Note 176 — VIII. LINCOLN COLLEGE.

The barber’s duties were at first to supply the clean shave, the tonsure, and the close crop which became “clerks.” In later ages more extravagant fashions in hair added to his labour. At the close of the eighteenth century he had to dress for dinner the heads of all the College in the pomp of powder and the vanity of queue. Beginning about noon with the junior Commoner, he concluded with the senior Fellow on the stroke of three, when the bell rang for dinner. The higher, therefore, you were in College standing, the longer was the time available for your morning walk, and the ampler the gossip of the day with which you were entertained.