A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge

by Alice Gardner

We have noticed as one of the additions to the College in connection with the Pfeiffer Building a Combination Room for the Staff, including all women Lecturers and resident Fellows. Later on its functions were transferred to its present quarters, the room next the College Dining Hall—a pleasant room with two fireplaces and a door opening on the garden—the original Combination Room being made use of partly as a committee room, partly as a reading and coaching room for students.

Work among both students and past students had meantime been facilitated by the gift in 1898 of a well-designed library building, for which the College has to thank the liberality of Mr. and Mrs. Yates Thompson. The Library is admirably adapted to its purpose, with section recesses divided off by bookcases and conveniently arranged tables, while beauty of proportion, the excellence of the woodwork, and the elaborate mouldings on the ceiling (of the principal Printers' Arms of the sixteenth century) give it an artistic as well as academic character. When (1907) nearly ten years after its opening, its space proved insufficient for the books belonging to the College, the same benefactors most generously doubled it in size, providing staircases and a fine east window.

The supply of library books grew and prospered at least in proportion to the general progress of the College. Many of the original promoters were literary men and book-lovers, and their gifts and bequests, besides the money annually spent out of the College income, made the necessary extension just noticed necessary, and tended to make the College a more desirable place for old students—especially such as were engaged in educational or literary work—in which to spend part of the summer vacation. Some friends were anxious that the Library should have interesting books of a non-special character. Mrs. Stephen Winkworth, already mentioned, whenever she had enjoyed some new work of biography or general literature, used to send a copy of it for the Newnham Library. Mr. Coutts Trotter, Miss Clough's kind adviser in the early days, bequeathed the bulk of his books to Newnham College. The same was done by Mary Bateson, of whom we shall have more to say presently. There never was a time when there was not an influx of books of various kinds. Provision was made for a steady supply by the assignment to the Library Committee every year of a sum proportional to the number of students. Most books, on conditions, might be taken out for parts of the vacations. The Library Committee consists of representatives on the Staff of all the principal subjects studied and other lecturers, whose duty it is to submit the names of books required by the students whom they direct. The Library has thus been kept up to date, and has also continually been enriched by special gifts. Thus a Dante Library was formed in memory of Miss Jane Lee, already mentioned; a clock was given by a generation of students going down, the case being designed by one of them; guests gave books on their departure. The catalogues were carefully kept, and if any slackness in returning books was observed, great vigilance was used to recall them. The care of the Library was for many years in the hands of Miss Katharine Stephen.

It had been the wish of early friends—especially of Miss Kennedy—to attach permanently to the College as many as possible of the past students. This had been done to a certain extent, as already shown, by the Newnham College Club. Another plan, still adhered to, is to invite all students who belonged to specified periods, to come up to Commemoration Dinner on or about February 24th—a practice more or less observed in the Colleges of the University. But in addition it was the aim of the founders to bring the old students into the Constitution, so that the responsibility for the College should eventually be to a greater extent in their hands. With this object in view, the Constitution was revised, and in 1893 a new body of members was created chosen from the old students and called Associates (not Associate Members, who were a separate class of members qualified by subscriptions). In this year all past students were requested to send in the names of those twenty among their College contemporaries or friends whom they considered most fitted to aid the causes of "Education, learning, and research." To the first twenty who obtained the greatest number of votes the Council added ten, and the number was increased by annual election of three till it reached 48, after which time three were to resign every year and three others to be chosen by co-optation. The Associates were full members of the College, and as such took part in the election of the Council, and still, under the later Constitution, elect members of the Governing Body. They meet in Cambridge every year, and coming as they do from various centres, contribute new ideas and points of view. At first, as might naturally be expected, most of the resident Staff were placed on the list. It includes many women who have reached some degree of eminence in their several lines of activity and also usually some research fellows.

