Hiding In Plain Sight!
As a reader of crime and mystery novels, I sometimes come across the strategy that if one wants to hide something, people rarely look in places that are in plain sight. I was reminded of that this week when we posted a staff bulletin seeking help to locate the Joseph Lightfoot Talbot chair which used to be in the Centre for Creativity building and featured on the Heritage Trail. For the past 18 months, it has occasionally rankled me that I’ve been unable to find the chair and thus include it on the Heritage Trail tours with alumni.
The Talbot chair was made by Robert Thompson of Kilburn, and his trademark mouse can be seen climbing the support of the right arm of the chair. It’s a splendid chair and has the spread eagle of St John on a plaque in the centre of the back. The chair was presented to the University by the students leaving at the end of the 1936-37 year in honor of the first speaker of the Junior Common Room – Joseph Lightfoot Talbot. For many years afterwards, Student Presidents used it when chairing meetings and when being initiated into office. The institution of the Junior Common Room (JCR) continues in some universities as the recognized organization of students (specifically undergraduates) for the purposes of representation at the college and organization of recreation and social events. At York St John, the JCR was superceded in 1963-64 by a students’ union, its first president being Peter Morrey.¹
So when I couldn’t find the chair, my assumption was that it had been stashed away somewhere, possibly in a storage room, but that someone would inevitably know where it was. We weren’t prepared for such an immediate response as Louise from the Conference and Events Team called down after reading 
the bulletin to say she thought she knew where the chair was – in the New Chapel. She’d noticed that the chair in the circulated photo (above) was pictured in front of some wood paneling she was sure was in the chapel. When Billy and she went down to the chapel to check it out, it didn’t take them long to see that the chair was sitting smugly to the left of the altar at the front of the chapel – in plain sight! Well done, Louise! We know where to come now when we’re looking for something!
Our next challenge is to find out when and why this initially secular artefact became a religious one! Ideas and information to p.monether@yorksj.ac.uk
¹ “Alumni Profile – the first Student Unions’ President,” Peter Morrey, Alumination Issue 11, March 2011, P. 14
