No Ordinary ‘Rag’: the attack on the Clough gates

Newnham College has been in existence for 150 years, but for over half that time, women students did not enjoy full membership of the University or receive full degrees:

1870 Henry Sidgwick’s series of Lectures for Women begins in Cambridge.

1871 A residence for women attending the lectures opens in Regent Street, run by Anne Jemima Clough.

1881 Women are allowed to take Tripos exams, and their achievements are recognised with a University certificate.

1897 The University votes against giving women ‘titles of degrees’ (degrees without associated privileges such as involvement in University governance and the right to attend lectures).

1921 The University votes to give women ‘titles of degrees’, but votes against allowing them any further rights and privileges.

1948 Full membership of the University for women comes into effect.

In 1921, there were two motions on the table; one stopping just short of giving women full membership of the University (which did not pass), and one offering them only ‘titles of degrees’ (which did pass). The issue generated great interest and Mary Henn (Roberts, NC 1920) recalls the large numbers of alumni who came back to Cambridge to participate in the vote:

‘Bearing in mind that any male student who acquired a B.A. degree automatically assumed the dignity of M.A. by the simple process of allowing five years to elapse and paying the requisite fee, it is easy to picture the number of gentlemen of all ages who took this opportunity of visiting their old colleges and exercising their right to vote on this burning question. The impression that remains with me – allowing of course for distortions of memory over so long a period – is that they came in their hundreds, from all corners for the United Kingdom: those aided by sticks and crutches being animated by a passion of anti-feminism in proportion to their years.’

Principal Blanche Athena Clough described the events that followed:

‘The voting at the Senate House closed at 8.30 in the evening. A very few minutes after that time a non-resident member of the Senate came out of the Senate House on to the steps and announced the figures on the vote on Grace I to the large crowd assembled there, which included a great number of undergraduates, and added the advice that they should now go and tell Girton and Newnham. This advice was taken at once, and in ten minutes or less a crowd of undergraduates variously estimated at 1300 or 1500 had rushed up to Newnham.’

‘The bronze gates were shut and securely barred. The crowd apparently was bent on getting in, and finding that they could not force the gates they looked round for some means of breaking them down. They turned aside to the wooden gates of the small back yard belonging to the Old Hall, broke these open, knocked down a solid brick pillar on which one of the gates hung, and burst into the yard. There they saw a hand cart used for moving cinders, etc., and this was dragged out and driven against the gates repeatedly to break them open.’

The actions of the crowd are frequently described as ‘ragging’, and there was widespread discussion about this characterisation of events. Rag in Cambridge now is about having fun and raising money for charity. Historically the term referred to expressions of student ‘high spirits’ too, but in 19th and early 20^th century Cambridge this was often accompanied by violence and vandalism.  In 1921 as in 1897, there were elements of pageantry and humour directed at academic women, but there was also an undercurrent of rowdiness and misogyny. British Pathe footage of a parade earlier in the day shows some of the costumes and banners.

A B Walkley, in The Times, lampooned the idea that this was just ‘legitimate ragging’:

‘But what a go-ahead university Cambridge is! They have only lately introduced the brand-new degree of Ph.D. and now they have invented the novel, fascinating and, best of all, perfectly safe game of “ragging” women.  This last invention gives Cambridge a proud pre-eminence.  To be sure, there is (or was) plenty of “ragging” at Oxford, but, by a regrettable oversight it has hitherto been directed against mere dons or other trousered beings, who are capable of reprisals; that slow, unenterprising university is not yet awake to the exquisite pleasure of stamping in unison with a lady’s footsteps, so that the row can be heard some way up the street.  Men, again, have been known to damage some of the property of their own college, in Peckwater Quad and elsewhere; but how much better they manage at Cambridge, where they don’t damage their own foundation but the women’s.’

The events of 20 October 1921 were by no means unprecedented. In 1897, there had been a previous vote on ‘titles of degrees’ for women (degrees without associated privileges such as involvement in University governance and the right to attend lectures). That occasion had generated similar crowds and a similarly ‘anti-feminist’ mood.  The motion did not pass, but the reaction of the crowd caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to the market square.

As Millicent Fawcett, co-founder of the College, observed in The Times following the 1921 vote:

‘Last Thursday Grace II., granting women titular degrees, but not membership of the University, was carried by 1,012 votes to 370.  The Grace thus carried is practically identical with the one which was defeated by the anti-feminist party in 1897 by 10 to 1.  Therefore it has only taken just under a quarter of a century to change a howling mob of opponents of this mild proposal into another howling mob of its friends.  Mr. J. R. M. Butler reminds your readers this morning that the triumphant majority in 1897 were fully as discourteous, though not so destructive, as their more advanced successors in 1921.’

This poster was recovered from the railings outside Clough Hall after the 1897 vote by Clarice Wilson (Armitage, NC 1895). She recalled ‘listening, from the roof of Sidgwick Hall, to the distant roar from the town, which increased in volume as the ‘attacking forces’ gradually approached, to be finally held up by the closed college gates, with the dons assembled beneath the archway’.

As the crowd attempted to break down the gates and gain entry to the College, Principal Blanche Athena Clough stood in the Pfeiffer arch, facing them.  The scene is recalled by two Newnham students of the time:

‘It was during my time at Newnham, that the gates were broken down, and I remember that evening very well indeed.  I think we must have been working in the Library or something, because I know some of us were coming back to get to Old [Hall] at the time the crowd had arrived outside and had smashed the gates.  We wanted to get through the archway to get back to Old, and I remember Miss Clough standing in the gateway, the archway, facing the gates with the howling mob just outside, and she waved us quickly through into Old.’

Kathleen McKeag (Vicars, NC 1920)

‘Those of us who were in residence at the time did not of course have any clear idea of the sequence of events during the remainder of that day, though we heard later, on all sides, that Miss Clough faced the situation and young men with great dignity and calm, and the University took prompt and drastic action.  It could hardly be expected that we, the Newnhamites of the day, should not enjoy to the full such a uniquely dramatic situation.  College temporarily resembled a beleaguered fortress which we were forbidden to leave.  As darkness fell we gathered in rooms looking out over the garden, where Junior Proctors and Police scuttled from bush to bush, while the Senior Proctor came and went inside the College with impressive speed and awful solemnity.

Next day the University was steeped in gloom and guilt, to an extent I imagine seen neither before nor since.’

Mary Henn (Roberts, NC 1920)

Principal Blanche Athena Clough describes how ‘In the following days, much regret and indignation was expressed by senior members of the University, and meetings of undergraduates were held in every College…’

‘…Shortly afterwards it was made know to us that there was a wish on the part of many undergraduates to make good the damage which had been done by others, although they clearly understood that it was difficult for the College to accept such an offer.  The Governing Body met to consider the suggestion, and after very full consideration decided that they ought not to reject an offer made in good faith and with good feeling.’

The non-resident member of the Senate who had incited the crowd to go to Newnham and Girton was called before the Sex Viri (University Court of Discipline) and severely reprimanded by the Vice Chancellor.  Six undergraduate men were sent down as punishment for their part in the attack on Newnham.