Annie Rogers

Last updated

Annie Rogers
Annie Rogers plus Mary Jackson by Lewis Carroll.jpg
Annie Rogers (r) as Queen Eleanor by Lewis Carroll (1863)
Born15 February 1856
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Died28 October 1937(1937-10-28) (aged 81)
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
NationalityBritish
EducationHome tutored
Occupation University don and teacher
Parent(s)Ann and Thorold Rogers

Annie Mary Anne Henley Rogers (15 February 1856 – 28 October 1937) was a British promoter of women's education. She had an offer of a university place at the University of Oxford withdrawn when it was realised that the candidate was female. [1] She proved that she was capable of achieving first-class Oxford University degrees but could not receive a formal degree until 1920. Her work as a home tutor for women students led to her being recognised as a founder of St Anne's College, Oxford. She wrote a history of the admission of women to Oxford University and its degrees, which was published posthumously.

Contents

Life

Rogers was born in Oxford to James Edwin Thorold Rogers and his second wife, Ann Susannah Charlotte ( née  Reynolds). Her father was a campaigner for women's rights and later a Liberal MP. She was the eldest of six children and the only girl. [2] Both her parents supported her academic interests, and it is likely that she was taught ancient languages by her father. [3] : 52–3  They were also personally close; Rogers lived with her mother in a house in St Giles until her mother's death in 1899, when she moved to Museum Road. [3] : 53 

She had been a child model for Lewis Carroll in 1863. [4] Carroll took pictures of her in costume and wrote a poem which he sent with a photograph. The poem read

A picture, which I hope will
B one that you will like to
C. If your Mamma should
D sire one like it, I could
E sily get her one.

Rogers had an offer of a university place withdrawn when it was realised that she was female. She had come top in the Oxford school examinations in 1873 and was automatically qualified for an exhibition at Balliol or Worcester College. As a consolation prize Balliol gave her volumes of Homer and her place was given to the boy who had come sixth in the tests. [1]

Rogers was able to sit examinations for women at roughly undergraduate level [5] in 1877 and 1879, giving her the equivalent of first-class marks in Latin and Greek and in Ancient History respectively. She was not formally awarded an Oxford degree until 1920 when women became eligible for admission as full members of the university and were given the right to take degrees. [6] In 1879, with the opening of Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University opened its first halls for women students and Rogers, as the only woman with the equivalent of an Oxford University degree became a don (lecturer). In 1881 she became a Senior Tutor in Classics. [3] : 82 

Rogers joined the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford upon its formation in 1879. [7] She was a stalwart member of the Association Committee, attending all but four committee meetings between 1879 and 1920, and eventually becoming the committee's Honorary Secretary after 1894. [3] : 52  Vera Brittain praises her work on the committee as demonstrating her to be a "natural tactician." [3] : 53  She is also credited with overseeing the end of the ascendancy of the AEW over the women's colleges, which gained in independence as a result. [3] : 89–90 

In 1893, she was teaching Latin at Oxford High School. [8] During the controversy in 1896 over whether women should be awarded degrees at Oxford, she was one of the first women to give evidence before the Hebdomadal Council on whether their exclusion from degrees had limited women's prospects in tuition. [3] : 107  In 1897, she wrote a paper titled "The position of women at Oxford and Cambridge" which set out a case for improved funding for women's education. The paper inspired Clara Mordan who in time would fund the new buildings of St Hugh's College, Oxford. [9] Rogers remained a tutor at St Hugh's until 1921, when she resigned this position. [3] : 173 

Notably she became to secretary of the Society of Oxford Home-Students which would, in 1952, become St Anne's College, Oxford. [10] She was a talented tutor to the women who were studying Classics at home and she is acknowledged as one of the founders of St Anne's College. [1] A half-serious reference at the time of the college's being named 'St Anne's' suggested that it had been named partly after her. [11] [3] : 198 

Rogers died in the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford in 1937 after being struck by a lorry in St Giles'. She was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, on 1 November. In her memory a garden was laid out to the north of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, and a stone bench there bears an inscription in her memory. [12] A blue plaque was erected in her memory at her home at 35 St Giles' on 23 September 2020. [13] [14]

Her book Degrees by Degrees was published in 1938; it is subtitled "The Story of the Admission of Oxford Women Students to Membership of the University". [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Somerville College, Oxford</span> College of Oxford University

Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, 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. It 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balliol College, Oxford</span> Constituent college of the University of Oxford

Balliol College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the foundation and endowment for the college. When de Balliol died in 1268, his widow, Dervorguilla, a woman whose wealth far exceeded that of her husband, continued his work in setting up the college, providing a further endowment and writing the statutes. She is considered a co-founder of the college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Anne's College, Oxford</span> College of Oxford University, England

St Anne's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. It has some 450 undergraduate and 200 graduate students and retains an original aim of allowing women of any financial background to study at Oxford. A recent count shows St Anne's accepting the highest proportion of female students of any college. The college stands between Woodstock and Banbury roads, next to the University Parks. In April 2017, Helen King, a retired Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, took over as Principal from Tim Gardam. Former members include Amanda Pritchard, Danny Alexander, Ruth Deech, Helen Fielding, Martha Kearney, Simon Rattle, Tina Brown, Mr Hudson, and Victor Ubogu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Benet's Hall, Oxford</span>

