Bluestockings
Page 23
4. Elizabeth Gordon MSS (G 2; 1928–32), St Hilda’s College Archives.
5. Hostel Expense Ledgers (1921), King’s College London Archives.
6. St Mary’s College Archives (Student Finance file, 1934), Durham.
7. Bird, Doves and Dons (unpaginated).
8. Freeman, op. cit., 8.
9. Ibid.
10. Author’s collection (Stenhouse).
11. Reports of University Hall (1908–9) (SPRC LUP.903. UNI(PC)), University of Liverpool Archives.
12. Author’s collection (Orr).
13. Lady Rolls MSS (1928–34), University of Hull Archives.
14. Author’s collection (Harding).
15. Ibid.
16. Alison Graham-Campbell MSS (1929–32), Newnham College Archives.
17. Susan Hicklin MSS (1930s), Somerville College Archives.
18. Durham University Journal, vol. XI (18 May 1895), University of Durham Library.
19. Brittain, Testament of Youth, 76.
20. May Wallas MSS (27 October 1917), Newnham College Archives.
21. Brittain, Chronicle of Youth, 118.
22. Author’s collection (Applebey).
23. University College London Magazine, vol. XVI (1938), 28–9, University College Library.
24. Author’s collection (Levens).
25. St Hilda’s College Archives; Margery Morton is a pseudonym.
26. Kathleen Courtney MSS (1897), Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University.
27. Author’s collection (Morgan).
28. Based on a diary in St Hilda’s College Archives (PP3); Rosemary Vickers is a pseudonym.
7. WOMEN’S SPHERE
1. Eileen Hare, Reminiscences (1932–5), Ashburne Hall Archives, Manchester.
2. From the University of Nottingham Annual Handbook (1915), quoted in Wood, A History of the University College Nottingham, 163.
3. Rathbone, ‘The Dales’, 74–5.
4. Quoted in The Girton Review, May 1929 (GCCP 2/1), Girton College Archives.
5. University Hall Fiftieth Anniversary (1952), 47 (SPEC R/ LF379.5.U.T94), University of Liverpool Archives.
6. Ibid.
7. Anonymous, ‘Memories’ (1899), courtesy of Queen Mary, University of London Archives.
8. Author’s collection (Stenhouse).
9. Ibid. (Beswick).
10. Kathleen Courtney MSS (1897), Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University.
11. Sarah Mason, Diaries (1878–82), private collection; extracts in Girton College Archives.
12. Women’s Debating Society Minutes (1879), University College London Archives.
13. Frances Elizabeth Sheldon MSS (1880–83), Somerville College Archives.
14. Author’s collection (Worthing).
15. Goode MSS (1911–14), University of Leeds Archives.
16. One can probably guess that ‘lekkers’ are lectures and ‘brekkers’ is breakfast, but a ‘wagger-pagger bagger’? A waste paper basket.
17. Petronella Snowball MSS (2002.0017; 1921–4), St Hilda’s College Archives.
18. Rathbone, op. cit., 79.
19. Freeman, Alma Mater, 19.
20. The Gryphon, 1902–3, 53, University of Leeds Library.
21. Kathleen Hobbs, quoted in Griffin (ed.), St Hugh’s, 107.
22. Article in The Star; undated cutting in a scrapbook, St Hilda’s College Archives.
23. Quoted in Bird, Doves and Dons (unpaginated).
24. Girl’s Own Paper, July 1882, 37.
25. Iris (university magazine), December 1887, University of Manchester Archives.
26. Author’s collection (Wilson).
27. The Times, 7 December 1920.
28. For a revealing treatment of the subject of women academics in British universities, see Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?
29. From a speech by Miss Arnold, the Headmistress of Truro High School in the 1890s, quoted in Deneke, Grace Hadow, 17.
30. Gemma Creighton MSS (1910), Lady Margaret Hall Archives.
31. Frances Sheldon MSS (1880–83), Somerville College Archives.
32. Anonymous reminiscence (early 1920s), St Hugh’s College Archives.
33. Elisabeth R. Bishop, Diaries (PP3; 1935–9), St Hilda’s College Archives.
34. Mary Fisher MSS (1931–5), Somerville College Archives.
35. Jane Worthington MSS (1893), Somerville College Archives.
36. Author’s collection (Beswick).
37. From a copy of the programme in the University of Birmingham Archives.
38. Author’s collection (Britton).
8. BLESSED WORK
1. A tutor’s advice on essay writing, from Sibyl Ruegg, ‘Extracts from a Diary’ (1911–12), Somerville College Archives.
2. Dorothy L. Sayers in an article, ‘Women at Oxford’, Daily News, 9 February 1927, quoted in Brabazon, Dorothy L. Sayers, 47.
