Empire’s daughters: the first 25 Australian-born women at Girton and Newnham Colleges Cambridge, 1870–1940, as insiders and outsiders

Abstract

ABSTRACT Between 1870 and 1940, 25 white, middle-class, Australian-born women studied at Girton and Newnham Colleges in Cambridge. This article presents their biographical data, and includes all those listed as Australian-born in Volume 1 of the Girton Register and in the Newnham College Roll for the period under review. The article examines their places and years of birth; their family background; their degree studies; their careers after leaving Cambridge; whether they married; and where they eventually settled. The title, ‘Empire’s daughters’, encapsulates the overall argument that arose from difficulties in positioning these Australian-born women within nationalist discourses. Despite having a country of birth in common, many of them lived transnationally within the British Empire. Preliminary investigation of the women’s cultural and social positioning suggests that their status as ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’ was marked by ambiguity and complexity.