Newnham College, Cambridge






































































Newnham College
Cambridge University
Dining hall in March 2014
Newnham College heraldic shield












Location
Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, England, UK (map)
Founders include Henry Sidgwick, Millicent Fawcett
Established 1871
Named for Newnham village
Previous names Newnham Hall
Gender Women
Sister college Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Principal Dame Carol Black
Undergraduates 398
Postgraduates 148
Endowment
£51.8m (as of 30 June 2017)[1]
Website www.newn.cam.ac.uk
JCR www.newnhamjcr.co.uk
MCR www.srcf.ucam.org/newnhammcr/
Boat club www.newnhamcollegeboatclub.com

Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.


The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicent Garrett Fawcett. It was the second women's college to be founded at Cambridge, following Girton College.




Contents






  • 1 History


  • 2 Women in the university


  • 3 College arms


  • 4 College life


  • 5 Principals


  • 6 Alumnae


  • 7 Gallery


  • 8 See also


  • 9 References


  • 10 External links





History


The history of Newnham begins with the formation of the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge in 1869. The progress of women at Cambridge University owes much to the pioneering work undertaken by the philosopher Henry Sidgwick, fellow of Trinity. Lectures for Ladies had been started in Cambridge in 1869,[2] and such was the demand from those who could not travel in and out on a daily basis that in 1871 Sidgwick, one of the organisers of the lectures, rented a house at 74, Regent Street to house five female students who wished to attend lectures but did not live near enough to the University to do so. He persuaded Anne Jemima Clough, who had previously run a school in the Lake District, to take charge of this house. The following year (1872), Anne Clough moved to Merton House (built c1800) on Queen's Road,[3] then to premises in Bateman Street. Clough eventually became president of the college.


Demand continued to increase and the supporters of the enterprise formed a limited company to raise funds, lease land and build on it. in 1875 the first building for Newnham College was built on the site off Sidgwick Avenue where the college remains.[4] In 1876 Henry Sidgwick married Eleanor Mildred Balfour who was already a supporter of women's education. They lived at Newnham for two periods during the 1880s and 1890s.[2]


The college formally came into existence in 1880 with the amalgamation of the Association and the Company. Women were allowed to sit University examinations as of right from 1881; their results were recorded in separate class-lists.


The demand from prospective students remained buoyant and the Newnham Hall Company built steadily, providing three more halls, a laboratory and a library, in the years up to the First World War. The architect Basil Champneys was employed throughout this period and designed the buildings in the Queen Anne style to much acclaim, giving the main college buildings an extraordinary unity. These and later buildings are grouped around beautiful gardens, which many visitors to Cambridge never discover, and, unlike most Cambridge colleges, students may walk on the grass for most of the year.


Many young women in mid-19th century England had no access to the kind of formal secondary schooling which would have enabled them to go straight into the same university courses as the young men - the first principal herself had never been a pupil in a school. So Newnham's founders allowed the young women to work at and to a level which suited their attainments and abilities. Some of them, with an extra year's preparation, did indeed go on to degree-level work. And as girls' secondary schools were founded in the last quarter of the 19th century, staffed often by those who had been to the women's colleges of Cambridge, Oxford and London, the situation began to change. In 1890 the Newnham student Philippa Fawcett was ranked above the Senior Wrangler, i.e. top in the Mathematical Tripos. By the First World War the vast majority of Newnham students were going straight into degree-level courses.


In tailoring the curriculum to the students, Newnham found itself at odds with the other Cambridge college for women, Girton, founded at the same time. Emily Davies, Girton's founder, believed passionately that equality could only be expressed by women doing the same courses as the men, on the same time-table. This meant that Girton attracted a much smaller population in its early years. But the Newnham Council held its ground, reinforced by the commitment of many of its members to educational reform generally and a wish to change some of the courses Cambridge was offering to its men.


In 1948 Newnham, like Girton, attained the full status of a college of the university.



Women in the university




Sidgwick Hall and the Sunken Garden.


The university as an institution at first took no notice of these women and arrangements to sit examinations had to be negotiated with each examiner individually. 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 (1871) women were allowed into lectures, albeit at the discretion of the lecturer. By 1881, however, a general permission to sit examinations was negotiated.


