Past Mistresses
Charlotte Manning (1803–1871)
Mistress of Girton College 1869
Charlotte Manning was the daughter of Isaac Solly of Leyton, Essex. Her first marriage in 1835 was to William Speir who lived and died in Calcutta where he was a medical practitioner. Whether her own study of India began at that time is unknown, but it led to two major publications, Life in Ancient India (1856) and Ancient and Medieval India (1869), and a lifelong connection with the country. After her second marriage in 1857 to James Manning, she moved to London to live in Kensington. With her step-daughter, Elizabeth, she became friendly with Emily Davies and in 1863 joined Davies’ committee for obtaining the admission of women to University Local Examinations, 1862–65. After success had been achieved, members of this committee formed a discussion group, the Kensington Society, which met at Charlotte Manning’s home with her as President. She became the first Mistress of the College at Hitchin, in the Michaelmas term 1869. Emily Davies hoped that she would hold office for at least a year to give the new institution ‘a stamp of seriousness and solidity’ but her intention was only to stay for the one term for the purpose ‘of appearing before an unbelieving and suspicious public as the responsible promoters of the new College’. Before her death in 1871, Charlotte Manning founded, and was first president of the London branch of the National Indian Association.
Emily Ann Eliza Shirreff (1814–1897)
Mistress of Girton College 1870
Emily Shirreff was the daughter of Rear-Admiral William Henry Shirreff. Owing to her father’s naval career, she spent much of her childhood abroad, most notably in Gibralter where she was educated with her sisters by a governess to become proficient in languages and history. She was particularly close to her younger sister, Maria (later Grey) with whom she collaborated both in writing projects (Thoughts on self-culture addressed to women 1850 etc) and campaigns to improve opportunities for women’s education. She fully supported the foundation of College and acted as Mistress at Hitchin in the Lent and Easter Terms 1870. ES worked with her sister to found the National Union for improving the education of women of all classes, out of which grew the Girls Public Day School Company. She worked indefatigably for the GPDST 1872–97. In addition, she was a supporter of the introduction of the educational principles of Friedrich Froebel to this country, and one of the founders of the Froebel Society, becoming President, and frequently reading papers at meetings. Many of her lectures were later published in pamphlet form. She was a member of the College Committee, 1870–72 and retained a close connection with the College until her death in London in 1897.
Annie Austin (life dates unknown)
Mistress of Girton College 1870–72
Annie Austin was the daughter of Francis Crow, a Gateshead business man. The Crows were old family friends of Emily Davies, especially Annie’s sister Jane. Little is known of Annie Austin’s life and career. She married Thomas Austin, an architect in the 1850s and was chosen to succeed Emily Shirreff as being one ‘whom we know well and could trust thoroughly as to the most essential things’, She ‘undertook the worst furnishing and settling [at Hitchin] and did it admirably’ [Emily Davies].
Her health broke down in the spring of 1872, and she left office during the Lent Term.
Emily Davies (1830–1921)
Mistress of Girton College 1872–75
Sarah Emily Davies lived most of her early life in Gateshead where her father was Rector of St Mary’s Church 1840–60. From a young age she took a keen interest in efforts to improve the position of women and from 1858 became actively involved with a number of campaigns. These included the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, the committee for obtaining the admission of women to university examinations, the inclusion of girls’ schools in the Schools Inquiry Commission, the London Schoolmistress’s Association, the first Women’s Suffrage Committee and, of course, the foundation of Girton College.
Miss Davies never wanted to be Mistress of the College. It was not a position for which she felt suited, moreover it was difficult for her to be resident in Hitchin with committee work for the College in London and building work at Girton. In addition, she had responsibilities in connection with the London School Board. However, when Annie Austin’s health broke down in the Lent Term of 1872, no one suitable for the post could be found and Miss Davies stepped in. She supervised the move from Hitchin to Girton and, from her own experience in the post, led a review of the office of Mistress as regards its relation to the students. Previously responsible only for the domestic arrangements and discipline of students, from 1875 the Mistress held a position of paramount importance in the internal management of the College. She was to take charge of all educational arrangements as well as discipline and domestic administration. She was to remain outside the governing body although she was to report regularly to the Executive Committee.
