Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College Latin: Collegium de Somerville UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Donec rursus impleat orbem
Oxford, Oxfordshire
Somerville College Hall
Principal:	Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Website:	www.some.ox.ac.uk
Location
Grid reference:	SP50980696
Location:	51°45’32"N, 1°15’46"W

Somerville College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Iris Murdoch, Vera Brittain and Dorothy L. Sayers. The college began admitting men in 1994. Its library is one of Oxford's largest college libraries. The college's liberal tone derives from its founding by social liberals, as Oxford's first non-denominational college for women, unlike the Anglican Lady Margaret Hall, the other to open that year. In 1964, it was among the first to cease locking up at night to stop students staying out late. No gowns are worn at formal halls.

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. The two parties eventually split, and Talbot's group (the "Christ Church camp") founded Lady Margaret Hall, which opened its doors for students in 1879, the same year as Somerville did.

Thus, in 1879, a second committee was formed to create a college "in which no distinction will be made between students on the ground of their belonging to different religious denominations." This committee was called the "Balliol camp" and had close ties to the Liberal Party]]. This second committee included A. H. D. Acland, Thomas Hill Green, George William Kitchin, James Legge, Henry Nettleship, Walter Pater, Henry Francis Pelham, its chairman John Percival, Grace Prestwich, Eleanor Smith, A. G. Vernon Harcourt, and Mary Ward. Other people who assisted in the founding were Anna Swanwick, Bertha Johnson, Charlotte Byron Green, and Owen Roberts.

This new effort resulted in the founding of Somerville Hall, named after the then recently deceased mathematician and renowned scientific writer Mary Somerville. It was felt that the name would reflect the virtues of liberalism and academic success which the college wished to embody. She was admired by the founders of the college as a scholar, as well as for her religious and political views, including her conviction that women should have equality in terms of suffrage and access to education.

Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre was chosen as the first principal because, though not a well-known academic at the time, her background was felt to reflect the college's political stance. Because of its status as both women's college and non-denominational institution, Somerville was widely regarded within Oxford as "an eccentric and somewhat alarming institution."

Women's college

When it opened, Somerville Hall had twelve students, ranging in age between 17 and 36. The first 21 students from Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall attended lectures in rooms above a baker's shop on Little Clarendon Street. Just two of the original 12 students admitted in 1879 remained in Oxford for three years, the period of residence required for male students to complete a bachelor's degree.

Increasingly, however, as the college admitted more students, it became more formalized. Somerville appointed Lilla Haigh as its first in-house tutor in 1882, and by the end of the 1890s female students were permitted to attend lectures in almost all colleges. In 1891 it became the first women's hall to introduce entrance exams and in 1894 the first of the five women's halls of residence to adopt the title of college (changing its name to Somerville College), the first of them to appoint its own teaching staff, and the first to build a library. In Oxford legend it soon became known as the "bluestocking college", its excellent examination results refuting the widespread belief that women were incapable of high academic achievement.

In the 1910s, Somerville became known for its support for the women's suffrage campaign. In 1920, Oxford University allowed women to matriculate and therefore gain degrees. From the college's inception, all female students had to be chaperoned when in the presence of male students. The practice was abolished in 1925, although male visitors to the college were still subject to a curfew. In the same year the college was granted its charter.

Somerville College Library, with hyacinths

The Mutual Admiration Society

The Mutual Admiration Society (MAS) was a literary society (or literary circle) of women who became friends at Somerville College. Its members included Dorothy L. Sayers, Muriel St Clare Byrne, Charis Frankenburg, Dorothy Rowe, and Amphilis Throckmorton Middlemore, among others.

The society of the title was a real club. The members composed poetry and prose for each other's pleasure. Apart from Sayers, none of them was a household name, though all were notable. Mo Moulton argued in their Agatha Award-winning book, 'The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World For Women', that each one lived a life worthy of attention. Years later, the writer Vera Brittain — a Somerville contemporary of the group, but not one of its members — recalled that the MAS “took themselves very seriously”.

First World War

During the First World War, Somerville College together with the Examination Schools and other Oxford buildings were requisitioned by the War Office to create the Third Southern General Hospital, a facility for the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. For the duration of the war, Somerville students relocated to Oriel College. Because many male students had left Oxford to enlist in the military, Somerville was able to rent St Mary Hall Quad which they bricked off from the rest of the college to segregate it from Oriel's remaining male students. Many students and tutors were involved in work in First World War and some of them went to the Western Front in France.

