The manor of Girton on the Huntingdon road—the old via Devana—belonged in the xi century to Picot the Norman sheriff of Cambridge who expropriated part of its tithes for the endowment of the canons’ house and church of S. Giles which is passed by Girtonians on their way from the college to the town. In the xvi century the manor provided a rent charge for Corpus Christi College. Earlier still it was the site of a Roman and Anglo-Saxon burial ground (discovered in a college field in 1882-6). The college itself is built on old river gravel.
The founders.
The final decision to build near but not in the university town was taken at the last moment when Lady Augusta Stanley, wife of Dean Stanley, refused both money and moral support if it were decided otherwise.[451] Lady Augusta Stanley who thus determined a step which has not proved advantageous to Girton was not, however, one of the founders of the college. This honour is due in the first place to Madame Bodichon (Barbara Leigh Smith before her marriage) and to Miss Emily Davies, daughter of Dr. Davies, rector of Gateshead, who elaborated the scheme together. The first thousand pounds which made possible the realisation of the scheme was given by the former, whose activity in all causes for the advancement of women’s interests was crowned by her gifts to the first women’s college: part of her capital was made over in her life-time to Girton which became her trustee for the payment of the interest until her death in 1891, and of certain terminable annuities afterwards.[452] The third founder was Henrietta wife of the 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley and daughter of the 13th Viscount Dillon,[453] a munificent donor to the college, who joined the movement in 1871, before the removal from Hitchin, and who died in 1895.
The college.
The picturesque and collegiate-looking building which arose in 1873 for the accommodation of 21 students, was thus the first residential college for women ever built in connexion with a university. It was, like Pembroke, the result of a woman’s intention to found and finish a domus seu aula scholarium, the scholars being, for the first time, of the sex of the founder. Subsequent building in 1877, 1879, 1884, 1887 (when Jane C. Gamble’s legacy enabled the college to house 106 students) and finally between 1899 and 1902, has greatly increased its capacity, and the college now holds 150 students in addition to the Mistress and the resident staff. It contains a large hall, libraries, reading room, lecture rooms, a chemical laboratory, chapel, hospital, and swimming bath; and its position outside the town gives it the advantage of large grounds, some thirty acres being divided into hockey fields, ten tennis courts, an orchard, and kitchen garden; while a seventeen acre field, purchased with the Gamble bequest in 1886, is utilised as golf links and woodland. Over the high table in the hall are the portraits of the three founders; Madame Bodichon is represented painting, reminding each generation of students that one of their founders was a distinguished and delightful artist.
