The Girton Pioneers
By several students at Hitchin, 1873
The Girton Pioneers were the first three students to sit the Tripos, unofficially in the Lent Term 1873. Two would have been placed in Class II and one in Class III, but they did not appear in the official class lists. Rachel Cook and Louisa Lumsden took the Classical Tripos, Sarah Woodhead the Mathematical Tripos.
Tune: The British Grenadiers
Lyrics
Some talk of Senior Wranglers,
And some of Double Firsts,
And truly of their species
These are not the worst;
But of all the Cambridge heroes
There’s none that can compare
With Woodhead, Cook and Lumsden,
The Girton Pioneers.
Whenever we go forward
A hard exam to try,
Their memory goes before us
To raise our courage high.
They made old Cambridge wonder;
Then let us give three cheers
For Woodhead, Cook and Lumsden,
The Girton Pioneers.
And when the goal is won, girls,
And women get degrees,
We’ll cry, “Long live the three, girls,
Who showed the way to these!
Who showed the way we follow,
Who knew no doubts or fears,
Our Woodhead, Cook and Lumsden,
The Girton Pioneers!”
The let us fill a tea-cup
And drink a health to those
Who studied well and played well,
As everybody knows,
May we fulfil the promise
Of Girton’s earliest years,
Of Woodhead, Cook and Lumsden,
The Girton Pioneers!