Crime and criminality: police reports in the Archive

Student hijinks, excessive merry-making and general rowdiness appears to be an age-old problem in Cambridge. The University even created its own 'police' to deal with the issue. The Cambridge University Constabulary, commonly known as 'bulldogs', walk the beat of the University's precincts. The University was granted the power to appoint constables in the Universities Act of 1825; which makes the 'bulldogs' one of the oldest police forces in the UK. The University constables routinely patrolled  the streets of Cambridge within 3 miles of Great St Mary's Church  and Madingley Hall until the 1960s. Today, the constables are more apt to deal with internal affairs and leave policing to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

Somehow the three students below managed to fall foul of the local bobby rather than the University bulldog.

                                                                  Police report for fire in College (1901)

                Student arrested for extinguishing                                     Student wanted for parking too long
                          street lamp (1905)                                                             on King's Parade (1957)

This Special Collections Spotlight article was contributed on 31 March 2015 by the Archivist.