After she retired as Mistress Emily Davies returned to her work for women’s suffrage and two years before her death she was able to walk to the polls to record her vote in the general election that followed the first world war. She received an Honorary LLD from Glasgow University in 1901.
Marianne Bernard (1839–1926)
Mistress of Girton College 1875–84
Marianne Bernard grew up in Bristol and took a course of training at the Home and Colonial Training College in London before joining her brother in India. She took office at Girton when there were only 16 students in residence and when academic teaching and examinations were at the discretion of the lecturers and examiners. The government of the College was in the hands of the Executive Committee, few of whom were resident in Cambridge – and the Mistress was not a member. Her responsibilities and duties were heavy as she was expected to deal with every aspect of College life. Her letters in the College Archive describe tackling problems of student health and welfare as well as struggling to balance the books, but her position can best be described in an extract from the Journal of the Women’s Education Union, 15 July 1875: ‘This lady, who is a niece of Lord Lawrence, seems to unite all the qualities of character and attainment which will fit her for a position of influence over younger women at a moment when many difficulties still beset an institution so novel in its character as Girton College, and so opposed to many long cherished social and domestic prejudices.’ Miss Bernard resigned her office in 1884 to marry Dr Peter Latham, Downing Professor of Medicine.
Elizabeth Welsh (1843–1921)
Mistress of Girton College 1885–1903
Elizabeth Welsh was born at Co. Down but was of Scottish extraction, being descended from John Knox. She was educated at home and at private school in Ireland and came up to Girton as a College scholar while it was still at Hitchin, in 1871. She was the first Mistress of the College who had also been a student at Girton. She took the Classical Tripos in 1875 and went on to Manchester High School for a year as Classics mistress. She returned to Girton in 1876 as Resident Lecturer in Classics (1876–84), Vice-Mistress 1880–85, Garden Steward 1883–1903 and Mistress 1885–1903. Shortly after her appointment she was made a member of Girton and elected to the Executive Committee, becoming the first Mistress to have a say in the government of the College. During her eighteen years as Mistress, the College grew in numbers and reputation. The design of the gardens and grounds, in particular the Honeysuckle Walk, owes much to Miss Welsh. She also (as a student) wrote some of the best of the ‘College Songs’.
Miss Welsh retired to Edinburgh where her great pleasures were her garden and seeing Girton friends.
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones (1848–1922)
Mistress of Girton College 1903–16
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones had a varied early education at home, and abroad (the family spent four years at the Cape 1861–65). She took correspondence classes in Greek before two months private coaching from Alice Grüner for the Girton entrance examination. She came up to Girton in 1875 and achieved a First Class in the Moral Sciences Tripos in 1880 (the lateness of her Tripos was owing to her degrading because of family circumstances).
After Girton she lived in Wales for four years working on a completion and revision of Elizabeth Hamilton’s translation of Lotze’s Mikrokosmus. In 1884 she returned to Girton to become Resident Lecturer in Moral Sciences 1884–1916 (Director of Studies 1903–16), Librarian 1890–93 and Mistress 1903–16. She continued her prolific output of philosophical writings during her periods of office and her controversial New Law of Thought was written while she was Mistress. When she became Mistress in 1903, the College debt was £43,000. By 1916, when Miss Jones resigned because of ill-health, this had been paid off by raising substantial gifts and bequests which had also enabled four new Fellowships and two research studentships.
She was a Governor of University College Wales, Aberystwyth from 1892 and received an Honorary DLitt from Wales in 1913.
