale but the practice was well established by 1775 and as mentioned above the Corpus Christi College bottle in the Ashmolean Museum probably dates from about 1770. In 1775 and indeed right through to 1850 the common room servant was paid £20 per year. Until 1802 the type of wine being bought by the pipe was not specified but the main supplier was Richards & Co. who supplied on average two pipes of wine each year. Richard Finch, an Oxford wine merchant, supplied one pipe of wine for £32 in 1776. It is probable that these early purchases were Port. Richards & Co. continued as the main suppliers until 1798. In 1798 Mr Yale of Gosling and Parking of 154 Oxford Street, supplied two pipes of wine which were paid for in 1799 and Syms, the Oxford wine merchant, then became one of the college's main suppliers. He supplied both by the pipe and by the bottle. From 1801, as well as Syms, the college bought wine from Ballerd & Harrison in Southampton and began to try different wines, starting in 1801 with white wine and Bucellas. Lintoff, another Southampton merchant, and Phillips, a Bristol merchant, also supplied them with Port and Vidonia. From this time through until 1811 the college continued to buy Sherry from Bristol and Port and other wines from Syms and Southampton. In 1812 they also ordered Madeira and Tenerife. Syms continued as their main supplier of Tenerife, Sherry, Bucellas and Port until 1830 but they also bought Claret and Hermitage from Beachcroft, of London, Port from Williams and ''Madeira sent to the East Indies" from Blackbum & Co. In 1823 two pipes of wine were bought from Liverpool. In 1831 the supplier was Griffiths of Pall Mall but thereafter for the next few year the suppliers were not specified. Mention was also made in the accounts of purchases of cider in 1804. There were seventeen different bottle purchases cited in the accounts but it is obvious from the prices paid that most of these were not wine bottles let alone sealed wine bottles. Of the seventeen lots of bottles purchased seven were probably sealed wine bottles. This is a relatively small number compared with other colleges. 126
xl AM 1921.1090 X 1/2 cc CR Figure 6.18 An early bottle c. 1770 from Corpus Christi College 127
Exeter College Exeter College lies at the junction between Turl Street and Brasenose Lane. It is the fourth oldest college and was founded in 1314 by Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter. The front quad was built between 1672 and 1703, Palmers Tower in 1432, the chapel in 1860 while the Margary Quad is 19th-20th century. Its most famous old member is J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote The Lord of the Rings. Only one sealed bottle is recorded for Exeter College and that only as a detached seal in the Ashmolean Museum. Figure 6.19 illustrates this seal which bears the writing, M:CR, Coll Exon, 1744. During the last half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries the financial records at Exeter College were kept in a rather haphazard way and no Bursarial accounts now exist for this period. There are however wine and common room accounts from approximately 1789 onwards. No bottle purchases were however recorded except in general terms included in the steward's bill. During the period 1789-1821 Mr Granger of Exeter was the college's main wine supplier mostly supplying Port, Sherry and smaller quantities of Bucellas. He typically supplied 3-4 pipes of Port and 1-2 hogsheads of Sherry each year. The wine was generally brought to Oxford by road from Exeter. A note in the wine accounts for December 8th 1813 states "The pipe of Port from Granger was shipped at their recommendation from Exeter for London and arrived safe at Toppings wharf in October. In conveying from thence to the Paddington Canal the cask was injured and found to have lost 10 gallons on being gauged in Exeter College cellars on November 24th. The common room determined that the wine from Exeter should be conveyed as before through Bristol by land". (B 11-1) During this period the college also bought smaller amounts of wine from Griffiths (Bucellas and Port), Syms (Port), Hirst and May(Claret, Port, Madeira and Vidonia), Keir (Madeira) and Latimer (Old Sherry). The quarterly wine accounts show that several bottles of wine were opened during dinner and the common room members paid for the portion they each drank. For example during a week in April 1797 ten members drank 34 bottles of wine, most being drunk on Friday and Saturday evenings (7 each) but only one bottle being drunk on Monday evening and the rest spread reasonably evenly. From 1826-1836 the main suppliers to the college were Greenwood & Co. (Sherry, Port, Bucellas and Claret) and Guignard (Sherry and Madeira). Smaller amounts of wine were supplied by Harris & Quarles (Port), Durand (Port) and Eaton (Claret, Burgundy, Sauteme and Moselle). This is the only reference, in any of the college archives consulted, to Eaton as a supplier. This was presumably Deodatus Eaton who is listed as a wine merchant in Oxford trade directories between 1823 and 1842 and lived in St Martin's Parish. In 1828 the college imported wine directly bringing in a hogshead of Bordeaux St Juliene, two hogsheads of Burgundy and a Hogshead of Bourgogne Macon. They still however bought Port and Sherry from Harris & Co. In 1829 Harris & Co. supplied Port, Claret and Madeira while Guignard supplied a smaller quantity of Madeira. In 1830 they again imported Braune and Bordeaux directly, Harris & Co. supplied Sherry and Port while Sanders & Snow supplied Madeira. The