By August 1918, the tide of the war was turning, with the launch of an Allied offensive in Flanders and the last Zeppelin raid on England on August 5th.Meanwhile, rationing and shortages permitting, life carried on in Somerville. The 1918 SSA Annual Report was being prepared for publication, albeit in a shortened version and thanks to the foresight of the… Read More »August 1918: All quiet on the Oxford
Hilda Lorimer, Somerville’s Classics Tutor, was renowned as a scholar of Homeric archaeology. She had travelled extensively in Greece before the war and in 1917 she spent six months as an orderly with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, in the Salonika campaign. Her expert assistance was sought by the Foreign Office during the Long Vacation of 1918, to produce a series… Read More »September 1918: Lorimer of the F.O.
The Somerville Council met twice in October 1918, an extraordinary meeting on the 8th, primarily to discuss Miss Lorimer’s leave of absence and again on October 22nd to conduct college business and the issues which had arisen over the summer vacation. The minutes of these meetings reveal the mixture of academic administration and wartime exigencies under consideration. In October 1918,… Read More »October 1918: War and Peace
‘The news of the Armistice reached Oxford soon after 11 am. This was the signal for an outburst of patriotic enthusiasm chiefly manifest in the ringing of the bells of Oxford, the display of the flags of the Allies from every available window (& thanks to the optimistic forethought of the Principal of Somerville the flags of St Mary Hall… Read More »November 1918: “So it has come at last! What a day this has been.”
In the months following the Armistice, the military presence in Oxford dwindled and civilian and academic life began to return to normal. Principal Emily Penrose’s immediate concern was the timely return of the Somerville site to the college. Once the 3rd Southern General Hospital had vacated the buildings in the spring of 1919, they had to be repaired and redecorated,… Read More »December 1918: Oxford after the war
The Wrong Sex, an exhibition which runs from 9 April to 25 May 2024, shows the work of Fanchon Fröhlich (1927 – 2016), who graduated from Somerville College in 1953 with a DPhil for her research on post-Wittgensteinian linguistic philosophy. The exhibition features framed prints of her work produced in the 1960s at Atelier 17 in Paris, set up by… Read More »The Wrong Sex
Today and tomorrow (Thursday 5th and Friday 6th Oct) the Library is offering you a chance to enter into a prize draw for a £30 book token. All you have to do is complete their Scavenger Hunt. Designed primarily for those who are new to college, it is open to everyone, so please do come along, if you want the… Read More »Library Scavenger Hunt
Welcome back to college to all returning students, and welcome to Somerville to all of our new students. For those of you returning, you may spot a few changes in the Library, as we have been busy moving books around during the summer (just to keep you on your toes!), so if you cannot find something, please do ask. However,… Read More »Welcome!
We were asked recently whether it would be possible to open the John Stuart Mill Library this term, and so this is what we will be doing next Thursday, 11th May. The JSM Library will be open between 10.30am and 12.30pm, and then again between 2.00pm and 4.00pm. There will be a small exhibition explaining how the collection arrived at… Read More »JSM Library Open Day – Thursday 11th May
On Thursday 25th May, Professor Duncan Bell, Professor of Political Thought and International Relations, University of Cambridge & Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge will be delivering The 2023 John Stuart Mill Lecture at Somerville College. The event will take place in Flora Anderson Hall, starting at 5.30pm, and will be followed by refreshments. In his lecture, John Stuart Mill on… Read More »Annual John Stuart Mill Lecture – Thursday 25th May, 5.30pm, Flora Anderson Hall