Katharine Jex-Blake (1860–1951)
Mistress of Girton College 1916–22
Katharine Jex-Blake was from a large academic family, several of whom came to Girton – although she was the first. She was born at Rugby where her father was headmaster of Rugby School (later Dean of Wells) and was educated at home. She came up to Girton as a Goldsmiths’ Scholar in the Easter Term of 1879 to read Classics. She and Dora Clark were the first Girtonians to attain a First Class in Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1882 and she was the second to take a Part II the following year. After a year as Classics Mistress at Notting Hill High School, she returned to Girton as Resident Classics Lecturer in 1885, becoming Director of Studies 1901–19, Vice-Mistress 1903–16 and Mistress 1916–22. She was a gifted teacher and her pupils include Agnata Ramsay, Dorothy Tarrant, Dorothy Brock and Margaret Postgate. She is remembered with both awe and affection. On her retirement in 1922 she presented a sum of money to the College to endow research – the Jex-Blake Fellowship was inaugurated from that fund.
Bertha Surtees Phillpotts (1877–1932)
Mistress of Girton College 1922–25
Bertha Surtees Phillpotts was educated at home in Bedford (her father was the headmaster of Bedford Grammar School). She was a niece of Katharine Jex-Blake and came to Girton nearly two decades after her aunt as a College Scholar to read Modern Languages 1898–1901. Her fourth year (1902) was spent studying Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon. She continued her research first as a Pfeiffer Research Student, spending time working in Iceland and at Copenhagen University then as the first Lady Carlisle Research Student at Somerville College, Oxford 1913–1916; and after her period as Mistress, as a Research Fellow at Girton 1925–32. She was also College Librarian 1906–09. By the time BSP became Mistress in 1922 she was an internationally renowned scholar of Scandinavian languages, archaeology and literature – she had also spent the previous year as Principal of Westfield College, London. Her period as Mistress was very short but memorable. Her influence as a member of the Statutory Commission for Cambridge University (1923–27) did much to secure benefits for both women and the College within the University. Her University appointments included Lecturer and Director of Scandinavian Studies (1926–32) and Head of the Department of Other Languages (1930–32). She was created DBE in 1929. She married Hugh Frank Newall, Fellow of Trinity and Professor of Astrophysics, in 1931.
Edith Helen Major (1867–1951)
Mistress of Girton College 1925–31
Edith Helen Major was born in Co. Antrim, the daughter of a wine merchant. She was educated at the Methodist College, Belfast and came to Girton to read History 1885–1888. After Girton she taught for 11 years at Blackheath High School before becoming headmistress, first of Putney High School then King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham. She brought to both posts a lightness of touch that belied an unshakeable belief in high standards and hard work. She took office at Girton at an important point in relations between the women’s colleges and the University, following Dame Bertha Phillpotts’ work on the Statutory Commission. Miss Major’s personal qualities were well suited to conciliation and helped to consolidate the position of women within the University. The portrait is a copy of that painted for King Edward VI High School as Miss Major refused to sit for another for Girton. Janet Bacon, her obituarist, claims that it does little justice to the charm of her personality. Miss Major was awarded the CBE in 1931 for services to education and received an Honorary LLD from Belfast in 1932.
Helen Marion Wodehouse (1880–1964)
Mistress of Girton College 1931–42
Helen Marion Wodehouse came to Girton from Notting Hill High School as a Clothworkers’ Exhibitioner. She read Mathematics 1898–1901 and stayed on for a fourth year to read Moral Sciences, completing the two-year course in one. She was a Gilchrist Fellow at Girton 1902–03. After Girton HMW went to Birmingham to take a Teachers’ Higher Diploma (1903) later taking a post as Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham 1903–11. She received an MA from Birmingham in 1904 and a DPhil in 1906. Before her return to Girton as Mistress, she was the first Principal of Bingley Training College, Yorkshire 1911–19 and Professor of Education, University of Bristol 1919–31. During her period as Mistress she is remembered for her outstanding committee work (she was chair of a number of outside bodies, including Cambridge Women’s Appointments Board), for the inauguration of the post of Assistant Tutor (the Mistress herself was Tutor), and for her patience, fairmindedness and practical outlook. HMW published extensively on philosophical and religious subjects, after her retirement CUP published One Kind of Religion, her book describing the philosophy that informed her life.
