GRAY'S INN		THE INTERIOR The magnificent screen that runs the width of the west end of the Hall is of Spanish chestnut and according to tradition it comes from one of the galleons of the Armada, 1588. A jury of amateur historians may like to consider the facts: that the Lord High Admiral of the English fleet was Howard of Effingham, a member of the Society, that the Queen was a great friend of the Society, that of the Armada ships wrecked on the English coast, one, Nuestra Senora del Rosario, was towed to Chatham and that it was large enough to have contained a screen of this size. The screen was saved in the nick of time from the incendiary bombs in 1941. Although the pictures and other valuables had been moved to safety out of London at the beginning of the war, the screen at first remained. Plans were made, however, to saw it in sections and remove it piecemeal. Only some of the sections had been taken out of the Hall when the attack came but through the gallant efforts of fire wardens the remaining sections were towed on to the lawn before the fire spread. The screen is in three parts divided by six Corinthian columns. The middle section rests on a raised block and is topped by a capital, giving slight extra height. On the block may be seen a charred hole made by a drop of molten lead when the roof was burning during the air raid. In front of it is the cash desk where members of the Inn, having satisfied their hunger and written out their own bills, satisfy the cashier. Behind the screen are the passages to the kitchens and an old stone archway which is thought to be the original entrance to the de Grey's banqueting chamber. The plaques in the panelling around the Hall display the arms of each Treasurer of the Inn since 1775. The wooden lozenges are original, having been removed to safety during the war. Much fine heraldic glass was also preserved and replaced. The north oriel window contains the arms of Sir William Gascoigne, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who figures in Shakespeare's Henry IV. The Hall is overlooked by the great Parliament Clock. Not many of this type survive, in working order. They derive their name from a tax levied on clocks in the eighteenth century which caused many owners to discard their own timepieces and rely on such large clocks specially made and erected in taverns and public places. By the south oriel window is a bust of Winston Churchill by Epstein. It was in this Hall that Churchill first met Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom became honorary Benchers of the Society. The portraits on the wall behind the high table, where the Benchers lunch and dine, are of Queen Elizabeth I, painted in her twenty-eighth year by an unknown artist, Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Christopher Yelverton, and on her right William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, greatest of her ministers, Sir Nicholas Bacon, her Lord Chancellor, and Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State and brilliant head of her secret service. Around the Hall are other portraits of famous members of the Inn. In the reign of Elizabeth I and for long after the Hall was famous for revelries, plays and masques. John Evelyn, the seventeenth-century diarist, gives a long account, and they were last recorded in the year 1773. On occasions, too, the four Inns staged 'command performances' at Whitehall Palace, which was the residence of the sovereign until 1688. There is an old tradition that in order to settle a squabble as to the order of precedence of their carriages the names were put into a hat and Gray's Inn was drawn out first, and Gray's Inn members like to think that the priority thus accorded is a binding 'precedent'. The tradition, however, was evidently unknown to the publishers of the Law List for 1817 which printed Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple, and Gray's Inn in that order, and has done ever since. That is the accepted convention although it must be stressed that all the Inns are of equal status. F. E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, Treasurer in 1917, who did as much as any member to build up the Inn to its present stature and prosperity, expressed his own typically outspoken view that a Gray's Inn man was better than any other 'and no damned nonsense about "other things being equal"'. One other of the tens of thousands of Gray's men who have eaten dinners in this Hall deserves special mention. He was a Bencher named Joseph Ball and he had a fifteen-year-old nephew residing in the colony of Virginia, whom he dissuaded from his youthful intention of joining the British navy. The young man was called George Washington. eating DINNERS, CALL NIGHTS, GRAND NIGHTS and all that 'Man wants but little drink below, But wants that little strong' once spake Oliver Wendell Holmes (in a parody of Goldsmith, entitled A Song of Other Days), and this leads us to the custom of Eating Dinners. The Hall is the centre of the collegiate life of the Inn. Luncheon is served during the law sittings and is attended by members of the Inn within ambit. Those who have been in Court in the morning may be seen still wearing their bands and will hurry back to their case after a quick meal. The Hall is used for business and social meetings of various sections of the Bar and for receptions and entertainments of sundry kinds such as concerts and theatrical performances. But it is dining in Hall that constitutes the most significant feature of the Inn's social life. During each of the four law sittings in the year there is a period of three weeks known as dining term, when there are dinners every night. Any member of the Inn may attend, including students. All Bar students, indeed, have to 'keep terms' by dining in the Hall of their Inn twenty-four times before they are called to the Bar. The requirements are the same for all Inns but dining customs differ somewhat from Inn to Inn. Members dine in messes of four, two on each side of the table, and each mess may choose its wine. Barristers are entitled to sherry or port as well as wine, whereas students must make do with just wine Ancient courtesies attend its drinking. The members of the mess drink to the health of each other and then collectively to the mess below them, saying 'Gentlemen' (or 'Members' if there is a lady among them) 'of the lower mess' adding their names. The lower mess then returns the compliment. Breach of the custom may involve a charge being brought by one mess or a member of it against the miscreant. The charge is heard after dinner by the senior barrister in Hall, 'Mr Senior', who convenes a court for the trial. If the charge is proved the traditional fine is a bottle of port, although with the present rate of excise duty it may be commuted to a lesser penalty. The trials of these and other alleged breaches of ritual are often hilarious. Mr Senior may also be called upon to exercise his authority during the meal. A young member may rise in his place and when all eyes are silently fixed on him he will solemnly enquire whether the Benchers at the high table are being served with the same bill of fare as his own, whereupon Mr Senior will sternly admonish him with the words: 'Young fellow, your nostrils may lead you to the pinnacle of your profession but your tongue will not'. The proceedings often continue late into the evening, with debates (Gray's Inn has a renowned debating society) - and with eminent guest speakers, readings, and mock trials or moots. These are an echo of the days when the Bar student's entire education took place in the Hall of his Inn. An important occasion in each dining term, normally the twenty-first day, is Call Night. The students to be called to the Bar don a barrister's gown over evening dress. Each in turn comes before the Treasurer who formally admits him as a barrister member of the Society and shakes his hand. After dinner the Benchers drink the health of the new barristers and retire to their own quarters. After their departure Mr Senior again proposes their health and each is supposed to make a speech in reply, but by tradition each is shouted down, by 'expert witnesses. Once a term, also, there is Grand Night, when the Inn entertains distinguished guests. They are announced by name and conducted into the Hall by the Head Porter who keeps his eye on them and the refreshment. The Benchers and their guests mingle wit members of Hall on their benches while the loving cup is circulated. After dinner, at which the guests sit with the Benchers at the high table, the loving cup again circulated and, starting with Master Treasurer every one in turn drinks from it 'to the pious glorious and immortal memory of Good Queen Bess. Afterwards the toast to Her Majesty is roundly proposed by Mr Senior and healths are drunk to other members of the Royal Family and to the students. - student then proposes the health of the barrister and finally all drink to 'Domus' - 'The House', but are not drunk on the house.