A Sense of the Census

A Sense of the Census: Girton in 1921

The returns for the 1921 Census for England and Wales were released earlier this year. Caroline Shenton discovers what they tell us about Girton residents one hundred years ago

In the early summer of 1921 the College was, like the nation, still reeling from the impact of the Great War and the global influenza pandemic. No woman at Girton – whether academic, staff or student – remained untouched by the illness, injury or death of family and friends. The College had also suffered a huge setback the previous year when the University voted once again to deny women membership and to award them only titular degrees. Yet Girton remained determinedly focused on the future, and in 1921 had formed a committee with the intention of obtaining a charter of incorporation from the Crown, to set its legal standing on a par with the men’s colleges.

On the evening of Sunday 19th June the Mistress, Katharine Jex-Blake (1860–1951), sat down like millions of others across the country to fill out the decennial census return for the ‘Girton Ladies College’ on Huntingdon Road, recording that the premises contained 225 rooms with 51 people on site. There had been a competition among students in Easter Term called the ‘Great College Calculation’ to help determine the first of these figures, which had been won by engineer

The Mistress and academic staff in 1919, with those resident on Census Night in 1921 highlighted. Back row: Ethel Fegan, Pauline Leveson, Hilda Murray, Janet Bacon. Front row: Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, Eleanor Allen, Katharine Jex-Blake, Kathleen Butler

(Girton College Archive GCPH 10/47/14)

Domestic staff in 1923, including some who appear in the 1921 Census. The kitchenmaids are in lighter coloured dresses; housemaids in black with plain white aprons; and parlourmaids in black with lacier aprons. Miss Hindle, the housekeeper, presides over them all in the centre of the second row from the front

(Girton College Archive, GCPH 10/47/15)

Elizabeth Little. She gave the £5 prize back to the College, ‘to dispose of as popular opinion decided.’ A donation was duly made to the Central Europe Relief Fund, which had narrowly beaten the other proposal of acquiring a College peacock.

For the first time, the Census required that the employer and place of work of each resident were listed along with their occupation. For Girton this was extremely straightforward – they were the same thing – though it’s important to understand that there were many members of the College community not listed in the return. To begin with, nearly all the students were absent, it being the summer vacation. Just two were still up: there was Constance Bose, 22, from Saidpur, Benghal (today in the Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan) perhaps not easily able to leave during the summer or maybe waiting for a convenient passage home; and Irene Butler, 20, from Dullington in Northumberland, who was retaking an examination. Some College servants would have returned to their families in the holidays. Then there would have been a number who always lived offsite, including the seven men working under the direction of Jane Swindale, very recently appointed as Garden Steward aged 52 (though listed by Jex-Blake as ‘Head Gardener’), with whom Gertrude Jekyll corresponded about planting schemes for Cloister Court and Emily Davies Court.

Those who counted Girton as home as well as Jex-Blake included the Bursar, 53-year-old Eleanor Allen (who was also the Vice-Mistress), whose lasting impact can very visibly be seen in the Dining Hall, its oak panelling installed in memory of her ‘long and unsparing devotion’ to the College. The Lecturers in residence were Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, the mathematician who later that year was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and who drafted Girton’s ground-breaking 1924 Charter; Janet Bacon (Classics), who fourteen years later became Principal of Royal Holloway College, London; Kathleen Butler, lecturer in Italian and French, and Mistress from 1942 to 1945; the Welsh historian Mary Jones who served as Vice-Mistress 1938–1940; and Hilda Murray, who was the inspirational English supervisor of legendary Girton Mistress, Muriel ‘Brad’ Bradbrook. Equally formidable was the Librarian, Ethel Fegan, 44, who had previously been employed by Cheltenham Ladies’ College. After leaving Girton in 1929 ‘Fegs’ went on to a further significant career in Nigeria and the Gold Coast (Ghana), both in library education and in leprosy relief. Supporting the Mistress was the College Secretary, Kathleen Robertson, 29, who was Scottish, and Junior Bursar Pauline Leveson, 48, from London.

A Room of One’s Own in 1921, of the kind counted in the ‘Great College Calculation’

(Girton College Archive, GCPH 10/52/31)

Perhaps most interesting of all, the Census return gives us an insight into the names and backgrounds of the domestic staff who kept the College spick and span, even during vacations. In charge of all housekeeping operations was Grace Hindle, 45, who had been born in the major port city of Callao in Peru. Ethel Underwood, 32, from Low Gibton in Yorkshire, was her second-in-command. Grace oversaw a team of 30, including 23 housemaids. Their job was to do the heavy work of cleaning the bedrooms and studies, dusting and sweeping the corridors, polishing the windows, washing the stairs and other public areas, bringing in coal, laying fires and carrying away rubbish. Teenaged sisters Eileen and Nora Searle were from Grantchester and other housemaids were mostly from nearby too, including Swavesey, Bourn, Linton and Fulbourn. However a few were from further afield, including two women from Troston in Suffolk, Laura Arnold and Maude Barker, perhaps friends; Alice Dare from Finchingfield in Essex; Annie Burr from Kemptown in Brighton; Selina Butler from Shropshire; and Charlotte Nicholson from Staveley in Derbyshire, who at 53 was the oldest; the youngest, Joy Gawthrop, was 15. There were six parlourmaids, attending to the Mistress and lecturers more directly, serving tea and meals, polishing glass and silver, ensuring the presentation and comfort of areas such as the Stanley Library and the Reception Room were maintained, and on occasion undertaking some tasks of the lady’s maid. Parlourmaids generally came from a distance, being more skilled and often chosen for their ‘presentability.’ Among them were women from Huntingdon, Norfolk, and even County Down. One parlourmaid from Newmarket – Bertha Crane – had two older sisters, Mabel and Maud, working at Girton as housemaids. All were obviously single. Working alongside them was a sole male among 50 women, 14-year-old Gerald Fabb from Fulbourn, who was employed as the College’s ‘page boy’, running errands and cleaning shoes and boots.

There is no mention of kitchen staff other than a kitchen maid called Dorothy Hall (who may in fact have been an assistant cook), so either the College cook was out on Census night, or she and other kitchen staff lived offsite. There were clearly plenty of people to feed. Similarly, the Assistant Matron Winifred Keyte, a 33-year-old widow (one wonders whether a war widow in fact), was in residence, but where the actual Matron was is not clear.

Finally, the 1921 return throws up a remarkable coincidence. The College Portress was one Annie Wilson, 39, and the Assistant Portress was Joanna Harvey, 24. Wilson was another widow, this time from Dublin, who bore the same name and marital status as the villainous scout in Dorothy L Sayers’ 1935 masterpiece of life in an all-women’s college, Gaudy Night (featuring a thinly-disguised Somerville, Oxford). But happily there is no evidence of similar dark deeds having taken place at Girton as a result. It will be another 30 years before another Census for England and Wales is published, the 1931 returns having been destroyed by an accidental fire in 1942 and no Census having been taken in 1941 owing to the war. Who knows what surprises it will hold for researchers in 2052?