Kathleen Teresa Blake Butler 1883–1950
Mistress of Girton College 1942–49
Kathleen Teresa Blake Butler was the eldest of a large family and was educated at home (with a Norwegian governess) and at schools in France and Germany. After obtaining a Teachers’ Certificate at Cambridge Training College in 1908, she read modern languages at Newnham College 1909–13. She taught for a year before becoming a lecturer in French at Royal Holloway College 1913–15. She came to Girton in 1915 as Lecturer in Modern Languages 1915–41. When the Modern Languages Tripos was reformed and English separated from it, she was appointed Director of Studies in Modern Languages 1917–38. She was Fellow 1924–42; Vice-Mistress 1936–38 and Mistress 1942–49. She lectured on most periods of French and Italian literature and her modern poetry course was an innovation in 1918. She held a number of University positions including a University lectureship in Italian 1924–48 (formalised in 1926 when university appointments were officially opened to women), membership of the Faculty Board of Modern and Medieval Languages 1928–48 and of the Education Syndicate 1941–48, and was Deputy for the Professor of Italian 1939–45. Her influence within the University was crucial in the negotiations to admit women to full membership in 1948, and she stayed on an extra year as Mistress to facilitate that change. KTB was the joint founder and editor of Italian Studies and published works on French and Italian language and literature. She was, with Helen McMorran, a compiler of volume I of the Girton College Register 1869–1946.
Mary Cartwright (1900–1998)
Mistress of Girton College 1949–68
Mary Cartwright studied Mathematics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford (1919–23), and was awarded her PhD in 1930. In the same year she was elected to a Yarrow Research Fellowship at Girton. The rest of her working life was in Cambridge. At Girton she was Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics 1934–49; Director of Studies in Mathematics and Mechanical Sciences 1926–49; Mistress 1949–68 and Life Fellow 1968–1998. She also held a number of University positions, including Emeritus Reader from 1968. She was president of The Cambridge Association of University Women, and chair of the Cambridge University Women’s Appointments Board. She was awarded a number of honorary degrees from British universities, was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1947 (becoming the first woman to serve on its council), and was created DBE in 1969. From the mid-1930s she was considered one of the country’s leading mathematical analysts. Her work was groundbreaking, and she made important contributions to the fields of conformal mapping, cluster sets and chaos theory. After retiring from Girton in 1968, she worked at universities in England, America and Poland.
Muriel Clara Bradbrook (1909–1993)
Mistress of Girton College 1968–76
Muriel Bradbrook was the eldest child of Samuel Bradbrook, superintendent of HM water guard, and his wife, Annie Wilson, née Harvey. She was educated at Hutcheson’s Girls’ School, Glasgow and Oldershaw High School, Wallasey, coming up to Girton to read English 1927–30, achieving a First Class in both parts of the Tripos. She remained at Girton as a Carlisle Scholar and subsequently Ottilie Hancock Research Fellow 1930–35, obtaining a PhD in 1933. She spent a year in Oxford before returning to Girton as Lecturer in English and Fellow in 1936. She remained in Cambridge apart from a period working in London for the Board of Trade during the Second World War. By that time she had already published five major works of literary criticism and throughout the 1950s and 60s she continued to publish on Shakespeare and the Elizabethans. In all, she wrote some seventeen books, including works on Ibsen, Lowry and Conrad. She was appointed a University Lecturer by Cambridge in 1948, a Reader in 1962, and Professor of English in 1965 (the first female professor in the Faculty). She held visiting professorships at numerous universities, including Santa Cruz, Tokyo, and Rhodes, South Africa and received honorary degrees from many more. During her period of office as Mistress, the College celebrated its centenary (for which she wrote a history, That Infidel Place) and the decision was taken to admit men. She retired in 1976 and became a Life Fellow of the College.
