Student life in Cambridge may initially fall short of many people’s dark academia expectations. Modernity is woven into the fabric of the city, and by extension, into our lives; whether that is in the form of the fluorescent light spilling out of a Sainsbury’s, or a less than elegant stagger home from a Wednesday Revs. However, upon perusing Varsity print editions past, it became increasingly clear that the spectre of secret societies shaped in the mold of a Donna Tartt novel still haunts the recent history of Cambridge.

“The small intellectual aristocracy of Cambridge”

One such secret society is the Apostles. “There was, in the air of Cambridge, in the spring of the nineteenth century,” writes Frances Brookfield in The Cambridge “Apostles”, “a spirit of intellectual freemasonry, a tendency of bright wits to recognise each other […] the most important, distinguished and lasting result of this gregarious tendency [was] the constitution of a fellowship commonly known by its cant name of The Apostles.”

Founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson as a secret discussion group, the Apostles started off as a group of twelve, a number reflective of their name. Brookfield notes that, “the friendship that existed between a certain set of undergraduates at St. John’s in the year 1820 - men of high promise and higher hopes- undoubtedly led to the forming of this distinguished Society.” Members were primarily from the colleges of Christ’s, St John’s, Jesus, Trinity, and King’s, generally undergraduates, sometimes postgraduates or staff and never women (until 1970). Each Saturday evening, a member would present a paper, sparking debate over philosophy, religion, politics or art.

“A spirit of intellectual freemasonry”

Though its origins lay in the evangelical Anglican milieu (Tomlinson himself would become Bishop of Gibraltar), the Apostles drifted from purely religious inquiry to questions of ethics, politics and art. And they took it seriously: Alfred Tennyson, being “too lethargic to have his essay prepared when his turn came and it was demanded of him, was asked to resign” from the Society. His essay subject was “Ghosts”.

Secrecy seems to rank higher for the Apostles than intellectual honesty. An apostle writing to Richard Deacon said that “there were good reasons for keeping silent and secretive. The motives of those wishing to know the membership list are not always pure.”

Their obsession with secrecy would border on being dramatic: Micheal Straight, who became an Apostle in 1936, recounts his first meeting in Maynard Keynes’ room at King’s – “I held up my right hand and repeated a fearful oath, praying that my soul would writhe in unendurable pain for the rest of eternity if I so much as breathed a word about the Society to anyone who was not a member.”

The Society would eventually come into the news as a result of a cataclysmic scandal: the revelations between 1979 and 1982 that some members had been agents of the Soviet Union. The allegations led to scrutiny by the Security Services, with officers interviewing Apostolic suspects and taking statements from hundreds of prominent figures. Anthony Blunt, one of the spies, tried to win people over to his cause, according to Deacon, “never by doctrinal teaching, but much more by sheer charm, wit, or in some circumstances, homosexual seduction.” The usual.

“The Cambridge Heretics were born as a platform for “extraordinary, odd, eccentric, unpopular views””

The veneer of poise and elite standing provided cover for the Society member’s many eccentricities. Conflicts sometimes involved dramatic juvenile action; Tennyson’s son mentioned that he had a note of his father’s referring to an Apostolic meeting (which went on until after 2.a.m.) in which “Kemble got into a passion about nothing, and Thompson poured large quantities of salt upon Douglas Heath’s head because he talked nonsense.” Similarly, W. M. Thackeray had his nose broken by George Stovin Venables, a member during the 1830s.

“Progress springs from heresy”

Some Cambridge societies were controversial for other reasons. In December 1909, the Cambridge Heretics were born as a platform for “extraordinary, odd, eccentric, unpopular views,” as Eric Linfield commented in a Varsity article from 1950. The Heretics immediately positioned themselves as an alternative to the political and religious societies of the University. The approach was one of “distrust and questioning, particularly of religious doctrines, but not specifically anti anything.” Its heresy was put into action: students from Newnham were able to join from the outset, a level of inclusion that was near unthinkable at the time. However, Girton students were initially prevented by chaperonage rules. Honorary Fellow of Girton Ethel Sargant later stepped in, and the Heretics’ 100th meeting was a party at her home.

By the 1930s, their membership exceeded 200, a number that grew as the committee devised strategies to increase membership: pamphlets were distributed and a programme of “big name” speakers was drawn up; Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Rupert Brooke, G. E. Moore, George Bernard Shaw, Rebecca West, Eileen Power, Roger Fry, and Ludwig Wittgenstein were just some of the luminaries who presented papers to the Heretics between 1909–32.

The secret (and not-so-secret) societies of Cambridge are a part of its mythos; relics of an age bygone and representative of the elite who pride themselves on their exclusivity. As Deacon puts it – “this élitism and secrecy is only a reflection of what has long been a British disease – a compulsive desire to be secretive.” Whether they puzzle, intrigue or offend, secret societies seem here to stay.