Newnham College, Cambridge

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Full name

Newnham College

Motto

Named after

Its location in the village of Newnham

Previous names

Newnham Hall

Established

1871

Sister College(s)

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Principal

Dame Patricia Hodgson

Location

Sidgwick Avenue

Undergraduates

396

Postgraduates

120

Homepage

N/A

A view of the Clough and Kennedy buildings of Newnham College.

A view of Pfeiffer Arch and the Old Hall building.

A daylight view of Sidgwick Hall and the sunken garden of Newnham College.

Newnham College is a women's college in the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick and was the second Cambridge college to admit women, the first being Girton.

1 Women in the university
2 History
3 Future
4 Alumnae
5 Institutions based on Newnham
6 See also

[edit] Women in the university

The idea of women attending the University was inevitably greeted with both derision and misogyny when first seriously raised in the 19th century, but matters progressed nonetheless; in 1868 Cambridge's Local Examinations Board (governing non-university examinations) allowed women to take exams for the first time. Concrete change within the university would have to wait until the first female colleges were formed, and following the foundation of Girton College (1869) and Newnham (1872) women were allowed into lectures, albeit at the discretion of the lecturer. By 1881, women were allowed to sit university examinations, and in 1921 were awarded "titles" as a result, although they would have to wait until 1947 before they were awarded degrees, and 1958 before they achieved equal rights to their male counterparts.

In 1954, a third women's college, New Hall, was founded. Wolfson was the first mixed college and was founded in 1965. 1972 saw three men's colleges (Churchill, Clare and King's) admit women for the first time. Cambridge now has no all-male colleges and Girton is also mixed, although both Newnham and New Hall remain all-female.

The college attracts a wide range of female students, including some students from non-"western" countries who might not have been willing or able to study at Cambridge were it not for the existence of women-only colleges (although the idea that studying at Newnham would protect these girls from "western decadence" is perhaps misled, as the college is integrated into the University).

In 1928, Newnham and Girton Colleges were among the venues for a series of lectures by Virginia Woolf that resulted in the famous book-length essay A Room of One's Own.

For information about women in senior University positions see also http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~pjs1011/Pams.html

[edit] History

The progress of women in the university owes a lot to the pioneering work undertaken by Henry Sidgwick, fellow of Trinity. Together with Anne Clough – the college's first principal – and Eleanor Balfour (Sidgwick's future wife), in 1871 Sidgwick oversaw the purchase of 74 Regent Street, housing five female students who wished to attend lectures but did not live near enough to the university to do so. After moving to Merton House on Queen's Road the next year, in 1875 the first building was built on the current site on Sidgwick Avenue, now called Old Hall. Between 1875 and 1910 the college continued to grow with the construction of three more buildings.

In this initial period, all the buildings were designed by Basil Champneys in "Queen Anne" style to much acclaim. These and later buildings are grouped around some of the most attractive gardens in Cambridge, hidden from the road by the buildings that surround them. Not only are they lovely gardens, but (unlike most of Cambridge's colleges) all residents can walk on the grass for most of the year. Newnham also had laboratories because women were not permitted into the university labs. These now house a drama space and a library. This library was originally Newnham students' primary reference source since women were not allowed into the University Library. It remains one of the largest college libraries in Cambridge.

Newnham taught a varied curriculum, tailored to the students who generally had far less formal education than their male counterparts (unlike Girton which accepted women on the same terms, and taught them the same curriculum as men in the other colleges). Although it was usual for a male student to take his degree after three years of study, not all Newnham students completed an entire degree course after four years' work.

[edit] Future

With the conversion of the last men-only colleges into mixed colleges in the 1970s and 80s, there were inevitably questions about whether any of the remaining women-only colleges would also change to mixed colleges. This seems particularly unlikely at Newnham, which has a proud reputation in standing up for women working in the University (see first section).

[edit] Alumnae

Diane Abbott (born 1953) — politician
Kate Bertram (1912–1999) — biologist
Eleanor Bron (born 1938) — actress
A. S. Byatt (born 1936) — writer and academic
Nora David, Baroness David of Romsey (born 1913); politician
Margaret Drabble (born 1939) — writer
Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958) — physical chemist and crystallographer
Mary Boyce (1920-2006) British Iranist and doyenne of Zoroastrian studies at SOAS
Jane Goodall (born 1934) — primatologist and anthropologist
Germaine Greer (born 1939) — Australian academic and feminist writer
Jane Grigson (1928–1990) — cookery writer
Patricia Hewitt (born 1948) — politician
Penelope Leach (born 1937) — psychologist and writer
Jessica Mann (born 1937) — writer
Miriam Margolyes (born 1941) — actress
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999)— writer
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) — American poet
Amber Reeves (1887–1981) — writer
Audrey Richards (1899–1984) — social anthropologist
Emma Thompson (born 1959) — actress
Katharine Whitehorn (born 1926) — writer
Olivia Williams (born 1968) — actress

For details of graduates in mathematics up to 1940 see

List of graduates of the University of Cambridge on Mathematical Women in the British Isles, 1878-1940

[edit] Institutions based on Newnham

Newnham College was the clear conceptual and architectural inspiration for University Women's College at the University of Melbourne, Australia (now University College).