Cambridge student clock prank solved nearly 100 years later

A large clock hand stolen in a student prank has been returned to a university after almost a century.

Geoffrey Hunter Baker and an unknown undergraduate student replaced the hands of the chapel clock at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, with cardboard replicas one night in the 1930s.

“These worked very well until it rained,” said his daughter Trixie Baker who inherited the hour hand from her father when he died in 1999.

Late last year she returned it and the hand now sits in the College Archive.

College archivist James Cox said: “Learning of student escapades is part of the College’s long and varied history.

“While we don’t encourage students to take part in such pranks, I am happy to learn about them years later, when no-one has been hurt and no permanent damage has been done – and they’ve graduated!”

In 1958, engineering students placed an Austin Seven van on the roof of Senate House, Cambridge University’s ceremonial building where graduation ceremonies take place.

The College replaced the hands as the pranksters had kept one each.

Mr Baker started as a modern languages student at Gonville and Caius in 1934 and graduated in 1937, with the prank happening during this time.

Anybody with information regarding the still missing minute hand has been asked to contact the College Archive.