The Balliol Feud

'These Balliol Etonians ... were arrogant, rowdy, and exclusive, but ... were not mere sprigs of fashion. They were prizewinners, both athletic and academic ... All of them loved poetry, and many wrote it. Several had outstanding good looks'.  ('The Life of Ronald Knox' by Evelyn Waugh, 1959).

'The explanation of the (Etonian) Annandale Society as a disintegrating force is sought in an intolerant and aggressive spirit too often found among men from a single school.' 

('The Life of Ronald Poulton' by Edward Bagnall Poulton',1919).

'He (Keith Rae) was extraordinarily bitter. It was a serious disintegrating influence right through the College. In the last two years I was up, the whole College was divided in the most bitter feud. One cannot exaggerate the harm it did.' (Neville Gordon, Balliol undergraduate. Letter to EB Poulton).

‘Ettie gloried when Billy won the top classical scholarship at Balliol … but Billy, too, was a bully ... In June 1912 Billy was sent down for three terms after an Annandale Society riot in the college.’

('Ettie' by Richard Davenport-Hines. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 2009).

'The Annandale Society’s dinners would often be followed by ‘waterfalls’ in which quantities of the college’s crockery would be sent cascading down staircases'. 

(History of the University of Oxford, Vol.VII. Oxford University Press, 2000).

'Charles was in the full swim of the social life of the College. His Eton friends were all around him 

... the escapades of a certain dining society, the Annandale, brought him into disfavour with the authorities - and its exclusiveness with the rest of the College'. 

('Charles Lister; letters and recollections, memoir by his father, Lord Ribblesdale, 1917).

'His attitude came out clearly over the Annandale affair. Some of its members ... carried rowdyism and exclusiveness to unnecessary lengths and disgusted a good many men we liked in college.’ 'D.R. Brandt: Some of his Letters' edited by Charles Clay, 1920).

'Julian (Grenfell) wrote his book (aged) twenty-one... an astonishing work for a boy to have written in 1909 ... Billy was a large, affectionate, gentle person; but could be insufferable'. 

('Julian Grenfell' by Nicholas Mosley. Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1976).

'The alcoholic escapades of the Balliol bloods got their mention in the gossip columns of the press ... (Ettie's) friends were becoming dubious about her exact relationship with Patrick, and the rumour-mongers were at work.' 

('Patrick Shaw Stewart. An Edwardian Meteor' by Miles Jebb. The Dovecote Press, 2010).

In 1908, the College acquired, in R.W. Poulton, a science exhibitioner. And Neville Talbot became the junior dean. Under the influence of these two Balliol’s tone was completely changed. By 1914, (they had) 'effectively discouraged manifestation of noisy insobriety’ …

('The Oxford of Raymond Asquith and Willie Elmhurst' by M.G. Brock, 2000).

‘During the spring and summer of 1911 the festering crisis at Balliol regarding the Annandale Society gradually worsened into a serious feud over the behaviour of the Eton rowdies now led, after Julian Grenfell’s departure, by his younger and taller brother Billy.’

(‘For Poulton and England’ by James Corsan, 2009).

'(In 1912) Billy Grenfell ... was sent down for three terms. There was a charge of assault.' 

('The Children of The Souls' by Jeanne MacKenzie. Chatto and Windus, 1986). 

'At Balliol, Billy was a central figure in the Annandale Society whose values and boisterous behaviour Keith deplored. As brother officers, they made reparations to their friendship.'  

('Cameos of the Western Front'  by Tony Spagnoly and Ted Smith. Pen & Sword, 2004).