‘Tea and Kippers’

Abstract

‘Ma’ Francis spent half a century cooking for and generally looking after Birkbeck staff and students. Ma’ Francis joined the staff in the College’s Fetter Lane refectory in 1896, when she was 30 years old. She left fifty years later when she was 80. People like ‘Ma’ Francis are the often forgotten yet essential workers who sustain university life. The refectory, bar, and common rooms at Birkbeck have been at the centre of the College’s social life. As late as the early 2000s, it was routine (indeed, in some departments, expected) for lecturers to join their students after class for a beer or glass of wine after classes ended at 9 p.m. The more informal debates about academic issues that took place in the bar were believed to bolster student learning. Scholarship was also enhanced by conversations with colleagues over a cup of coffee or glass of wine or whiskey.