If Commander Crofton’s annual Christmas letters in the 1930s helped foster a sense of identity among members (contemporary and former) of the newly formed Dominion Students’ Hall Trust in London, then the publication of the first issue of London House Magazine in 1947 was the sign of an institution that, having weathered the storm of World War II, was ready to drop anchor. ‘It is the intention to publish one copy per year until we are sure of the response,’ the editor wrote, ‘and then to increase to half-yearly issues … the main aim of this, the first attempt, is to wish all old Residents the very best of good fortune and to assure them that they will be very welcome here at London House at any time in the future.’
The response was clearly steady and enthusiastic, for although it was many years before the College magazines or newsletters became bi-annual, they have appeared, uninterrupted, for well over six decades since those words were written. What is more, they have been enormously successful; anyone in search of a compressed but vivid view of life at the College over that period will find no better place to start than these publications.
Destined for readers across the British Dominions (and, later, much beyond) in the form of alumni and
well-wishers, the Magazine settled early into a consistent format, with few changes until the early 1960s. Set in an elegant Garamond typeface, enlivened by pretty line drawings and witty cartoons, all on paper of a healthy thickness, it looked every inch the widely circulated publication it was.
The Magazine (later names reflected changes in the Trust: first London House and William Goodenough House Magazine, and then Journal of the London House and William Goodenough House Fellowship) looked increasingly professional over the years, reaching an impressive 88 pages in 1962. But by the mid-1970s, the ‘long boom’ over, it was succeeded by News (to be published twice a year), a leaflet dense with print, varying usually between four and eight pages long.
News acknowledged the old publication’s popularity, but noted that it would be not only ‘in keeping with the times to produce something briefer and more succinct’, but also ‘more in accord with present-day economic conditions’. The more ‘succinct’ format lasted through the 1980s – for some years alongside less sedate rags run by the students of each House. In 1995 the newsletter became The London Goodenough News; in June 2004, Goodenough News. It continues to be published twice a year under this last name.
