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Hilda Lockhart Lorimer
James Arden Grant, (1887–1973)
Date: 1958
Medium: Chalk
Donor: Vera Brittain
About the sitter
Vera Brittain described Miss Lorimer as ‘one of the most brilliantly eccentric of women dons.’ A Scot who came to Somerville from Girton, Cambridge in 1896, she was a classicist and keen ornithologist. Principal’s Secretary Hilda Bryant recollected: ‘Miss Lorimer often irritable, quick to sarcasm and contemptuous of anyone who fell below her standards.’
In 1948, fifty-five years after entering Girton as a student, she was one of the first women candidates to present themselves for a Cambridge degree.
Miss Lorimer’s fierceness as a tutor was as legendary as her geniality as a lecturer – one of her students said they felt like a ‘small and persecuted sect’.
Miss Lorimer was among the group of Somerville gym enthusiasts who finished their regular Wednesday afternoon exercise – drilled by a ‘gym instructor man’, according to Vera Farnell – with a single-file run through the garden
About the artist
Printmaker, painter and teacher, born in Liverpool. Showed extensively. Latterly lived in London.
Further information
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/grant-james-ardern-18871973