college continued to use Guignard and Sanders and Snow through to 1836. From then onwards the main supplier was Austwick & Webb (Port, Sherry and Madeira) together with Durand, Bryant (Bristol), Valkenberg (Hock and Moselle), Gerard (Champagne, Hock, Moselle and Johannesburg) and Asmanhausen through to 1845. Between 1846 and 1850 Sanders & Snow supplied Bucellas, the Oxford Wine Co., Sherry, Warren, Claret, M. De Masarene, Claret, Pinny, Lafitte Claret, Pardue & Co. Claret and Reid, Aum Ungsteiner. The only mention of bottles in the accounts are when members were charged for breakages. Most commonly between 1790 and 1796 bottles were charged at 3 .5d each and glasses at ls. Some however cost 2.5d, and some 2d. Magdalen College accounts show that at this date sealed quart wine bottles cost 4d each. It would therefore appear that Exeter College did not have their own sealed bottles at this time. 128
• ' .-M·C·R·· . . . ~.Coll•,E£o~ '•·•.,'744, .. I • t t f AM 1991.52 xl Figure 6.19 A detached seal from Exeter College 129
Jesus College Jesus College lies on Turi Street and was founded by Hugh Price with help from Queen Elizabeth I in 1571. The Front Quad probably dates from the early seventeenth century. Both the chapel and the hall were built c. 1620 as probably were the lodgings and the buildings backing on to Market Street. The buildings on Ship Street were built in 1906-07 and the Old Members Building in 1970-71. Archival material relating to cellars, wine and bottles was rather sparse except for a common room account book started in 1770. Figure 6.20 illustrates an early Jesus college bottle. This is a mallet which bears the initials IC, CR. This seal is similar but not identical to a detached seal in the Ashmolean Museum. The existence of this bottle, the shape of which is typical of bottles bearing dates between 1730 and 1740, suggests that the college had wine cellars long before the documentary evidence suggests. Indeed there is mention of cellars in the Senior Bursars' Accounts as early as 1634 (BU.AC.GEN.I, 1634 REPARATIONS) and similarly again in 1660 and 1675. These were not however necessarily cellars used for the storage of wine. There are no records relating to wine in existence which date before 1770 in which year it was decided to build new cellars underneath the senior common room. Without this bottle we might therefore have erroneously concluded that the Jesus College cellars started only at this later date. The cellars under the senior common room at Jesus College were established at the relatively late date of 1771 but it is clear from the outset that they were conceived as a money making business. In 1771 a subscription of college fellows and ex-members was started to cover the cost of digging and building the cellars and for the construction of a new floor for the common room. In total 29 people subscribed (CR.AC.2). Fifteen of these were current fellows who each subscribed 2 guineas, five were Fellow Commoners, rich undergraduates or graduates who paid highly for the privilege of sharing in the same domestic arrangements as the Fellows, one of whom subscribed 5 guineas, the others 3 each. Lord Bulkeley, a nobleman who had been admitted as an undergraduate of the highest rank in 1769 subscribed 5 guineas. The remaining eight were past members of the college, three of whom were in college livings. They subscribed between 1 and 5 guineas each. In total £81 15s 00d was raised. They had obviously had an estimate for the building costs as they were aiming to raise £ 100. The deficit was made up from money already in the common room account from "treats" and this brought the total to £100 8s 8d. The cost of the building works totalled £87 ls 0d and they also bought two new mahogany tables at £10 pounds the pair. The masonry work cost £46 10s 4d and the carpentry £29 15s 2d. By June 1771 the work was complete and a consignment of wine was bought. The venture started in a small way with the purchase of a quarter of a pipe of wine from James Etty, an Oxford wine merchant. This equates to 26.25 gallons for which they paid £10. They also paid 4s 6d for corks and ls for porterage. This filled 12 doz. and seven bottles i.e. 151 bottles. This wine was sold on to Jeff Neal (the manciple?) for £12 lls 8d less a poundage allowance of 12s 6d totalling £ll 19s 2d. On this first venture the common room made a profit of £1 13s 8d. Having successfully concluded this transaction in July they then bought a full pipe of wine from Mr Hilgrove, a Southampton wine merchant. Paid to Mr Hilgrove For carriage Porterage Ale to the porters £38 00s 00d £2 00s 00d 4s 00d ls 00d This pipe (105 gallons) filled 613 bottles. The steward was given a dozen bottles and Jeff Neal 4 bottles in lieu of corks. The remaining 597 bottles were sold to Jeff Neal for £51 ls 8d less poundage of £2 l ls equating to a cost of ls 7112d per bottle. The common room made a clear profit of £8 5s 8d. In December 1771 a second pipe was bottled along the same lines giving a clear profit of £7 12s 2d. It was not until 1772 however that any mention was made of buying bottles so they either had enough bottles in stock already for the first few pipes of wine or these were supplied by Jeff Neal although the latter seems unlikely. In December 1772 the common room bought 36 dozen bottles at 2s l ld per dozen from the Oxford glass dealer Will Strange. In October 1773 they bought 48 doz. at the same price approximately 3d per bottle. This was the price for sealed bottles at that date. Figure 6.21 illustrates two later Jesus College bottles c. 1800-1810. 130