3. Molly McNeill MSS (1916–17), St Hugh’s College Archives.
4. Maude Royden (1896) in Marking (ed.), Oxford Originals, 14.
5. Gertrude Bell (1868–1926) went on to become a distinguished Arabist, diplomat, traveller, and writer. Agnata Ramsay (1867–1931) abandoned scholarship for marriage the year after her triumph in Classics. Philippa Fawcett (1868–1948) had an impeccable pedigree, being the daughter of the suffragette Millicent Fawcett and a Cambridge professor, and the niece of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She went on to lecture in maths, and was eventually appointed principal assistant to London County Council’s Director of Education. Marie Stopes (1880–1958), after her appointment as lecturer in paleobotany at Manchester, found fame – or notoriety – as the author of Married Love (1918).
6. Author’s collection (Plant).
7. Hertha Marks writing from Cambridge to her sponsor Barbara Bodichon, in Sharp, Hertha Ayrton, 67.
8. Jane Worthington MSS (1893), Somerville College Archives.
9. Lettice Ilbert MSS (1894–7), Somerville College Archives.
10. Eglantyne Jebb MSS (1895–8), Lady Margaret Hall Archives.
11. Winifred Peck (1901) in Marking (ed.), op. cit., 23.
12. Author’s collection (Gaskell).
13. Ibid. (Stenhouse).
14. Rachel Lily Footman, ‘Memories of 1923–1926’, private collection and Somerville College Archives.
15. Elisabeth R. Bishop, Diaries (PP3; 1935–9), St Hilda’s College Archives.
16. Author’s collection (Bray).
17. Ibid. (Morris).
18. Ibid. (Britton).
19. Evans, Prelude and Fugue, 69–70.
20. Griffin (ed.), St Hugh’s, 69–70 (reminiscences of Dorothy Hammond, Ethel Wallace, Felicia Stallman, and Ina Brooksbank).
21. Florence Rich, Reminiscences (1884), Somerville College Archives.
22. Griffin (ed.), op cit., 94 (Renée Haynes).
23. Molly McNeill, op. cit.
24. Elizabeth Gibson, ‘Reminiscences’, Girton Review, May 1925, 2–11.
25. See Martha Vicinus’s article ‘One Life to Stand Beside Me’, 616, wherein Vicinus names our friend Constance Maynard as the Principal (of Westfield College, London) who occasionally – and medicinally – sleeps with her students.
26. For an intriguing discussion of relationships in early women’s colleges, see the note above.
27. Weetwood Hall Reports (1919–40), University of Leeds Archives.
28. Students’ Record Books (1897–1903), King’s College London Archives.
29. Taken from Defining Gender, 1450–1910 (online publication – see Select Bibliography), sourced from St Hilda’s College Archives (Student Record Books: BURR 022/1 (1898–1902) and BURR 022/2 (1902–10)).
30. Student Records (RHC/10/1; 1907–22), Royal Holloway College Archives.
31. The Mermaid, vol. 2 (1905–6), 115, University of Birmingham Library.
32. Durham University Journal, vol. XIII, no. 13 (13 May 1899), University of Durham Library.
33. Ina Brooksbank from St Hugh’s notes the number
of male students in a letter written at the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 1919 (St Hugh’s College Archives).
34. Author’s collection (name withheld).
35. The Gryphon, vol. XI (1907–8), 25, University of Leeds Library.
36. Firth, Constance Louisa Maynard, 116.
37. Freeman, Alma Mater, 102.
9. SPEAR FISHING AND OTHER PURSUITS
1. Joan Platt, Reminiscences (P 6; 1929–32), St Hilda’s College Archives.
2. Kathleen Courtney remembers diving while at Lady Margaret Hall in the late 1890s (Courtney Reminiscences, Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University); a motorcycling demonstration was held at Girton in 1919 (Winifred Trenholme, Reminiscences, Girton College Archives).
3. Several colleges had a ‘Sharp Practice’ club, which held impromptu debates at which everyone, with no notice of the motion, had to speak for three minutes. The Associated Prigs were earnest Somervillians who discussed matters of mutual interest. The LSDS, run from Newnham, was set up by Alison Hingston (she of the extraordinary scrapbook – see Introduction). Every Sunday a small group of women met in a hired room in Cambridge to talk, eat a meal they took turns to cook, roll their own cigarettes, and occasionally sit up all night.
