Masculinity, identity and culture: Male undergraduate life at Oxford and Cambridge, 1850-1920

This dissertation explores the formation of elite status and nude gender identities in nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain. As an analysis of male student culture at Oxford and Cambridge between the years 1850 and 1920, a period during which these reformed and increasingly 'modern' universities seemed to count most in the production of a national elite, it attempts to describe the world-views of young men who went on to lead the nation and the empire.; Each substantive chapter addresses a particular feature of student life by analyzing the various representations of undergraduate experiences which appeared in 192 student magazines from this period. The themes explored in these chapters include definitions of the university and the undergraduate which reinforced ideas about the 'superiority' of university men and the creation of masculine space and culture; the transition from boyhood to manhood; institutional discipline; examinations and the relationship between these academic "trials", masculine identities and professional status; and the social rituals associated with the intercollegiate boat races. A final chapter explores some of the ways in which undergraduates responded to the presence of new groups, most notably foreign students and women, in the universities after 1870.; This dissertation establishes three central arguments. Firstly, it describes how the years between 1850 and 1920 represented a period of coalescence during which the traditions and rituals of student life, no matter how recently "invented", came to be accepted as time-honored. It also illustrates the ways in which elite status was formulated and perpetuated through particular cultural forms and practices which helped, for example, to define the universities as unique "little worlds" in which Britain's "best and brightest" were trained for the future. Finally, this study points to the ways in which this elite status, for young 'Oxbridge' men, was gendered specifically as male. The transformation which undergraduates experienced within the university was as much about assuming the mantle of manhood and acquiring a class-specific sense of male gender identity as it was about preparing for a life of leadership and public service. These upper middle-class conceptions of masculinity also intersected with prevailing racial, national, ethnic and sexual identities.