xl AM 1915.246 Figure 6.20 An early bottle and seals from Jesus College 131
AM 1910.197 xl X 1/3 1 C CR C xl X 1/3 AM 1915.245 Figure 6.21 Two later bottles from Jesus College. Top: quart c. 1800, Bottom: pint c. 1810 132
Lincoln College Lincoln College lies on Turl Street and was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming and again in 1479 by Thomas Rotherham, both Bishops of Lincoln. The front quad was built in the 15th century and the chapel and chapel quad in the 17th century. The college now uses what was All Saints Church as its library. Information on wine and bottles is unfortunately scarce in Lincoln College. Abbreviated common room accounts are included in the Bursarial Accounts but the wine accounts were kept separately. The catalogue states that these exist from 1777-1826 but on a visit to the college these could not be found. The senior common room was set up in 1662. The first mention of wine is in the common room accounts of 1755 when carriage and porterage was paid on two pipes of wine from Southampton. In 1756 the common room consisted of 13 members each paying a subscription. Newspapers, pipes, coal and general expenses were paid for by the bursar and the cost split between the members. This included such things as a dozen wine glasses, a dozen beer glasses and a corkscrew which was bought in 17 5 6. Wine on special feast days was provided at the college's expense. Recorded in 1756 were two bottles of Port on Candlemas Day for 3s 4d, wine at dinner on Easter Sunday 5s and on Michaelmas Day 1 Os. So that one can get an idea of relative prices in 1756 a bushel of wheat cost 6s, malt 3s 6d, oats 2s 3d and beans 3s 3d. In 1768 the common room still had 13 members. Exactly when the cellars were started is not possible to deduce at present but at least 7 different Lincoln College seals are recorded most are 19th century but at least two, which are in the college archives, can be dated between 1770 and 1800. Since the missing wine accounts started in 1777 it is possible that this is the date when the cellars were actually founded but without these accounts it is impossible to say. Figure 6.22 illustrates all the known Lincoln College seals. Figure 6.23 shows what is probably the oldest Lincoln College bottle, now in the college archives. Figures 6.24- 6.27 illustrate all the other recorded Lincoln College bottles. Most of these date c. 1790- 1810. The bottle in figure 6.25 was used as a candle stick and is covered in candle wax. Richard Brandt, who was an undergraduate at Lincoln College from 1949 to 1953 informs me that at that time sealed college wine bottles were used as water carafes in 133 Hall. There were between 12 and 20 circulating on the tables.
AM 1896-1908.Ml52 detached seal Lin. Coll AM 1896-1908.MISl AM 1910.307 AM 1921.262 Figure 6.22 Lincoln College Seals, x 1. 134 Lin Coll C.R Oxon AM 1896-1908.Ml48 AM 1896-1908.M147 (quart) (pint) AM 1896-1908.Ml49 (quart) AM 1911.121 (pint)
X 1/2 Lincoln College Archive LINC· COLL=- c ·fl. Oxotl College Bottle and xl detached seal AM 1896-1908.Ml52 Figure 6.23 A wine bottle in Lincoln College archive. 135
X 1/3 AM 1921.262 xl Lin Coll C.R Oxon Ljnc.Co1 C·P~ oxo xl AM 1896-1908.Ml48 Figure 6.24 Two Lincoln College bottles having similar seals. 136 X 1/3
AM 1910.307 xl X 1/3 Lin. Coll Figure 6.25 Two bottles from Lincoln College 137 xl X 1/3 Lincoln College Archive
X 1/3 xl xl AM 1896-1908.Ml47 Figure 6.26 A pint and a quart bottle from Lincoln College having similar but different seals 138 X 1/3
X 1/3 xi X 1/3 AM 1896-1908.Ml49 xi AM 1911.121 Figure 6.27 Quart and pint bottles from Lincoln College having the same seal. 139
Magdalen College Magdalen College lies on the High Street beyond the old city walls and is the tenth oldest and one of the grandest colleges. It has a famous Bell Tower from which the choristers sing at dawn on May morning. It was founded in 1458 by William Waynflete on the site of the old St John's Hospital. The front quad, chapel, gatehouse, hall and central cloister were built 1470s to 1480s, the Bell Tower 1492-1509, the Old Grammar Building in 1614, the New Buildings in 1733, the Library in Longwall Quadrangle in 1851, St Swithun's Quadrangle 1880-84, Longwall Quadrangle 1928-30 and the Grove Building in 1995. Magdalen College has some of the best archives relating to wine, cellars and bottles but even these are incomplete. It is impossible to say precisely when Magdalen College began to buy wine wholesale as the early eighteenth century records are incomplete and no bills of any kind exist. A day book of 1722 records the first purchase of bottles when the college bought 6 gross of bottles from the Oxford glassman Thomas Marsh. Whether these were sealed and used for wine is impossible to say. The college certainly bottled cider and beer so they may have been used for that purpose as the only mention of wine is a purchase of the equivalent of about 30 bottles from the King's Head. An earlier draft daybook of 1713 mentions a wine bill being paid to Nicholas Franklin for the use of William Turton at the Crown tavern. In 1726 orders were issued to turn part of the bursary cellar into a cellar for the use of the common room and to make a door to lead out of the great library into the little library. An entry of 1730 states "After dinner the seniors retired to smoke, take snuff and drink wine; the juniors retired to drink beer". 