Criminal activity regularly appears in the pages of 1950s issues of Varsity. In typical Cambridge fashion, this nefarious conduct is frequently tied to inter-collegiate rivalry and bike theft. Whether they are attempting to pull the hood over colleges or the police, these mid-20th-century undergraduates seem to be relentlessly embroiled in misdeeds.

In 1953, Varsity exposed the tale of an Emmanuel “hoaxer” who had attended a dinner at Selwyn College after almost securing himself a position on their JCR committee in a recent election. Upon recognising him, an ordinand exclaimed :“They always return to the scene of their crime. Let’s do him!” Indeed, this fraudster did not escape unscathed; he was escorted to the JCR with chants of “We want blood” before being forced to “discard his clothes except for shirt and tie and, so that he should not be academically naked, his gown”. Later that night he was spotted “fleeing down Petty Curry still without his trousers”.

“In typical Cambridge fashion, this nefarious conduct is frequently tied to inter-collegiate rivalry and bike theft”

Downing College was ensnared in a “cloak and dagger” blackmail plot after three college shields were stolen from the back gates. A May 1954 Varsity reporter reveals his own involvement in an attempted blackmail scheme after being stopped in the street by a Pembroke student. This Pembroke informant told the reporter that a Downing student had returned the first shield to the Bursar when he discovered it on a Pembroke mantelpiece. The anonymous informant met the reporter that night for an illicit meeting in a cafe to hand over a “heavy brown paper packet” - the second shield - and the message that he would return the third shield if the College donated to the University Tuberculosis Fund. Despite this Robin Hood-inspired strategy, the Downing Bursar refused to cooperate with this blackmail and warned that the informant would be liable to imprisonment if he refused to return the third shield. Another parcel was soon found in the reporter’s desk drawer.

Theft of college shields was not a one-off occurrence. In April 1952, a Christ’s student stole a Lincoln College shield from an Oxford hotel following a rugby victory. The hotel later received a letter in which he apologised for his “irresponsible hooliganism”.

Early 1950s Varsity also details a plethora of student misdemeanours in the city. For example, in May 1954 a Caius student pleaded not guilty to stealing a bike from Senate House Passage. Although he was acquitted and merely fined ten shillings for cycling without a rear light, a spokesman at the Guildhall noted that this incident “thr[ew] light on the large scale of cycle offences among undergraduates”. Likewise, in January 1954 a St John’s student was accused on stealing a bike belonging to a Girton student, however the magistrate decided that it was simply a “case of borrowing, and that as it happened last term could now well be dropped”. Bike-related criminal activity seemingly peaked in May 1954 when 40 undergraduates were found guilty of cycling over the Chesterton footbridge during the Lent Races. Upon being told by Police that she would be summoned, one student retorted “what a delightful occupation you have”.

It was not just the students themselves who were carrying out unlawful schemes. Nowadays, you might wince watching someone leave their entire Apple ecosystem on display in a cafe to go to the bathroom; back in the 1950s, however, Cambridge students were hesitating before leaving their typewriters unguarded and exposed. In October 1953, Varsity revealed the theft of two typewriters from a Trinity student’s rooms after he had advertised a 1917 American Corona for £10 in Varsity. A Good Companion typewriter which was stolen from Emmanuel the previous summer had been traced to London, and it was the belief that a man travelled to Cambridge at the weekends to “roam colleges” and “steal goods from undergraduates’ rooms”. A Trinity porter told Varsity “I’d like to get my ’ands on ’im and ’e wouldn’t do it again”.

November 1953 saw another case of someone entering university grounds in order to burgle students. Varsity announced that a wallet thief pleaded guilty to charges of stealing, and he confessed to a detective that he had spent the winter term taking money from sports pavilions during matches and the summer term stealing wallets from college boat houses.