1958: Felled by a cabbage, thrown by ‘rowdy’ students

THE previous day, students had merrily thrown toilet rolls (“perforated paper”, in the delicate words of the British Pathé newsreel narrator) and tomatoes when actor James Robertson Justice was installed as rector of Edinburgh University. But that was as nothing compared to the installation, at the St Andrew’s Halls on October 21, 1958, of Home Secretary RA Butler as Glasgow’s rector. Even before the ceremony, it had been rowdy. Students shimmied up ropes on to the balcony, where a skiffle group was playing loudly. Fireworks were set off, and whistles and horns sounded. It was evidently going to be messy: one student wore an army steel helmet and a camouflaged waterproof cape.

The arrival of Butler and the platform party was the signal for “scenes of wild disorder.” They were pelted with flour, eggs and tomatoes, and sprayed with the contents of a fire extinguisher. A bag of flour struck Butler in the face. Five guests walked off, but Butler stayed on. Pressmen were picked on, too, and a photographer (above) was briefly knocked out when he was hit by a large cabbage. In Berkeley Street four students were detained after a policeman was pushed through a plate-glass window (he escaped with only a shoulder injury). Among the expressions later used by university dignitaries to describe the students: “hooligans” and “morons with neither wit nor humour”.

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