Emily Davies

Sarah Emily Davies (22 April 1830 – 13 July 1921) was an English feminist, suffragist and a pioneering campaigner for women's rights to university access. She is principally remembered as being the co-founder and an early Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge University, the first college in England to educate women.

Life

She was born in Carlton Crescent, Southampton, England to an evangelical clergyman and a teacher, although she spent most of her youth in Gateshead.

Davies had been tempted to train in medicine and wrote the article "Female Physicians" for the feminist publication, the English Woman's Journal in 1861, and "Medicine as a Profession for Women" in 1862. She also "greatly encouraged" her friend Elizabeth Garett in her medical studies.

In 1862, after the death of her father, Davies moved to London, where she edited the English Woman's Journal, and became friends with women's rights advocates Barbara Bodichon, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her younger sister Millicent Fawcett. Davies became a founder member of a women's discussion group, the Kensington Society along with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Barbara Bodichon, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss who, together, unsuccessfully petitioned Parliament to grant women voting rights.

Girton College, Cambridge

Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies, Barbara Bodichon and Lady Stanley of Alderley as a college for women. Girton was granted full college status by the university in 1948, marking the official admittance of women to the university. In 1976, Girton was Cambridge's first women's college of the university to become coeducational.

The main college site, situated on the outskirts of the village of Girton, about 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of the university town, comprises 33 acres (13.4 ha) of land. Held in typical Victorian red brick design, most was built by architect Alfred Waterhouse between 1872 and 1887. It provides extensive sports facilities, an indoor swimming pool, an award-winning library and a chapel with two organs. There is an accommodation annexe, known as Wolfson Court, situated in Cambridge's western suburbs, close to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. This annexe was opened in 1961 and provides housing for graduates, and for second year undergraduates and above.

Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom became a national movement in the nineteenth century. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. Both before and after 1832, establishing women's suffrage on some level was a political topic, although it would not be until 1872 that it would become a national movement with the formation of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and later the more influential National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). The movement shifted sentiments in favour of woman suffrage by 1906. It was at this point that the militant campaign began with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Some have argued the militant suffragettes turned to violence and discredited and postponed votes for women.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led to a suspension of all politics, including the militant suffragette campaigns. Lobbying did take place quietly. In 1918, a coalition government passed the Representation of the People Act 1918, enfranchising women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications. Ten years later, in 1928, the Conservative government passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act giving the vote to all women over the age of 21. Both before and after the 1832 Reform Act there were some who advocated that women should have the right to vote. After the enactment of the Reform Act enactment the MP Henry Hunt argued that any woman who was single, a tax payer and had sufficient property should be allowed to vote. One such wealthy woman, Mary Smith, was used in this speech as an example.