List of people associated with Somerville College, Oxford

The following is a list of notable people associated with Somerville College, Oxford, including alumni and fellows of the college. This list consists almost entirely of women, due to the fact that Somerville College was one of the first two women's colleges of the University of Oxford, admitting men for the first time in 1994.[1] The college and its alumni have played a very important role in feminism.

Somervillians include prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi, Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Dorothy Hodgkin, television personalities Esther Rantzen and Susie Dent, reformer Cornelia Sorabji, writers Marjorie Boulton, Vera Brittain, A. S. Byatt, Susan Cooper, Penelope Fitzgerald, Alan Hollinghurst, Winifred Holtby, Nicole Krauss, Iris Murdoch and Dorothy L. Sayers, politicians Shirley Williams, Margaret Jay and Sam Gyimah, socialite Lady Ottoline Morrell, Princess Bamba Sutherland and her sister, philosophers G. E. M. Anscombe, Patricia Churchland, Philippa Foot and Mary Midgley, psychologist Anne Treisman, archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, actress Moon Moon Sen, soprano Emma Kirkby and numerous women's rights activists. It has educated at least 29 dames, 17 heads of Oxford colleges, 11 life peers, 10 MP's, 4 Olympic rowers,[2] 3 of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945,[3] 2 prime ministers, 2 princesses, a queen consort and a Nobel laureate.

Firsts

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Somervillians have achieved a good number of "firsts", internationally, nationally and at Oxford University. The most distinguished are the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher, the first and only British woman to win a Nobel Prize in science Dorothy Hodgkin, and the first woman to lead the world's largest democracy Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India for much of the 1970s. Others include Cornelia Sorabji, first female lawyer in India and first Indian national to study at any British university; Anne Warburton, first female British ambassador; Constance Coltman, Britain's first woman to be an ordained Anglican minister; Shriti Vadera, Baroness Vadera, first woman to head a major British bank and chair the Royal Shakespeare Company; Evelyn Sharp, Baroness Sharp, first female permanent secretary, and Carys Bannister, first female neurosurgeon in the UK.

Other firsts include:

Alumni

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Activists and feminists

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Lettice Fisher
 
Margaret Hills
 
Gurmehar Kaur
 
Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda
 
Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh

Architects

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Archivists

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Artists

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Authors

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Marjorie Boulton
 
Vera Brittain
 
A. S. Byatt
 
Elizabeth Young, Lady Kennet
 
Nicole Krauss

Children's writers

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Susan Cooper

Playwrights

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Margaret Kennedy

Poets

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Business & finance people

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Shriti Vadera, Baroness Vadera

Civil servants and diplomats

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Alyson Bailes
 
Emma Sky

Education

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Averil Cameron
 
Margery Fry
 
Kathleen Kenyon
 
Onora O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

Oxbridge heads of houses

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Fictional

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Film and theatre

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Moon Moon Sen

Health professionals

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Helen Muir

Mental health professionals

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Journalism

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Historians

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Emma Rothschild
 
Kate Williams

Classicists and archaeologists

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Miriam T. Griffin
 
Joyce Reynolds
 
Maria Wyke

Medievalists

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Cornelia Sorabji

Linguistics and literature

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Susie Dent

Music

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Emma Kirkby

Other

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Marion Wilberforce
 
Sunethra Bandaranaike

Philosophers

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Patricia Churchland
 
Mary Midgley

Politicians

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Thérèse Coffey
 
Sam Gyimah
 
Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby

Conservatives

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Labour

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International

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Margaret Ballinger

Radio and television

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Esther Rantzen
 
Fasi Zaka

Religion

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Missionaries

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Royalty and nobility

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Lady Ottoline Morrell
 
Raja Zarith Sofiah

Scientists

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Kay Davies
 
Marian Dawkins
 
Joanna Haigh
 
Angela McLean
 
Kathleen Ollerenshaw
 
Caroline Series
 
Julia Yeomans
  • Jane Kirkaldy (1869–1932), one of the first women to obtain first-class honours in the natural sciences; contributed greatly to the education of the generation of English women scientists
  • Margaret Seward MBE (1864–1939), first Oxford female student to be entered for the honour school of Mathematics; one of the first two female chemistry students at Oxford; earliest chemist on staff at the Royal Holloway (of which she was a founding lecturer); pioneer woman to obtain a first class in the honour school of Natural Science
  • Premala Sivaprakasapillai Sivasegaram (1942), Sri Lankan engineer, regarded as the country's first female engineer; acknowledged as one of twelve female change-makers in Sri Lanka by the parliament

Biologists

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Botanists
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Chemists

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Earth scientists

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Mathematicians

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Physicists

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Social scientists

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Reem Bassiouney

Anthropologists

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Katherine Routledge

Economists

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Alison Wolf, Baroness Wolf of Dulwich

Sport

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Sophie Le Marchand
 
Smit Singh

Rowers

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Spies

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Translators

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Anthea Bell

Fellows & staff

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Tony Bell
 
Alan Hollinghurst
 
Chris Lintott
 
Bertha Phillpotts
 
Rajesh Thakker
 
Kevin Warwick
 
Dorothy Maud Wrinch

Honorary fellows

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Notable honorary fellows (excluding alumni) are Simon Russell Beale, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Nancy Rothwell, and Kiri Te Kanawa. Notable foundation fellows are Charles Powell, Baron Powell of Bayswater, and Wafic Saïd.

Principals

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Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

The first principal of Somerville Hall was Madeleine Shaw-Lefèvre (1879–1889). The first principal of Somerville College was Agnes Catherine Maitland (1889–1906) when in 1894 it became the first of the five women's halls of residence to adopt the title of 'college', the first of them to appoint its own teaching staff, the first to set an entrance examination, and the first to build a library. She was succeeded by classical scholar Emily Penrose (1906–1926), who established the Mary Somerville Research Fellowship in 1903 which was the first to offer women in Oxford opportunities for research. Alumnae Margery Fry (1926–1930), Helen Darbishire (1930–1945), Janet Vaughan (1945–1967), Barbara Craig (1967–1980) and Daphne Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth (1980–1989) also served as Principal of Somerville College.

The current principal is Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon.[120] She succeeded Alice Prochaska at the end of August 2017.[120]

References

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Bibliography

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