Jane Robinson - Bluestockings

Landmark Dates in the History of
Higher Education for Women in England

1096 The earliest record of Oxford as a centre of teaching and learning. It is the first university in the English-speaking world.

1209 The University of Cambridge is (one could argue) indirectly founded by an Oxford woman, when scholars are banished from Oxford for her manslaughter, and decide to settle by the Cam.

1673 Bathsua Makin publishes An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen.

1694/7 Mary Astells A Serious Proposal to the Ladies appears, suggesting a type of university education for women.

1750s70s The heyday of the original Bluestockings, led by Elizabeth Montagu: mostly women, meeting in one anothers houses to discuss literature, philosophy, art, and intellectual discourse.

1792 Mary Wollstonecrafts Vindication of the Rights of Woman is published.

1826 The founding of University College, London (originally known as London University).

1829 The Governesses Mutual Assurance Society is established.

1830 Birkbeck College (then known as the London Mechanics Institute) admits women to lectures.

1832 Durham University is founded.

1841 Whitelands (teacher-training) College opens in London.

1847 London Lectures to Ladies are instituted by Professor F. D. Maurice (whose sister is a governess).

1848 Queens College, London, is founded by Professor Maurice.

1849 Bedford College opens, later to become part of the University of London.

1850 North London Collegiate School opens.

1854 The Cheltenham Ladies College opens.

1854 The Oxford University Act removes the requirement for religious tests for BA students, thus widening access; the Act for Cambridge is passed in 1856.

1858 The English Womans Journal is first published, by the Ladies of Langham Place.

1863 Girls are allowed to attempt Cambridge Junior Local examinations.

1864 The North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women is established by Josephine Butler and Anne Jemima Clough.

1865 Cambridge Local examinations are formally opened to girls.

1867 The University Extension Scheme administers lectures in Liverpool and Manchester, to which women are admitted.

1868 The Taunton Commission reports damningly on the education of girls in England.

1869 Cambridge Higher Local examinations come into being, for both sexes.

Emily Davies sets up an academic community at Benslow House, Hitchin, later to become Girton College, Cambridge (1873).

1871 Teaching Fellows at Oxford and Cambridge are allowed to marry, so the higher reaches of academia cease to be male preserves.

A community of five women students is founded by Henry Sidgwick and Anne Clough in Cambridge; it develops into Newnham College.

1872 The Girls Public Day School Trust is founded.

1874 London School of Medicine for Women opens.

1875 Oxford Higher Local examinations come into being.

1876 The Enabling Act technically allows the admission of women to universities.

1878 London University is the first to admit women undergraduates on the same terms as men. The first degrees are awarded in the summer of 1880.

The Association for the Education of Women in Oxford is founded, and is responsible for the administration of Home Students (local women) from 1879. (In 1952, the Society of Home Students coalesces into St Annes College.)

1879 Somerville Hall (later College) and Lady Margaret Hall open in Oxford.

1881 Women are allowed to sit Cambridge Tripos (but not officially to graduate).

Victoria University incorporates colleges at Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds, and admits women undergraduates.

1881 Nottingham becomes a co-educational university college.

1882 Westfield College, London, opens.

1883 Bristol becomes a co-educational university college.

1884 Oxford degree examinations are opened to women (but no certificate is awarded to those who pass).

1886 St Hughs College, Oxford, is founded.

Royal Holloway College, London, opens.

1892 Reading awards London University degrees to women.

1893 St Hildas College opens in Oxford.

1895 Durham allows women degrees.

1895 The London School of Economics opens.

1897 Sheffield awards London University degrees to men and women.

1901 Exeter becomes a co-educational university college. Birmingham University awards men and women degrees.

1902 The Ladies Department at Kings College, London, awards degrees.

Southampton University College is founded.

1907 Imperial College, London, opens.

1908 Edith Morley of Reading becomes the first woman university professor in England.

1915 Queen Mary College becomes part of the University of London.

1919 The Sex Disqualification Removal Act.

1920 Women are awarded degrees at Oxford.

1923 Women students at Cambridge are admitted to university lectures by right, rather than by privilege.

1927 Hull and Leicester University Colleges are founded.

1948 Women students at Cambridge are officially allowed to graduate.

1959 The five womens societies at Oxford (Somerville, Lady Margaret Hall, St Hughs, St Hildas, and St Annes) finally become full members of the university.