No . 131
The Trusty Servant
‘ Domum ’ Debunking
Christopher Normand ( F , 76-81 ), Director of Win Coll Soc , traces the history of our school song :
My first term as Director of Win Coll Soc was bookended appropriately by two renditions of Winchester ’ s school song , ‘ Domum ’.
Days into Short Half 2020 , the virtual Goddard Day video was issued . Those who have seen it will remember a fine interview of the Warden and a carefully choreographed version of ‘ Domum ’, recorded piecemeal during Lockdown by Chapel Choir and assembled ( ensembled ?) by the skill of Ben Cunningham ( K , 07-12 ), the Assistant Director of Chapel Music .
This recording , while moving and in quality far above the efforts of the usual raucous Wykehamical voices , raised eyebrows amongst the Goddard Legacy Society members , whose memory of ‘ Domum ’ predates the ‘ new ’ tune composed by Malcolm Archer this century . I was reminded of the confusion caused at the Chawker ’ s 150 th Anniversary Dinner when a minority group of young Old Chawkerites gave up the struggle of singing a tune they had heard but once or twice in the face of the large majority who had been well-drilled in the melody written by John Reading .
Then , days before the end of the same Short Half , I found myself as one of the production team for what became the ‘ Christmas Hamper ’. One of the items recorded for the Hamper was a virtual Illuminā , which itself leant heavily on the story of the song ’ s origins . This led me to explore further some of the myths and legends that enshroud our school song and with what follows I hope to describe and unravel them .
Let us start with the romantic fable : ‘ Domum ’ was written by a scholar held back over the holidays for some misdemeanour ; the boy in question was chained to Domum Tree , at which he composed the song and on whose bark he carved the words ; on completing this cruel punishment , the young librettist of the story died of suicide or a broken heart or ‘ drowned in the river himself and his despair ’.
Two College historians allow some wriggle room to accommodate this tale . TF Kirby , one time College Bursar and author of Annals of Winchester College in 1892 , even ascribes the name Turner to the boy of the legend . AK Cook ( author of About Winchester College , 1917 ) quotes a letter written by Ralph Verney to his father in 1682 ‘ that all the Children and Commoners and Gentleman Commoners Goe home ’ on the Monday before Whitsuntide , and that ‘ noe body stays but some of the Children which the Warden makes stay here for some notorious action they have committed .’
Reasons to dismiss this version of events include :
1 . Domum Tree was a grand elm that grew in the garden of Domum Cottage . This was near the end of Domum Road and therefore , by modern reckoning , close to the tennis courts on Palmer Field and some way downstream from Boat Club . It took its name not from being the stationery on which the song was carved , but because ‘ Domum ’ was sung around it on special occasions .
2 . Domum Tree blew down in the gales of 1904 , which would have made it a very young tree in the late 17 th century , if that is when we assume ‘ Domum ’ was written .
3 . Elms may be magnificent trees , but their bark is not suitable for receiving a song ’ s six verses .
4 . If Domum Tree were the place of Turner ’ s imprisonment , there would probably have been no River to drown in . The Itchen Navigation , the only major water course beside the tree , was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1665 , but not completed until 1710 .
5 . There were only two Turners in College during the time of our story : Francis Turner ( admitted in 1650 and later an anti-Jacobean Bishop of Ely ); and William Turner ( admitted 1784 ). Neither fit the mould of Turner in the fable .
Having explored the myth , here are the known facts around which the more recently accepted ‘ Domum ’ stories are hung .
1 . In 1666 at Whitsuntide , the Great Plague arrived at Winchester ( see TS 129 ). Some scholars were sent home . Others were relodged at a farm in Crawley , a village about five miles north west of Winchester . Evidence for this comes from the Bursar ’ s books of 1666 . The accounts state that Henry Tamage ( also known as Talmage ) was paid £ 11 for overseeing the removal of the scholars to a house in Crawley . The Talmage family leased Manor Farm in nearby Chilbolton but there is no sign of them in Crawley . However , they were connected by marriage with the Fleetwood family and a Gerard Fleetwood held the lease of Crawley Manor Farm between 1662 and 1666 . An insoluble question hangs over why the school went to Crawley and not to
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