Talk:List of Old Wykehamists

In fiction

The article has long had a detailed (and to my mind interesting and informative) In fiction section, written by a long-departed editor. However, the material was mainly cited only to the primary sources, i.e. the fiction books themselves. Another editor has seen fit to remove all of that, leaving the section as a somewhat inviable rump. I suspect that primary sourcing is not exactly wrong in this situation, but obviously reliable secondary sources would make the material indisputable. For now, I'm putting the table here, in the hope that someone will take up the challenge of restoring the material and citing it to modern standards. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:07, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Fictional Wykehamists

Character	Author	Work	Date	Notes
Antrobus	Lawrence Durrell	Antrobus Complete	1985	Sabben-Clare wonders if Durrell knew of Sir Reginald Antrobus, Crown Agent for the Colonies 1909–1918.
Sir Humphrey Appleby		Yes Minister TV series	1980–1984
Francis Arabin	Anthony Trollope	Barchester Towers	1857
James Arrowby	Iris Murdoch	The Sea, The Sea	1978
Edward Ashburnham	Ford Madox Ford	The Good Soldier	1915
William Beckwith	Alan Hollinghurst	The Swimming Pool Library	1988
Captain Edward Bentinck-Boyle		Colditz (TV series)	1972–74	Played by Neil Stacy. He catches out a German planted among the prisoners who claimed to be an Old Wykehamist but didn't know his "Notions".
George Bertram	Anthony Trollope	The Bertrams	1859	"a commoner", "stood forth to spout out the Latin hexameters, and to receive the golden medal" (page 12)
Marmaduke Branscombe	Mortimer Collins	Sweet Anne Page	1868
Richard Carstone	Charles Dickens	Bleak House	1852–1853
Collins	Evelyn Waugh	Brideshead Revisited	1945	"an embryo don ... a man of solid reading and childlike humour." In the television series, Charles Ryder is shown wearing an Old Wykehamist tie.
Lieutenant Comber	George MacDonald Fraser	Flash for Freedom	1971
Tim Cranmer	John le Carré	Our Game	1995
Josiah Crawley	Anthony Trollope	Framley Parsonage and The Last Chronicle of Barset	1861	Not explicitly mentioned as a Wykehamist, but Francis Arabin refers to Crawley having been "at school and at college" with him.
Christopher Dysart	Somerville and Ross	The Real Charlotte	1894
Claude Erskine-Browne (and several minor characters)	John Mortimer	Rumpole of the Bailey series	1975–1992
Basil Fawlty	John Cleese	Fawlty Towers TV series	1975–1979	Basil wears an OW tie
Sinclair Hammond	P. G. Wodehouse	Bill the Conqueror	1924
Peter Hithersay	Nicholas Shakespeare	"Snowleg"	2004
Mycroft Holmes	Brian Freemantle	The Holmes Inheritance	2004	Brother of Sherlock Holmes
Sebastian Holmes	Brian Freemantle	The Holmes Inheritance	2004	Son of Sherlock Holmes
"I" (AKA Marwood)	Bruce Robinson	Withnail and I	1987	Identified as having gone to "The other place", by Withnail to Uncle Monty, who says "Ah, a Wykehamist".
Alroy Keir	W. Somerset Maugham	Cakes and Ale	1930
A. V. Laider	Max Beerbohm	Seven Men (and two others)	1919	Possibly: he says "I was at Winchester with Blake", but the point of the story is that he was a pathological liar.
Dexter Mayhew	One Day	David Nicholls	2009 novel, 2011 film
General Melchett		Blackadder Goes Forth	1989	Portrayed by Stephen Fry
Merlyn	T. H. White	The Sword in the Stone	1938	Among his extraordinary list of possessions was a gold medal for being the best scholar at Winchester (in an earlier edition, at Eton).
Charles Nantwich	Alan Hollinghurst	The Swimming Pool Library	1988
Edgar Naylor	Cyril Connolly	The Rock Pool	1936
Odoreida	Stephen Potter	Lifemanship books	1950–1970
Larry Pettifer and his controller Tim Cranmer	John le Carré	Our Game	1995
Peregrine Pickle	Tobias Smollett	The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle	1751	"Before he had been a full year at Winchester, he had signallized himself in so many achievements, in defiance to the laws and regulations of the place, that he was looked upon with admiration, and actually chosen dux, or leader, by a large body of his contemporaries." (Chapter 16)
Mr Ramsey	Tobias Wolff	Old School	2003
Freddie Rooke	P. G. Wodehouse	Jill the Reckless	1920
Captain Sender	Ian Fleming	The Living Daylights	1966
Dr Spacely-Trellis	Peter Simple		1957 onwards	The go-ahead bishop of Bevindon
Rupert Willem von Starnberg ("Bill")	George MacDonald Fraser	Flashman and the Tiger ("The Road to Charing Cross")	1999
Sir Derek Underhill	P. G. Wodehouse	Jill the Reckless	1920
Arthur Wilkinson	Anthony Trollope	The Bertrams	1859	"in the college [House]" (page 12)

