Women students have come a long way in a short time at Oxford University, writes JAINE BLACKMAN

 

Next year, five formerly all-male Oxford colleges – Brasenose, Jesus, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine’s – will be celebrating 40 years of allowing women to be admitted to their hallowed halls.

That’s right, it wasn’t until 1974 that the male bastions of learning were breached.

Although I suppose it could also be pointed out that St Hilda’s College, which was originally for women only, was the last of Oxford’s single-sex colleges and has only admitted smelly boys, sorry, male students, since October 2008.

Oxford – the oldest university in the English-speaking world – has been educating Britain’s brightest and best for centuries.

According to its website there is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.

However, women had to sit it out right through the middle ages, the Tudors, the Civil War... until 1878, when academic halls were first established for females.

Thanks to the pioneering work of the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (AEW) women’s colleges Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville opened in 1879, followed by St Hugh’s in 1886 and St Hilda’s in 1893 (St Anne’s was the last of the women’s colleges to be incorporated by Royal Charter, in 1952).

Women were allowed to sit some university examinations and attend lectures but weren’t admitted to membership of the university until 1920, and it was another 39 years before the five women’s societies were granted full collegiate status in 1959.

So, a bit of catching up to do for the girls.

And aren’t they doing it well.

Among the alumni are world leaders and path beaters in no end of fields. Britain’s first woman PM, first woman President of the Royal College of Physicians, first woman barrister, first woman Director of Public Prosecutions . . . all following in the footsteps of suffragist Emily Davidson.

Here are some of the inspirational women who were educated at Oxford University.

19th Century Graduates

Gertrude Bell, explorer and archaeologist

Eglantyne Jebb, founder of the Save the Children Fund

Eleanor Rathbone, politician and social reformer

Emily Wilding Davison, suffragist

20th & 21st Centuries Graduates

Diran Adebayo, author

Samira Ahmed, journalist and presenter

Monica Ali, author

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, journalist

Elizabeth Anscombe, philosopher

Zeinab Badawi, journalist and broadcaster

Kate Barker, economist

Dame Josephine Barnes, first female president of the British Medical Association

Marian Bell, economist

Jana Bennett, BBC television executive

Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988-90 and 1993-96)

Katy Brand, comedian and actress

Vera Brittain, writer

Fiona Bruce, broadcaster

Baroness (Barbara) Castle, politician

Reeta Chakrabarti, journalist

Yvette Cooper, MP, politician

Wendy Cope, poet

Vivienne Cox, businesswoman

Dr Penelope Curtis, director, Tate Britain

Cressida Dick, Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police

Helen Fielding, author

Dr Amelia Fletcher, chief economist, Office of Fair Trading

Michèle Flournoy, former US Under Secretary of Defense

Emilia Fox, actor

Lady Antonia Fraser, novelist and historian

Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, 1966-77 and 1980-84

Dr Frene Ginwala, former Speaker of the South African National Assembly

Rt Hon Lady Justice Hallett, judge

Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel Prize-winning chemist

Dame Emma Kirkby, soprano

Martha Lane Fox, businesswoman, co-founder of lastminute.com

Nigella Lawson, chef and broadcaster

Val McDermid, crime writer

Chief Justice Mrs Sujata Vasant Manohar, Judge of the Supreme Court of India 1994-99

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, former Director General of the Security Service

Rt Hon Theresa May, MP, politician, UK Home Secretary

Dame Barbara Mills, first female Director of Public Prosecutions

Kate Mosse, novelist

Dame Iris Murdoch, philosopher and author

Sally Phillips, actor and comedian Rosamund Pike, actor Barbara Pym, author

Dr Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations

Rachel Riley, co-host on Channel 4’s Countdown

Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement

Roz Savage, rower and adventurer

Dorothy L Sayers, author

Laura Solon, comedian

Cornelia Sorabji, India’s first female lawyer

Aung San Suu Kyi, leader, Burmese National League for Democracy and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Baroness (Margaret) Thatcher, UK Prime Minister, 1979-90

Margaret Turner-Warwick, first woman President of the Royal College of Physicians

Dame Janet Vaughan, haematologist and radiobiologist

Baroness (Mary) Warnock, philosopher

Ivy Williams, first female barrister in the UK

Baroness Shirley Williams, politician

Jeanette Winterson, author

Mara Yamauchi, marathon runner