1729 records the purchase of the first sizeable quantity of wine the monetary amount representing a hogshead. At this date the college had only a small cellar which had formerly been the mortuary of St John's Hospital which occupied the site before the college. It is probably this cellar which was referred to in later accounts as the "bog cellar" ( a boggard is a spectre or / bogey). At least 34 separate bottle purchases are recorded (table 6.4) and it is obvious that Magdalen College had and still does have one of the most extensive wine cellars in Oxford. Lead shot was also bought with which to clean the bottles. This practice could be dangerous as due to the shape of the bottle kick-ups this shot could become lodged in the bottles and would then dissolve in the wine when they were refilled giving rise to lead poisoning. There are no bills for wine bottle purchases at Magdalen College but, as already mentioned, there are 34 separate bottle purchases recorded in the day books and the wine accounts between 1722 and 1848. Extracts and summaries of some of the Bursar's accounts appear in Appendix 3. These bottles may not all have been sealed wine bottles but where the price per bottle can be calculated the costs are compatible with sealed wine bottles. Figure 6.28 illustrates the twelve known seals from Magdalen College. Nine are on whole bottles. The other three are detached seals. These bottles wonderfully illustrate the development of cylindrical wine bottles from 1730-1840. Bodies generally become longer relative to neck length and shoulders more rounded through time until we reach the typical three part moulded bottle of the 1840s. Figure 6.29 illustrates the earliest known bottles, which are in the Ashmolean Museum They have square shoulders and cracked off lips typical of the 1730s. Magdalen College made a large purchase of bottle in 1764/65, which was when the common room started a new wine scheme. They then replaced the many and frequent breakages every one to four years between 1765 and 1843. Unlike All Souls College Magdalen College bought little and often. Figures 6.30, 6.31 and 6.32 illustrate sealed bottles from the period 1770 to 1800. Relative to the earlier bottles these have shorter necks, longer bodies and more rounded shoulders and the string rims gradually become more sophisticated. Magdalen is one of the few colleges where a large number of nineteenth century bottle purchases are recorded. There are at least eight different ones recorded. Figure 6.33 illustrates the only one at present known to us. It is free blown and pontilled but has a string rim typical of bottles dated 1820-1840. It would seem to have a different provenance from bottles of a similar date belonging to Trinity College. It is very similar to several dated Welsh bottles of 1826 and 1829. In 1733 the college erected the "New Building" intended to offer more luxurious accommodation for gentlemen commoners. Cellars were constructed underneath the entire length of this building and could be accessed from each staircase which went up to the bedroom suites and down to the cellars. The cellars are now in use as the main college cellars although all the staircase accesses have been sealed. During the war most of the cellar area was used for storage and when the present butler arrived in 1970 much of the area was full of old gas masks and water bottles. In clearing out the rubbish he unearthed the stained glass from the college chapel which had been stored in the cellars during the war to save it from bomb damage. The man who had stored it away had died 140
Date 1722 1729 1736 1740 1746 1751 1760 Supplier no quantity or supplier Thomas Marsh £214s gross no supplier 25 doz. no supplier 25 1/2 doz. qt 1.5d each, 51/2 doz. pts ld each no supplier 61/2 doz. for 13s 10.5d Dated? Dumbrell 1764/65N.B. this was a large purchase paid for in two instalments but probably delivered at one time. The date coincides with the setting up of the new wine accounts. approx. 5,000 qts 700 pts. total c. £70 Supplied by Will Strange 1766 1768 1769 1771 1771 1782 1786 1787 1788 1789 1795 1796 1800 1803 1804 1805 1808 Strange£9 lls Strange£5 2s Strange£9 19s Strange£9 16s Strange£1110s Strange£32 6s Strange£7 19 Dated 59 doz. qts 12 doz. pts £14 Os 7d Couldrey £14 6s John Hart £60 in part Hart Couldrey Couldrey £27 (probably balance on above) 36 doz. £7 4s 9d 60 Doz. £12 Os 6d 4s/doz. 4s/doz. 50 doz. no supplier Sutton 100 doz. £22 10s 4s 6d/doz. 110.5 doz. @ 4s 6d per doz. £24 17 3d 73 doz. @4s 6d£1610s 9d £15 4s 6d/doz. 141
1824 Sutton 60 doz. @ 5s 8d per doz. £17 5s 8d/doz. 1829 Sutton 98 doz. £2410s 5s/doz. 1831 Sutton for sherry bottles £2 l0s 1836 bottles and corks £12 4s 1838 Sutton.£20 1839 Sutton 38 doz. £9 lOs 5s/doz. 1840 Sutton & Co. £26 12s 6d = 106.5 doz. 1843 Sutton £27 8s 2d = 110 doz. 1844 Sutton £15 62 doz. 1848 Sutton £9 9s 4d 38 doz. Table 6.4 Dates of Bottle purchases by Magdalen College 142
AM 1896-1908.Ml 67 AM 1974.431 M~Co11 f/\a.jdQ\en C-R Co11e3'2- l)bO BI995.28 Recorded in Dumbrell College Archive AM 1921.258 B1994.28 AM 1921.259 Figure 6.28 Magdalen College Seals. x I 143 B1995.27 •. MaiC CR 1769 College Archive B1995.29 Mag.Co}} C+R AM 1896-1908.Ml 68
xl AM 1896-1908.Ml67 xl AM 1974.431 Figure 6.29 Two early Magdalen College bottles with long necks and square shoulders. The one on the left is a quart and probably older than the one on the right which is a pint but both are c. 173 5-1750 144
xl Bl995.27 Bl995.28 Figµre 6.30 Two Early Magdalen College bottles both free blown. dated c. 1770 145
ag.Col • xl AM 1921.258 xl B1995.29 Figure 6.31 Two Magdalen College bottles c. 1780 with similar but slightly different seals 146
