a university education to the minimum, and they wished, too, that it should be completely undenominational, while a clause in the constitution of Girton provided for Church of England instruction and services. Finally, the question as to which preliminary and degree examinations should be preferred by women was still pending.[463] But when the moment came to hire and build a house of residence, the advantage was all on the side of Newnham. Work began in a hired house in the centre of the town with five students, in the October term of 1871.[464] These quarters were too noisy, and Miss Clough, who loved a garden, found an old house set in a large garden and orchard, with the historic name of Merton Hall, and moved there in 1872. A supplementary house in Trumpington Street was taken next year, and there were then in residence 14 students in Merton Hall, 7 in Trumpington Street, and 8 in town lodgings. In 1875 Newnham Hall was built on one side of Coe fen and Newnham Mill, as Peterhouse had been built on the other. So that Newnham students frequented the streets of Cambridge from the first, and had their house of residence in the town two years before the sister community settled at Girton. The founders of Girton had been the first to ideate a women’s college in connexion with university teaching, but Newnham was the first college for women to take its place by the side of the historic colleges in Cambridge.
Let us now retrace our steps for a moment. In March 1868 the North of England Council memorialised the university to obtain advanced examinations, and in the following year Cambridge instituted the examinations for girls over eighteen since known as the Higher Local Examination. In the autumn of the same year (1869), as we have seen—the year which saw the establishment of the future Girton community at Hitchin—the organisation of the Cambridge lectures for women was mooted under the auspices of Mr. Henry Sidgwick. The first meeting was convened at the house of Mrs. Fawcett, whose husband was then Professor of Political Economy at the university, and whose little daughter, the future senior wrangler, was peacefully cradled at the time in a room above. The result of this meeting was the formation of a committee of management consisting of members of the university, and of an executive committee, and the programme of a course of lectures was printed for the following Lent term 1870.[465] The original scheme
