The University of Cambridge has not had a very good week or two in the media. I’m not going to enter that fray given how much has already been written and I’m a long way away from the details of the crises, but I’ve had another blogpost in mind about a historical story relating to (lack of) diversity in the University. Having given two talks recently to, predominantly non-academic audiences, about the history of women at the University, the question of ‘Steamboat Ladies’ is much in my mind. So, here goes….
I’m an alumna of Girton College, the first women’s College in either Oxford or Cambridge. It was initially founded in Hitchin in 1869, before moving to its current site in 1872, safely up the (only) hill and a mile or two away from the haunts of male undergraduates. For many years I was a Fellow of Robinson College, founded in 1977, the only Cambridge undergraduate College to be founded as a mixed college. And from 2014-24 I was (the first female) Master of Churchill College, the first, formerly male College to vote to admit women, taking its initial mixed cohort in 1972, along with Clare and Kings. So, my personal history feels closely intertwined with the way women have become ‘mainstreamed’ within the University. I may have views about how successfully gender equality has been achieved at all levels; I may lack confidence the progress I’d like to think we made on this front some years ago (naturally I believe we did when I was the Gender Equality Champion and had a highly supportive PVC to work with in Jeremy Sanders), but formally there are no barriers for women now.
Not so, back in the early days of Girton and its companion women’s college Newnham, founded shortly afterwards. Women were tolerated, but they weren’t ‘real’ members of the University. Were women capable of serious study? Would it impact their reproductive capabilities (yes, really, people thought wombs might shrivel up if women studied too intensely)? Even amongst those pushing for women to be admitted to the university, there was disagreement about what the aim should be. Whereas Emily Davies (Girton’s founder) wanted women ultimately to pursue the same curriculum as men, initially Henry Sidgwick and Millicent Fawcett (Newnham’s founders) thought this was asking too much.
Over the next decade women were allowed to attend lectures, if the (male) lecturers permitted it. Not all did. In 1881 the University did agree that women could sit the same degree exams. However, their names appeared on a separate list from the standard results list and, worst of all, this did not mean women were admitted to degrees. They could not put the crucial letters BA after their name (note that in Cambridge, everyone gets a BA; no BSc’s are available). It was embarrassing when, in 1887 Agnata Frances Ramsay gained higher marks in the Classical Tripos than any man – but was not entitled to claim a Cambridge degree. A few years later in 1890, Philippa Fawcett (Millicent’s daughter) came top in the Mathematics Tripos. Normally, the student at the top of the maths tripos list could claim the title of ‘Senior Wrangler’, but not in her case as she wasn’t on that list at all, but on a separate one where her position was described as ‘placed above the Senior Wrangler’.
You might have thought, evidence such as this would have put the nay-sayers to shame and women would swiftly proceed to being admitted to degrees and treated just like the men, even if carefully segregated in their women’s only colleges. Sadly, not so. Although women were receiving degrees from other universities around the country, Cambridge was not willing to move with the times. In 1897 the matter was put to a vote – which had to be done in person in the Senate House, the administrative hub of the University. Anyone with an MA could vote and special trains were put on from London to bring people, sorry, men, to vote. (They were all men because anyone could claim a Cambridge MA six years and a term after first entering the university, but obviously that was only men.) The vote was 1707 against the proposal, and only 661 in favour. The majority of men were totally opposed to letting women get degrees, not least because that would then mean they would be able to participate in the governance of the University, as well as borrow books from the University Library and other such ‘perks’.
This is where the Steamboat Ladies come in. Not being able to claim to have a BA was a substantial disadvantage for women, particularly for those wanting to enter a career such as teaching. They appeared to be unqualified, despite their years of study. Other universities, from Aberdeen to London, already allowed women to proceed to degrees, so the Cambridge women were disadvantaged. For a brief period, 1904-7, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) allowed women who had passed Cambridge (and Oxford, which was in the same position) degree exams, to take a Dublin degree. Around 700 women (including Philippa Fawcett) availed themselves of this opportunity, probably rather more than had been expected. They became known as Steamboat Ladies because of their mode of travel on a steam ferry to reach Dublin. TCD did not let this state of affairs last long. As the women who studied at TCD (starting in 1904) proceeded to complete their own degrees, the offer to Oxbridge women was rescinded, sadly for them. The money that had been raised from the fees the Oxbridge women had paid for the privilege were put to creating a hall of residence for TCD’s own women students.
Following the admittance of women to degrees in Trinity in 1904 a request came from women in Oxford and Cambridge to have Trinity degrees awarded to them ad eundem gradum at a time when their own universities refused to confer degrees upon women. From TCD exhibition. This photograph shows these graduands in 1906 in TCD. (‘Eundem gradum’ comes from the Latin form of admission to degrees, meaning ‘to the same grade’, implying these Oxbridge women were being admitted on the same terms as those from TCD.)
However, Cambridge was still not willing to grant them degrees itself. It might have been thought that after the First World War, as the first women were granted the right to vote not least in recognition of all they had done for the war effort, the University would change its position. Or indeed, the embarrassment of realising Oxford had already taken this step in 1920. Not so. Another vote was called in 1921. The vote was less emphatically opposed to women being granted degrees, but it was still a firm ‘no’, with the victors ‘storming the gates’ at Newnham in celebration, thereby causing substantial damage.
Not till 1948 were women finally admitted to matriculate and take degrees, disgracefully long after every other university in the country had done so. This was long after women had been appointed to the various faculties; indeed by then, some had become professors in the University (although they still couldn’t borrow books from the University Library). Despite this, women were not entitled to put BA (or MA) after their name, nor participate in University governance, until 1948. Steamboat Ladies were a sadly short-lived phenomenon, but for those who managed to get to Dublin during those three years, highly significant.
