Sarah Butler

Percy Withers (1867-1945) was a doctor, aspiring author and friend to some of the most renowned writers and artists of the interwar period.  Born in Sale in Cheshire, his father (who died in 1897) had been in the silk trade. Two of Percy’s older brothers were general practitioners and he too went into medicine but he had literary aspirations; his first volume of… Read More »Percy Withers Collection

Violet Paget (1856-1935) was an author and critic. Under the pseudonym Vernon Lee, she published over 40 volumes on aesthetics, the Italian Renaissance, music, critical theory and supernatural fiction. Born in France to English parents, Paget was the half-sister of poet Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton; he was a great influence on her and she adopted one of his names in her… Read More »Vernon Lee Collection

Philippa Foot (1920-2010) was a renowned moral philosopher. Born Philippa Bosanquet, her father was British and her mother was American, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Philippa Bosanquet had very little formal education but attained a place to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Somerville in 1939, and took a First in 1942. She was one of four philosophers (Foot,… Read More »Philippa Foot Collection

Emily Kemp (1860-1939) was a traveller, author and artist. She was born in Rochdale into a wealthy family (her father was a textile manufacturer) and she was one of Somerville’s earliest students, attending the college from 1881 to 1883. After Somerville, she studied medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women for two years and then spent two years… Read More »Emily Kemp Collection

Writer and campaigner, Vera Brittain (1893-1970) came up to Somerville College in 1914, shortly after the beginning of the First World War. She read English for one year before taking a leave of absence in 1915 to volunteer as a nurse. The war changed Brittain’s life; she lost her fiancé, her brother and her two closest friends. Traumatised by her experience, she… Read More »Vera Brittain and Shirley Williams Collection

Between 1992 and 1996 Laura Liswood interviewed 15 women world leaders as research for her publication ‘Women World Leaders’, and subsequent documentary of the same title. She went on, in 1996, to co-found the Council of Women World Leaders, of which she is now Secretary General. These 15 interviews, plus others carried out in subsequent years by Liswood, form the… Read More »Laura Liswood Archive of Women World Leaders

Muriel St Clare Byrne (1895-1983) was an Elizabethan scholar, dramatist and critic. She grew up in Liverpool and was educated at Belvedere School, before coming up to Somerville in 1914 to read English. At college, she was described as ‘an awfully nice child who writes quite good stuff’; she was elected to membership of the Mutual Admiration Society (MAS) and… Read More »Muriel St Clare Byrne Collection

Mary Somerville (1780-1872) was a Scottish polymath: a mathematician, scientist, astronomer, geographer, geologist and artist. Her interest in science stemmed from a fascination with the natural world, which began when she was a child in Burntisland in Fife. She received a little, basic schooling, and instead educated herself in Latin, Greek algebra and geometry, hiding her studies from her disapproving… Read More »Mary Somerville Collections

Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) read Modern History at Somerville from 1915-19.  She was celebrated in the 1920s and 1930s for her novels, the most famous of which was The Constant Nymph (1924), her second published work. It brought her instant recognition, was a commercial and literary success, and was reprinted in several editions in Britain and America. Margaret Kennedy adapted The Constant… Read More »Margaret Kennedy Papers