College Archive

Discover the history of Newnham College and women’s education in Cambridge

Archive researcher

About

Newnham College began life in 1871 with 5 students lodging in a house in Regent Street. By 1875, enough money had been raised to build Newnham Hall (Old Hall) the first building on the present Newnham site. The College now has over 600 students.  The Archives contain administrative, academic, social, photographic and personal records dating from the College’s foundation and earlier.

Visit the Archive

The College Archive is open to researchers on weekdays, 10.00-13.00 and 14.00-17.00.  For enquiries and appointments, please contact the Archivist.

Collections

The College

At the core of the College Archive are collections relating to the development and governance of the College, and the life and work of the College community over more than 150 years. As women did not become full members of the University until 1948, the College is the institution of record up to that point. These collections include:

The Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women

The North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women

'Agitation for Degrees', the campaign for full degrees and membership of the University

The Administration of the College over the first 50 years of its existence.

Records of the Governing Body, Council and other College committees.

The charters, statutes and ordinances of the College.

Students and Teaching

Land and Buildings

Student clubs, societies and associations.

Photographic collections.

College publications

'Historical Reference' (thematic collections)

 

Personal Papers

We hold various collections of papers relating to individuals and families associated with the College, including:

 

Olive Cook (1912-2002, NC 1931)

A large collection of papers and art work relating to painter and writer Olive Cook and her husband and collaborator, painter and photographer Edwin Smith. 

 

Jane Harrison (1850-1928, NC 1874)

The core of the collection is several hundred letters (1900-1928) written by Jane Harrison to fellow classicist Gilbert Murray. (1900-1928).

 

Clare Holtham (1948-2010, NC 1970)

The collection relates mainly to Clare Holtham’s travels in Afghanistan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There are photographs, maps, postcards, journals and art work. There are also later scrapbook/journals and poetry-related material.

 

Mary Hutton (NC 1875)

Letters 1872-1882, written to her family in Ireland, some from Newnham where she was one of the first students resident in Old Hall (then Newnham Hall).

 

Winifred Lamb (1894-1963, NC 1913)

Work-related papers of of archaeologist and curator Winifred Lamb, including research notebooks, newscutting books, and photographs, mainly 1920s and 1930s.

 

Hope Mirrlees  (1887-1978, NC 1910)

A large collection of novelist and poet Hope Mirrlees' notebooks and correspondence.

 

Russell family (1800s-1900s)        

A collection of photographs, scrapbooks and sketchbooks, received from College benefactor Lady Agatha Russell; mainly from the family of Lord John Russell, Lady Agatha’s father.

Literary Archive

In recognition of Newnham’s strong literary heritage, the College established a Literary Archive in 2011. Rare books, letters, drafts of published work, memoirs and photographs have all been donated to Newnham. The collection forms a link between the writers and the College and it allows us to display the material to inspire current students and encourage an interest in writing.

Literary heritage

Inspiration for the literary archive came from Virginia Woolf who, although not a student at Newnham, visited the College at the invitation of the Newnham Arts Society in 1928. The talk Woolf gave on women and fiction at Newnham, along with one given at Girton College, was to become ‘A Room of One’s Own’, a text which continues to inspire women writers today.

Some of Newnham’s earliest students, including the late-Victorian poet and novelist Amy Judith Levy, went on to become writers.  Newnham has continued this tradition and the College has been home to some of the best female writers of the twentieth and twentieth-first century.

Writers today

Newnham writers publishing today include: novelists AS Byatt, Margaret Drabble, Salley Vickers, Ali Smith, Patricia Duncker, Sarah Dunant and Jenn Ashworth; poets Gillian Allnutt and Wendy Mulford; biographer Claire Tomalin; screenwriter Emma Thompson; children’s authors Mary Hoffman and Caroline Lawrence; publisher Nicola Beauman, and writers and broadcasters Germaine Greer, Lisa Jardine, Joan Bakewell  and Julia Neuberger.

Events

February 2011 – Literary Archive Launch

March 2013 – Women and the Novel

March 2015 – Newnham and Poetry

Queer Archive

The Newnham Queer Archive (NQA) is led by LGBTQ+ Newnham graduate students and composed of a group of volunteers associated to Newnham (as MCR, JCR, alum, or SCR) who have an interest in documenting Newnham’s LGBTQ+ history.

Founded in the Fall of 2021, NQA developed as a formal group after a few of our members attended an inspiring talk from Stef Dickers, Librarian and Archivist at London’s Bishopsgate Institute.

In recent years, there has been a growing desire among many LGBTQ+ students at Newnham for more recorded history around Newnham’s LGBTQ+ narratives. Newnham has a strong queer heritage – over the last 150 years, countless students, staff, and fellows have identified somewhere under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Often times, queer histories are suppressed or simply hidden, to the detriment of those researching and seeking liberation today.

This project, originally funded by Newnham’s 150th Anniversary Open Programme, aims to celebrate Newnham’s rich history of LGBTQ+ life through the creation and maintenance of a specifically LGBTQ+ archive. The project is a meaningful collaboration of members of the MCR, members of the JCR, the Newnham Library, Archive, Roll Offices, and current and past college members. We share a goal of uncovering queer experiences and establishing a lasting archive of interviews and materials relating to Newnham’s LGBTQ+ history.

Materially, the Queer Archive forms an independent collection, gathered and maintained by members of our group, which is partly embedded in the Newnham College Archive. The oral histories are collected and preserved by the NQA itself, while the physical materials are kept within Newnham’s own archive. We are currently seeking contributions from anyone who has been associated with Newnham College and identifies as LGBTQ+, or any marginalised sexual or gendered identity group.

If you have any materials to donate, please reach out to us at queer.archive@newn.cam.ac.uk or newnqueerarchive@gmail.com.

Further, we invite all LGBTQ+ individuals who have ever been affiliated with Newnham College to fill out this online questionnaire to share memories and experiences. All of the questions are entirely optional. Please allow around 15-20 minutes to fill this out, depending on how much you would like to share.

If you would like to keep up to date with our collective, please follow us on Twitter @NewnhamQueer or sign up for our listserv.