What was life like at university for the pioneering women who went to a red brick institution in the 1930s? Lizzie Bentham, who writes mysteries set against this background, draws on family experiences to explain.
Each autumn, thousands of students will begin studying at so-called red brick universities, the nine civic universities founded in the 19th century in industrialised cities in England.
Today more young women will attend university after school than their male peers. This was not the case 90 years ago when my great-aunt, Annie Wood, studied English Language and Literature at the Victoria University of Manchester (VUM) in the mid-1930s. She was the first woman in our family to go to university. At that time, it was still very much a novelty.
She was academically very gifted and won a scholarship to attend the University of Oxford but then her father, a farmer, sadly died of pneumonia. To help the family finances she took up a teacher training bursary and switched to the VUM, which was closer to home.
The VUM started life as Owens College (OC) founded by a legacy from John Owens in 1846, to instruct male students. Women were allowed to take classes at OC from 1871 and, in 1877, the Manchester and Salford’s College for Women (MSCW) was established.
In 1880, OC became the first college to be part of the federal Victoria University made up of separate colleges across the North of England including University College Liverpool and Yorkshire College, Leeds.
The Victoria University recognised the equality of women to study for degrees. However it wasn’t until 1883, when OC took over the MSCW, that women could actually study for and be awarded a degree, the second university after London to allow this. The VUM received its own royal charter in 1903 and merged with OC by an Act of Parliament in 1904.1,2
By the 1934–35 academic year, when my great-aunt started her degree course, and in which my novels, Murder In Her First Degree and Murder By The Book, are set, there were 687 female students out of a total of 3,062 students (22.4 per cent) studying for degrees at VUM. In Medicine, 15.2 per cent of the students were female (129 out of a total of 850), whilst Technology had only five female students out of 319 (less than 2 per cent).1
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If women didn’t live locally, most took a place in one of the four women’s halls of residence. If they chose not to, they had to apply to use university approved lodgings.2
The Women’s Student Union (WSU)3 was at the heart of every female student’s social experience. It began in 1890 when the men refused to admit women to their union.
From 1909 both unions were housed in the same building on Oxford Road but remained separate from each other, with their own entrances.
The WSU was run by a committee who produced a handbook for women students every year. The union was open from 8.00am to 8.30pm every day, except on Sunday. There were lockers to rent in the basement along with bookable bathrooms. Rooms could be hired by societies to put on events, or for meetings.
On the second floor was the Joint Common Room (JCR), accessible from both unions, where male and female students could mix.2 The office of the university’s magazine, The Serpent, was next to the JCR.4
Many societies were run out of the WSU. Some were just for women, like the Women’s Debating Society and Women’s Athletics Union. Other Societies were joint with the Men’s Student Union, like the Stage Society, the Christian Union, and Walking Club.2 Regular dances were held in both unions in the two debating halls.
Every year at Shrovetide there was a rag week run by the student unions.2 Students took to the streets with collecting tins to raise money for local good causes. A highlight of the festivities was a parade of floats on the back of brewery lorries, put on by different societies.
In 1935 women students threatened to boycott the rag week events if they weren’t allowed to wear fancy dress like their male peers.5 Their strong stance worked and they were allowed to wear costumes; however, the WSU formed a subcommittee to check the appropriateness of their attire and the women had a 6pm costume curfew.6
The Women’s Athletics Union had access to excellent sporting facilities near to the Fallowfield Campus.2 Intervarsity sports meets were regular occurrences, including the annual Christie Championships — which still occurs today — where Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool universities compete against each other across many sporting disciplines.
The VUM was active in the University Settlement movement and created a settlement at Ancoats Hall jointly with the Manchester Art Museum. This was a social outreach project to the local community of Ancoats, a slum, to provide education and inspiration through the beauty of art. Students were encouraged to take part in voluntary work there.1,2
When they weren’t busy with their academic studies and examinations, women students had the opportunity for an active and varied social life. My great-aunt thrived at university and went on to have a successful teaching career.
With the current movement towards online classes and the financial pressures facing modern students, it could be argued that women students in the 1930s had a much better social experience than their university counterparts today.
Dying to Get to the Truth by Lizzie Bentham was published on 23 August, 2024. It’s the third in her Red Brick Mystery series and, unlike the first two, is set at the University of Reading, still in the 1930s.
Lizzie is a historical mystery author who lives in the West Midlands with her surgeon husband and two small children.
lizziebentham.com
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References and useful reading:
- Portrait of a University 1851-1951 by HB Charlton, Manchester University Press
- Women’s Student Union Handbook, 1935–6, University of Manchester Students Union Archive. University of Manchester Library, GB 133 SUA/4/2/2
- The Old Student’s Union, the History of the University of Manchester
- Little Wilson and Big God by Anthony Burgess, Penguin Books, 1987, ISBN 0-14-010824-6
- Manchester Evening Chronicle, 1 February, 1935
- Manchester Evening Chronicle, 27 February, 1935
Images:
- Annie Wood’s mortar board, 1930s: author’s own photograph
- Annie Wood as a student in 1936: author’s own photograph
- Owens College, Manchester, 1895: Wikimedia (public domain)
- VUM English exam papers from 1937, belonging to Annie Wood: author’s own photograph
- Old Quadrangle, Manchester, in the snow, by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), 2013: Wikimedia (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
