Her Oxford by Judy G. Batson

Author:Judy G. Batson
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: gnv64
Published: 2011-01-23T22:56:45.629000+00:00

A Changing Order

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residential buildings for students, in keeping with the Home-Student tradition, but in 1934, some undergraduates began agitating for a change of name. They argued that their title was misleading, as only a small number of students lived in their own homes. Many also felt that people outside the university misunderstood the term “Home-Students,” and members of the society sometimes had difficulty persuading prospective employers that their degrees were as good as those earned by students at the other Oxford women’s colleges. This issue had been raised at various times before 1934, but no one ever took the matter very far for fear of offending Mrs. Johnson, who always opposed any suggestion of a name change. But Mrs. Johnson had died in 1927, and current students no longer felt they were being disrespectful to her by suggesting that “Home-Students” did not accurately reflect their current status in Oxford (although they did not have an alternate name to propose).

Christine Burrows favored a new title, believing that “Home-Students”

meant nothing to outsiders. The delegates agreed to consult old members about the possibility of changing the society’s name and sent out a circular inviting written opinions. At the same time, Ruth Butler, staunch upholder of the Johnson legacy, distributed her own circular to old members in which she argued against a name change, largely because it signified a break with tradition. She and her supporters prevailed, and the proposal was shelved for the immediate future. The Home-Students would keep their unique name and their unique character—until war made their old way of life impossible.

Lynda Grier at LMH

In January 1921, in her letter of resignation as principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Miss Jex-Blake wrote: “I feel very strongly that it will be for the best interests of the Hall that a younger woman should deal with the problems that must arise under the new conditions for Women Students in Oxford.”12 She was only fifty-two, but the war and the flu epidemic that followed, as well as increasing student enrollment, had taxed her strength. The ten candidates considered for the post included Eleanor Lodge, who might have seemed a natural successor. She had been a student at LMH

from 1890 to 1894, returning in 1899 as history tutor, and seemed almost indispensable to the college. In her autobiography, she confessed that “the dream of my life had always been to end my days as Principal of Lady Margaret Hall.”13 Committee members decided, however, that the college needed new blood and that they should look outside their own community for leadership. They offered the post to Lynda Grier, economics tutor and fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, who began her twenty-four-year tenure in the fall of 1921. Although Eleanor Lodge later acknowledged that the committee had acted wisely in appointing someone from the out-208

Her Oxford

side, she was bitterly disappointed at the time and did not feel she could remain at LMH under someone new. Luckily, she secured the principalship of Westfield College in London and began her work there in October 1921, just as Miss Grier was being installed as the new principal of LMH.

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