Dr Ann Kennedy Smith joined the CAG to discuss her research on women academics at the University of Cambridge.
One of the key images in the history of women at the University of Cambridge shows an effigy of a woman on a bicycle – a ‘Girton Girl’ – suspended above a crowd of men outside Senate House in May 1897, when thousands of male students and alumni protested against a proposal to admit women to the University. Dr Kennedy Smith drew attention to the women present in the picture, but reminded us that the proposal was defeated, riots broke out, and the effigy was burned that night on a bonfire.
But this wasn’t the beginning of women’s campaigning to be allowed equal access to the University.
Women were allowed to attend lectures at Cambridge University when Girton College was founded in 1869, closely followed by Newnham College in 1871. In 1881, women won the right to sit the Tripos exams. In 1887, Agnata Ramsay (1867-1931) was the only student to be awarded a first class in the Classics Tripos; and in 1890, Philippa Fawcett (1868-1948) obtained the highest score in the Mathematics Tripos: in both cases, outdoing all the men. But women were still not permitted to be members of the University.
Dr Kennedy Smith pointed out that because of this, women scholars had to apply for general reader’s tickets to access the University Library. Dr Kennedy Smith’s research in the UL archives, together with that of Dr Jill Whitelock, highlights that because of this registration system, we know more about the women readers than their contemporary male counterparts, for whom access was unconditional.
In 1891, a protest by 24 women from Girton and Newnham took a very different form to the riots and effigies of 1897: Dr Kennedy Smith showed images of a letter to the Syndics of the University Library, who had restricted access to the library for non-members (including women) to the hours of 10am-2pm. The letter asks if, in light of their morning teaching and lecturing commitments, women academics might have access until 4pm.
The two organisers of the 1891 letter were Mary Bateson and Ellen McArthur.
Mary Bateson (1865-1906) studied at Newnham 1884-1887, and was a Mediaeval historian and suffragist. As the daughter of the Master of St John’s College, Bateson had grown up in Cambridge academic circles and recognised that women at Cambridge were routinely excluded not just from the library, but from most societies, and from scholarships. She herself was only able to study at the University because her family could financially support her. To address this need for practical funding and support, Bateson established the first Research Fellowship for women at Newnham in 1898 – Jane Ellen Harrison was the first to hold one.
Ellen McArthur (1862-1927) read History at Girton at the same time as Mary Bateson, specialising in economic history, and was also one of the first women to be awarded a degree by Trinity College, Dublin. Like Mary Bateson, McArthur wanted to give practical support to women students at Cambridge, so between 1896 and 1903, she ran a hostel for post-graduate women students. She also left money in her will to establish a prize for economic history. The Ellen McArthur Lectures were established in the 1960s and the Studentships in the early 1970s, with funds from her bequest.
Dr Kennedy Smith describes Bateson as seeing women’s scholarship at Cambridge as a fellowship of women – women whom the Establishment had decided were hard workers who could pass exams, but not naturally talented enough to contribute new ideas to scholarship. These women, as well as generations after them, proved this old-fashioned view of women scholars to be wrong. In 1923, women were granted full access to the University Library. Women were finally awarded degrees by Cambridge University in 1948.
For more information, please see:
Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society, 1880-1914 – Ann Kennedy’s Smith’s website Cambridge’s pioneering women – Ann Kennedy Smith (akennedysmith.com)
The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, a 2019 exhibition curated by Lucy Delap and Ben Griffin, available to view online at The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge
‘Lock Up Your Libraries’? Women Readers at Cambridge University Library 1855-1923, by Dr Jill Whitelock, online at ‘Lock up your libraries’? Women readers at Cambridge University Library, 1855–1923 | Library & Information History (euppublishing.com)
Women of Cambridge, by Rita McWilliams Tullberg (Gollancz, 1975; reissued by CUP, 1998)
Helen Weller, Archivist
Westminster College, Cambridge
June 2022
Featured image: Effigy Of Woman Hanging By Senate House, 1897. Image courtesy of The Mistress and Fellows, Girton College, Cambridge , reference GCPH 9/1/4.
Cambridge Archivists Group 