St Mary’s College in Hammersmith was concerned with the training of male Catholic school teachers. In the process, the experience also made ‘Simmarians’, the self-adopted name of her alumni.
The St Mary’s student experience was, as with any institution, both an individual and a shared experience. Each person’s time at the College was shaped by their own character and actions, yet all individuals fit into some common patterns. Similarly, the student experience changed over time as new initiatives and traditions replaced the old. One former student reflected in 1910 on a visit back to Brook Green, where he found not only the buildings but ‘the customs and traditions a little changed’.
The St Mary’s archives contain a great deal of material relating to college life. Sources of particular use are those which foreground the voices of students themselves. From 1910 there are two diaries written by friends and contemporaries at St Mary’s, John Seddon and Cyril Thompson. Seddon, from Leigh and Thompson, from Manchester both attended in 1910-1912. With no other diaries for comparison, Seddon and Thompson’s reflections are therefore questionably of a moment in time, but fascinating insights. Some of which are shared here.
Living arrangements
Describing arriving for the first time, John Seddon writes that ‘I was taken up to my bunk. The way seemed a very mysterious one to me. I thought I would be getting lost among the passages’. There were four dormitories for the juniors called Kennels, Pups, Dogs and Mongrels. Seddon’s diaries relay that there were eleven boys in his dormitory and that they slept in bunk beds. The senior dormitory, seemingly just one, was above the door out into the yard. Students ate communally in the Refectory or ‘Ref’. These were regular sit-down meals with a set menu.
Food timetable, John Seddon, Diary, September 1910. Image courtesy of St Mary’s University Archives. Not to be reproduced without permission.
Recreation
Sports were important to the life of a Simmarian. In 1910 John Seddon records that football was placed on the grounds outside. On a site of just three acres, Brook Green had no proper playing fields for organised games, so space was used wherever possible. On the first Friday of the new school year a football ‘test match’ was played by the juniors, arranged and presided over by the seniors who officiated over proceedings, with another match the following Monday.
Both Seddon and Cyril Thompson record the ‘japes’ played by fellow students on one another, especially between Juniors and Seniors, and between different dormitories. Belongings could be moved, such as bedding hidden, and furniture relocated. ‘Raids’, often involving water were so common that Seddon and Thompson recorded meetings to prepare for them. there were limits to behaviour for example Thompson describes hiding from the Dean while in another dormitory while Seddon notes on one occasion that pupils waited until the Dean was away for some activity to take place.
A lot of recreation took place away from the college. Football away days could be accompanied by large crowds of travelling Simmarians. Cyril Thompson was particularly fond of exploring London. He appears to have gone for walks most days, sometimes twice a day in his first term. His and Seddon’s diaries record their trips around the Hammersmith area and further afield. They both visited St Paul’s Cathedral for example. Thompson's explorations included many visits to concerts. An aspect of the student experience that he must not have been unique in, especially with such close proximity between Brook Green and the Royal Albert Hall. Though Thompson seems to have been rarely accompanied on these trips.
Faith
John Seddon’s first Sunday at St Mary’s was marked by a visit to Brompton Oratory with his dorm-mate F. Smith. Seddon described a wide range of activities, but very few related to faith. This is likely a reflection of the continuity of this experience in his life from home, and so was less novel and worthy of recording. Faith was a regular part of Seddon’s life, as recorded by his friend Cyril Thompson who noted his own regular attendances at church often accompanied by Seddon.
Students were perhaps so familiar with their religion that they could be irreverent. One rowdy event described by both Seddon and Thompson included various Simmairans dressed up, including a Parson and a Cardinal in a ‘red gown and cap carrying a wooden cross’. The latter, naturally, took a leading role in proceedings.
Community
A sense of community was forged at St Mary’s by close living and shared experience. The jokes and japes described created a sense of camaraderie. On the first Monday of the academic year 1910, there was even an ‘eventful ceremony of being made a Simmarian’. Notably when students were accepted by their peers, not when pupils joined the college and arrived at Brook Green. Community could also mean exclusion. Seddon recorded in his diary how his Maltese peer was considered different and sometimes set apart by his fellows. Some community was brought in from before college life, such as affiliation between students from Lancashire who at times could be found cheering ‘Lancashire’ when a group got together, at least according to Seddon. The links forged by Simmarians led to the creation of clubs of former students who would get together. In 1926 these included the London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Irish clubs and clubs abroad including Gibraltar, Malta, and Canada.
Classes
In typical student fashion, neither Thompson nor Seddon have very much to say about the education they received in the classroom.