Qualla: Girton College, Cambridge

Girton College, Cambridge: Introduction

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vysotsky, CC BY-SA 4.0. They thought it safer to locate it away from Cambridge. In 1869, when Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon opened the College for Women at Benslow House in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, the choice of a town 25 miles from Cambridge was not accidental. The founders believed that women studying at a university would be less controversial if they weren't actually near one. The college moved closer — to the edge of Girton village, about two miles northwest of Cambridge — in 1873. But that instinct to keep a distance, to make the claim quietly and then expand it, shaped everything that followed. Girton spent the next century steadily advancing the argument that women belonged at Cambridge, until Cambridge eventually agreed.

Image: Vysotsky | CC BY-SA 4.0

Girton College, Cambridge: Five Women, One October

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keith Edkins, CC BY-SA 2.0. The first term began on 16 October 1869, when five students started their studies: Emily Gibson, Anna Lloyd, Louisa Lumsden, Isabella Townshend, and Sarah Woodhead. Admission to the Cambridge Local Examinations — a small concession granted four years earlier — had met little resi...

Image: Keith Edkins | CC BY-SA 2.0

Girton College, Cambridge: The Victorian Brick That Built a College

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Quintus Lollius Urbicus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The red-brick buildings of Girton's main site were designed by Alfred Waterhouse between 1873 and 1887. Waterhouse was already one of England's most prominent architects — he built Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London. The English bond brickwork, the stee...

Image: Quintus Lollius Urbicus | CC BY-SA 4.0

Girton College, Cambridge: The Long Wait, Then the Vote

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Sutton, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 27 April 1948, Cambridge finally admitted women to full university membership, and Girton received the official status it had functionally held for decades. Twenty-eight years later, Girton made another first: in November 1976, the Governing Body voted to admit men, making Gir...

Image: John Sutton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Girton College, Cambridge: The Pioneers' Song

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stan_was, CC BY 2.0. Girton's college grace, written in 1950 and sung to the tune of "The British Grenadiers," opens with a roll call of the original students. The first stanza begins: "Some talk of Senior Wranglers / And some of Double Firsts / And truly of their species / These are not the worst / ...

Image: stan_was | CC BY 2.0

Girton College, Cambridge: A Living Place

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Annatjie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today Girton sits on 33 acres at the edge of the village, connected to Cambridge by a two-mile cycle path many students use daily. The main site offers 348 undergraduate rooms, all rented at the same price regardless of grade — Girton and Newnham are the only Cambridge colleges t...

Image: Annatjie | CC BY-SA 3.0