I transcribed a collection of 18thC student disciplinary records once. Let me give a quick overview of the things that generation were doing... 1/
Duelling with swords; getting loudly and raucously drunk and getting kicked out of taverns; going along to a dancing master's classes to meet girls, being told not to dance with one of said girls, getting into a fight with the dancing master over it; 2/
Making 'obscene toasts' when drunk; hassling the landlady's daughter when drunk; taking a sedan chair home when drunk and trashing it (Glasgow sedan chairs could be hired like taxis in 18thC, there were even designated sedan-chair pickup ranks); 3/
Getting drunk and damaging somebody else's lodgings to the point where he was "expelled from his Habitation and deprived of his Body Cloaths and the poor Remainder of his furniture to Satisfy the Landlord for his Rent"; 4/
"having too many Companions always in his room, disturbing the house wt noise & breaking the furniture, as an evidence of which the Chairs in his room have been no leſs than three times broke [...] the expense whereof he promised to pay but has never yet fulfilled his promise" 5/
Not attending lectures, and claiming when told off for this that there was a university regulation saying students on his particular bursary only needed to attend 1/3 to pass, leading to two professors combing through rules for nonexistent regulation; 6/
Arguing at the university debating society that the university is a "dusty shop of logic and metaphysic" and students would be better off just going to the theatre; 7/
Suggesting to the ex-military chemistry lecturer that the army only wear red because they are trying to make up for their lack of virility; getting into a fight with said chemistry lecturer in the university quad that two academic staff had to wade into and break up; 8/
(the last three were all the same student; he eventually got expelled and went off to seek his fortune with the East India Company) 9/
Something that was bad enough to get two students expelled but is only described (by them) as "having the Misfortune sometime agoe to fall into an unhappy afray with some People of the Town";
Trapping a servant girl in their rooms and scaring her; Damaging their lodgings again, this time by "some indecent language being painted on the inside of the room door wt a brush & whitening" 11/
Getting drunk and arguing with a lecturer, deciding later that he needed to be taught a lesson, marching out drunkenly into the night with the tavern fireplace poker, beating an innocent passer-by w/ it until the Lord Provost arrived to wrench said poker out of student's hand 12/
A significant proportion of these students were planning to go into the Church, btw. 13/
So while I agree it's annoying when your undergrads don't do the reading and plagiarise their essays from SparkNotes, I struggle to believe they're the Worst Student Generation Ever. 14/14
well gosh this was popular. Here's some of the original documents! This is tweet 10: Timothy Kirby and Joseph Busby begging not to get expelled for whatever it was that happened with "some People of the Town" scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/colour/?d…
they fear expulsion would mean the "utter displeasure of their Parents & friends, ye Loſs of a Means to subsist in Life consistent wth. their intentions"...
and "the distreſsing Neceſsity of exchanging their pres[ent] Plan of getting a Livelyhood hereafter for immediate & unavoidable Misery in some inferior Character". At least one ended up at Edinburgh uni, I make no comment.
This is the petition to the university from the sedan-chair man whose sedan chair was broken "by some young Gentlemen in their frolic" scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/colour/?d…
A little on the history of the Glasgow sedan-chair business, along with the fixed rates set by the city's magistrates (9d from Glasgow Cross to Jamaica St, not bad) theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TG…
And this is the document that caused the fight in the quad between a student and a lecturer (the 'dusty shop of logic and metaphysic' student). Long story, I will try to sum up: scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/colour/?d…
Students out drinking in a tavern on St Patrick's day. Woodburn (this student) made a toast to 'Scarlet'. This was interpreted by Robison (the lecturer) as something obscene. (Not sure if it was or not, everybody was clearly v. drunk.)
Robison loudly berated him and left. Woodburn went home and wrote this anonymous 'Advertisement no 45' about what the word 'Scarlet' means, including a lot of swipes at Robison, & claiming it does not mean a word 'beginning with C and ending in T, such as Claret for example'
(we know what the full thing said because Woodburn kept a draft for his friends - scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/colour/?d… )
Robison received it, was furious, threw it into the fire, realised it was evidence, pulled it out again, took it to confront Woodburn. Asked what it was - Woodburn said he couldn't tell, as "it is burned you see."
Woodburn continued denying all knowledge, Robison lost his temper and broke his walking-stick over Woodburn's head, fighting ensued, ended up at a trial where Woodburn was expelled and Robison fined 2 shillings for the walking-stick thing.
You can read the whole trial here (link is to transcript but images are present as well). The author is Professor John Anderson, who later founded Anderson's Institution, which became Strathclyde University scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/document/…
John Anderson was clearly a difficult man to work with and someone who would have made heavy, heavy use of the all-staff email list were he teaching today. But the behaviour of 18thC academic staff is a whole other story!