There was in these years a growing desire to provide opportunities for what may be called post-graduate work, though the term is not strictly applicable. There had been, as we have seen, students doing advanced work before the foundation of any research fellowships. The studentship connected with the name of Miss Marion Kennedy had given opportunity for a successful Tripos student to look about her, try some manageable piece of work, and either find some fresh line to follow up in the field of science or letters, or else enter the teaching profession with a wider view of her functions than could generally be found in one who had never advanced in her studies beyond the undergraduate stage. Studentships in the Natural Sciences were, from 1881, awarded from time to time to students of post-graduate status from the Bathurst Fund already mentioned. But something involving a longer period of independent study was clearly desirable. Critics of the women's education movement were wont to assert that women might do fairly well in Triposes and in educational work afterwards, but that they contributed nothing of any significance to the advancement of knowledge. This "hasty generalization" needed removing. It was, however, no mere spirit of feminine rivalry, but a generous impetus to labour in intellectual fields, to satisfy one's own thirst for truth, and to help in the building up of the sciences—whether natural or human—that inspired the promoters and labourers in this new field of College activity. The most eager and influential in this movement was a member of the College eminently marked by a keen delight in research for its own sake, and by a desire that Newnham should be able to hold its own in the highest kind of University work among all the Colleges of the world—Mary Bateson. Under her influence the first research fellowship was given by Mrs. Herringham, and was thrown open to public application in 1900. Friends of the College and the students themselves were stirred up to raise funds for more research fellowships. The number is now four, and they are awarded by a special committee and tenable for three years. The stipend was originally sufficient to pay the expenses of a woman resident in the College, though a small amount of lecturing or tuition was held to be compatible with the duties of the fellow.[10] The first Newnham students to hold a research fellowship were Miss J. E. Harrison and Miss G. L. Elles (1900). The former had already acquired celebrity by her archaeological works—especially her Myths and Monuments of Ancient Athens—and had been invited to occupy rooms in Newnham, where she speedily created a keen interest among students and many of the Staff, first in classical archaeology and later in anthropology. Miss Elles is well known as a geologist, and had already been teaching at the Sedgwick Museum under Professor Hughes.

With the research fellowships it has been possible to retain at Newnham advanced students whose researches have made a solid contribution to knowledge. Though it may seem invidious to make a selection, mention may be made of the researches of Miss E. R. Saunders (partly in co-operation with Mr. Bateson) into the laws of Variation; the study of floral pigments by Miss Wheldale (Mrs. Onslow); that of animal psychology by Miss E. M. Smith (Mrs. Bartlett); and in widely different fields, Miss Maud Sellers' valuable work in rescuing and making public the records of the Merchant Adventurers of York; that of Miss Paues, in unearthing a Middle-English Bible; Mrs. Temperley's (née Bradford) studies in Tudor Proclamations and other legal antiquities; and, not least, the wide range of Miss Mary Bateson's work in Mediaeval History, chiefly monastic and municipal.

Mary Bateson was so much the prime mover in the development of Newnham work for the advancement of learning, and some of the teachers who stimulated and directed her efforts were so evidently epoch-making in the lives of Newnham students; also her tragically sudden death in 1906 cut short such a remarkably promising career and evoked so much sympathy with Newnham throughout the University, that a few more words may be devoted to keeping her memory fresh. Her father (Master of St. John's College) and her mother—much distinguished in her zealous efforts for the betterment of women—were old friends of Miss Clough and the College; her elder brother, Mr. William Bateson, is well known for his remarkable work on heredity. Mary Bateson began independent research in the Monastic Civilisation of the Fens, even before she took the Historical tripos, in which she naturally obtained a good first class. Her literary activity in the production of articles for learned periodicals, and later very substantial books, was immense. At the same time, her zeal in the cause of her own College never faltered. For many years she was ready to do what teaching was offered to her on her own lines, and she did it exceedingly well. But her great task in the College was to produce a noble discontent. She cared far less that the students should take good places in their examinations than that they should come to understand what sound learning really means, and should share her own delight in the search for undiscovered truth. Broad in her sympathies with all honest workers, genial in her manners, remarkably constant and helpful in her friendships, and withal scholarly to the backbone in her tastes and ambitions, she stands out as one of the leading figures of our College. Two main influences determined her course: first, that of Professor Creighton, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough and subsequently Bishop of London, who came to Cambridge in 1885, and began a new departure in History of the kind that appealed to Mary Bateson's mind and character. She became attached to his family, and he inspired her with the ambition which he felt for himself when he prescribed for his epitaph the words, "He tried to write true history." After Dr. Creighton's departure from Cambridge, the teacher from whom she derived most inspiration and with whom she sometimes collaborated was the distinguished writer, Professor F. W. Maitland—also a most effective teacher and helper of historical students at Newnham and in the University generally. Miss Bateson's researches into Borough Customs, as well as her previous volumes on the Records of the History of Leicester, earned her an honourable place among standard historians of mediaeval institutions, while her small book on Mediaeval England, and her admirable account of the "Colonization of Canada" in the seventh volume of the Cambridge Modern History, may always be recommended confidently to the general reader. Mary Bateson was deeply interested in politics and a strong advocate for women's suffrage, on behalf of which, in a deputation to the then Prime Minister (Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman), she made an exceedingly able and trenchant speech. But she cared far more that women should progress in knowledge and capacity than in political power. The great esteem in which she had been held was shown in the large attendance of University men and former students at the funeral service in St, John's Chapel, and in the readiness with which the proposal was received, at a meeting in St. John's in the following May, of a memorial to her in Cambridge, which took the appropriate form of an additional Research Fellowship. This fellowship bears her name, and is generally—ceteris paribus—given to a former student engaged in some branch of historical research.

