100-year-old university album found

Last updated 17 Dec 2008 17:03 0 Comments

A UNIVERSITY hall of residence celebrating its centenary has been presented with a student album from the year it opened.

Wantage Hall at Reading University, one of the oldest halls in the country, is looking after the 1908 autograph album belonging to Frank Wright, which contains the rules of an Anti-Woffling Society.

It was found in an attic in the 1970s by nearby resident Audrey Miller, and has been given to the university while it tries to trace Mr Wright's relatives.

Professor John MacDonald, the warden of the hall, said: "We are very grateful to Mrs Miller for providing us with this wonderful insight into the first years of Wantage.

"While everyone who has visited or studied here would attest to the majesty of its buildings, it has always been the students themselves who have made it what it is.

"At the beginning of this new academic year, I reminded the freshers of the words of B F Skinner, writing a generation ago 'that education is what remains when what is learned has been forgotten'.

"I am sure the early students of Wantage Hall, such as Mr Wright, will have felt that as strongly as we do one hundred years later."

The album includes sketches, profiles and photographs of Anti-Woffling Society members, as well as the rules of the group, which opposed woffling, a form of speech characterised by verbose expression and excessive duration.

The Grade II-listed hall was funded and opened by wealthy benefactor Lady Wantage and includes a dining hall that now hosts an annual Harry Potter-style Hogwarts feast.

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This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 11 Dec 08

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