Adrian Hilton: The decline and fall of the Oxford Union
What's the administration thinking here?
Adrian Hilton is a conservative academic, theologian and educationalist.
‘If you want to run for the Union – and it’s not a bad thing to do – make your reputation outside first’, Charles Ryder was advised in Brideshead Revisited as he was about to go up to Oxford.
It wasn’t bad guidance from his cousin Jasper, but the reputational sphere was restricted to improving oratorical technique at the Canning or Chatham clubs, with the exhortation of discipline to ‘begin by speaking on the paper’. For the disimpassioned, it was rather prosaic guidance.
For those more inclined to the Sebastian Flyte school of reputation-making, you could walk up and down Catte Steet in dove-grey flannels and a crêpe-de-chine scarf supping Cointreau with an old bear named Aloysius. Or editing the Isis while dreaming of a rowing blue and sauntering nightly around the Bodleian dressed like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan. Or joining the O.U.D.S and giving such a mesmerising Hamlet or Faustus that the high-table toasts would hail you as the heir to Gielgud. But for a certain type of student, the presidency of the Oxford Union is the zenith of realisation; the chamber where love dies and the political bonds of callow reputation are forged by bluster and zest. Here are planted the seeds of life’s harvest while they learn the art of secular ritual and taste the ecstasy of oratorical victory. By shaking hands with the great and the good, you were almost anointed to become one – a bishop, captain or cabinet minister, at least, if not one day prime minister.
And many have indeed joined the ranks of the elite, right from the society’s inception. The first to become an MP was Digby Wrangham who was president in 1826 and entered Parliament just five years later in 1831. Others so destined include Thomas Acland, William Ewart Gladstone, Herbert Henry Asquith, George Curzon, and Quintin Hogg. More recent years have yielded Michael Foot, Edward Heath, Anthony Crosland, Tony Benn, Michael Heseltine, William Hague, and, of course, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The undisputed and disputable heirs to two centuries of intellectual enlightenment and political tiffs.
The first Jewish president was elected in 1910 (Leonard Stein); the first Asian in 1934 (Dosabhai Framji Karaka); the first black president in 1942 (James Cameron Tudor), and it didn’t take long after women were permitted to become full members in 1963 for the first female president to be elected (Geraldine Jones in 1968). And feminine stares of disdain proved just as deadly as any man’s guile: they presided with the same clear eyes and toiling lungs.
As each university intake became progressively diverse, reflecting the increasing pluralism in society, so junior officers became more ethnically and racially diverse. Over …
What's the administration thinking here?
Adrian Hilton is a conservative academic, theologian and educationalist.
‘If you want to run for the Union – and it’s not a bad thing to do – make your reputation outside first’, Charles Ryder was advised in Brideshead Revisited as he was about to go up to Oxford.
It wasn’t bad guidance from his cousin Jasper, but the reputational sphere was restricted to improving oratorical technique at the Canning or Chatham clubs, with the exhortation of discipline to ‘begin by speaking on the paper’. For the disimpassioned, it was rather prosaic guidance.
For those more inclined to the Sebastian Flyte school of reputation-making, you could walk up and down Catte Steet in dove-grey flannels and a crêpe-de-chine scarf supping Cointreau with an old bear named Aloysius. Or editing the Isis while dreaming of a rowing blue and sauntering nightly around the Bodleian dressed like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan. Or joining the O.U.D.S and giving such a mesmerising Hamlet or Faustus that the high-table toasts would hail you as the heir to Gielgud. But for a certain type of student, the presidency of the Oxford Union is the zenith of realisation; the chamber where love dies and the political bonds of callow reputation are forged by bluster and zest. Here are planted the seeds of life’s harvest while they learn the art of secular ritual and taste the ecstasy of oratorical victory. By shaking hands with the great and the good, you were almost anointed to become one – a bishop, captain or cabinet minister, at least, if not one day prime minister.
And many have indeed joined the ranks of the elite, right from the society’s inception. The first to become an MP was Digby Wrangham who was president in 1826 and entered Parliament just five years later in 1831. Others so destined include Thomas Acland, William Ewart Gladstone, Herbert Henry Asquith, George Curzon, and Quintin Hogg. More recent years have yielded Michael Foot, Edward Heath, Anthony Crosland, Tony Benn, Michael Heseltine, William Hague, and, of course, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The undisputed and disputable heirs to two centuries of intellectual enlightenment and political tiffs.
The first Jewish president was elected in 1910 (Leonard Stein); the first Asian in 1934 (Dosabhai Framji Karaka); the first black president in 1942 (James Cameron Tudor), and it didn’t take long after women were permitted to become full members in 1963 for the first female president to be elected (Geraldine Jones in 1968). And feminine stares of disdain proved just as deadly as any man’s guile: they presided with the same clear eyes and toiling lungs.
As each university intake became progressively diverse, reflecting the increasing pluralism in society, so junior officers became more ethnically and racially diverse. Over …
Adrian Hilton: The decline and fall of the Oxford Union
What's the administration thinking here?
Adrian Hilton is a conservative academic, theologian and educationalist.
‘If you want to run for the Union – and it’s not a bad thing to do – make your reputation outside first’, Charles Ryder was advised in Brideshead Revisited as he was about to go up to Oxford.
It wasn’t bad guidance from his cousin Jasper, but the reputational sphere was restricted to improving oratorical technique at the Canning or Chatham clubs, with the exhortation of discipline to ‘begin by speaking on the paper’. For the disimpassioned, it was rather prosaic guidance.
For those more inclined to the Sebastian Flyte school of reputation-making, you could walk up and down Catte Steet in dove-grey flannels and a crêpe-de-chine scarf supping Cointreau with an old bear named Aloysius. Or editing the Isis while dreaming of a rowing blue and sauntering nightly around the Bodleian dressed like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan. Or joining the O.U.D.S and giving such a mesmerising Hamlet or Faustus that the high-table toasts would hail you as the heir to Gielgud. But for a certain type of student, the presidency of the Oxford Union is the zenith of realisation; the chamber where love dies and the political bonds of callow reputation are forged by bluster and zest. Here are planted the seeds of life’s harvest while they learn the art of secular ritual and taste the ecstasy of oratorical victory. By shaking hands with the great and the good, you were almost anointed to become one – a bishop, captain or cabinet minister, at least, if not one day prime minister.
And many have indeed joined the ranks of the elite, right from the society’s inception. The first to become an MP was Digby Wrangham who was president in 1826 and entered Parliament just five years later in 1831. Others so destined include Thomas Acland, William Ewart Gladstone, Herbert Henry Asquith, George Curzon, and Quintin Hogg. More recent years have yielded Michael Foot, Edward Heath, Anthony Crosland, Tony Benn, Michael Heseltine, William Hague, and, of course, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The undisputed and disputable heirs to two centuries of intellectual enlightenment and political tiffs.
The first Jewish president was elected in 1910 (Leonard Stein); the first Asian in 1934 (Dosabhai Framji Karaka); the first black president in 1942 (James Cameron Tudor), and it didn’t take long after women were permitted to become full members in 1963 for the first female president to be elected (Geraldine Jones in 1968). And feminine stares of disdain proved just as deadly as any man’s guile: they presided with the same clear eyes and toiling lungs.
As each university intake became progressively diverse, reflecting the increasing pluralism in society, so junior officers became more ethnically and racially diverse. Over …
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