Breadcrumbs

Somerville for Women and for Men

The Somervillian Daphne Park, listed “Good talk and difficult places” amongst her hobbies in Who’s Who.  As a diplomat (and we now know, member of the intelligence services), she had been posted to Moscow, Leopoldville, Lusaka, Hanoi and Ulan Bator. In 1980 she became Principal of Somerville. She was a high-profile Principal whose external appointments included member of the British Library Board, Chairman of the Legal Aid Advisory Committee, Governor of the BCC, and Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University. She was keenly aware of the need for fund-raising to sustain a future for the College, and travelled internationally, raising funds in the hope of guaranteeing the financial security of the college.

The great debate of whether to become a co-educational college formed the backdrop to the 1980s and early 1990s. Passions ran high on both sides.  Finally, after much soul-searching the die was cast. During the Principalship of Catherine Pestell, (who became the first Principal to marry whilst in office, becoming Catherine Hughes), male Fellows were admitted in 1993, and male undergraduates in 1994.

And so Somerville, which had pioneered the cause of an Oxford education for women since its inception, entered a new era. As Pauline Adams wrote in Somerville for Women:

In the 1890s Somerville helped fashion the “New Woman”; a century later….the college has set itself the perhaps greater challenge of educating the “New Man".

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