Along with Christ's, Jesus, King's and St John's colleges, it has provided several well-known members of the Cambridge Apostles, an intellectual secret society.

Nevile's building campaign drove the college into debt from which it surfaced only in the 1640s, and the Mastership of Richard Bentley adversely affected applications and finances.

[11] Bentley himself was notorious for the construction of a hugely expensive staircase in the Master's Lodge and for his repeated refusals to step down despite pleas from the Fellows.

[15] The college owns: In 2018, Trinity revealed that it had investments totalling £9.1 million in companies involved in oil and gas production, exploration and refinement.

In 1983, Trinity College undergraduate Lance Anisfeld, then Vice-President of CURLS (Cambridge Union Raving Loony Society), replaced the chair leg with a bicycle pump.

The original chair leg was auctioned off by TV Presenter Chris Serle at a Cambridge Union Society charity raffle in 1985.

[28] Great Court (built 1599–1608) was the brainchild of Thomas Nevile, who demolished several existing buildings on this site, including almost the entirety of the former college of Michaelhouse.

Among its notable possessions are two of Shakespeare's First Folios, a 14th-century manuscript of The Vision of Piers Plowman, letters written by Sir Isaac Newton, and the Eadwine Psalter.

[29] Below the building are the pleasant Wren Library Cloisters, where students may enjoy a fine view of the Great Hall in front of them, and the river and Backs directly behind.

Usually invisible except in winter, when the leaves had fallen, such bicycles tended to remain for several years before being removed by the authorities.

Burrell's Field (built 1995, MJP Architects) is located on a site to the west of the main College buildings, opposite the Cambridge University Library.

In 2016, 45% of Trinity undergraduates achieved First Class Honours, twelve percentage points ahead of second place Pembroke – a record among Cambridge colleges.

[39] Trinity's history, academic performance and alumni have made it one of the most prestigious constituent colleges of the University, making admission extremely competitive.

Trinity states that it disregards what type of school its applicants attend, and accepts students solely on the basis of their academic prospects.

[45] It is widely believed that Sebastian Coe successfully completed the run when he beat Steve Cram in a charity race in October 1988.

The clock on that day took 44.4 seconds and the video film confirms that Coe was some 12 metres short of the finish line when the final stroke occurred.

The television commentators were wrong to speculate that the dying sounds of the bell could be included in the striking time, thereby allowing Coe's run to be claimed as successful.

One reason Olympic runners Cram and Coe found the challenge difficult is that they started at the middle of one side of the court, having to negotiate four right-angle turns.

[48] {{{annotations}}} One Sunday each June, the College Choir perform a short concert immediately after the clock strikes noon.

For the finale, John Wilbye's madrigal Draw on, sweet night, the raft is unmoored and punted downstream to give a fade out effect.

This is considered difficult; access to the Hall outside meal-times is prohibited and the rafters are dangerously high, so it was not attempted for several years.

It is often cited as the reason that the older courts of Trinity generally have no J staircases, despite including other letters in alphabetical order.

A far more likely reason is that the Latin alphabet did not have the letter J—the older courts of St John's College also lack J staircases.

Another story sometimes told is that the reason that the clock in Trinity Great Court strikes each hour twice is that the fellows of St John's once complained about the noise it made.

Each evening before dinner, grace is recited by the senior fellow presiding, as follows: Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua, quae de largitate tua sumus sumpturi, et concede, ut illis salubriter nutriti tibi debitum obsequium praestare valeamus, per Christum Dominum nostrum.

If both of the two high tables are in use then the following antiphonal formula is prefixed to the main grace: A. Oculi omnium in te sperant Domine: B.

[57] Trinity alumni include the father of the scientific method (or empiricism) Francis Bacon, six British prime ministers (the highest number of any Cambridge college), physicists Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr, mathematicians Srinivasa Ramanujan and Charles Babbage, poets Lord Byron and Lord Tennyson, English jurist Edward Coke, writers Vladimir Nabokov and A.

A. Milne, historians Lord Macaulay and G. M. Trevelyan and philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell (whom it expelled before reaccepting).

Royal family members that have studied at Trinity without obtaining degrees include Edward VII, George VI, and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.

[60] Other notable female Fellows include Anne Barton, Marilyn Strathern, Catherine Barnard, Lynn Gladden and Rebecca Fitzgerald.