YOUR starter for 10 on University Challenge: what links poet John Milton, explorer Sir Richard Burton and playwright Oscar Wilde? The answer? All three were rusticated. To the uninitiated, that may sound like something to make a chap’s eyes water, but, in fact, it’s the practice at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham Universities of temporarily suspending students, banning them from all facilities and sending them out—as the name suggests—‘into the countryside’. Rustication is a lesser punishment than being ‘sent down’ (straight expulsion), but both are fates suffered by students who went on to achieve fame or notoriety—and, in some cases, both.
Today, an intemperate outburst on social media might be enough to see a student handed their wellies and a stout stick, but, in the past, university authorities took a more attitude to discipline. There was toleration of a good deal of horseplay, sometimes quite literally involving horses—leaving a nag