xl Bl994.28 xl AM 1921.259 Figure 6.32 Two Magdalen College bottles c. 1790-1800. 147
AM 1896-1908.Ml68 Mag.Coll C+R Figure 6.33 Late Magdalen College bottle but free blown. Dated c. 1820-1840 148 xl
Magdalen College Archive Magdalen College Archive MqgqqJt" Coll'1e IJl,O Detached Magdalen College Seal found in a rubbish dump on the site of the St Edmund Hall building Detached Seal found at 41 Princes Street in April 1979. Donated to the college by Mr Rock. Seal is dated 1769. 1760 dated Magdalen College seal recorded in Dumbrell. Figure 6.34 Detached seals from Magdalen College xl 149
during the war and no-one else knew where it had been put. The college assumed that the windows had been lost and re-glazed the chapel. As it happened no bombs fell on Oxford and the stained glass met a far worse fate than would have befallen it had it been left in the chapel. Being stored in the cellars, which are close to the river and tend to flood, the wooden crates containing the windows had rotted and collapsed thus causing severe damage to much of the glass. The college is now considering restoring some of the original glass to the chapel. The new large cellar complex was ready for use in 1733. The first surviving day book after this date is for 1736 and records the purchase of a hogshead of wine and a gross of bottles. It is likely that these early wine purchases were for the use of the college fellows only and that the gentlemen commoners bought their own wine but were allowed to store it in the cellars at the bottom of their staircases. Woodforde at New College records taking a share in a hogshead of wine so it may well be that a group of gentlemen sharing a staircase also formed a useful wine purchasing syndicate. The next record is 17 40 when another hogshead was purchased. A hogshead of wine appears to have been purchased annually but it was not until 17 46 that the suppliers' name was mentioned. This was Cropp of Southampton who supplied many other colleges and individuals in Oxford at the time. James Woodforde mentions being unable to pay Cropp's bill. In 1754 the college obtained wine from an Oxford wine merchant James Etty who had his own sealed bottles. Throughout these early years the college servant in charge of the wine was Kennington. Upon his death in 1763 the members of the fellows common room decided to start an official 'Wine-scheme" at which time John Hart was appointed upper servant in charge of the wine. He would have been equivalent to the present day butler. We are lucky in having complete wine accounts from this date to 1880. The suppliers and wines supplied are shown in table 6.5. The original articles agreed upon by the common room members in 1763 are transcribed in Appendix 4. In essence they agreed that the wine suppliers would be Mr Cropp of Southampton and Mr Chalie of Mincing Lane, London. John Hart was allowed £28 per annum out of the wine profits and the sale of wine was extended to the whole college but was not to be sold outside the college. The cost was to be ls 9d per quart plus a 3d deposit for each quart bottle taken and 2d deposit for each pint bottle. It was stipulated that the wine should be paid for upon delivery with ready money. It can be seen from the accounts of 17 63 that the wine account was already well established by this date as Kennington's widow was paid roughly £32 being the balance of her wine account. From 1763, however, the wine purchases escalated. In 1763 7 pipes of wine were bought. In these early years some of the wine was bottled directly on arrival and some was sold draught the remainder of the pipe being bottled off at a later date. The college bought over 5000 bottles to contain this wine although they did not finish paying for this large bottle purchase until 1765. We can assume that these bottles were almost certainly sealed as a dated bottle is recorded for 1760 Most of the wine purchased was Port with the odd hogshead of Mountain and smaller purchases of ready bottled Vidonia. One interesting item of note is that one pipe of wine bottled in 1763 proved to be sour and was exchanged for another cask. The wine accounts of 1763-65 are laid out to show how many bottles were filled from each pipe with the receipts for the wine entered opposite as the bottles were sold. This shows that a pipe of wine filled between 50 and 53 doz. bottles. The capacity of the bottles varied as did the capacity of the pipes of wine. From 1766 new accounts were started merely stating a list of monthly receipts and expenditures. 150
...... VI ...... I I I T 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 ETTY - OXFORD, WINE AND PORT CROPP - SOUTHAMPTON, MOUNTAIN & PORT CHALIE - LONDON, PORT, VIDONIA & SHERRY FINCH - OXFORD, PORT SYMS - OXFORD, PORT BALLARD & HARRISON - SOUTHAMPTON, PORT WILLIAMS, PORT SMITH & JENNINGS, PORT GREGORY, PORT CARBONELL, PORT, SHERRY, OLD PORT & CLARET OXFORD WINE Co. H. B. SMITH, PORT & SHERRY WHITE & Co. - BRISTOL, OLD PORT & SHERRY OLIVIERA, PORT LINTOFF, PORT ELLERTON, WINE URQUEHART, PORT W ARRE BROTHERS, MAREIRA WATERS, PORT & SHARRY GRANTHAM, CLARET CIDLLINGWORTH, SHERRY IDGGINS - NORTHAMPTON, PORT PLASKETT I 1760 Hy 1754 I 1770 178I CROPP - SOUTHAM1763 fHALI, 1762 1770 I FINCH - OXF1770 Table 6.5 Suppliers of wine to Magdalen College (Bursarial accounts, Magdalen College Archives)
I I I I 80 1790 1800 1810 1820 MPTOf 1786 f.HALIE -LONDO~ 1789 1803 FOiii! 178 11:ic,M~ 1814 BALLARD & HARRISON WILLIAMS I 1186 18001 I 1805 I 1810 SMITH & JENNINGS GREGORY I 1793 180] I 1811 18221 LINTOFF ■ 1801 .ELLER TON • 1805 I I I 1830 1840 1850 I CARBONELL 1830 I OXFORD~ Co. 1849 > I HBSMITll! 1831 1840 I WHITE & Co. - W Aj EFIELD 1832 1848 I OLIVIERA > 1846 PLASKETT W ARRE BROTHERS • 1831 ■ 1845 URQUEHART 1832 GRANTHAM CIDLLINGWORTH • • • 1827 1841 WATERS HIGGINS - NORTHAMPTON • • 1829 1841 WRIGHT & Co. - BRISTOL 1827
