St John’s College Library Newsletter L
MICHAELMAS 2021
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1
40th Anniversary of the admission of women to the College Michaelmas 2021 marks 40 years since the first female graduate students, and one Fellow, became members of St John’s. The Eagle Volume LXIX, No 290 of Easter 1982 reported this as follows:
Women have played a crucial role in shaping the College community, starting of course with our Foundress, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Second Court was later constructed thanks to another female benefactor, Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, and later in the seventeenth century the College benefitted from the generosity of Sarah, Duchess of Somerset. From nobility to domestic staff such as laundresses, cleaners and bedmakers, all integral to the running of the College over hundreds of years, the College would not have been the same at any point in its history without the contribution of women. Yet it was 470 years after the College’s foundation that the first women were admitted to membership of the College. This included Birgit Müller, who was the first female research student to have her name entered in the Admissions Register; Tami Davis,
who became the first woman to join the LMBC, and the first female cox for the club; and Mary Short, who went on to become the first female President of the SBR.
The History of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, Vol IV 1982-2010