Emily Davies
Emily Davies portrait by Rudolph Lehmann, 1880
Born	Sarah Emily Davies (1830-04-22)22 April 1830 Carlton Crescent,Southampton, England
Died	13 July 1921(1921-07-13) (aged 91) Belsize Park, London, England
Nationality	British
Known for	Editor ofEnglish Woman's Journal Founder ofGirton College, Cambridge
Movement	Feminist Suffragist

Sarah Emily Davies (22 April 1830 – 13 July 1921) was an Englishfeminist who foundedGirton College, Cambridge. She campaigned as asuffragist and forwomen's rights to university education. In her early life, she attended meetings of theNational Association for the Promotion of Social Science and befriendedBarbara Bodichon andElizabeth Garrett Anderson. After moving to London with her mother in 1862, she wrote for and edited theEnglish Woman's Journal and joined theLangham Place Group. She co-founded the London Schoolmistresses' Association and theKensington Society, which pressured foruniversal suffrage, although she herself believed only unmarried women and widows should gain the vote.

After resigning from Girton in 1904, Davies became secretary of the London branch of theNational Society for Women's Suffrage, later leaving to join theConservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association. She died in London at the age of 91. During her lifetime, Davies' rigid views on education were controversial whilst recently historians have seen her achievements in a more sympathetic light. In 2019,Baroness Hale unveiled ablue plaque jointly commemorating founders Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, to mark the 150th anniversary of Girton College.

Davies was born on 22 April 1830 at Carlton Crescent,Southampton, England, to a teacher, Mary (née Hopkinson), and anevangelical clergyman,John D. Davies.^[1][2] The family was in Southampton because her father was covering for another priest; his parish was in nearbyChichester. They moved toNormandy in France in 1836, then back to Chichester and then toGateshead, inCounty Durham in 1839.^[1][3]

John D. Davies had traditionally patriarchal views on education, so whilst her three brothers attendedprivate schools and two of them studied at theUniversity of Cambridge, Davies and her older sister Jane were not educated and instead lived at home practisingneedlework andphilanthropy.^[1][4] In the 1850s, Davies cared for Jane and a brother, Henry, both of whom had separately contractedtuberculosis. The two both died in 1858, as did another brother, William, who had been wounded fighting in theCrimean War.^[1]

Davies was introduced towomen's rights in her twenties. Whilst caring for Henry inAlgiers, she metBarbara Bodichon and later, staying with her brotherLlewelyn in London, she attended lectures byElizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the UK, withElizabeth Garrett Anderson. Andersen and Bodichon inspired Davies to become asuffragist and to campaign for better education for women. She also went to meetings of thefeministNational Association for the Promotion of Social Science with Llewelyn, who had joined the group, and supported her friend Garrett Anderson in her medical studies.^[1][5] Living in Gateshead again from 1860 until 1862, she set up a local branch of theSociety for Promoting the Employment of Women and wrote letters promoting women's rights. After the death of her father in January 1862, Davies moved to London with her mother.^[1]

In London, Davies wrote for and edited theEnglish Woman's Journal, also joining theLangham Place Group, a club for women. She helped to set up theVictoria Magazine, later disassociating from it whenEmily Faithfull was named in the Codrington divorce case, since she did not want to appear to be endorsing immorality. Her paper "'Medicine as a profession for women" was read on her behalf byRussell Gurney to theNational Association for the Promotion of Social Science in June 1862.^[1] Working from October as secretary to a committee tasked with enabling women to enter university, Davies found 83 girls to sit local examinations in Cambridge in a trial run. This led to a petition signed by almost 1,000 teachers and the decision in 1865 to permanently allow girls to sit examination in Cambridge. After that success, Davies became one of the first women to address aroyal commission as an expert witness.^[1] She pressed for admission of women to the universities ofLondon,Oxford andCambridge.^[6] In 1866 she publishedThe Higher Education of Women.^[6]

Along with other women's rights advocates such asDorothea Beale, Barbara Bodichon,Frances Mary Buss and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Davies founded a women's discussion group, theKensington Society in 1865. Later the London Suffrage Committee was formed as an offshoot and askedParliament to grant women voting rights via a petition presented byJohn Stuart Mill.^[4] Davies' belief that only unmarried women and widows should gain the vote brought her into conflict with the majority of women in the group, who wanteduniversal suffrage, so she stepped aside from campaigning for voting rights and concentrated instead onhigher education for women.^[4][1]

