Communists, students and the rag of 1929
Centenary duel, 1929Despite these warnings King's students evidently drew encouragement from the broadly tolerant response of the authorities, in their centenary year.
King's men and women ambushed a representative of the Miners' Federation with stink bombs and in 1929 a Communist Party speaker was the victim of a makeshift sulphur bomb that exploded during a lecture.
The editorial in the Morning Post in response professed shock at the antics of the younger generation and The Northern Despatch thundered its disapprobation in a headline proclaiming 'The Out of Date Rag'.
The victim was himself sanguine at his treatment but warned, perhaps rather ominously, that 'the workers will draw their own conclusions'.
The rag of 1929
University College statue
Reggie at the sports groundThe sports' ground at Mitcham became the scene of a rag between University College and King's in December 1929 when rival groups hurled rotten fruit and vegetables from lorries and accompanied, as one report described, by 'weird noises produced by a jazz band of King's College girls'.
The encounter followed a secret operation the previous night when King's students had infiltrated the University College grounds and tarred and feathered one of the statues in front of the entrance.
In this exhibition
- Origins and mascots
- The heyday of the rag
- The 1920s
- The great rag of 1922
- 1927, students storm University College
- Communists, students and the rag of 1929
- A close, trunk call, 1931
- Women and the Rag
- Later rags