Brenda Ryman 1922–1983
Mistress of Girton College 1976–83
Brenda Edith Ryman came up to Girton 1941–43 to read Natural Sciences. While she was a student, she gained two blues for swimming. She qualified for her BA degree under wartime regulations, and went to work in an industrial laboratory for two years, after which she moved to the University of Birmingham, where she was awarded her PhD in 1948. This was an eventful year as she also married Harry Barkley and accepted a lectureship at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, where she stayed for 24 years (as Senior Lecturer then Reader). As well as her research on the therapeutic applications of liposomes, she pursued an active concern with many aspects of scientific education. In 1972, she was appointed to the Chair of Biochemistry at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School where she built up the department to have an international reputation for excellence in research and teaching. Four years later, she became Mistress of Girton, while retaining her Chair and living in London. Being head of a large Department and of a Cambridge College was extremely demanding and there were some constraints on the time she could spend in College and in University affairs. However, her dynamism meant she was never short of ideas and she wanted College to be ‘self-critical yet confident’. She presided over the change of Girton from a single-sex to a mixed College and was convinced that this was the right move for the future. She remained Mistress until her death. She is remembered by her colleagues as someone who lived at least four lives in her sixty years – and lived them largely simultaneously.
Mary Warnock (1924— )
Mistress of Girton College 1984–91
Mary Warnock was brought up in Winchester and read Literae Humaniores at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford 1942–1948 (the war interrupted her studies). In 1949 she was appointed Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Hugh’s, Oxford and married a fellow philosopher, Geoffrey Warnock. She was the first married fellow of her college and was claimed by some as a role model for the late 20th century, combining marriage, motherhood (the Warnocks had five children) and profession. In 1966 she left the University to become Headmistress of Oxford High School, a position she held until 1972 when she felt that she needed more time to devote to Hertford College (Geoffrey was elected Principal at the end of 1970) and to writing. Thereafter she returned to University teaching, and moved into public life, becoming a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority and of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution before being asked by Margaret Thatcher to Chair the Committee of Enquiry into Special Educational Needs in 1974. There followed chairmanship of two more government committees: the standing Advisory Committee on Animal Experimentation (1979) and the Committee of Enquiry into Human Fertilisation (1982).
In 1985 she received a Life Peerage, the DBE, and was appointed Mistress of Girton. Mary Warnock once said of June Mendoza’s portrait that she looked ‘like a benevolent headmistress’ but others remarked that behind the ‘amiably tousled appearance’ lay the sharpest of minds which could politely deliver the ‘most withering scorn’.
Dame Mary continues to be active in public life, advising on such diverse subjects as medical ethics and teaching quality, and to publish in the area of moral philosophy.
Juliet J d’A Campbell (1935 – )
Mistress of Girton College 1992–98
Juliet J d’Auvergne Campbell had a peripatetic childhood. Her father, a Major General, spent much of his army career overseas and then worked for the UN in the Middle East. She was part educated abroad as well as at the Beehive in Sussex and Queen’s College, Harley Street before going up to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 1954 to read PPE. She joined the Foreign Office straight from Oxford, eight years after the major reforms of 1949 which opened the Diplomatic Service to women, subject to a marriage bar. In 1961 she became a junior member of Edward Heath’s Common Market negotiating team. Despite the negative outcome of that early initiative, the European Community remained her speciality. She also held positions in Bangkok, The Hague, Paris and Jakarta and it was during this last posting that she married Alec Campbell, a historian, in 1983. In addition, she had a spell of duty running the FCO’s Training Department. The climax of her diplomatic career was the posting to Luxembourg as British Ambassador 1988–1991, a posting which she thoroughly enjoyed. Luxembourg’s EU Presidency in 1991 brought her a great deal of responsibility and many ministerial visitors. The year also brought an invitation to consider the possibility of becoming Mistress of Girton. The move to Girton on 1 January 1992 heralded a complete change of direction as Juliet Campbell had never considered a career in an academic setting. Early in her term of office she described the post as a curious one, with ‘few formal powers but much influence, of which the incumbent can make anything he or she likes’. She was elected to the University Council and chaired the Committee which organised the 50th anniversary of women’s full membership of the University.