Davies founded the London Schoolmistresses' Association in 1866 to discuss female education. At first she thought it best to build upQueen's College, London into a college for women over 18, but this plan failed, so then she set up a committee to fundraise for Britain's first women'suniversity college. With the support ofFrances Buss,Dorothea Beale andBarbara Bodichon, she set up a college at Benslow House, a rented villa inHitchin,Hertfordshire, roughly halfway between Cambridge and London. Initially there were five students. She then moved the project in 1873 to the outskirts of Cambridge, where it became Girton College. Davies was keen to both keep her young female students away from men and to give them the same educational courses as their male contemporaries.^[7][1] She pressed for a curriculum equivalent to the one offered to men at the time. TheSenate rejected her proposals to let women officially sit theTripos examinations, but Davies continued to train students for them on an unofficial basis.^[7]

Following theElementary Education Act 1870, Davies was elected to theLondon School Board, representingGreenwich. She did not stand again in 1873, preferring to concentrate on Girton College.^[1] In 1871, a second women-only college was founded byAnne Clough andHenry Sidgwick; it was calledNewnham College.^[1] Davies served as Mistress of Girton College from 1873 until 1875, then acted as honorary secretary for three decades.Caroline Croom Robertson joined the management in 1877 in order to reduce the load on Davies.^[8][6] In 1896, Davies publishedWomen in the universities of England and Scotland, criticising the state of higher education in England and lauded Scottish and Welsh universities for putting female and male students on an equal footing.^[9] Cambridge University only began to grant full university degrees to women in 1940.^[6]

After resigning from Girton in 1904, Davies became secretary of the London branch of theNational Society for Women's Suffrage and two years later led members to a discussion withPrime MinisterHenry Campbell-Bannerman.^[1] She left the London group when theNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies decided to support theLabour Party in 1912 and instead joined theConservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association. She was known for opposing the militant tactics used by theSuffragettes.^[6][1] In 1910, Davies published a collection of her writings entitledThoughts on some questions relating to women, with a foreword byConstance Jones.^[1]

Davies moved toHampstead in London in 1914, living near her brother Llewelyn until he died in 1916.^[1] She was one of the few original suffrage activists (and the only remaining member of the Langham Place Group) still alive to be able to vote in an election, after the passing of theParliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918.^[4][1] At the age of 91, Davies died at home inBelsize Park,Hampstead, London, on 13 July 1921 and was buried atSt Marylebone Cemetery two days later, leaving an estate of £5440 17s 2d (equivalent to £257,000 in 2021).^[9][1]

In June 1901, Davies received an honoraryDoctor of Laws (LL.D.) from theUniversity of Glasgow.^[10][9] During her lifetime, she was supported by some feminists and criticised by others for her rigid views on how education for women should be organised.Lady Stephen publishedEmily Davies and Girton College in 1927. More recently, historians have seen her achievements in a more sympathetic light, although it is still open to question whether she was a conservative reformer or she only allied herself with those in power to further her aims.^[1][11][12] A biography entitledEmily Davies and the Liberation of Women 1830-1921 was published in 1990.^[13]

Owing to the activism of Emily Davies and others, more women began to enter higher education in the UK.^[14] On 30 June 2019,Baroness Hale unveiled ablue plaque jointly commemorating founders Davies andBarbara Bodichon, to mark the 150th anniversary of Girton College. The plaque was installed on the main tower of the college.^[15]

• Davies, Emily (2004). Murphy, Ann B.; Raftery, Deirdre (eds.).Emily Davies: Collected Letters, 1861–1875. University of Virginia.ISBN 978-0-8139-2232-4.
• Davies, Emily (1910).Thoughts on some questions relating to women.OCLC 788783.
• Davies, Emily (1999) [1866].The Higher Education of Women. Adegi Graphics.ISBN 978-0-543-98292-6.
• Davies, Emily (11 June 1862). "Medicine as a profession for women".Paper Read Out by Russell Gurney at the London Meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science.
• Davies, Emily (May 1860). "Female physicians".English Woman's Journal.

• History of feminism

• Daphne Bennett,Emily Davies and the Liberation of Women 1830-1921 (André Deutsch, 1990)ISBN 978-0-233-98494-0
• Val Campion,Pioneering Women (Hitchin Historical Society, 2008)ISBN 978-0-9552411-3-0
• Margaret Forster,Significant Sisters (Secker and Warburg, 1984)ISBN 978-0-14-008172-5
• Lady Stephen,Emily Davies and Girton College (Constable, 1927)OCLC 1053637024

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Emily Davies

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