References

As the "long-departed" editor in question, I must say that I do not see the reason for applying the "secondary sources" rule in this context. OK, for history, the point is that primary sources may be wrong and secondary sources are needed to sort them out. But if the very proposition we are establishing is that "primary source X says Y", surely the primary source is sufficient: if Trollope's Barchester Towers says that Francis Arabin was at Winchester, how can you possibly say that Trollope thought that Arabin was a fictional OW but could be wrong, so that we need secondary confirmation? The whole thing is only the product of Trollope's brain! Also, I do not understand by what principle the later editor left in the few examples that he did.

I would favour putting the whole list back; though we may need page references to the novels in question. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:43, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd very much like to see the list back, but I agree that (at the least) we require exact page references, preferably supported by a direct quotation in each case. I'd have thought this although primary quite sufficient for an entry in a table or list: it's not as if we're writing an entire article on each item. Of course, if we can locate a few more secondary sources, or even better one good one that covers a dozen or so of the table entries, that would be helpful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:52, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, in the absence of progress, I guess you're right, there's no special reason to retain the rump list; and perhaps the fictional list belongs in a separate article, not here, though again it would need at least a bit more sourcing to save it from deletion. A complete list of primary sources would I think be easily enough for that purpose, though a few secondary sources would guarantee its safety. I shall remove the rump from the article now, and suggest that if anyone would like to work on it, they do so in their sandbox and then launch it as a separate article, with a "See also" link from here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

It's taken until a rainy day in November to sort this out, but I've today created Winchester College in fiction which includes, extends, and substantially cites the table from here. There are more entries to cite, if anybody is so minded ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Robert Vane Russell

Robert Vane Russell attended but I'm not sure for how long - I'd guess he should be in the 1880s decade section but if anyone can clarify that would be great, thanks. - Sitush (talk) 05:23, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Page name

Hi. I was curious if anyone ever brought up whether the name of this page should really be called List of Old Wykehamists? I'm not sure what the alternative would be, but List of notable former pupils of Winchester College or similar might be more descriptive. "Old Wykehamist" as a term only has 5.5k non-Wiki hits and interestingly, one of the two sources in the intro used to cite the term's use (here) explicitly calls it out as "jargonistic". Just wondered while passing through, and I won't exactly be knocking at FLRC to have changes made to this impressively-researched page. Steve ^T • C 21:01, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for the thoughts, and the kind words. The term may not have many online hits (why would it) but is actually quite widely used in printed sources of different kinds, from novels to politics and sport. The question of whether we shouldn't have a word like 'distinguished' in the title is another matter, and would have some justification. And I've replaced the source. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:31, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Further culling?

Peter Scott and Roger Winlaw are a couple of names I chanced upon that don't seem to me quite to match the criteria for inclusion given in the lead (national recognition, top of profession). One played cricket for Oxford University and twice earned the MC in the war, the other had 9 games with Surrey. So if we include them, I suspect that others deserve mention. Chiswick Chap wrote that he already culled scores of names at the time of the FA assessment, so I am reluctant to be bold without bringing this up here. Should we remove such entries or modify the criteria? Or should we live with some inconsistency so as to advertise the odd interesting story? In any case I would defend applying editorial discretion rather than setting too rigorous rules: some professions are less formally assessed than others, and some of significance have died young before anyone had a chance to honour them. Jmchutchinson (talk) 10:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I think they should be culled. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:44, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Titles and honorifics

The plain intention on this page has for several years, and all through the long formal review process, has been to present the information as plainly as possible. Titles like "Sir" and post-nominals like "KCMG" are not used. They add nothing to the list of people concerned; anyone interested can follow the links to the articles concerned, or indeed to the cited sources, to read more. The entry for each individual here states their name, their profession and indicates as briefly as possible their practical achievement, that's all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:28, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Henry Chichele

Whilst many sources claim that Chichele studied at Winchester College, I dispute this claim. He studied in Winchester under Wykeham from 1373 and progressed to Oxford around 1379. However, the college was founded in 1382, operational in 1394. Perhaps there is a source that explains this discrepancy. Otherwise, an explanatory footnote will suffice (under Wykeham in Winchester, but not "Winchester College"). Godtres (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it's disputable. I think we should say something like that "it has often been claimed that", and perhaps footnote it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:46, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good! Godtres (talk) 07:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)