Sarah Emily Davies (22 April 1830 – 13 July 1921) was an English feminist, suffragist and a pioneering campaigners fore women's rights to university access. She was born in Southampton, England to an evangelical clergyman and a teacher in 1830, although she spent most of her youth in Gateshead. She is principally remembered as being the co-founder and first Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge University, the first college in England to educate women.
In 1862, after the death of her father, Davies moved to London, where she edited a feminist publication, The Englishwoman's Journal, and became friends with women's rights advocates Barbara Bodichon, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her younger sister Millicent Fawcett. Davies became a founder member of a women's discussion group, the Kensington Society.
Davies began campaigning for a woman's right to educate. She was active on the London School Board and in the Schools Inquiry Commission and was instrumental in obtaining the admission of girls to official secondary school examinations.
She then advocated for the admission of women to the Universities of London, Oxford and Cambridge. Like all universities at this time, these were exclusively male domains.
She also became involved in the Suffrage movement, which centred on a woman's right to vote. She was involved in organizing for John Stuart Mill's 1866 petition to the British Parliament) which was the first to ask for women's suffrage. That same year, she also wrote the book The Higher Education of Women.
In 1869, Davies led the founding of Britain's first women's college, Girton College at Hitchin, Hertfordshire. In 1873, the institution moved to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. From 1873 to 1875, Davies served as mistress of the college, where she then served as Secretary until 1904. The college was not permitted to grant full Cambridge University degrees to women until 1940.
Davies also continued her suffrage work. In 1906, she headed a delegation to Parliament. She was known for opposing the militant and violent methods used by the Suffragette part of the women's suffrage movement, led by the Pankhursts.
In 1910, Davies published Thoughts on Some Questions Relating to Women. She died in 1921.
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| Preceded by Annie Austin |
Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge 1872–1875 |
Succeeded by Marianne Bernard |