A recent addition to the Somerville photo archive is this photo of Katherine Guthrie Wood who was a student at Somerville between 1914 and 1918.  She was amongst the first women students to receive their degrees in 1921 when the university regulations were changed to admit women as full members of the university.  Miss Wood married Sir Richard Robert Ludlow in 1919 (also pictured) whom she met whilst at Oxford.  Many thanks go to Ms Angela Ridge who contacted me with  photos of her grandmother and who has kindly given permission to use this one

Charlotte Green was a member of Somerville Council from 1884-1929 and its Vice-President from 1908-1926. She was the sister of poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds, the aunt of future Somerville Principal Dame Janet Vaughan, wife of philosopher T H Green (one of the founding members of Somerville Council) and champion of higher education for women.   At one stage she was considered to succeed Miss Shaw Lefevre as the second Principal of the college. There are two portraits of her in the College, in the Treasury Corridor in House and in the Senior Common Room.

Professor Gilbert Murray was both a great classical scholar and an influential internationalist.  Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1908 to 1936,  he was also a founding member of the League of Nations Union in the UK and later three-times President of the United Nations Association.  Murray was a modest and moderate man (he twice refused a knighthood, was a vegetarian and teetotaller) but he nevertheless made a huge impression on all he met.

Murray first came into contact with Somerville College whilst an undergraduate at St John’s (1884-88) when he was invited to tea with the first Principal of the College, Madeleine Shaw Lefevre.     

He resumed his acquaintance with Somerville when he returned to Oxford in 1905 after a brief spell as Professor of Greek at Glasgow University.  His interest in Somerville stemmed from his conviction of the importance of higher education for women and he worked steadily to support this cause.  He was elected to serve on the governing Council of the College in 1908, chairing the library Committee throughout this period, and remained an active member until his death in 1957.  Always a source of wise counsel, he was delighted when Dame Emily Penrose, the Principal of Somerville helped steer Oxford University towards the awarding of degrees for women in 1920.

His involvement with the College consisted not only in the role he played in its governance: he also persuaded his wealthy mother-in law the Countess of Carlisle to endow a research Fellowship at Somerville, a fund that still provides Somerville Fellows with research leave to this day.  He often gave lectures at Somerville and in 1912 he helped the students to put on a production of Aristophanes’ play  The Frogs – a play that he had translated.  It was revived at Somerville thirty-four years later after the Second World War in 1946 with Gilbert Murray in the front row of the audience.

The College chapel (architect Courteney Theobald) was built in 1935 following a donation from former student, Emily Kemp.  However, as Somerville was specifically founded without religious affiliation,  some contemporaries saw the building of a chapel as contrary to this founding principle. Construction went ahead in spite of objections but the chapel was never consecrated and its one stained glass window (designer Reginald Bell) portrays  female figures representing Learning and Truth in addition to the risen Christ.  The  photograph above was taken shortly after construction and reflects the stark simplicity of the chapel which is retained today (below).