A decorative plate has been returned to Gonville and Caius College 115 years after it was stolen.

The item was returned by a family friend of Gordon Stewart Wimbush, the student who originally stole the plate.

This comes just a couple of months after an old summer school student returned their room key to Caius 40 years after they left.

Ironically, Winbush was studying law at Caius, along with history, matriculating in 1908. He later served in World War One and married his wife, Ruth.

The plate stayed with Ruth and Gordon when they moved to Coventry, but it later became the property of Yvonne Browne, a neighbour and family friend, in the 1960s.

Yvonne was then in her 20s, but now aged 85, she returned the plate to Gonville and Caius College, expressing: “I gladly return the plate to its proper home in their memory,” referring to Ruth and Gordon.

She still thinks fondly of the couple, telling Gonville and Caius: “They were the grandparents I never had – all mine had died before I was born – as well as the portal to another age, the key to a way of life now defunct but excitingly brought to life in the many anecdotes and family stories they used to tell.

“I know Gordon would have been happy for me to have [the plate], as I had been like a daughter to them.

“I look back with gratitude, as well as fondness, for the opportunity to have been in touch with these wonderful people – Edwardians to the core – with their kindness, gentle manners and refined ways.”

The Gonville and Caius website joked: “Although students have been known to ‘pinch’ items of crockery and cutlery from College meals as souvenirs, this plate, decorated with a view of Caius Court on its front and the imprint ‘CAIUS COLL. KITCHENS’ on its back, has a longer and more touching history than most.”

The plate has now been given to the Caius Archive, where it will remain as evidence of what College Archivist James Cox called “a fabulous story”.