Meanwhile, the crying need of proper kitchen and table furnishings induced “Mr. Bridges, Mr. Greenhill, and Mr. Glover” to present “utensils to the value of £20 stg.” in 1642.[1] But in 1655 the Corporation begged the General Court to make “provision of utensils wanting in kitchen and buttery, and accommodations for the scholars tables’’—an appeal considered too trivial to require an answer. The gaps were apparently filled by odds and ends of outfit which the boys themselves supplied and cared for, since the Steward and the cook were formally declared not “bound to keep or cleanse any particular scholar’s spoons, cups, or such like, but at their own discretion.” It was a hundred years after the foundation before the Overseers recommended that (pewter) plates, to be “scoured twice a quarter,” should be furnished at the charge of the College, also “suitable” table-cloths, “clean twice a week.” The latter proved a great convenience. Timothy Pickering of 1763 records how “every scholar carried to the dining-table his own knife and fork, and, when he had dined, wiped them on the table-cloth.”[2] This engaging custom arose from the almost total absence of napkins. A few dozen of such sybaritic luxuries were kept with the “Commencement
