Ripon newsletter: September 2023

by · September 12, 2023

A banner reading 'Your Ripon Newsletter' overlaid on top of a photo of the campus in autumn.

Welcome to your September Ripon newsletter. As we welcome the start of a new academic year on campus, we can’t help but be filled with nostalgia for our own September memories. For many alumni, we know September, and possibly even this week, will mark another year since you began your journey with us. In this newsletter, we look back at a Ripon College tradition new students would have had to learn from the early days of teacher training and look at the history of Owen’s House / The Hostel.

A Very Ripon Christmas

In your last Ripon newsletter, we asked if you would be interested in attending an event in Ripon this December. We’re pleased to invite you to A Very Ripon Christmas at Ripon City Golf Club on Wednesday 6 December, at 12pm.

  • Reconnect with other alumni who studied at Ripon
  • Enjoy a Christmas fork buffet
  • Reminisce about celebrating Christmas when you were a student
  • Hear more about your Alumni team and our upcoming activity

Tickets will go on sale from 2 October and will be available on our online store. Don’t worry, we’ll email you once they go live with the link.

The Ripon ‘crocodile’

For many, September is a time that still feels like a new beginning. As an adult, it doesn’t come with new school equipment or a new set of bedding to take to college, but it does often come with fresh perspectives, or just the idea of a new beginning. This inevitably also comes with a heavy dose of nostalgia, which is what made us think of “the notorious Ripon ‘crocodile’”. We first came across the phrase in Ripon College: The first hundred years by A. M. Wilkinson, and it’s stuck with us ever since.

When Principal Garrod started in September 1892, he set out make college life more forward-thinking and, for the first time, more pleasant for students. This included more freedom for students, including the loss of the ‘crocodile’ for all but Sunday walks to church. But what was the ‘notorious’, as Wilkinson calls it, crocodile?

Think back to those days at primary school. Perhaps its raining and autumnal, or bright summer sunshine. Your teacher, no doubt your favourite teacher, is escorting you on a trip outside of school and so your class is told to pair up and follow behind your teacher two-by-two. For a group of small children, this time-honoured tactic works to keep children together and also, keeps each member of the pair partially accountable for the other.

So, what was the crocodile doing at a teacher training college for young women? Wilkinson tells us that prior to Principal Garrod:

“[Students] had no choice in the use of their time, in the subjects they studied, in the exercise they took … in the clothes they wore. Every Sunday, in the same chapel bonnets, the same dark jackets and voluminous skirts, they walked in crocodile to church…”

Apparently, when Garrod allowed students to visit Ripon in pairs, unchaperoned by a governess, they received complaints! This presumably wasn’t because the students were doing anything wrong, but because they were subverting local expectations of women’s behaviour. At this time, the College acted in loco parentis for its students because the age of majority was 21. Whilst this was the case for quite some time, its striking to wonder how this changed student excitement about the start of term. How many students today would be excited to return to university when their daily routines were so strict?

The full Class of 1898 photo from Ripon College. There is only one man in the photo, the rest are women. They are arranged on the stone steps of the college, with some seated on the steps, some on chairs and a few even on rugs on the floors. Others are arranged standing around them. There is a variety of styles of clothing. From Plain blouses and skirts to hat looks like a walking suit to a central woman wearing a pale dress with dark, frilly trim. Due to the technology, some of the faces are not captured perfectly and are blurry.
A black and white photo of Ripon College. Taken after 1899, the photo shows the back of the College, including the campus chapel addition. The photo shows some spindly trees, devoid of leaves and hedges, also leafless.

News from Ripon

St Wilfrid’s Procession

Last month, Ripon’s annual St Wilfrid’s Procession wound its way around the streets of Ripon. The procession’s official website suggests it evolved in the 1950s and looked very different to how the procession looks today! Did you ever take part in the procession?  

Ripon poetry festival

This September, Ripon will be hosting its sixth annual Ripon Poetry Festival. Including readings, workshops, book launches and more, this local festival is actually the largest poetry festival in Yorkshire! Taking place from Thursday 21 September until Sunday 1 October, find out more about this festival on their website.

Heritage Open Day at Thornborough Henges

In a previous Ripon newsletter, we told you about how Thornborough Henges were gifted to the nation and are now managed by English Heritage. This weekend, the Henges are taking part in a Heritage Open Day and visitors will be able to have a free, guided tour around the site to learn more about the henge complex. Find out more about this on the Heritage Open Days website.

YSJ Families

At the start of summer, we posted a blog about a family connection to York St John which spans generations. In 1935, Betty Waye (nee Edgar) started her teacher training course at Ripon College and remained an active part of the Ripon alumni community for the rest of her life. Two of her children, and one of her grandchildren later followed in her footsteps by studying in York, at St John’s College and the College of Ripon and York St John respectively.

You can read more about Betty’s lifelong connection to Ripon College on our blog.

A black and white photo of Betty from when she was at College. She is pictured leaning against her window, arms crossed on a cushion or pillow as she smiles at the camera. Her window is surrounded by ivy, which even in the slightly blurry and faded image, gleams.

Alumination

This academic year, we’re excited to continue celebrating our alumni community on Alumination. So far, we haven’t received many alumni snapshots from those who studied in Ripon. Alumni snapshots are a quick and easy way to tell us more about your time studying with us, and what you’ve done since completing your course with us.

Your snapshot will be hosted on Alumination for others to read. We may also contact you about completing a blog post for us, taking part in a webinar or even if you’d like to take part in a face-to-face activity with students.

Complete your alumni snapshot https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/alumni/alumni-community/submit-a-snapshot/

Graduation memories

Our November graduation ceremonies are just around the corner, and we can’t wait to celebrate the successes of our Class of 2023! This year’s graduates will be following in the footsteps of thousands of our graduates as they cross the stage in their academic gowns.

When you completed your course with us, how did you celebrate? Whether you have memoires of going to Leeds to graduate, making the journey across to York or something else entirely, we’d love to learn more about your graduation experiences.

If you’d like to share your graduation story, please email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk.

A photo taken at graduation, sometime before 2006. It focuses on two students laughing together. In the background guests and graduates mill about. The two students are holding their degree certificates and laughing, one looking at the camera as their friends laughs in profile. It looks warm and sunny.

Did you know?

This week as we welcome new students to campus, many will also be moving into student accommodation. As Ripon College matured, developed and changed, so too did our student accommodation.

Today’s students enjoy a range of accommodation options, including self-contained studios, ensuite accommodation and even on-site gyms for some private student hall options. Perhaps surprisingly, something which was once almost a given is now a luxury: a car parking space!

But did you know that living off-campus was an option from fairly early on in Ripon College’s history? Those who lived nearby might be enrolled as ‘day students’, but what would become Owen House was once called ‘The Hostel’. Set up as the Victorian era drew to a close, The Hostel allowed the College to accept a small number of students who weren’t Church of England. Hostel students completed all lessons on campus but their student lives had two key differences: they attended their own places of worship on a Sunday, and until the 1920s, sat a separate Religious Knowledge exam.

A faded black and white photo of the first students to live in The Hostel, from 1904. Taken set back and slightly looking up, the students are arranged together across three rows. The front row of six students are sat on a rug. Behind them, seven women sit on chairs. One of them is probably the hostel Matron, as she is visibly older than the others and wearing black. The final row of eleven women are all stood up. All of the women appear to be wearing pale blouses, some with ruffled front, with dark skirts. Their hair is up in a style typical of the time – almost a halo of hair from the front. Behind them is the Hostel building. They are in the garden.

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