About this Item
An important set of reports published by the pioneering Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (AEW), containing a mass of information relating to the state of women's education in Oxford at the height of the suffragette agitation. The earliest report dates from 1894-95 and the latest from 1918-19, each running from October of one year to the same month of the next. The sequence is incomplete, with two issues missing (1900-01 and 1910-11). The reports are scarce in any sequence. WorldCat and Library Hub record runs at the London School of Economics and the British Library. The society's papers and publications are held in the Bodleian, deposited there in 1975. The question of women's suffrage, and its relevance within the structures of the University of Oxford, had been a topic of frequent discussion prior to the formal debate on the subject at the Oxford Union on 19 February 1880. Societies like the Oxford Women's Liberal Association (OWLA) and the Women's Emancipation Union, plus the activism of Florence Davenport Hill, who had been a founder member of the Bristol Women's Suffrage society in 1868 and had since moved to Headington, paved the way for groups like the AEW, and, later, the Oxford Women's Suffrage Society. The organization's work led to the founding of four women's colleges: Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville opened in 1879, followed by St Hugh's in 1886 and St Hilda's in 1893. St Anne's also originated as part of the AEW, catering for female students who lived with private families in Oxford while attending courses run by the society. The AEW counted the activist Eleanor Smith (1823-1896) among its founding members and Annie Rogers (1856-1937), Oxford's first woman don, as a secretary. Perhaps the most significant sections in these reports are those titled "General Statistics", which provide accounts of lectures attended by students, tutorial arrangements, results of examinations, donations, and subscriptions. The report of 1917-18 also provides a commentary on the "extension of the University Parliamentary Franchise to women who, being British subjects and not subject to any legal incapacity, have attained the age of thirty, and have been admitted to and passed the final examination, and kept under the conditions required of women by the University the period of residence necessary for a man to obtain a degree at Oxford. They are registered on specially favourable terms, as the Act admitting them is so drafted that the fee of £1 for registration cannot be required of persons who are not graduates. The Register contains at present the names of 409 women." The AEW continued its activities until November 1920, when it dissolved itself, as the university, by admitting women to membership, had taken responsibility for them. 23 issues, octavo; comprising a total of 616 pages, the issues c.20-30 pp. in length. Original printed paper wrappers, sewn and wire-stitched as issued. Housed in a former library's dark purple cloth flat-back box with metal latch closure, paper label to spine reading "Australian Council for Educational Research". Each issue complete, with stamps, shelf marks, and labels of the Education Department Library, latterly the Board of Education Library. Overall a scarce survival in very good condition. Shelfwear and creasing to wrappers, those for the earliest issue detached; rear wrapper for the 1909-10 issue torn but no loss.
Seller Inventory # 124133
Contact seller
Report this item
