Sidney Sussex College have made an urgent appeal for the return of a garden chair that went missing from the master’s terrace, reveals an email seen by Varsity.

The dean of discipline, Dr Bernhard Fulda theorised the theft had been conducted by a “raiding party” of non-Sidney students.

The dean had made this assumption due to their “high regard of Sidney students’ intelligence (and their risk management skills)”.

The hypothesis is inspired by an apparent “time-honoured tradition, carried this off as a kind of trophy,” with the dean suggesting that members of Christ’s may be the guilty party. Despite these accusations, Sidney held firm their commitment to “innocence until proven guilty.”

In the plea for the return of the chair, the email has asked for “all members of our community to rally round, and to restore College honour by giving the dean hints as to where this chair might be located.”

They followed by asking students to “try to remember whether you saw anyone carrying a wooden chair around one of these nights...even for Cambridge standards that would be a little on the odd side. Just hit the reply button now, and leave it to me. No names shall be named.”

The dean said he will “need to recalibrate my assumptions” about the intelligence of those who do not act to return the chair’s despite knowing their whereabouts.

Amongst fears for the fate of the missing chair, the dean also shared less important concerns about noise at the college.

Missing chairs are just one recent example of a potentially eight hundred year old tradition, in which rival colleges, groups and societies are renowned for stealing items of importance. From a trend last year that involved a competition to steal and return the King’s College sign in one night, culminating with a final image of the sign on a boat sailing across the English Channel. Last term, a hoax surrounding the famous Jesus College horse was sent to all undergraduates, with many believing it had been stolen.