International Woman’s Day
8th March is International Woman’s Day. Here are some interesting facts about women and Oxford:
Professor Irene Tracey is the second female Vice-Chancellor of the University, the first was the previous Vice Chancellor Professor Dame Louise Richardson, 2016-2023.
Between 2018 and 2022 more female applicants than male have been admitted to Oxford University (2022, 53.1%).
Christ Church College appointed the first female Dean, The Very Revd Professor Sarah Foot, in 2023.
Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, in 2020 created the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine which has been used in more than 180 countries and is thought to have saved more than six million lives.
Olive Gibbs Labour politician, twice Lord Mayor of Oxford (1974–5 and 1982), and the first woman chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Dorothy Hodgkin only British woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Her work in Chemistry advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography, determining the structure of biomolecules. Essential for structural biology. In 1946 she determined the structure of penicillin. In 1956 she determined structure of vitamin B12, which has the most complex structure of all vitamins.
Cicely Williams was one of the first women to study medicine at Somerville College. She went on to become the first female doctor from Jamaica at the South London Hospital for Women and Children in 1923.
Ivy Williams, the Society of Oxford Home-Students, was the first woman to be called to the English bar in 1922 and the first woman to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1923.
40 years after completing her studies Annie Rogers graduated in 1920, receiving her 1st in Latin and Greek.
35 St Giles St, Oxford. Annie Rogers is commemorated in this Blue Plaque on the house where she lived between 1891 and 1899.
1920 was the year that women were first formally admitted to the University. The matriculation ceremony of the first 130 women took place in the Divinity School. In the same year the first degree ceremony to award degrees to women was held in the Sheldonian Theatre (14th October 1920).
Lady Margaret Hall, the first residential hall for women students at Oxford, was founded in 1878, opening in 1879 with 9 students. The first Principal was Elizabeth Wordsworth.
Somerville Hall was established in 1879 opening with twelve students. The first Principal of Somerville was Madeleine Shaw Lefevre.
1879, The Society for Oxford Home-Students (formally named as such in 1898) had twenty-five women students. This would become in 1942 St Anne’s Society, and St Anne’s College in 1952.
St Hugh’s Hall was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth - offering lower fees to women.
St Hilda’s Hall was founded by the Principal of Cheltenham Ladies College, Dorothea Beale in 1893. The first Principal was Esther Burrows.
Two colleges were co founded by women at a time when the University was a completely male domaine: Dervorguilla of Galloway, Balliol College 1263 and Dorothy Wadham, Wadham College in 1610.
The patron Saint of Oxford is Frideswide, a Saxon princess who dedicated her life to God and established a nunnery on the site of Christ Church Cathedral.
Women in Music, 7th March 2024. See What’s On in Oxford.