Legend and Legacy
Women and Balliol go back a long way. The legendary 4th century scholar Catherine of Alexandria is the College's patron saint. In the nineteenth century, Balliol's major benefactor was a woman: Hannah Brackenbury, for whom the College's Brackenbury Scholarships and a college debating society are named, funded the construction of the front quadrangle and the iconic facade on Broad Street. In the present time, the College has benefitted from the inspirational support of Dame Stephanie Shirley, Chair of The Shirley Foundation which has funded the Oxford Internet Institute on the one hand and the Balliol Historic Collections Centre on the other. And the original 'Balliol woman' was the Lady Dervorguilla, wife of John Balliol and, with him, founder of the College, which dates from 1263. It was she who gave Balliol its first Statutes, in 1282. Seven centuries later, her legacy is now able to benefit women equally with men.
Thirty Years On: 1979-2009
In 2009-2010 Balliol celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the admission of women undergraduates to the College with a number of events and the booklet Women at Balliol (online below, and available to order). Current graduates made a special contribution by producing a magazine, Balliol's Rib: Reflections on Gender & Equality. When the women undergraduates arrived in 1979, there were already women among the College's senior membership. Balliol's history of female academics goes back to 1973, when Carol Clark became its first woman Fellow (in French) - first, indeed, to be elected to any of the traditionally all-male Oxford colleges. She was joined in 1974 by Maxine Berg, Junior Research Fellow in History, and in 1976 by Gillian Morriss (subsequently Professor Morriss-Kay), Senior Research Fellow and University Lecturer in Anatomy.
Following on from the 2009-2010 events, a Master' s Seminar on Gender was held in Balliol on Saturday 4 December 2010.
Women at Balliol
(For a printed copy, please contact Janet Hazelton: Development Office, Balliol College, Oxford, OX1 3BJ; tel: +44 (0)1865 277690; email: janet.hazelton@balliol.ox.ac.uk.)
Women at Balliol sundial unveiled
On the afternoon of 2 December 2010, a sundial was unveiled to mark the 30th anniversary of the admission of women undergraduates to the College. The piece, by David and Sophie Harber, is a magnificent globed sun- and moon-dial and is dedicated to women of Balliol, past, present, and future. An apt inscription, 'About Time' - chosen from the many suggested texts that were submitted by undergraduate and graduate students - is engraved around the base and reflected in the mirrored surface. A time-capsule within the sundial contains the names and signatures of current Balliol women - Fellows, staff and students - as well as of those who were in the first cohort of 1979, or contributed to the commission, among them Old Member Nicola Horlick (pictured right).
The unveiling of the new work was followed, on Saturday 4 December, by a Master's Seminar on Gender, which drew in as participants Old Members, visiting speakers, and a cross-section of current students and Fellows. A report will be circulated in early 2011.
Balliol women and the Balliol-Bodley Scholarship
Carly Watson (Master of Studies in English, 1550-1780) was the 2010 Balliol-Bodley Scholar: you can read about the Scholarship, the brainchild of Gillian Einhorn (2007) and Sarah Thomas, Bodley's first woman Librarian and a Professorial Fellow of Balliol, in the 2010 issue of Floreat Domus (pp.46-7); and Carly's essay about her work on the Bodleian's Harcourt family archive, including poetry written and collected by Elizabeth, Countess Harcourt (d.1826), is available here. Carly's successor, Josefin Holmstrom (Master of Studies in English, 1800-1914), Balliol-Bodley Scholar 2011, is helping to archive a recently donated collection of letters to Maria Edgeworth, the Regency period author and educationalist who has been variously dubbed 'the Irish Jane Austen' and 'the female Walter Scott'.
Professional Development
Balliol participates in two university-wide programmes for women: Ad Feminam, a leadership and mentoring scheme, and Springboard for Undergraduates, to which it contributes two funded places a year.