Marilyn Strathern (1941-)
Mistress of Girton College 1998-2009
Marilyn Strathern was an undergraduate and then a research student at Girton, before holding posts in Canberra (ANU), Port Moresby, and UC Berkeley (visiting) before returning in the 1970s to a bye-fellowship at Girton. She moved to her first full departmental appointment in 1985 when she took up the position of chair and head of the Social Anthropology Department at Manchester University. Papua New Guinea has been a principal area of fieldwork, from 1964 to most recently in 2006, although she is also intrigued by developments in knowledge practices in the UK and Europe. Initial work on gender relations led to two directions: feminist scholarship & the new reproductive technologies (1980s –1990s), and legal systems & intellectual and cultural property (1970s, 1990s-00s). This is not the place to list publications: she likes writing. A Presidential Chair of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, former Trustee of the National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, she was knighted in 2001. The year 2007–8 was her last in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology where she had been William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology since 1993. She was elected lifetime President of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth in 2008.
Distinctions:
Rivers Memorial Medal, Royal Anthropological Inst., 1976; FBA (Fellow of British Academy), 1987; Hon. DSc. (Edinburgh), 1993; Hon. DSc. (Copenhagen), 1994; Foreign Hon. Member, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1996; DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire) for services to Social Anthropology, 2001; Viking Fund Medal, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2003; Huxley Medal 2004; Hon DLitt (Oxford), 2004; 30th Anniversary of Independence Medal, Papua New Guinea, 2005; Hon. Dpol. (Helsinki), 2006; Hon.D. (Panteion University, Athens), 2006; Hon. DSc. (Durham), 2007; Hon DPhil., University of Papua New Guinea, 2009; Hon. D.Soc.Sci. (Belfast), 2009.
Biography
Marilyn Strathern has the strongest possible Girton connections. Her mother, Joyce Evans was a Girtonian (Martin 1929) as was her daughter Barbara (1988). MS herself came up to Girton in 1960 from Bromley High School to read Archaeology and Anthropology (MA 1967; PhD 1968). She was a College research student and J E Cairns scholar 1963–66 (working in Papua New Guinea) and Assistant Director of Studies in Arch and Anth 1967–68. She was a Bye-Fellow, a Senior Research Fellow and Fellow of the College 1976–84 and returned as a Professorial Fellow in 1993 before her election as Mistress five years later.
She has published widely on both Melanesia and the UK. Her research in Papua New Guinea includes gender relations, feminist scholarship and legal anthropology, and in the UK, kinship, the reproductive and genetic technologies, and audit culture. In addition to her Girton appointments, she has held posts as Assistant Curator, Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge (1966–68), as Research Fellow, New Guinea Research Unit, Australian National University (1970–72 in Australia and 1974–75 in Papua New Guinea), as Fellow and Lecturer, Trinity College, Cambridge (1984–85), as Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester (1985–93) and as William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge (1993–2008).
In 2001, Professor Strathern was created DBE. In addition, she has received numerous national and international awards which include membership of learned societies (FBA 1987), honorary degrees, and medals. It is inappropriate to list them here but mention should be made of the award of the Viking Fund Medal by the International Wenner-Gren Foundation in 2003, which recognised that through her research, mentoring and service to the profession she had achieved ‘high distinction’ and had ‘transformed the discipline’, and of the Huxley Memorial medal, bestowed by the Royal Anthropological Institute for lifetime achievement at the highest level.
Daphne Todd’s portrait won the 2001 Ondaatje Prize, awarded by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters to ‘the painter of the most distinguished portrait of the year’. The portrait was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Society and then at the National Portrait Gallery before coming to hang permanently at Girton. It has generated a great deal of interest and gave rise to articles by both the artist and the sitter published in the THES (10 August 2001) and later in the Girton Annual Review 2002. Sitter, artist and portrait also featured on a Channel 4 programme on portraiture ‘In Your Face’ made by Bruno Wollheim for Coluga Pictures in 2002