A first attempt to secure for the women the titles and privileges of their degrees, not just a certificate from their colleges, was rebuffed in 1887 and a second try in 1897 went down to even more spectacular defeat. Undergraduates demonstrating against the women and their supporters did hundreds of pounds' worth of damage in the Market Square.


The First World War brought a catastrophic collapse of fee income for the men's colleges and Cambridge and Oxford both sought state financial help for the first time. This was the context in which the women tried once more to secure inclusion, this time asking not only for the titles of degrees but also for the privileges and involvement in university government that possession of degrees proper would bring. In Oxford this was secured in 1920 but in Cambridge the women went down to defeat again in 1921, having to settle for the titles - the much-joked-about BA tit - but not the substance of degrees. This time the male undergraduates celebrating victory over the women used a handcart as a battering ram to destroy the lower half of the bronze gates at Newnham, a memorial to Anne Clough.


The women spent the inter-war years trapped on the threshold of the university. They could hold university posts but they could not speak or vote in the affairs of their own departments or of the university as a whole. Finally, in 1948 the women were admitted to full membership of the university, although the university still retained powers to limit their numbers.
National university expansion after the Second World War brought further change. In 1954, a third women's college, New Hall, (now Murray Edwards College), was founded. In 1965 the first mixed graduate college, Darwin, was founded. The 1970s saw three men's colleges (Churchill, Clare and King's) admit women for the first time. Gradually Cambridge was ceasing to be 'a men's university although of a mixed type', as it had been described in the 1920s in a memorably confused phrase. Cambridge now has no all-male colleges and Girton is also mixed. Newnham, Murray Edwards and Lucy Cavendish have all-female student bodies.


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. The issue again became prominent as women only colleges throughout the rest of the country began admitting men and following the 2007 announcement that Oxford University's last remaining women-only college, St Hilda's, would admit men, Cambridge is the only university in the United Kingdom where colleges have admissions policies that discriminate on the basis of gender.[5][6]



College arms


Argent, on a chevron azure between in chief two crosses botonny fitchy and in base a mullet sable, a griffin's head erased or between two mascles of the field.


These arms, granted in 1923, were designed by the Revd Edward Earle Dorling to incorporate charges from the arms of those intimately connected with the founding of the college.


In the early years of the college Anne Clough was the Principal. She came of the family of Clough of Plas Clough, Denbighshire, which bore: Azure, between three mascles a greyhound's head couped argent. The out-students were under the care of Marion Kennedy. She bore: Argent, a chevron gules between in chief two crosses botonny fitchy sable and in base a boar's head couped sable langued gules - a coat slightly differing from that of Kennedy of Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, which has crosses crosslet fitchy.


The other great benefactors of the college were Henry Sidgwick and Eleanor Mildred Balfour, who married in 1876. Mrs Sidgwick was Vice-Principal of one of the College's Halls, later becoming Principal of the College in 1892. Their arms were - Sidgwick (assumed arms): Gules, a fess between three griffins' heads erased or; and Balfour (of Balbirnie): Argent, on a chevron engrailed between three mullets sable an otter's head erased argent.


In the college arms the chevron links them with the coats of Balfour and Kennedy, while its colour and the mascles refer to Clough. The crosses come from Kennedy, the mullet from Balfour, and the griffin's head from Sidgwick. No crest was granted, for although a corporate body may have a crest, it was thought that a crest and helm would be inappropriate to one composed entirely of women.



College life




Pfeiffer Arch - the main entrance to the college before the Porters' Lodge moved to Sidgwick Avenue


Set in acres of gardens, Newnham students' rooms are often filled with antiques[citation needed] – writing bureaux, fireplaces, carved dining tables and chests of drawers are common pieces of furniture. It is said[by whom?] that Basil Champneys designed what has now become the second-longest continuous indoor corridor in Europe[citation needed] in order to prevent the women of the college stepping outside in the rain. The laboratory, which can be found near the sports field, now houses a space in which students put on everything from theatre productions and music recitals to art exhibitions.


