Drawings of Roman Mosaics in the Topham Collection, Eton College Library

This fully-illustrated study brings together over 70 prints and drawings from the collection of nearly 3,000 items formed by Richard Topham (1671-1730). Some are the only records of mosaics that no longer survive, and many are published here for the first time. The book includes a biographical chapter on Topham himself.

Eton College

View of Eton College

Political Analysis of Boris Johnson’s Communicative Personality as a New Format Policy for the UK

When entering active politics, Boris Johnson tries to use his communicative properties as effectively as possible. A well-known graduate of Eton College, as well as Oxford, he actively communicates with his classmates and other graduates, as well as authoritative and influential people who will play key roles in his political career in the future. Being active in political communications, Johnson shows ‘political wobbles’ in the heterogeneous political space of the UK, thus earning unflattering reviews. So, after being appointed head of the Ministry of foreign Affairs, he is repeatedly criticized by the mass media and foreign politicians. Johnson actively speaks out about the problems of communication with China and Russia, showing fickle views and assessments. Johnson’s communicative-active and politically-discrete properties allow him to radically change his political statements without much personal difficulty. Not so long ago, he revised his attitude to the question of the influence of the Russian Federation on the referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union, saying that after a long work, no evidence was found of Moscow’s interference in the referendum. Perhaps, we shall soon see another transformation of the views and skills of this shocking and new in all senses political person in the chair of the head of the UK ministry.

From the Playing Fields of Rugby and Eton: The Transnational Origins of American Rugby and the Making of American Football

Some studies date the origins of US intercollegiate football—and, by extension, the modern game of American football—back to a soccer-style game played between Princeton and Rutgers universities in 1869. This article joins with others to argue that such a narrative is misleading and goes further to clarify the significance of two “international” fixtures in 1873 and 1874, which had a formative and lasting impact on football in the United States. These games, contested between alumni from England’s Eton College and students at Yale University, and between students at Canada’s McGill University and Harvard University, combined to revolutionize the American football code. Between 1875 and 1880, previous soccer-style versions of US intercollegiate football were replaced with an imported, if somewhat modified, version of rugby football. It was the “American rugby” that arose as a result of these transnational exchanges that is the true ancestor of the gridiron game of today.

MUSIC THEORY AT WORK: THE ETON CHOIRBOOK, RHYTHMIC PROPORTIONS AND MUSICAL NETWORKS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

Whilst scholars often rely on a close reading of the score to understand English musical style at the turn of the fifteenth century, a study of the compositional techniques composers were taught provides complementary evidence of how and why specific stylistic traits came to dominate this repertory. This essay examines the relationship between practical and theoretical sources in late medieval England, demonstrating a link between the writings of two Oxford-educated musicians, John Tucke and John Dygon, and the polyphonic repertory of the Eton Choirbook (Eton College Library, MS 178), compiled c. 1500–4. Select case studies from this manuscript suggest that compositional and notational solutions adopted at the turn of the fifteenth century, having to do particularly with metrical proportions, echo music-theoretical concepts elucidated by Tucke and Dygon. These findings impinge upon the current debate concerning the presence of a network between educational institutions in the south-east of England during this period.

Gladstone, William Ewart (1809–1898)

William Gladstone was a British politician who served as prime minister four times during his career, his first premiership lasting from 1868 until 1874. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1831. Gladstone began his political career in Parliament in 1832 as a High Tory, but he became a member of the Liberal Party in 1859 after being appointed chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Palmerston. His chancellorship resulted in such legislation as the Exchequer and Audit Act of 1866. During the 1860s and 1870s Gladstone’s domestic policies advocated ‘civic individuality’, while his foreign policy was anti-imperialist and favourable to Irish Home Rule. His views on empire stood in stark contrast to those of his political rival, Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who supported imperial expansion in the Middle East and Central Asia. Gladstone famously denounced the Ottoman Empire’s repression of the Bulgarian April uprising in the 1876 pamphlet Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East.