Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Lady Margaret Hall Latin: Aula Dominae Margaretae UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Souvent me Souviens
Oxford, Oxfordshire
Principal:	Stephen Blyth
Website:	www.lmh.ox.ac.uk
Location
Grid reference:	SP51580761
Location:	51°45’53"N, 1°15’15"W

Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, standing on the bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in the north of Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The college is more formally known under its royal charter as "The Principal and Fellows of the College of the Lady Margaret in the University of Oxford".

The college was founded in 1878, closely collaborating with Somerville College. Both colleges opened their doors in 1879 as the first two women's colleges of Oxford. The college began admitting men in 1979. The college has just under 400 undergraduate students, around 200 postgraduate students and 24 visiting students. In 2016, the college became the only college in Oxford or Cambridge to offer a Foundation Year for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In 2018, Lady Margaret Hall ranked 21st out of 30 in Oxford's Norrington Table, a measurement of the performance of students in finals.

The college's colours are blue, yellow and white. The college uses a coat of arms that accompanies the college's motto "Souvent me Souviens", an Old French phrase meaning "I often remember" or "Think of me often", the motto of Lady Margaret Beaufort, after whom the college is named: in her time, Margaret Beaufort founded two colleges in Cambridge: Christ's College and St John's College.

History

Founding

In June 1878, the Association for the Higher Education of Women was formed, aiming for the eventual creation of a college for women in Oxford. Some of the more prominent members of the association were George Granville Bradley, Master of University College, T. H. Green, a prominent liberal philosopher and Fellow of Balliol College, and Edward Stuart Talbot, Warden of Keble College. Talbot insisted on a specifically Anglican institution, which was unacceptable to most of the other members. Some of the Anglican members of the association had specifically wanted to endow an Anglican college after Moncure Conway from the humanist South Place Religious Society in London offered a large sum of money towards a secular women's college; the established church was already concerned about the secular basis of University College London, which had recently become the first university to admit women, and that it would lead "advanced women" away from Christianity.

The two parties eventually split: Talbot's group founded Lady Margaret Hall, while T. H. Green founded Somerville College. Lady Margaret Hall opened its doors to its first nine students in 1879. The first 21 students from Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall attended lectures in rooms above a baker's shop on Little Clarendon Street. Despite the college's High Anglican origins, not all students were devout Christians.

The college was named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, patron of scholarship and learning. The first principal was Elizabeth Wordsworth, the great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth and daughter of Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln.

Growth and development

With a new building opening in 1894 the college expanded to 25 students.

The land on which the college is built was formerly part of the manor of Norham that belonged to St John's College. The college bought the land from St John's in 1894, the other institution driving a hard bargain and requiring a development price not only on the practical building land but also on the undevelopable water meadows. However, this land purchase marked a change in ambition from occupying residential buildings for teaching purposes to erecting buildings befitting an educational institution.

In 1897, members of Lady Margaret Hall founded the Lady Margaret Hall Settlement, as part of the settlement movement. It was a charitable initiative, originally a place for graduates from the college to live in North Lambeth where they would work with and help develop opportunities for the poor. Members of the college also helped found the Women's University Settlement, which continues to operate to this day, as the Blackfriars Settlement in south London.

Before 1920, the university refused to give academic degrees to women and would not acknowledge them as full members of the university. (Some of these women, nicknamed the steamboat ladies, were awarded ad eundem degrees by Trinity College Dublin, between 1904 and 1907. In 1920 the first women graduated from the college at the Sheldonian Theatre and the principal at the time, Henrietta Jex-Blake, was given an honorary degree.

In 1979, one hundred years after its foundation, the college began admitting men as well as women; it was the first of the women's colleges to do so, along with St Anne's.

Gardens and grounds

Talbot Hall and the Toynbee Buildings

Lady Margaret Hall is one of the few Oxford colleges that backs onto the River Cherwell. It is set in spacious grounds (about 12 acres). The grounds include a set of playing fields, netball and tennis courts, a punt house, topiary, and large herbaceous planting schemes along with vegetable borders. There is a Fellows' Garden – hidden from view by tall hedgerows – and a Fellows' Lawn, on which walking is forbidden.

Unusually for Oxford colleges, students are permitted to walk on the Talbot Quadrangle, the main quad of the college. In Trinity term, a spiral of wildflowers are planted, creating a grass walkway into the centre of the quad. This is the only wildflower quad in Oxford. There is a circular wooden bench dedicated to Iris Murdoch in the college gardens where she used to go walking.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford)

• www.lmh.ox.ac.uk
• Lady Margaret Hall MCR
• Lady Margaret Hall JCR
• Lady Margaret Hall Boat Club