New College New College lies between New College Lane and Holywell Street and is the seventh oldest college. It was founded by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, in 1379. The Great Quadrangle, Chapel and Hall were built in the 1380s, the cloister in 1400 and the Garden Quadrangle 1450-1718. The buildings on Holywell Street are all nineteenth century. A long portion of the old city wall lies within the gardens of New College. Rev. Dr. W.A. Spooner, the creator of spoonerisms, was warden from 1903-26. No sealed wine bottles have been recorded as belonging to New College but the archives were consulted in order to compare this college with colleges known to have had sealed wine bottles. The New College archives contain a good collection of tradesmen's bills and receipts. All the early receipts showed that the college was supplied with wine from the Crown tavern. New College owned the Crown tavern tenement. These early accounts record only sacrament wine under the chapel accounts. Common room accounts, which would relate to more general consumption of wine, do not exist before 1815 and it is therefore impossible to establish when New College first started to buy wine wholesale. Later accounts show that they did do so. The common room existed by 1678 and cellars existed under buildings of this date but may not have been used to house wine. From the accounts of 1815 onwards it is possible to see that the college members were consuming considerable quantities of wine. In the early years their chief supplier was Carbonell & son to whom they paid £635 in 1817, £657 in 1818 and £463 in 1819. The receipts for wine drunk almost equalled the amount spent to purchase more each year but in 1820 the :finances were in some difficulty as a note in the accounts states: "The carpet fund was broken into this year on account of the scarcity of money to pay the wine merchant but will be re-established in the ensuing year". This year the college suppliers were more varied payments being made to Mr Moorhouse, Mr Barter and Keir. Some of these however may have been college members who had purchased wine on behalf of the common room and were being repaid. In 1821 the money received for wine drunk amounted to £817 and a variety of wine was bought: paid; Mr Duncan for Sherry £65 17s, Syms, who was an Oxford wine merchant, for a pipe of Port £115 7s, for a hogshead of Vidonia £45 and Shirley for liquors £60 15s. Syms continued to supply wine and Shirley liquor through to 1823. In 1824 the suppliers were Whitfield, Martinez & Mora, Kinsey, Chalie & Richards with Shirley still supplying liquors and Syms a small quantity of wine. Chalie and Richards continued as a main supplier with Johnson & Justini supplying brandy in 1826 and Durand supplying French wine and later champagne. These suppliers continued until 1831 when Young and Nolan also joined the list. In 1840 wine was supplied by Block & Grey, Durand & Co., Chalie & Co., Scott, Skinner & Thompson with Bruton supplying spirits. In this year a new cellar was constructed one third paid by the common room and two thirds paid by the college, the common room share being £41 16s 6d. In 1845 the London bills were paid of Austwick & Webb, Durand and Paxton. The account book ends at this point. During this period 1815-1846 the college also bought bottles. No sealed bottles bearing the New College name are known so it may be the college used unsealed bottles. In 1815 they bought 15 0 dozen bottles for £ 18 15s or 2s 6d per dozen. Sealed bottles at this time cost 4s 3d per dozen for quarts and 3s 3d per dozen for pints. From then on their main glass supplier was Sutton but bottles are not specifically mentioned again until 1835 when 25 dozen bottles were bought "of the warden". This may have been an internal college transfer. In 1826 a man was paid 15s for bottling and washing bottles. 152
Oriel College Oriel College was founded in 1326 and lies on the south side of the High Street. The civil war brought great financial stress to the college and during 1708-27 there were great personal and constitutional struggles under provost Carter. The most famous period of the college history was from 1781-1850. During this period Oriel threw its fellowships open to all and thus attracted two brilliant groups of fellows. Oriel College was entirely rebuilt 1620-1642 and the senior common rooms were finished in 1796. The accounts relating to wine at Oriel are very limited. It is obvious that there were detailed wine accounts as they are referred to but unfortunately these no longer exist. All that is available are summary Common Room accounts from 1744-1900 (Sil M32). In these each member of the Common Room paid an annual subscription of between £2 and £3 which went to pay for such things as tobacco, pipes, playing cards and dice. In the latter years the accounts also included tea and other grocery items. Wine and bottles first appeared in the accounts of 1760. In these the Oxford glass dealer William Strange was paid £8 10s 2d for bottles and Beardswell was paid £4 for ten gallons of wine which would equate to 2s per quart bottle. This was probably James Beardswell who in 1740 kept a wine vault under his house in Holywell. The amount of bottles purchased is unspecified but from other accounts we know that in 1772 sealed