The Early History of St Hugh’s College

Abstract

Nothing could have seemed less likely to develop into a college than the rented house in Norham Road where four young women students assembled in October 1886 to form St Hugh’s. ‘Foundation’ is indeed rather too solemn a word for its opening, which was the result of a decision by Elizabeth Wordsworth, then principal of Lady Margaret Hall¹ to use an unexpected windfall to rent and equip a house for the reception of ‘a very few … really poor students’, and to put them in the care of a ‘head’ capable both of running the house, and of giving the students the sort of religious and moral guidance that she herself gave to students at Lady Margaret Hall. So right from the beginning, St Hugh’s was different. It was a ‘house’ rather than a hall of residence, not because of its aim, which St Hugh’s can well be proud of, but because it was, as Elizabeth Wordsworth said, ‘a private venture’. It was not founded by a committee of well-wishers to women’s education, as were Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall, the two halls of residence for women students opened in 1879, nor was it governed by one. Instead, it had a single founder, whose interest lay in the purpose it was to serve, not in the kind of institution it was to be. St Hugh’s was an experiment; its purpose was to make it possible for women of modest means to live and study in Oxford.