From the beginning the governors were anxious to ensure that residents had not only the space to live and study but also the opportunity to make lasting contacts, professional and social.
The London House Ladies’ Group, with Maeve Goodenough as chair and the Duchess of Gloucester as a very active president,
arranged holiday and weekend invitations to country houses at which, after Sunday afternoon tennis and tea, one dressed (black tie) for Sunday dinner. But the residents of Goodenough College and its predecessors have never been slow to make such contacts themselves.
At one of the weekly tea parties hosted by the Croftons, William Beveridge, then professor at the London School of Economics, was invited to look at a typical resident’s room – and why not that of his temporary colleague Joe Culliton? The guests trooped in to find Culliton in his dress suit, fast asleep on the bed, white tie loosened, top hat on the floor, sleeping off a very good party.