wine bottles cost 2s l ld a dozen or 3d each. Assuming little difference in price the college would have bought in this batch about 680 bottles. Although this wine purchase was not huge the amount of bottles bought suggests that the college was definitely buying wholesale at this date as the number of bottles purchased would have been more than enough to lay down a pipe of wine which was approximately 105 gallons. Bottles do not appear in the accounts again until 1784 when Strange was paid £ 11 14s 00d for bottles equating to almost a thousand bottles. A number of bottles were obviously broken or not returned because in the accounts of 1787 the sum of 8s was shown for bottles broken or not returned. Members of the common room were responsible for returning the empty bottles which they had purchased full. During 1787 a new bottle supplier emerged. Coles was paid £ 14 16s 00d for bottles. In 1794 bottles were obtained from Crump but in 1800 Strange was again supplying the college with bottles. In 1807 charges for broken glasses and bottles came to £5 2s 6d. At this date the common 153 room had twelve members. In 1809 bottles were obtained from Sutton. In 1815 from Burting and in this year there were 20 members of the common room. In 1823 each person dining in hall was charged 6d a day for wine but this was not enough to cover the true cost and the common room account made up the loss. 6d a day probably equated to about 1/2 a pint per person. From these limited records we can conclude that the cellars probably started in 1760. In the accounts of Oriel there are at least seven distinct bottle purchases between 1760 and 1815 i. e. 1760, 1784, 1787, 1794, 1800, 1809, and 1815 (table 6.6). To date five different seals for Oriel bottles are recorded. The two most ornate are detached so we do not know what the bottles were like. The other three all exist on complete bottles, the first of which would appear to date from about 1780. Figure 6.35 illustrates the two detached seals and this eighteenth century bottle. The second two, illustrated in figure 6.36 are free blown but quite similar in construction and probably equate to two of the three purchases made in 1800, 1809 or 1815. This leaves the possibility of at least two other seal patterns being in existence. Dates of Bottle Purchases Date Quantity 1760 1784 1787 1794 1800 1809 1815 Table 6.6 C. 680 C. 1000 C. 1200 Strange Strange Coles Crump Strange Sutton Burting
AM 1921.1093 AM 1896-1908.Ml45 detached seal X 1/3 xl xl AM 1896-1908.MI44 detached seal xl Figure 6.35 An early Oriel College bottle c. 1780 and two early detached seals. 154
AM 1921.1096 xl O·C C·R X 1/3 xl X 1/3 AM 1921.1097 Figure 6.36 Two early Oriel College bottles, c. 1810 with slightly different seals 155
St John' College St John's College lies on St Giles. It was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White in the former St Bernard's College whose buildings date from 1437. The front Quad was built in the late 1400s, the chapel and hall in the 1500s and the Canterbury Quad in 1636. The archives of St John's College contain good records of the day to day sale of wine within the college and a collection of wine bills. There are however no accounts for wholesale wine purchase and only one mention of bottles being bought. Figures 6.37 and 6.38 illustrate the two sealed bottles and three detached seals recorded as belonging to St John's College. The two whole bottles are at either end of the age range for sealed cylindrical wine bottles. One, which is very early, dates from c 17 40 and has a long thin neck and square shoulders similar to the early Magdalen College bottles. The other is a late three part moulded bottle probably dating from about 1840. Wine bills in the archives dating from 1735 show that a hogshead of red wine was laid down in the cellars that year and in 1736 six gallons of Tent were bought. This bill also notes the purchase of 26 quart bottles for 5s 5d or 2.5d each. These early bills are few in number but clearly show that the college was laying wine down in the cellars at this time. In 1764 the college sold Vidonia at 2s/qt, Red Port at 1/6 /qt, Mountain at ls/pt and Lisbon at 1 0d/pt to its members. A collection of wine bills dating from 1773 -1793 were from Thomas Dennis of London who supplied the college with Red Port, Sherry, Lisbon, Mountain and Calcavello together with regular supplies of Rum and Brandy. By 1810 college members could buy Port for 3s /qt. Pints of Port were only permitted to be bought in the common room, not taken out. These pints were 1/6. Sherry cost 3/9 or 4/6/qt, Tenerife cost 3/6/qt or 2/- per pint and Madeira 5/-/qt. Rum, Brandy and Gin were also available. 156
xl e_,. v---01y ~ COLLECd= 0 " -kFO~ X 1/3 AM 1896-1908.M141 Figure 6.37 Two bottles from St. John's College. 157 xl X 1/3
AM 1914.864 Museum of Oxford Figure 6.38 Three detached seals from St John's College, xl. 158