4. Hermes, July 1894, 20–23, Westfield College Archives.
5. The Gryphon, vol. XV (1911–12), 36, University of Leeds Library.
6. Ibid., vol. II (1898), 4.
7. Author’s collection (Proud).
8. Marjorie Woodward, Reminiscences (1921–4), St Mary’s College Archives, Durham, quoted in Boyd, St Mary’s College, 177.
9. Quoted in Adams, Somerville for Women, 209–10.
10. Author’s collection (Wilde).
11. Campbell Davidson, Hints to Lady Travellers, 38.
12. Minute Books for the Women’s Union (1923, 1938), University of Manchester Archives.
13. Women’s Representative Council Record Book (1930–39), University of Leeds Archives.
14. Owen’s College Union Magazine (1898), 102.
15. The Mermaid, 3 (1906–7), 178, University of Birmingham Library.
16. ‘The Lords of the Camus’, composed by E. Wilson in 1887, ‘College Songs’ (GCRF 7/1/10), Girton College Archives.
17. The Gryphon, vol. X (1906–7), 64, University of Leeds Library.
18. Vice-Chancellor’s Letter Book (S.2338, p. 684, 29 November 1912), University of Liverpool Archives; see also Marij van Helmond, Votes for Women: The Events on Mersey-side 1870–1928 (1992), University of Liverpool Archives.
19. Anonymous inter-war reminiscence (Acc 129; 1923), Brasenose College Archives.
20. Jessie Greaves, Reminiscences (1919), St Hilda’s College Archives.
21. Private collection (Christine Burrows).
22. Winifred Evans, Reminiscences (GCRF 4/1/4; 1923–5), Girton College Archives.
23. Elisabeth R. Bishop, Diaries (PP3; 1936–8), St Hilda’s College Archives.
24. Newman MSS (GCPP Newman; 1925), Girton College Archives.
25. Elisabeth Bishop, op. cit.
26. Mary Smith, Diary Extracts (1888–91), Newnham College Archives.
27. Freeman, Alma Mater, 35.
28. Leta Jones MSS (D.455/6/2, p. 5, 1929–33), courtesy of Leta Jones, University of Liverpool Archives.
29. Constance Savery MSS (1917–20), Somerville College Archives.
30. Anonymous, undated reminiscence (early 1920s), St Hilda’s College Archives.
10. SHADOWS
1. Grace Hadow, Principal of the Society of Home Students, speaking to Oxford High School pupils in 1936, quoted in Deneke, Grace Hadow, 120.
2. Elisabeth R. Bishop, Diaries (PP3; 1936–8), St Hilda’s College Archives.
3. Private Collection (Christine Burrows).
4. Bowerman Chibnall letters (1910–11), Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University.
5. Mary Wallas letters (1915–20), Newnham College Archives.
6. I was surprised to find an advertisement in the Girl’s Own Paper (dated as early as April 1902) for ‘Hartmann’s Hygienic Towelettes… Indispensable for Ladies Travelling and for Home Use’. They were available from chemists. Someone who could afford it might send her maid to purchase some; it’s very difficult to imagine a student at that time marching in and buying her own. The normal equipment at the turn of the century would be a towel folded lengthwise, tied on with elaborate ribbons. A ‘menstrual apron’ was available from 1914: that was a pad attached to a belt with a rubber-coated flap hanging from the back of the waist. The Kotex Company offered ready-made pads, about 20 inches (50 cm) long and stuffed with wood pulp, in 1921. Tampons were not marketed until the early 1930s, and took a long time to become popular. See the website of the Museum of Menstruation (if you feel up to it), for further information.
7. Rathbone, ‘The Dales’, 74.
8. Author’s collection (Wilson).
9. Ibid. (Haardt).
10. Rachel Lily Footman, ‘Memories of 1923–1926’, private collection and Somerville College Archives.
11. Isis (university magazine), 4 June 1924, 5.
12. Boyd, St Mary’s College, 121.
13. Professor R. Case, Against Oxford Degrees for Women (c. 1895), St Anne’s College Archives.
14. Minute Books of the Women’s Union (1910 and 1919), University of Manchester Archives.
15. St Hilda’s College Archives hold scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings on the Shawcross Affair (reference: Shawcross 1).