St Benet's Hall is a Permanent Private Hall (PPH) of the University of Oxford. Its principal building is located at the northern end of St Giles' on its western side, close to the junction with Woodstock Road, Oxford. Established in 1897 by Ampleforth Abbey, St Benet's Hall's original historic function was to allow its monks to be able to study for secular degrees at the university. The hall historically has a Benedictine and Roman Catholic ethos. Today, St Benet's Hall hosts an international community consisting of 84 undergraduate students and 48 graduate students of all faiths and none. Unlike other Colleges, St Benet's Hall does not have a High Table, but one Common Table which is shared by all members of the hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Hugh's College, Oxford</span> College of the University of Oxford

St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a 14.5-acre (5.9-hectare) site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a women's college, and accepted its first male students in its centenary year in 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorold Rogers</span>

James Edwin Thorold Rogers, known as Thorold Rogers, was an English economist, historian and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1886. He deployed historical and statistical methods to analyse some of the key economic and social questions in Victorian England. As an advocate of free trade and social justice he distinguished himself from some others within the English Historical School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Paley Marshall</span> British economist (1850–1944)

Mary Marshall was an economist who in 1874 had been one of the first women to take the Tripos examination at Cambridge University – although, as a woman, she had been excluded from receiving a degree. She was one of a group of five women who were the first to be admitted to study at Newnham College, the second women's college to be founded at the University.

An exhibition is a type of scholarship award or bursary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banbury Road</span> Arterial road in Oxford, England

Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the Woodstock Road, which it meets at the junction with St Giles'. To the north, Banbury Road meets the Oxford Ring Road at a roundabout. The road is designated the A4165. Prior to the building of the M40 motorway extension in 1990, the road formed part of the A423 from Maidenhead to Coventry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard James Rogers</span> British mathematician

Leonard James Rogers FRS was a British mathematician who was the first to discover the Rogers–Ramanujan identity and Hölder's inequality, and who introduced Rogers polynomials. The Rogers–Szegő polynomials are named after him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Penrose</span> British academic & college principal

Dame Emily Penrose, was an ancient historian and principal of three early women's university colleges in the United Kingdom: Bedford College from 1893 until 1898, Royal Holloway College from 1898 until 1907, and Somerville College, Oxford University from 1907 until 1926. She was the first woman to achieve First Class honours in Classics at Oxford University, and was instrumental in securing the admission of women as full members of the university in 1920. She became Oxford's first Dame in 1927.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balliol College Boat Club</span>

Balliol College Boat Club (BCBC) is the rowing club for members of Balliol College, Oxford, England. It is one of the college boat clubs at the University of Oxford.

Giles Alington was a Fellow of University College, Oxford, from 1944 to 1956.

Clara Ann Pater was an English scholar, a tutor, and a pioneer and early reformer of women's education.

Margaret Hubbard was an Australian-born British classical scholar specialising in philology.

Christine Burrows British academic administrator

Christine Mary Elizabeth Burrows was a British academic administrator who the second Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford, from 1910 to 1919 and the second Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford, from 1921 to 1929.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam T. Griffin</span> American historian

Miriam Tamara Griffin was an American classical scholar and tutor of ancient history at Somerville College at the University of Oxford from 1967 to 2002. She was a scholar of Roman history and ancient thought, and wrote books on the Emperor Nero and his tutor, Seneca, encouraging an appreciation of the philosophical writings of the ancient Romans within their historical context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera Anstey</span> British economist

Vera Anstey was a British economist and noted expert on the economy of India. Anstey is most closely associated with the London School of Economics where she served as a lecturer and chaired the admissions committee, and with the wider University of London where she served as dean of the faculty of economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Mordan</span> British suffragist and benefactor

Clara Evelyn Mordan was a British suffragist and benefactor to the Women's Social and Political Union and St Hugh's College, Oxford. Tuberculosis obliged her to fight for women's rights by proxy. She hoped that her "last bed will be a coffin some woman has earned her living by making".

The Association for the Education of Women or Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Oxford (AEW) was formed in 1878 to promote the education of women at the University of Oxford. It provided lectures and tutorials for students at the four women's halls in Oxford, as well as for female students living at home or in lodgings and was dissolved in 1920 when women were admitted as members of the university.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Annie Rogers. Retrieved 13 November 2019
  2. ↑ W. A. S. Hewins, ‘Rogers, James Edwin Thorold (1823–1890)’, rev. Alon Kadish, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 13 Oct 2016
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Brittain, Vera (1960). The Women at Oxford. London: George G. Harrap & Co. ltd.
  4. ↑ "Exhibition Label 2009: Photograph of Annie Rogers & Mary Jackson as Queen Eleanor and the Fair Rosamund, 1863". Mhs.ox.ac.uk. History of Science Museum. Retrieved 15 March 2019.
  5. ↑ Frances Lannon (30 October 2008). "Her Oxford". Times Higher Education.
  6. ↑ Handbook to the University of Oxford. University of Oxford. 1965. p. 43.
  7. 1 2 Janet Howarth, ‘Rogers, Annie Mary Anne Henley (1856–1937)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 13 Oct 2016
  8. ↑ History, Oxford High School, Retrieved 13 November 2019
  9. ↑ Deborah Quare, ‘Mordan, Clara Evelyn (1844–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 19 Nov 2017
  10. ↑ "St Anne's College". british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  11. ↑ Reeves, Marjorie (1979). St Anne's College Oxford - An Informal History. St. Anne's College. pp. 28–9.
  12. ↑ Oxford History: Inscriptions
  13. ↑ Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board
  14. ↑ "Two Oxford buildings now carry memorials to leading women". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.