Alongside a formal hall that is held roughly once per week, students at the college now also have a modern buttery in which to eat and relax. The College is also home to the Grade II* listed 1897 Yates Thompson Library, with its beautiful ornamented ceiling, augmented by the addition of the Horner Markwick building in 2004. The 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 with a strong collection of some 90,000 volumes, including approximately 6,000 rare books.[7] The collection is kept as relevant, up-to-date and useful as possible by the annual purchase of over 1,000 new titles to support undergraduate study in all subjects.


The college has two official combination rooms that represent the interests of students in the college and are responsible for social aspects of college life. Undergraduates are members of the Junior Combination Room (JCR), whilst graduate students are members of the Middle Combination Room (MCR).


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


As with most colleges at Cambridge, Newnham has many societies of its own including clubs for rowing, football, netball, tennis, and many other sports as well as several choirs. As Newnham is a non-denominational foundation, considering tolerance a positive virtue, it does not have its own chapel. Choral scholars at Newnham form part of Selwyn College's chapel choir. Newnham College Boat Club, the University's first women's boat club, share a boathouse with Jesus College Boat Club. Newnham students become involved in many university-wide societies.



Principals




  • Anne Clough (1871–1892)[8]


  • Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick (1892–1910)


  • Katharine Stephen (January 1911–1920)


  • Blanche Athena Clough (1920–1923)


  • Pernel Strachey (1923–1941)


  • Myra Curtis (1942–1954)


  • Ruth Louisa Cohen (1954–1972)


  • Jean Floud (1973–1982)


  • Sheila Jeanne Browne (1983–1992)


  • Onora O'Neill (1992–2006)


  • Patricia Hodgson (2006–2012)


  • Carol M. Black (2012–present)



Alumnae









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Name
Birth
Death
Career

Diane Abbott
1953

Politician

Pat Ambler
1936
2017
Roboticist

Alice Ambrose
1906
2001
Philosopher, logician
Dame Margaret Anstee
1926
2016
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

Maggie Atkinson
1956

Public servant

Akua Asabea Ayisi
1959

High Court Judge and journalist
Dame Joan Bakewell
1933

Journalist, Broadcaster

Clare Balding
1971

Journalist, Broadcaster

Mary Beard
1955

Classicist

Kate Bertram
1912
1999
Biologist
Dame Margaret Blackwood
1909
1986
Australian botanist

Mary Boyce
1920
2006
British Iranist, Zoroastrian specialist at SOAS

Claire Breay
1968

Curator at the British Library

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
1900
1979
British-American Astronomer and Astrophysicist

Eleanor Bron
1938

Actress
Dame Antonia Byatt
1936

Writer

Christine Carpenter
1946

Professor of English History, Writer, Editor and Ford Lecturer

Letitia Chitty
1897
1982
Aeronautical engineer

Joan Clarke
1917
1996
Cryptanalyst
Dame Julia Cleverdon
1950

Charity CEO

Ruth Cohen
1906
1991
Economist

Joan Curran
1916
1999
Physicist

Nora David, Baroness David of Romsey
1913
2009
Politician
Dame Margaret Drabble
1939

Writer

Sarah Dunant
1950

Writer, Broadcaster

Patricia Duncker
1951

Novelist

Sheila May Edmonds
1916
2002
Mathematician, Newnham College Vice-Principal 1960–1981

Julie Etchingham
1969

Newsreader

Sarah Foot
1961

Ecclesiastical Historian

Rosalind Franklin
1920
1958
Physical chemist, Crystallographer

Dorothy Garrod
1892
1968
Archaeologist

Winifred Gérin
1901
1981
Biographer

Jane Gibson
1924
2008
Biochemist[9]
Dame Jane Goodall
1934

Primatologist, Anthropologist

Germaine Greer
1939

Australian academic, Feminist writer

Jane Grigson
1928
1990
Cookery writer

Patricia Hewitt
1948

Politician

Dorothy Hill
1907
1997
Australian Geologist and Palaeontologist

Dorothy Hodgkin
1910
1994

Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate
Dame Patricia Hodgson
1947

