Sophie Bryant

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Sophie Bryant (15 February 1850, Sandymount, Dublin – 29 August 1922, Chamonix, France) was an Anglo-Irish mathematician, educator, feminist and activist.

She was the daughter of Revd Dr William Willock DD, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin and was educated at home, largely by her father. At the age of sixteen she moved to London, when her father was appointed Professor of Geometry at the University of London, and she attended Bedford College. At the age of nineteen she married Dr William Hicks Bryant, a surgeon ten years older than she was, who died of cirrhosis within a year.

In 1875 she became a teacher and was invited by Frances Buss to join the staff of North London Collegiate School. In 1885 she succeeded Miss Buss as headmistress of North London Collegiate, serving until 1918.

When the University of London opened its degree courses to women in 1881, she became one of the first women to obtain First Class Honours, in Mental and Moral Sciences, together with a degree in mathematics. In 1882 she was the third woman to be elected to the London Mathematical Society, and was the first active female member, publishing her first paper with the Society in 1884.

Sophie Bryant was a pioneer in education for women. She was the first woman to receive a DSc in England; one of the first three women to be appointed to a Royal Commission, the Bryce commission on Secondary Education in 1894-95; and one of the first three women to be appointed to the Senate of the University of London. When Trinity College Dublin opened its degrees to women, Bryant was one of the first to be awarded an honorary doctorate. She was also instrumental in setting up the Cambridge Training College for Women, now Hughes Hall, Cambridge. She is also said to have been one of the first women to own a bicycle.

She was interested in Irish politics, wrote books on Irish History and ancient Irish law, and was an ardent Protestant Irish nationalist. She supported women’s suffrage but advocated postponement until women were better educated.

She enjoyed mountain climbing and climbed the Matterhorn twice. She died in a hiking accident in the Alps in 1922.