The Rising Tide: Exhibition celebrates 150 years of women at Cambridge

A poster from the anti-women protests at Cambridge in the 19th century

“Feminine fanatics” and “nasty forward minxes”: for 150 years, women have been shaking up the assumptions of Cambridge University.

As Newnham prepares for our 150th anniversary in 2021, the University Library celebrates the anniversary with a unique exhibition of women at Cambridge, ‘The Rising Tide’.

In 1870, ‘Lectures for Ladies’ began in Cambridge, an opportunity for women to experience some elements of University teaching. Among them was the young Bengali poet, Toru Dutt, whose family were living in Cambridge. In 1871, Cambridge’s first residential accommodation for women students opened: led by Anne Jemima Clough, five bold women settled into a house in Regent Street. Meanwhile, Emily Davies’ pioneering ‘College for Women’, founded in 1869 thirty miles away in Hitchin, was aiming firmly for Cambridge. The College for Women would become Girton College; the Regent Street community became Newnham.

What’s shocking is how controversial it was – and how controversial this continued to be, right up until the 1940s. Victorian young ladies were not supposed to damage their health by studying; the student brother of one of the first Newnham students was too embarrassed to speak to her in public.

“There was a question mark about their intellectual character. Are women’s brains the same as men’s? Can they absorb information in the same way of lectures and essays? Do they have the intellectual power to be here?” Dr Lucy Delap

 

In 1897, a vote on degrees for women turned into a riot, with opponents throwing fireworks (image, above) and eggs at the reformers.

Meanwhile, the Newnham and Girton members and alumnae were vociferously campaigning for votes for women (image, below), with student activists touring the country by horse-drawn caravan.

A second vote in 1921 again blocked women’s right to graduate, with the victors celebrating by attempting to vandalise Newnham College – the famous ‘storming of the Clough Gates’, from which they were repelled by Blanche Athena Clough.

The Cambridge Alumnae Banner

The result was a bizarre situation in which Dorothy Garrod could be Professor of Archaeology and lead a Department, while unable to get a degree or vote on the affairs of the University. It was not until 1948 that women could receive degrees at Cambridge.

“the first female students were required to ask permission to attend lectures”

‘The Rising Tide’ exhibition, curated by historians Dr Lucy Delap (Murray Edwards) and Dr Ben Griffin (Girton), explores the fight for education and recognition over the past 150 years. The co-curators worked closely with Newnham Fellows and staff to select the objects that would best tell our College story – from the graduation gown worn by a ‘steamboat lady’ taking her degree in Dublin, to the letter of apology from the men who rioted against Newnham.

As Lucy explains, even after the founding of the women’s colleges, “there were still many barriers that women faced – the first female students were required to ask permission to attend lectures, were not allowed to take exams without special permission, and usually had to be accompanied by chaperones in public until after the First World War.”

But, as Ben explains, the history of women at Cambridge is central to the University as we understand it today: “By telling the story of women at Cambridge, this exhibition also tells the story of how a nineteenth-century institution, which served mainly to educate young men for careers in the church, transformed itself into a recognisably modern university devoted to teaching and research.”

The exhibition at Cambridge University Library runs from Monday 14 October until March 2020. Entry is free.

Newnham College hopes that as many of our members and alumnae as possible will visit the exhibition. Details of special events for Newnham members and alumnae will follow.