HYBRID LEARNING
[WINCHESTER COLLEGE.]
Printed and manuscript election roll.
[Winchester,] ‘1 November 1782’.
Vellum roll (942 x 124 mm approx.), manuscript in brown, red, and gold (alloy? now largely faded to green), with large copper-engraved arms of Winchester College at head (156 x 118 mm), dated at foot ‘1 Nov: 1782’; somewhat worn, particularly at ends, text rubbed and faded in places, a few minor chips at edges; early pinholes at upper corners.
A remarkable eighteenth-century part-printed election roll from Winchester College, with admissions, the names of scholars, prize-winners, and pupils elected to New College Oxford.
The roll lists over one hundred scholars, choristers, and commoners, divided into classes, as well as the Warden and Fellows, the Head Master (the literary critic Joseph Warton, 1722–1800), and the Warden (John Oglander) and Posers of New College. In addition to their value in documenting the history of the College, the Winchester rolls offer insight to the changing role of manuscript, printed, and hybrid texts both in recording and in distributing information in a school setting: the 1782 roll is among the last to be laid out in manuscript, before the adoption of outline ‘roll-plates’ from 1785 and of letterpress printing from 1813.
The rolls were produced shortly after Election Week at the start of the academic year, with both finer (on vellum and with gilt lettering, as here) and more ordinary copies. The roll’s role in public display is evidenced by the pin-holes in the upper corners, and its ongoing use is demonstrated by annotations noting the winners of gold and silver medals and prizes in several subjects; these do not appear in Holgate’s transcription.
An extensive (though incomplete) collection of election rolls is held by Winchester College, including two copies for 1782. Holgate notes an additional copy at New College, but none in the other collections surveyed.
See Holgate (ed.), Winchester Long Rolls 1653–1721 (1899), and Holgate & Chitty (eds), Winchester Long Rolls 1723–1812 (1904).