Notable patients who stayed in Somerville include the war poets Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and R. E. Vernède. Sassoon arrived on 2 August 1916. Graves and Sassoon were both to reminisce of their time at Somerville Hospital: How unlike you to crib my idea of going to the Ladies' College at Oxford, Sassoon wrote to Graves in 1917, and called it very much like Paradise. At Somerville College, Graves met his first love, a nurse and professional pianist called Marjorie. About his time at Somerville, he wrote: I enjoyed my stay at Somerville. The sun shone, and the discipline was easy. Alfred Mills was received in the hospital in 1916 and officer Llewelyn Davies died at the college.

Once the war ended, the return to normality between Oriel and Somerville was delayed, sparking both frustration and an incident in spring 1919 known as the "Oriel raid," in which male students made a hole in the wall dividing the sexes. In July 1919 the principal (Emily Penrose) and fellows returned to Somerville. Alumna Vera Brittain wrote about the impact of the war in Oxford and paid tribute to the work of the principal, Miss Penrose, in her memoir Testament of Youth.

Admission of men

Starting in the 1970s, the traditionally all-male colleges in Oxford began to admit female students. Since it was assumed that recruiting from a wider demographic would guarantee better students, there was pressure on single-sex colleges to change their policy to avoid falling down the rankings. All-female colleges, like Somerville, found it increasingly difficult to attract good applicants and fell to the bottom of the intercollegiate academic rankings during the period.

During the 1980s, there was much debate as to whether women's colleges should become mixed. Somerville remained a women's college until 1992, when its statutes were amended to permit male students and fellows; the first male fellows were appointed in 1993, and the first male students admitted in 1994. Somerville became the second-to-last college (after St Hilda's) to become coeducational. A 50 per cent male/female gender balance has been maintained to this day, though without formal quotas.

Buildings and grounds

House seen from the Quad

The college and its main entrance, the Porters' Lodge, are located at the southern end of Woodstock Road, with Little Clarendon Street to the south, Walton Street to the west and the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter to the north. The front of the college runs between the Oxford Oratory and the Faculty of Philosophy. Somerville has buildings of various architectural styles, many of which bear the names of former principals of the college, located around one of Oxford's biggest quads. Five buildings are Grade II-listed.

Walton House

House seen from the east

The original building of Somerville Hall, Walton House (commonly called House) was built in 1826 and purchased from St John's College in 1880 amid fears that the men's colleges might, in the future, repossess the site for their own purposes. The house could only accommodate seven of the twelve students who came up to Oxford in the first year. In 1881, Sir Thomas Graham Jackson was commissioned to build a new south wing which could accommodate eleven more students. In 1892, Walter Cave added a north wing and an extra storey. He also installed a gatehouse at the Woodstock Road entrance. In 1897/98, the Eleanor Smith Cottages were added, adjoining Walton House.

Today House is home to only one or two students, and, until 2014, it housed the college bar. It also contains Green Hall, where guests to college are often greeted and in which prospective students are registered and wait for interviews; some of the college's paintings by Roger Fry are located here. Most of the administration of college, and the academic pigeon-holes are in House, as is the Mary Somerville Room, a reception room featuring paintings by Mary Somerville, George Romney and George Frederic Watts.

Park

Park Building

Originally known as West, from its location in the college, the idea of building a second self-contained hall was inspired by Newnham College, Cambridge. It was designed by Harry Wilkinson Moore and built in two stages. The 1885–1887 phase saw the construction of rooms for 18 students with their own dining-room, sitting rooms and vice-principal. This was a deliberate policy aimed at replicating the family environment that the women students had left. It had the effect of turning House and West into rivals. The second building stage (1888–1894) created two sets of tutors' rooms, a further 19 rooms and the West Lodge (now Park Lodge). In 2004 it was renamed 'Park' in honour of Daphne Park, Principal from 1980 to 1989.

Today there are over 60 student and fellows' rooms in the building along with a music room and a computer room. Park is a Grade II-listed building.