Trinity College Trinity College was founded in 1555 on the site of the dissolved Durham College of 1286. The Durham Quadrangle was illustrated in Loggan's view of Oxford produced in 1675. In 1676-77 the present kitchen was built with a deep cellar and four chambers over it. It projected for a few feet over the Cardinal's Hat inn which belonged to Christ Church. The north wing of the garden quadrangle was erected by Wren in 1665-68 and in 1682 the west side of the new quadrangle was built. In 1780-87 the site of the college was increased by taking in the site of the Dolphin Inn and land bought from Magdalen and Oriel colleges. In 1685 the number of commoners was about 120 having risen as the college became more fashionable after the Restoration. In the early twentieth century when Dr. Blakiston was president he became much annoyed by undergraduates climbing into the college over the Parks Road wall. He decided to improve security but balked at the expense of installing revolving metal spikes. On hearing that there were many old wine bottles in the college cellars he ordered these to be broken and set in cement on top of the wall. This was done and it was only later that he discovered what a costly mistake this was as he could have sold the bottles for a tidy sum as antiques. An employee of the Museum of Oxford informed me that as a small boy he used to shin up the wall of Trinity College to chip out the bottle seals with his penknife. Following up this lead myself together with the college archivist and a research student assaulted the inside of the wall in 1995 and retrieved a number of seals which are now in the college archives. As luck would have it at about the same time six college bottles were donated to the college by an old member. These are also in the archives and together with the seals are illustrated here. There are no wine accounts in the Trinity College archives so we do not know at what date the college cellars were first stocked. The two nineteenth century bottles recorded suggest that this was before 1780 but this is as close as we can get on the present information. The archives do however contain a valuable bundle of vouchers dated from 1800 to 1836 in which numerous wine purchases were detailed and contain the only bills for bottles, supplied directly from the manufacturer, at present discovered anywhere in Oxford college archives. These bills detail not only the quantity of bottles purchased but also the seal detail and the manufacturer. The bottle bills date between 1806 and 1831. Unlike All Souls College Trinity College regularly bought pint bottles as well as quart bottles although far fewer. Figure 6.39 is a bill dated 1806 listing bottles supplied by a London dealer B.M. Harrison. The bottles were shipped by barge from the Hambro wharf, London to the Thames wharf, Oxford. We do not know where this batch of bottles was manufactured but the seal was TC, CR. The bill also included the cost of engraving the seal which was 7 s 6d. Figures 6.40, 6.41 and 6.42 are bills dated between 1822 and 1828 for bottles supplied by Westwood and Co. which later became Westwood, Moores and Rider of Brierley Hill near Stourbridge. This glass house was known as the Moor Lane bottleworks, Brierley Hill and was first established in 1771. It continued under a variety of partnerships, most involving the Westwood and Moore families, until 1845 when the senior partner, Westwood, had a mental breakdown following the death of his sister. At this date the works closed down. There were two batches of bottles in 1822. The first was sealed Trin Coll, CR the second TC, CR. A bill of 1826 included both marked and plain bottles but here the seal was not specified. The bottles delivered in 1827 were sealed TC, CR those in 1828 TC only which equates to a seal recovered from the college wall and a complete bottle (figure 6.48). In 1831 the college bought 37 dozen clean bottles from H Syms who was an Oxford wine merchant but from the price these were unsealed. The bill of 1826 clearly showed the price differential between sealed and unsealed bottles which was 4d per dozen irrespective of size. Sealed quarts cost 4s 8d, sealed pints 3s 8d. Unsealed quarts cost 4s 4d pints 3s 4d. A bill of 1827 showed that the floor of the wine vaults in the Common room cellar were replaced at a cost of £4 15s 10d. The wine bills date from 1800 to 1834. Port was clearly the favoured wine being ordered on a regular basis. The wine was bought in by the pipe, the size of a pipe varying between 139 and 142 gallons. The volume of each pipe was measured and the cost calculated on the basis of 138 gallons. From 1806 to at least 1828 the main supplier of Port to the college was Beachcroft and Calrow of London. The college bought smaller amounts from Yeats, Brown and Scott. In addition the college bought Sherry through William Strachen & Co.. The bills are interesting because they list all the duties and other costs involved in importing wine from Cadiz (figure 6.43). Hock and Sauteme were supplied by Husenbath and Lorum of Bristol (1834), Moselle and Claret by 159
Figure 6.39 Bill for bottles supplied to Trinity College by Messrs B. M. Harrison, Bottle Warehouse, Hallam Street, Black Friars, London. Dated 8th October 1806. (Trinity College Archive) 160
J ·-4. .. J ~ Figure 6.40 Bill for wine bottles supplied to Trinity College by Westwood & Co. dated February 1822 (Trinity College Archive) 161
'1 ••• -- _.:__ _ ·,. -~~:£-£ b'.·: ·.._;~ __ ;~::..- .. ·-~..:. ___ .:...:.~·~---:'··~,"~--~, ................... . Figure 6.41 Bill for Wine Bottles from Westwood, Moores & Rider to Brasenose College, dated March 1822. (Trinity College Archive) 162
Figure 6.42 Bill to Trinity Col~eg~ from Westwood, Moores and Rider for wine bottles supplied m 1826. (Trinity College Archive) 163
- °' ~ &_,C/t:¢£~~ • ✓ / . / ,,,. . {f.&~- ,~~ ~~~I ,1/ • . . . / <' ,;"-✓- ~,z,- · _ Paid Lig/ • i?..;,. i?~ac,,u;,,_.r . gCoo~ ---✓-' ··· / / / Cas~Ut?(_.,),~&~//'2,~ R ' en(, ,,7 / • ~~.a--z~ /9 -<9-o. Car/ p·· ,:- . · · :~inte::: ---- Enterm~4{ ~~;' , - · Pit/../ J AOKSON f. WILSON, Wine .Agmt,, No, 1, Cooper,' Roi,. Figure 6.43 Duties and costs of importingfor Trinity College in 1822. (Trinity College Archives)