Pernel Strachey orJoan Pernel Strachey (4 March 1876 – 19 December 1951) was an English scholar of French and Principal ofNewnham College.

Pernel Strachey
Portrait byRay Strachey; paintedc. 1930
Born	4 March 1876 Clapham Common,Clapham, London, England
Died	19 December 1951 (aged 75) Gordon Square,Bloomsbury, London, England
Nationality	English
Known for	Principal ofNewnham College
Parent(s)	Sir Richard Strachey Jane Grant

Strachey was born inClapham Common in London in 1876. She came from a large family led by Lieutenant General SirRichard Strachey and the suffragistJane Maria Strachey. Her mother was a friend ofMillicent Garrett Fawcett who had co-founded Newnham College in Cambridge.^[1] Her brothers includedLytton Strachey andOliver Strachey, husband ofRay Costelloe.

The Strachey family background emphasised the life of the mind: "As a member of the large and distinguished Strachey family..., she shared its characteristically lively intellectual interests, wit and argumentative engagement with ideas. In manner she appeared shy and withdrawn ... but this veiled both kindness and a humorous regard for life’s problems."^[2]

Strachey went toAllenswood School.^[3] In 1895, she went toNewnham College, one of the two new women's colleges at theUniversity of Cambridge. After first studying history, she transferred to Modern and Medieval Languages, as a scholar of early French. She studied at Paris, and by 1900 she was lecturing atRoyal Holloway College in London. Strachey returned to Newnham College in 1905 as lecturer in French and Romance languages, becoming Director of Studies in modern and medieval languages in 1917. From 1909 she was heavily involved in administrative work for the college. The existence of women's educational establishments at Cambridge was still controversial, and women could not yet receive Cambridge degrees. Strachey played a leading role in the campaign for degrees for women, but it would not succeed during her time at Cambridge.^[1]

She became Principal ofNewnham College in 1927, a post she retained until her retirement in 1941.^[3] "As Principal, Pernel Strachey showed an acute ability, deceptively hidden, for management, fund-raising and an awareness of every aspect of college life. Surprisingly for one from a Bloomsbury background she maintained strict ideas about student behaviour and was described by many as too conservative. ... At Council meetings she seems always to have maintained an amused but restraining hand."^[2] Her biographer describes her as "a witty and fluent speaker and debater. She possessed the easy but polished politeness of an earlier and more formal era which reflected the upper class moeurs of her family – and which was much missed by many when she left."^[2]

She used her friendship with theBloomsbury Group andVirginia Woolf to get Woolf to deliver a talk in 1928. Woolf stayed atNewnham^[1] and her talk to the Newnham Arts Society was the basis for her essayA Room of One's Own.^[4]

After retirement in 1941, Strachey hoped to find time for research in her field of Anglo-Norman literature, but increasing ill health, and the pressure of wartime, did not allow this.^[1] Strachey died at the family's Bloomsbury home (since 1919), no. 51Gordon Square in London, on 19 December 1951, aged 75.^[1]