Goats Club

The Goats Club, established in October 1956, was the foreign students club of the University of London. It was the first international, inter-collegiate club to have been established in the university. The aim of the founder Mary Trevelyan, adviser to overseas students at the University, was to try to give overseas and British students more opportunities to meet each other. The club ran on Tuesday evenings in term time,[1] and is mentioned in the memoirs of many Commonwealth students who studied in London in the 1950s and 1960s and later became important figures in their own countries.

The name Goats Club came from a comment by an African student who said to Miss Trevelyan "Oh, we thought you were dead! Without you we should all have been lost goats!"[2]

The president of the club for a period was Hugh FitzRoy, 11th Duke of Grafton, and Peter Comyns, warden of Zebra House, was heavily involved in organising activities.[3] Mary Trevelyan retired in 1967, and the importance of the club declined in the 1970s as more and more foreign students attended the University and college-by-college activities developed.

References

  1. ↑ Timothy W. Leggatt New Commonwealth students in Britain - Political and Economic Planning, 1965 Page 171 "It is worth giving a special mention to an experiment made by Miss Mary Trevelyan, adviser to overseas students at the University of ... The Goats Club, established in October 1956, was the first international, inter-collegiate club to have been established in the university. Its primary aim was to try to give overseas and British students more opportunities to meet each other and to get to know more of each other. The club meets every Tuesday evening in term. Apart from some assistance from the Overseas ...."
  2. ↑ Commonwealth journal - Volumes 4-5 - 1961 Page 130 "THE GOATS' CLUB is said to owe its name to an African student who, meeting Miss Trevelyan by chance, exclaimed: "“Oh, we thought you were dead! Without you we should all have been lost goats!"
  3. ↑ Richard Hughes Capricorn: David Stirling's African Campaign p251 "The close links between Cheval Place and International Students House (ISH) was maintained not only through the involvement of Comyns and Kenyon in the Goats' Club but also because Lewis was a friend of Lord Dulverton's younger ..."
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