King's College London and UCL Rivalry - Student Rags

Student Rags

Student Rags were manifestations of the rivalry between the two institutions and first became popular in the late nineteenth century. Student rags often featured cross-dressing and processions that mirrored official celebrations as a way of challenging authority whilst raising money for charity. Rags were "colourful, subversive, and occasionally dangerous" for both participants and bystanders and reached their height between the two World Wars. A long-running campaign of the Rags were the attempts to capture each other's mascots. Running battles were supposedly brought to an end by the College's authorities in the first half of the twentieth century, but rivalry amongst the University of London's Colleges continues to this day.

Early student social activity in London tended to be quite serious and worthy in its expression, characterised by programmes of lectures, debates and sporting fixtures. However, this began to change by the 1890s, which witnessed boisterous 'Town and Gown' antics by students which continued into Edwardian times.

The first real rag at King's occurred in 1912. Angry student anti-vivisectionists complained that a small dog had been vivisected repeatedly and unnecessarily and erected a statue of the animal in Battersea Park. Indignant students from London medical schools quickly moved to destroy the statue, in the course of which a struggle took place with police and some students arrested and fined. They later reconvened in the King's quad with an effigy of the offending magistrate that was set on fire and thrown into the river.

The First World War for some constituted a cultural watershed in attitudes to established authority. Many members of staff and students of British universities saw active service and the experience of the veteran undoubtedly influenced the progress of the student rag after the war. The rags of the 1920s were well attended and often organised with military precision. They received considerable press coverage not least for their impact on local communities

Edith Summerskill, medical student at King's in the 1920s and later Minister of National Insurance, reflecting on the contrast between the informal behaviour of her contemporaries with the more serious post-1945 student, observed that, 'We were all too busy relaxing after the war, gayer, more high spirited and after a good time', going on to suggest that 'the 1914-18 war was far more terrible than this last war ... consequently the reaction after the war was more marked'.