Former BBC Trust member

Portia Holman
1903
1983
Child psychiatrist

Isaline Blew Horner
1896
1981

PTS president, OBE recipient

Gabrielle Howard
1876
1930
Plant physiologist

Louise Howard
1880
1969
Organic husbandry advocate

Rupa Huq
1972

Politician

Geraldine Jebb
1876
1959
Principal, Bedford College, London

Elizabeth Jenkins
1905
2010
Novelist, biography

Lindsay Laird
1949
2001
Scientist, ichthyologist

Penelope Leach
1937

Psychologist, Writer

Judith Ledeboer
1901
1990
Architect

Gillian Lovegrove
1942

Computer scientist

Jessica Mann
1937

Writer

Miriam Margolyes
1941

Actress

Margaret Masterman
1910
1986
Computational linguist

Suzy Menkes
1943

Fashion editor International Herald Tribune since 1988

Brenda Milner
1918

Neuropsychologist

Sara Mohr-Pietsch
1980

Broadcaster
Dame Iris Murdoch
1919
1999
Writer, philosopher

Valerie Grosvenor Myer
1935
2007
Writer
Dame Julia Neuberger
1950

Rabbi, Member of the House of Lords
Prof Adetowun Ogunsheye
1926

Academic, first female Professor in Nigeria

Dorothea Pertz
1859
1939
Botanist

Jadwiga Piłsudska
1920
2014
Architect, Pilot

Sylvia Plath
1932
1963
Writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Clare Pooley


Blogger and novelist

Amber Reeves
1887
1981
Writer
Dame Alison Richard
1948

Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge

Audrey Richards
1899
1984
Social anthropologist

Hayat Sindi
1967

Member of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia

Rosemary Anne Sisson
1923

Dramatist, Novelist

Ali Smith
1962

Novelist

Kamala Sohonie
1938

Biochemist, 1st Indian woman to receive a PhD in a scientific discipline

Marjory Stephenson
1885
1948
Biochemist

Edith Anne Stoney
1869
1938
Medical Physicist

Alix Strachey
1892
1973
Psychoanalyst

Emma Thompson
1959

Actress, screenwriter

Judith Jarvis Thomson
1929

Philosopher

Constance Tipper
1894
1995
Metallurgist, Crystallographer

Claire Tomalin
1933

Writer

Michelene Wandor
1940

Dramatist

Anna Watkins
1983

Olympic Gold Medallist 2012

Elizabeth Wiskemann
1899
1971
Historian, journalist

Katharine Whitehorn
1926

Writer

Olivia Williams
1968

Actress

Grace Evelyn Pickford
1902
1986
Biologist/Endocrinologist


Gallery




See also


  • Category:Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge


References





  1. ^ "Consolidated Financial Statements Year ended 30 June 2017" (PDF). Newnham College, Cambridge. Retrieved 3 August 2018..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}


  2. ^ ab Stefan Collini, ‘Sidgwick, Henry (1838–1900)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 accessed 4 Jan 2017


  3. ^ St John's College: Queen's Road: Merton House, Cambridge 2000.


  4. ^  Lee, Elizabeth (1901). "Clough, Anne Jemima" . In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement​. London: Smith, Elder & Co.


  5. ^ "Single-sex colleges: a dying breed?". HERO. June 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-06-12. Retrieved 2009-04-20.


  6. ^ Martin, Nicole (2006-06-08). "St Hilda's to end 113-year ban on male students". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2010-05-20.


  7. ^ College library.


  8. ^ "The colleges and halls: Newnham". British History Online. Retrieved 21 December 2016.


  9. ^ "Biography: Gibson, Quentin Howieson". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 March 2017.




External links











  • Newnham College Official Website

  • Newnham JCR

  • Newnham MCR

  • Student-written alternative prospectus

  • Newnham College Boat Club


  •  "Newnham College" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.



Coordinates: 52°12′01″N 0°06′26″E / 52.20022°N 0.10727°E / 52.20022; 0.10727







Popular posts from this blog

Lambaréné

Chris Pine

Kashihara Line