Cambridge University has shaped the modern world, and so too have many of the women it once excluded. PhD student and Cambridge historian Rowena Squires brings to life the stories of pioneering women who transformed science, politics, literature and social reform. The route traces the long fight for equal education, from women establishing their own academic societies, through the pivotal votes in 1897 and 1921 that sparked riots among male students, to their eventual right to graduate from Cambridge in 1948.
As you walk through some of Cambridge's historic streets and colleges, you'll learn about Dorothy Hodgkin, who deciphered the structures of penicillin and insulin and became Britain's first female Nobel Prize winner in science. You'll discover how Rosalind Franklin's X-ray crystallography work was used without her knowledge in the discovery of DNA's structure, and uncover the story of Philippa Fawcett, who outperformed every male student in the 1890 Mathematics Tripos but was still denied a degree.
Encounter the trailblazing women of Girton College, including Sarojini Naidu, India's national poet and a key figure in the fight for independence. See Cambridge's first co-educational college, where you'll learn about Gwen Raverat, Charles Darwin's granddaughter and a pioneer in the art of wood engraving. You'll also visit Queens' College, founded by two rival queens during the Wars of the Roses, which did not admit women until 1980 despite centuries of female royal patronage.