An earlier loss—happily not so permanent—was sustained in 1896 when Miss Gladstone, owing to the rapidly declining health of her father, felt bound to resign her College post for family duties. Miss Gladstone had not only, as already shown, become a most valuable element in the life of the College by her geniality and devotion to the duties she had undertaken. She also, in the eyes of the world, raised the reputation of the College, since an institution must be of some significance if the daughter of one of the most eminent men in the country, having access to the most brilliant and interesting society, thought it worth while to give up—for most of the year—the delights of such an attractive home for the service of a College for women.[11] Miss Gladstone had of late been not only Vice-Principal (Tutor) in Sidgwick Hall, but Secretary to the Education Committee, a position which brought her into constant communication with most of the resident lecturers. In a sense, the loss could not be entirely repaired, though Miss Stephen succeeded her as head of Sidgwick Hall. Miss Stephen had originally come to Newnham as Secretary to Miss Gladstone, and had become very popular with the students, especially in helping in their political debates. She had also, as we have already said, the charge of the Library, in which she seemed to know the exact place of every important book. As she was a daughter of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the distinguished judge, and a niece of Leslie Stephen (who was induced more than once to come and give a delightful lecture to the students), she helped to continue the traditions of public and intellectual eminence which the students have always found in the records of their benefactors. In memory of Miss Gladstone's vice-principalship, the students raised money to build an annexe to the dining hall of Sidgwick Hall which, since the opening of a new wing in 1884, had proved insufficient for peace and comfort. Another and important addition to the College was the block named after others of the founders, Kennedy Buildings. Now that there were resident fellows and several research students, it was desirable that in some part of the College buildings there should be suites of two rooms, allowing more accommodation for books and more opportunities for entertaining than could be easily had in any of the three Halls. In 1899, through the remarkable generosity of several friends, the freehold of the land on which the College stands was bought.

But meantime, during a period of prosperity, Newnham had to experience its first serious set-back, a set-back only paralleled in the week during which these lines are being written: the Senate of the University of Cambridge refused a petition to grant to Girton and Newnham students who had been successful in the triposes the title of degrees.

The movement had mainly arisen in 1897 to meet a difficulty springing from the inability of the world to understand that a certificate stating that a woman had attained the standard required for a degree in honours is really as good a guarantee of attainments as the letters B.A. to which every poll man is entitled. The handicapping was serious. At the same time, more definite status was earnestly desired. The first suggestion of a granting of degrees was at once dropped. Various compromises were made by friends and opponents: in those of the former there was the suggestion of a titular B.A. and a real M.A. for women—too moderate and well reasoned to find many supporters. Another—widely taken up, but naturally unacceptable to all who were intimately and sympathetically concerned with higher education for women—was of a degree-granting University for women only, called in advance "The Queen's University," and styled by Professor Maitland in a brilliant speech on the other side as "Bletchley Junction Academy." This would have been even less of a real University than the original non-teaching University of London, since that at least had programmes of study and fixed standards, whereas the new one was to accept the standards of existing Universities. It is not certain, however, whether this impracticable scheme ever came into anything like definite form.