16. From a Somerville College ‘Going Down Play’ (1933), quoted in Adams, Somerville for Women, 227–8.
17. Constance Savery MSS (1917–20), Somerville College Archives.
18. Author’s collection (Proud).
19. Brittain, Testament of Youth, 145–6.
20. Anonymous, ‘Impressions of Newnham’ (1917), Newnham College Archives.
21. University settlements were based in large buildings in slum areas and designed to be a focus for voluntary social welfare work. Staff there offered advice and practical help, and ran clubs and societies. Most were founded between 1884 and 1897 in east or south London, but settlements were also established in Manchester (1895), Liverpool (1906), and Bristol (1911).
22. See Federman, Surpassing the Love of Men, 147.
23. Constance Louisa Maynard, unpublished autobiography (section 54, pp. 286–7), Westfield College Archives, quoted by Martha Vicinus in ‘“One Life to Stand Beside Me”’, 616.
24. Ibid.
25. Faithfull, In the House of My Pilgrimage, 66.
26. Stopes, Sex and the Young, 44.
27. Winifred Mary Seville, Diaries (RHC/20/3; 1906–10), Royal Holloway College Archives; see also Megan Bosley, Sexuality, Society and Style: An Analysis of the Diaries of Winifred Mary Seville (MA thesis, Royal Holloway, 1997).
11. BREEDING WHITE ELEPHANTS
1. The caption for a photograph illustrating the article ‘Should Women Go to Oxford?’ by Winifred Holtby, published in the News Chronicle, 2 February 1934, 8.
2. Evelyn Rhoden, Diaries (1923/5), Ashburne Hall Archives.
3. Compiled by Alice Gordon in ‘The After-Careers of University-Educated Women’.
4. Comment to author; see also Turner, Equality for Some, 208.
5. ‘A Man’, ‘Thoughts on the Higher Education of Women’, Girl’s Own Paper (1891), quoted in Forrester, Great-Grandma’s Weekly, 34.
6. Letter from Walter William Skeat to Henry Sidgwick ( June 1887), Newnham College Archives.
7. Burgon, To Educate Young Women, 4.
8. Bremner, Education of Girls, 136.
9. Phare, ‘From Devon to Cambridge, 1926’, 149.
10. Author’s collection (Bebb).
11. Griffin (ed.), St Hugh’s, 115. This comment was made in the early 1930s: things had not changed much.
12. E. H. Neville, ‘University of Reading’, 8.
13. From scores of women in the 1880s, the numbers grew to 2,090 women at English universities in 1901 (15.1 per cen
t of the university population), of whom 535 were Oxbridge students (9.1 per cent). By 1938 there were 7,969 women (21.9 per cent), with 1,398 at Oxbridge (13 per cent). Source: Dyhouse, Students, 4.
14. Student Record Books and Registers, courtesy of Queen Mary, University of London Archives and St Mary’s College Archives, Durham.
15. Morley, Women Workers in Seven Professions.
16. Holt, University of Reading, 88.
17. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 111.
18. Boyd, St Mary’s College, 196.
19. M. Miller, ‘Women in the World of Commerce’, Incorporated Secretaries’ Journal, June 1927.
20. Student Record Book, St Mary’s College Archives, Durham.
21. Register of Students, vol. 2, courtesy of Queen Mary, University of London Archives.
22. Evening News, 19 March 1936, quoted in Dyhouse, op. cit., 88.
23. Freeman, Alma Mater, 95.
24. Author’s collection (Cohen).
25. Author’s conversation with Rosalyn Page.
26. Bessie Callender MSS (1899–1901), St Mary’s College Archives.
27. Reminiscences (1934), St Hugh’s College Archives.
28. Author’s collection (Britton).
29. Ibid. (Ridehalgh).
30. Ibid. (Willatts).
Select Bibliography
Adams, Pauline. Somerville for Women: An Oxford College 1879–1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett. ‘Sex in Mind and Education: A Reply’, Fortnightly Review, vol. 15 (January–June 1874), 582–96.
Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694/7), ed. Patricia Springborg (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1997)
Avery, Gillian. The Best Type of Girl: A History of Girls’ Independent Schools (London: André Deutsch, 1991)
Bailey, Gemma (ed.). Lady Margaret Hall: A Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923)
Balsdon, D. Oxford Life (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1957)
——Oxford Now and Then (London: Duckworth, 1970)
Bates, James, and Ibbetson, Carol. The World of University College London Union (London: UCL Union, 1994)
Beale, Dorothea. Address to Parents (London: G. Bell, 1888)
Bettenson, E. M. The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne: A Historical Introduction 1834–1971 (Newcastle: Newcastle University, 1971)