Library

Somerville College Library

The Grade II-listed library designed by Basil Champneys in 1903 was opened by John Morley the following year. Specially for the opening, Demeter was written by Robert Bridges and performed for the first time. Somerville Library was the first purpose-built library in the women's colleges of the university. With some foresight it was designed to contain 60,000 volumes, although the college only possessed 6,000 when it opened. It now holds around 120,000 items (95,000 on open shelves), as one of the largest college libraries in the university.

Amelia Edwards, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin and Vera Brittain have been notable benefactors to the library. It contains paintings by Mary Somerville, John Constable, Maud Sumner and Patrick George.

The John Stuart Mill room contains what was Mill's personal library in London at the time of his death, with annotations in many of the books.

The library dominates the north wing of the main quadrangle, having been designed to bring the college together, and is open 24 hours, with access to college-wide wifi, a group study room, and computing and printing facilities.

Hall and Maitland

Hall and Maitland (right) from the quad

Hall

There was no hall large enough to seat the entire college until 1911, when Maitland Hall and Maitland, designed by Edmund Fisher in Queen Anne style and Edwardian Baroque, were opened by H. A. L. Fisher, the Vice-Chancellor of the university and Gilbert Murray. Murray, whose translations of Greek drama were performed at Somerville in 1912 and 1946, supported Somerville in many ways, including endowing its first research fellowship. A fund was raised as a memorial to Miss Maitland]], Principal of Somerville Hall (College from 1894) from 1889 to 1906, and the money was used to pay for oak panelling in Hall. The panelling of the south wall was designed to frame a portrait of Mary Somerville by John Jackson. The buildings were constructed on the site of an adjoining building gifted to Somerville by E. J. Forester in 1897 and bought from University and Balliol Colleges for £4,000 and £1,400 respectively. There was difficulty in constructing the buildings, now thought to have resulted from the outer limit of the Oxford city fortifications running under the site. In 1935, Morley Horder reconstructed the archway connecting Maitland Hall and the south wing of Walton House, creating a Reading Room off the main hall; in 1947, André Gide gave a lecture that filled both these rooms and the staircase and quadrangle outside.

Chapel

Somerville College Chapel

Built largely with funds provided by alumna Emily Georgiana Kemp in 1935, Somerville Chapel reflects the non-denominational principle on which the college was founded in 1879. No religious tests were used for admission and non-denominational Christian prayers were said in college.

Instead of a chaplain, there is a "Chapel Director", in keeping with its non-denominational tradition. The chapel provides opportunities for Christian worship in addition to hosting speakers with a multiple range of religious perspectives. It holds an excellent mixed-voice Choir of Somerville College, which tours and issues occasional recordings.

Margaret Thatcher Centre and Dorothy Hodgkin Quadrangle

Named after a Somerville alumna and Prime Minister, the Margaret Thatcher Centre comprises a lecture room, ante room and lobby used for meetings, conferences and other internal college events. The lecture room has full AV facilities and for 60 seated patrons. A bust of Margaret Thatcher stands in the lobby and the meeting room has portraits of Somerville's two prime-minister alumnae: of Margaret Thatcher by Michael Noakes and Indira Gandhi by Sanjay Bhattacharyya.

The Dorothy Hodgkin Quad was conceived in 1985, completed in 1991 and named after Somerville's Nobel Prize-winner. The quadrangle is above the Margaret Thatcher Centre and designed around self-contained flats of two and four bedrooms with communal kitchens, housing mainly finalists and some second-year students.

Gardens

Park Lawn

Somerville is one of few Oxford colleges where students may walk on the grass. An unassuming frontage opens onto a vast green space looked after by two gardeners. The original site consisted of a paddock, an orchard and a vegetable garden and was bounded by large trees. It was home to a donkey, two cows, a pony and a pig. The paddock was soon transformed into tennis courts, where huge tents were erected during First World War. During Second World War, large water tanks were dug in the Main Quad and in Darbishire Quad in case of firebombing, and the lawns dug up and planted with vegetables.

In the Main or Library Quad has a cedar planted by Harold Macmillan in 1976, after an earlier cedar fell victim to a winter storm. Another tree, a Picea likiangensis (var. rubescens), was planted in 2007 on the chapel lawn, providing Somerville with an outdoor Christmas tree. The library border of lavender and Agapanthus references the bluestocking reputation of Somerville. The tory blue Ceratostigma willmottianum stands outside the Margaret Thatcher Centre. The garden outside the Thatcher Centre, now dedicated to Lisa Minoprio, was originally designed by the former director of the Oxford Botanic Garden and Lecturer in Plant Sciences Timothy Walker, and retains yellow and blue as its theme colours.

