A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge

by Alice Gardner

EPILOGUE
1914 AND AFTER

The outbreak of the Great War marks an epoch in the history of Newnham as of other institutions at home and abroad. Its experience confirms also the commonly repeated statement that in many things the results of the war have proved very different from those anticipated either in the event of success or of failure. One consequence confidently anticipated was at least temporary decline. We were bound to suffer restrictions and something of poverty, for the first item in which the so-called practical man and woman economize is education. Yet we all see at this moment that in spite of fiscal difficulties in public and losses in private affairs, all our schools and colleges are full to overflowing. Newnham participates in this experience, and is compelled to refuse promise of admission to many qualified and promising students. The reasons for this surprising fact are to be found partly in government policy, partly in economic causes still awaiting elucidation; possibly also in a genuine belief in education as a good thing for women as for men.

One danger is to be apprehended: the lack of really well-prepared students, owing to the comparative scarcity of able University women who enter the teaching profession. Yet while these words are being written, the course of events may take an opposite trend. The salaries of mistresses in schools are raised to an unprecedented height, if perhaps hardly more than is required to cover increased cost of living. And the young women who have been serving the country in administrative work or directing their energies to the land or to domestic productiveness may, in course of time, find their way back to the task of teaching, which, after all, has inspired a genuine enthusiasm in many of our leaders. Early in the War, when some students were feeling doubts whether patriotic duty might not bid them give up their academic course for labour of a directly useful kind, the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher gave in Cambridge a convincing address as to the necessity of keeping up educational and academic work with a view to the requirements of the future.

Any even slight account of what Newnham students of past days did during the War would seem to be out of place here in that they did it as individuals, not as a College.[16] Collectively, however, they furnished, along with Girton, a hospital unit which did excellent work in Belgium, France and Serbia, and later in Salonika. This unit was organized under Scottish management by the Union of Suffrage Societies, but there was, of course, no political aim in its operations.

Past students of Newnham were engaged in War Hospitals in many places. At the same time some of the most competent Newnham mathematicians were employed in making calculations to assist in the construction of aeroplanes. A multitude undertook work in helping soldiers' families, providing necessaries for hospitals, and housing refugees; while others went in companies to gather in fruit and do other work on the land. In London so many were engaged in government offices that a past student in London in the summer of 1917, meeting College friends at every turn, would salute each fresh face with: "What department are you in?" Many took temporary posts in Universities and boys' schools. Those who remained in Cambridge had much to do in teaching English to Belgians, Serbians and other refugees, and in visiting wounded soldiers in the First Eastern and other Hospitals.

The result of all this activity along unexpectedly opened lines cannot yet be estimated. Certainly proof was given of the efficiency of educated women in carrying on work that had never been open to them before. In some regions (e.g. that of police work) it has been agreed upon that even in normal times it is highly desirable that some women should be employed. The issue must be awaited in patience.

It would, of course, be unworthy of the College to suppose that in their activities these women were moved by a wish to better their position and that of their College. Common humanity and genuine patriotism were at the bottom of their efforts. But doubtless the capacity and energy which they displayed helped indirectly towards the grant of the Suffrage. It is a very notable thing that when the Suffrage came, past students of Newnham and Girton of the qualified age, who had the "equivalent of a degree," were adjudged capable of using the parliamentary vote for the University of Cambridge. Parliament was, however, not so liberal as Dublin had been, as it did not recognise as "equivalent" the Tripos Certificates given before the Graces of 1881.

One more change awaited the College at the end of the last academic year, in the retirement of the Principal, Miss Katharine Stephen, a loss much deplored, though Miss Stephen retains her seat on the Council. Her devotion to the work she had undertaken, and the ability with which she discharged it need no eulogies here. Happily, her place has been filled by the niece and biographer of the First Principal. Miss B. A. Clough has not only spent many years within the College precincts and watched its continuous progress, with occasional drawbacks, from comparatively early days; she has also been intimately associated with its pioneers and has acquired an unrivalled knowledge of the aspirations and the needs of student life. As, in old times, the rule of a Foundress Abbess seemed sometimes to be best carried on by a niece who had lived much in her environment, so we may hope good things in future from the fact that our Principal is in more than name the honoured successor of Anne Jemima Clough.