Girton College 1869-1932

Barbara Stephen (1872-1945) studied history at Girton College, Cambridge from 1891 to 1894. This history of the college, first published in 1933, drew on her previous publication Emily Davies and Girton College as well as on college reports, letters to and from the founders, and information obtained from staff of the college. The college was established on 16th October 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, and was the first Cambridge college for women students. Women were not admitted to full degrees at Cambridge until 1948, after Stephen’s death, though Oxford had awarded degrees to women since 1920. The author probably never imagined that Girton would admit male undergraduates, as it has from 1979. Stephen’s informative short history of the college’s first sixty years is an intriguing document for those interested in the history of the University of Cambridge or of women’s education.