| dekeguy |
03-17-2003 11:13 AM |
Dining Clubs at Oxford and Cambridge, and to a lesser extent at the Scottish Universities, the Univ of London, Bristol, Durham, and one or two others are rather similar to our concept of GLOs. They also have some aspects of Yale (and other) Secret Societies. They generally select new members by a black-ball system, membership is by invitation, they have a ritual aspect both at initiation and during meetings, and are much more than just eating and drinking groups. Most are coed but some are single sex and some have their own club rooms while others use college based facilities. Some are fairly open and some are very private in every respect. My cousin who did his undergrad degree at Royal Holloway College of the Univ of London was a member of 'Barbarians' which was very similar to what we know but very private in that not everyone there knew that they existed and those that did thought they were a rugby club who were just very close knit. His brother was at Oxford and was a member of 'Apollo' which was very like what we know. It had the appearance of a Masonic Lodge, lots of ritual work, very strong on brotherhood, and, I suspect, was a recruiting ground for MI-5 and MI-6. It seemed to be strongest at Oriel College and Christ Church College with members from others Oxford colleges as well.
The 'Popes' is a an interesting group which seems to draw on mostly Catholic families who are wired into the old guard establishment. Their sponsor and "God-Father" is the Duke of Norfolk and they are loaded with members who hold titles. They are none the less very sharp, very smart, very impressive, and all around high achievers. I believe there are about a dozen such groups at Oxford, about the same at Cambridge, and three or four at each of the other places.
During my JYA I was a guest of several of these groups and was very impressed by their approach which was very familiar yet distinctly British. Even the open aspects of their meetings were heavy into ritual (they have a toasting ceremony which varies from group to group but each was really impressive, and I can only guess at their private ceremonies but I understand they are very old and very moving).
As a side note, they all have Latin and Greek mottoes, slogans, and signs and tokens specific to that group. What I found interesting was that they all could read at sight what everything meant, so the esoteric significance was really close held by the members.
A Brit Army Officer I met when I was on active duty the first time right after graduation told me that there were at least two American GLOs that had active chapters in the Scottish Universities many years ago. Apparently they were organized in the 1880s and were active until the mid 1920s at least and might have survived longer. He told me that at least one had transformed itself into a Dining Club and was still around but was no longer officially affiliated with its parent fraternity.
I understand that there are a couple of groups at the University of London and at least one at one of the Northern English universities that have organized to petition for colony status with American Fraternities.
Anybody else have any info they could share on British groups that are similar to our Greek system?
|
