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Women's Education at Oxford University
The first four women's colleges were established through the activism of the AEW (Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women), resulting in Lady Margaret Hall (1878), Somerville College (1879), St Hugh's College (1886) and St Hilda's College (1893). These were later followed by St Anne's College (1952).
However, it was not until 1920 that women became eligible for admission as full members of the university with the right to take degrees, and the women's colleges were given full collegiate status until 1959.
Until the 1970s all Oxford colleges were for men or women only. However, all Oxford colleges have been co-educational since 2008, when St Hilda's became the last of the women's colleges to admit men also. By 1988, 40% of Oxford undergraduates were female, compared to around 48% now.
The detective novel "Gaudy Night" by Dorothy Sayers (herself one of the first women to gain a degree at Oxford) is set in a fictional women's college at the university, and the issue of Women's education is a key aspect its plot.
