UCL
1828 University College opened as the first liberal university in England. A regulation was that it was to admit students ‘without distinction of colour, caste, creed or sex.’ Religion neither figured in the syllabus nor the entrance requirements being referred to by objectors as the ‘godless and infidel establishment of Gower Street’. Having acquired a Royal Charter, it could offer subjects of its choice and to its own standards. Nevertheless, women were not admitted until much later.
1878 University College opened teaching to men and women on equal terms. This year also marked the first year of women being able to take degrees with the University of London.
Harriet Grote played an important role in the founding of the College and the eventual admission of women: see: Harriet Grote 1792 – 1878 – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com)
Early women connected to UCL:
In 1832 Mrs J P Potter & Miss Rogers registered for a course of six lectures in natural philosophy. 1861-62 Women attended a special course of 13 lectures on animal physiology given by John Marshall a surgeon at UCH. These lectures were requested by the Ladies’ Sanitary Association and schoolmistresses connected to the Social Science Association of Schoolmasters.
1868-69 The London Ladies’ Educational Association was founded. They first organised lectures for women outside the College, before bringing them into the College and finally helping establish mixed classes which were the norm by 1878. The original executive committee of the Association comprised 14 ladies and 3 men and was overseen by Lady Crompton.
The prospectus of the Ladies’ Educational Association stated an aim ‘to place within the reach (not under the age of 17) a course of higher instruction similar to that offered to the students of the College’.
Henry Morley has to be recognised for his persistence in fighting to have women accepted to the university. Typical attitudes faced by those who campaigned were summed up in an article on 5 January 1869 in The Times:
Whether the prejudice against giving women the sort of education hitherto considered exclusively fitted for men be or not be well founded, there can be no doubt, that it is still very generally entertained… It is a mistake, we think, and a waste of force to fly directly in the face of it, as those do who propose that young women should receive exactly the same sort of University education is that now given to young men, the two sexes openly mixing together in the same class-rooms, pursuing the same studies and contending for the same degrees. We doubt whether the time will ever come when such a system will prove desirable in this country, and we are quite sure that to attempt to introduce it now would only throw back the cause of female education a generation or two.
Initially, when classes were organised for women in the College, the hire of rooms was borne by the Ladies’ Educational Association and they were timetabled to start and finish on the half hour rather than on the hour (as did men’s) so the sexes would not meet. Women accessed classes for different subjects through various entrances depending on the subject but their routes were also chosen to avoid women encountering men. On 1870 a separate entrance for women was agreed subject to the Ladies’ Association bearing the cost.
In October 1871 The Slade School opened accepting male and female students with classes mixed except those for the study of the nude model. Separate entrances were provided for women. Despite the sexes mixing, men were warned that they were there for educational reasons and the School was not a marriage bureau.
A wonderful anecdote is told in Walter Show Sparrow, Memories of Life and Art Through Sixty Years (1925):
Once, Alphonse Legos…. heard a girl sighing ‘darling, darling….’ on the stairs and burst out of his room furious only to find that the object addressed was merely a small retriever puppy. [quoted from The Admission of Women to University College London: A Centenary Lecture byN B Harte. UCL 1979.
From 1871 to 1878 the range of classes offered to women widened and the number of mixed classes grew.
1878
1878 the University of London, at this time purely an examining body, opened its examinations to women, becoming the first British University to admit women to degrees. In October 1878 women were admitted as full degree students in the Faculties of the Arts, Laws and Science. Harte notes that from 1878 ‘ladies’ were said to attend lectures, ‘women’ took degrees. Women were still, however, not admitted to the Faculty of Medicine until 1917.
The Ladies Educational Association having succeeded in its aims now dissolved.
Women still had a separate Common Room and were not allowed to join the men’s Debating Society. So, they formed the Women’s Debating Society. Harte notes that the motion for the first debate in February 1879 was ‘Is Discontent a virtue to be cultivated?’, this motion being carried.
Despite women being admitted as students few women joined the academic staff until the turn of the century.
In 1888 classicist Jane Harrison was rejected for the Chair of Classical Archaeology at UCL as it was considered ‘undesirable that any teaching in University College should be conducted by a woman.’ (Wade, Francesca; Square Hunting 2020 p162)
Margaret Murray reflected on her experience as a woman student in 1890s: ‘University College was at its lowest ebb…not as regards its teaching staff but in the management. ..Everyone knew that women were anathema in a university, not only because of their inferior intellect but also because on account of their innate wickedness they would be a terrible danger to the young men. I am not sure if the old universities believed that the Almighty had created them for the sole use of the male sex but they certainly acted as if they did.’* [Murray, Margaret; 1963: Autobiography: My First Hundred Years]
Further reading:
Harte, N B. The Admission of Women to University College London: A Centenary Lecture; UCL 1979
Murray, Margaret; 1963: Autobiography: My First Hundred Years
Key women and UCL
1883-1912 Rosa Morison was the first ‘Lady Superintendent of Women Students’ at UCL. One of Morison’s responsibilities was the approval of letters of recommendation on behalf of a woman determining who should be accepted. Such recommendation letters were not required after 1919. When Morison died the role was renamed ‘Tutor to Women Students’. (plaque at UCL)
Academic Staff
1899 Margaret Murray appointed to a junior lectureship, becoming the first female lecturer in archaeology in the UK. From 1924- 1935 she was Assistant Professor.
Alumni in 19th century included:
A Mary Robinson
Ada Heather-Bigg
Ada Sarah Ballin
Agnes Arber
Anna Anderson Morton
Caroline Rhys Davids (née Foley)
Catherine Raisin
Charlotte Mew
Clara Collet
Eliza Orme
Eugénie Sellers Strong
Evelyn de Morgan (née Pickering)
Helen Tirard
Louisa MacDonald
Margaret Murray
Mary Brodrick
Mary E. Richardson
Mary Millington Lathbury Evans
Reina Emily Lawrence
Sophie Bryant
Thomazine Brown Lockyer
For Slade alumni
Annie Horniman
Bertha Newcombe
Christiana Herringham
Edith Downing
Edna Clarke Hall
Ellen Rope
Evelyn de Morgan
Gwen John
Helen Allingham
Jessie Mothersole
Kate Greenaway
Lucas Malet
Mary Lowndes
Mary Seton Watts
Sophia Rosamond Praeger
Ursula Tyrwhitt
See also: Slade School of Art Women Alumni – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com)
See also College Hall