Goldsmiths Book Launch

Goldsmiths' Hall Book-Launch

On Tuesday 2 December 2008, the quincentenary history of BNC - Brasenose, The Biography of an Oxford College - was well and truly launched with a grand luncheon, and still grander reception, in Goldsmiths' Hall, London. The Hall itself dates from the 1830s, but its origins go back to the Middle Ages; and the dining hall where the receptionwas held - columned in marble, glittering with gold leaf - is one of the fi nest rooms in London. The luncheon, an annual event, was greatly enjoyed by the invited members (with their guests) of the Alexander Nowell circle: lumni who had decided to remember BNC in their wills.

But why Goldsmiths' Hall? Well, every year at BNC we drink to the health of one of our greatest benefactors, Joyce Frankland (1531-87).

Mrs Frankland was the daughter and heiress of Robert Trappes, who was twice in the 1520s Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths' Company. Most Brasenose people will be familiar with two portraits of ‘our Joyce' proudly carrying her favourite pocket watch: one in Hall and one in the Senior Common Room. But few will know the painting of her father, a rare panelportrait, hanging today in Goldsmiths' Hall. When she died in 1587, Mrs Frankland had been twice widowed. She was also childless; her only son died young. So her life was not happy; her motto was ‘suffer and serve'. But the Trappes family came from Lancashire - prime Brasenose territory - and the executor of her will was a very Brasenose Lancastrian, Alexander Nowell. At Nowell's suggestion she resolved ‘in lieu of her most loving son to rayse and begett unto her selfe in virtue and learnyng manye Children' (ie the future students of Brasenose). So how much did she leave us? Her capital endowment of the College totalled £1,840. That would be many millions today. For example, it included the freeholds of Nos. 39-53 Kensington High Street. Would that we owned them still!