CH in "Vanity Fair"?

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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Winkie
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Real Name: Francis Monk

CH in "Vanity Fair"?

Post by Winkie »

I have just re-read Thackeray's novel after almost 50 years and, though I can hardly be the first, I was stuck by the details of the public school which the young Rawdon Crawley is sent to, courtesy of Becky Sharp's notorious "patron", Lord Steyn. It seems to be a mixture of Charterhouse and CH, as according to the novel, it was established on the site of a Cistercian convent called the Whitefriars in the City of London (p. 603, Penguin English Library edition) yet the boys uniform contained " a gown and knee-breeches" (p. 606). "...many of the noble governors of the Institution...selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. To get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that some of the richest people did not disdain it...(p. 603). This last aspect especially caught my interest: this is fiction of course, but has it ever been possible, I wonder, for the sons (and daughters) of the very wealthy to be educated for free at CH via such patronage?
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