The Evolution of Dormitories 1

Four poster beds were the order of the day at the East India College. The students lived in single rooms, which is why the windows in the Quad don't work with what became dormitories and are now increasigly again beig transformed into rooms. The registrar, The Rev'd Edward Lewton persuaded the College Council to buy new curtains for the four posters in May 1828. Eight dozen pairs were required to replace the worn out ones which had been there since the establishment of the college in 1805. In her book Population Malthus Patricia James describes life in the old college dorm.

'The students remained behind their curtains while man servants brought their bath-water, and female bed-makers, in winter, lit their fires; one, Mrs Draper, boasted that she could get twelve fires going in twenty minutes. She was a motherly and religious spinster [so her title must have been an honorific?], and listened to hear the bath water splashing to make sure her young gentlemen would not be late for chapel; the irreverent were pressed into piety, and saved from an imposition [fine] with the aid of a hot cup of coffee.'