Every year visitors to Cambridge are puzzled by the same thing. The city is full of posters for May Balls, and everybody talks about May Week, yet the balls are held in June, and May Week itself lasts more than a week. The answer lies on the river.
In the early nineteenth century the college boat clubs raced each other every May, in the weeks just before the summer exams. Winning crews celebrated, and the celebrations grew. In 1838 the First and Third Trinity Boat Club marked a famous win with a party, and in 1866 Trinity held the first official May Ball in its grounds. Other colleges soon followed.
The year the races moved
Then, in 1882, the May races were moved to June, after the exams, and the balls, garden parties and concerts moved with them. Nobody saw any reason to rename anything. So the races are still the May Bumps, the parties are still May Balls, and May Week, which now usually begins in the second week of June, is still May Week.
A party that outgrew its month, and kept its name anyway.
Until the sun comes up
Today the balls are some of the most elaborate parties in Britain. Tickets often sell out months ahead. Guests arrive in black tie or white tie at around nine in the evening, and the colleges are transformed with music stages, fairground rides, food stalls and fireworks over the river. Some colleges hold a less formal and less expensive June Event instead, or alternate between the two.
The real test comes at dawn. At around six in the morning, those who have lasted the night gather on the lawn for the Survivors’ Photograph, crumpled and triumphant. Some then take a punt upriver to Grantchester for breakfast, where this collection of Cambridge stories began.
[Fact-check before publishing: dates and details.]