There are nods to Somerville's long-standing links with India, the most notable being a large specimen of the Indian horse chestnut, Aesculus indica, planted on the Library lawn in 2019. Features of interest include a narrow bed of low-growing Mediterranean plants in front of Wolfson in a modernist style, a varied selection of mature trees in the Library Quad, and large herbaceous borders containing emblematic Somerville thistles (Echinops).

The annual summer and winter bedding plants in Darbishire Quad, the beds outside the SCR, and those in pots around site have traditionally been in the Victorian style, to reflect the era of inception of the college. However, this is evolving due to a change in garden management in late 2019, with aims of following more environmentally friendly growing principles and developing a more contemporary style. The western wall of Penrose and the northern wall of Vaughan form a secluded area, historically known as the Fellows' Garden (currently in a transitional phase). It is distinct from the main quad and separated from it by a hedge and a wall, and which were previously kitchen gardens. This walled garden is home to a sundial, commissioned in 1926 and commemorating first principal Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre, and a garden roller gifted by the parents of tutor Rose Sidgwick.

In 1962, Henry Moore lent his work Falling Warrior to the college and Barbara Hepworth lent Core shortly afterwards. There are also permanent sculptures by Wendy Taylor, Friedrich Werthmann and Somervillian Polly Ionides. The most striking sculpture on site is Taylor's Triad (1971), situated on the Chapel Lawn in front of Maitland building.

In popular culture

The pioneering role of Somerville in developing women's education has brought it into the field of literature:

• Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, a mystery novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane is set in a fictional 'Shrewsbury College' which is a thinly veiled take on Sayers' own Somerville College
• In the 2014 film The Amazing Spider-Man 2, one of the protagonists, Gwen Stacy, is offered a place to study medicine at Somerville.
• Somerville is the recognisable model for St Bride's College in Michaelmas Term at St Bride's by Brunette Coleman (Philip Larkin).
• [[Iris (2001 film), tells of Iris Murdoch and her relationship with her husband John Bayley, whom she meets during a dinner at the Somerville.
• St Jerome's College in Endymion Spring by alumnus Matthew Skelton is based on Somerville. The cat Mephistopheles is based on the former college cat Pogo.
• Amory Clay, the main character in Sweet Caress by William Boyd, was encouraged by her teacher to go to Somerville.
• Grace Ritchie, the protagonist in Slave Of The Passion by Deirdre Wilson has gone up to Somerville.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Somerville College, Oxford)

• Somerville College
• JCR
• MCR
• Somerville Choir

References

• Adams, Pauline (1996). Somerville for Women: An Oxford College, 1879-1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199201822. 
• Batson, Judy G. (2008). Her Oxford. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 978-0-8265-1610-7. https://archive.org/details/heroxford00bats_401. 
• Brockliss, L. W. B. (2016). The University of Oxford: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924356-3. 
• Fair, Alistair (2014). "'Brutalism Among the Ladies': Modern Architecture at Somerville College, Oxford, 1947—67". Architectural History 57: 357–392. doi:10.1017/S0066622X00001465. 
• Harrison, Brian (1994). The History of the University of Oxford: Volume VIII: The Twentieth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0198229742. 
• Manuel, Anne (2013). Breaking New Ground: A History of Somerville College as seen through its Buildings. Oxford: Somerville College. 
• du Ruvigny and Raineval, Marquis (1 October 2006). The Roll of Honour. A biographical record of all members of His Majesty's naval and military forces who have fallen in the war. IV. Naval & Military Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1843425304. 

Further reading

• Byrne, Muriel St. Clare; Hope Mansfield, Catherine (1922). Somerville College 1879–1921. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 557727946. 
• A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 3 pp 343-347: The University of Oxford (Victoria County History)
• Leonardi, Susan J. (1989). Dangerous by degrees: women at Oxford and the Somerville College novelists. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813513669. 
• Chapman, Allan (2007). Mary Somerville and the World of Science. Bristol: Canopus. ISBN 9780953786848.