41. Two 22nd Decembers: Merry Christmasses at Bradford Technical College

Two seasonal favourites, among the rare surviving materials about student life in the Bradford Technical College Archive: programmes for events organised by the Students’ Union, thirteen years apart, both on the 22nd December.

The first happened in 1903: an annual social evening, featuring musical selections, dancing and sleight of hand tricks plus, tantalisingly, “&c &c”.  This single sheet has survived because it was bound with the student magazine The Collegian.

The other is  an Entertainment of Convalescent Soldiers in 1916.  We have the complete programme, so we can reconstruct the day: see the middle pages and the back cover on our flickr stream.

The Entertainment combined promotion of the cutting edge technological facilities at the College and jolly treats.  There were visits to the newish departments we saw earlier on and demonstrations of the production and properties of “liquid air” i.e. air which has been cooled until it is liquid.  The demos showed the “effect of great cold on common objects: flowers, beefsteak, rubber, whisky, grapes, egg, mercury and metals”.  There was also a humourist, a ventriloquist, a cinematograph, and plenty of music.

We’ll be looking at more recent student activities in several of next year’s Objects, so please do come back and see us then.  We would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2012!