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
The Library is having a book sale: all books are £1 and you can pay in exact cash or ask us to add the cost to your Battels. The books are from various subjects and some are ex-library, but all are in decent condition: drop by and grab yourself a bargain! The sale will be open during our staffed hours:… Read More »Book sale!
There is a new display up in the loggia, entitled Somerville in Film and Fiction – feel free to drop by and take a look! Many of the books mentioned in the exhibition are in our collection, and can be found using SOLO, and you can also ask Library staff if you would like help finding them. As ever, you… Read More »New Library exhibition
As many of the British Library’s services are going to continue to be down for what looks like months, the Bodleian has come up with some useful tips for getting around the current lack of access to eLD (electronic legal deposit) material and the UK Web Archive. In the first instance you are encouraged to contact your subject librarian: they… Read More »How to get things while the British Library is down
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