![Lady-frederick-cavendish](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Lady-frederick-cavendish.jpg)
Lucy Cavendish College is a
constituent college
A collegiate university is a university in which functions are divided between a central administration and a number of constituent colleges. Historically, the first collegiate university was the University of Paris and its first college was the C ...
of the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
.
The college is named in honour of
Lucy Cavendish
Lucy Caroline Cavendish, also known as Lady Frederick Cavendish ( Lyttelton; 5 September 1841 – 22 April 1925), was a pioneer of women's education.
A daughter of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton, she married into another aristocratic fa ...
(1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education.
History
The college was founded in 1965 by female academics of the University of Cambridge who believed that the university offered too few and too restricted opportunities for women as either students or academics. Its origins are traceable to the ''Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges'' (informally known as the Dining Group) which in the 1950s sought to provide the benefits of collegiality to its members who, being female, were not college
fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
s.
At the time there were only two women's colleges in Cambridge,
Girton and
Newnham, insufficient for the large and growing numbers of female academic staff in the university.
The college was named in honour of
Lucy Caroline Cavendish
Lucy Caroline Cavendish, also known as Lady Frederick Cavendish ( Lyttelton; 5 September 1841 – 22 April 1925), was a pioneer of women's education.
A daughter of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton, she married into another aristocratic fa ...
, a pioneer of women's education and the great aunt of one of its founders,
Margaret Braithwaite
Margaret Masterman (4 May 1910 – 1 April 1986) was a British linguist and philosopher, most known for her pioneering work in the field of computational linguistics and especially machine translation. She founded the Cambridge Language R ...
.
First formally recognised as the ''Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society'', it moved to its current site in 1970, received consent to be called Lucy Cavendish College in 1986, and gained the status of a full college of the university by
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
in 1997.
The first president of the college, from 1965 to 1970, was
Anna McClean Bidder, one of the founding members of the Dining Group and a
zoologist
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...
specialising in
cephalopod
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...
digestion
Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-soluble food molecules so that they can be absorbed into the watery blood plasma. In certain organisms, these smaller substances are absorbed through the small intest ...
;
this accounts for the presence of the
nautilus
The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
It comprises six living species in t ...
shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard ou ...
in the college
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...
. She was succeeded by
Kate Bertram
Cicely Kate Bertram, Justice of the peace, JP (née Ricardo; 8 July 1912 – 6 July 1999) was a British academic specialising in East African and Palestinian fisheries, and working with her husband Colin Bertram on Sirenia, sirenea. Part of t ...
until 1979, Phyllis Hetzel (Lady Bowden),
Dame Anne Warburton (the first female British ambassador
in 1976),
Baroness Perry of Southwark,
Dame Veronica Sutherland,
Janet Todd
Janet Margaret Todd OBE (born 10 September 1942) is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Mary ...
and
Jackie Ashley
Jacqueline Ashley (born 10 September 1954) is an English journalist and broadcaster.
Early life
Ashley was born in St Pancras, London. She is the daughter of Pauline Kay () and Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, a Labour MP and life peer.
Sh ...
. The current and ninth president of Lucy Cavendish is
Madeleine Atkins
Dame Madeleine Julia Atkins, (born 2 July 1952) is a British academic administrator, scholar of education, and former teacher. Since 2018, she has served as the 9th President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. She was formerly vice-chancello ...
, who took up the post in 2018.
With effect from October 2021, Lucy Cavendish has admitted both women and men from the standard university age. The college gave as its primary reason for the change "to grow graduate and undergraduate numbers to support the University and the other colleges in making more places available for excellent students from under-represented backgrounds." The mission of the college would be to open the Cambridge door to talented and exceptional students from under-represented and non-traditional backgrounds. Lucy Cavendish would, uniquely in Cambridge, become broadly representative in its UK student body of the UK's national society. On 4 December 2019 the college appointed its first male fellows. In the 2022 admission cycle, Lucy Cavendish became the first University of Cambridge college to admit more than 90% of undergraduates from state schools.
College site
For the first few years of the college's existence it occupied rooms first in Silver Street and then in Northampton Street. In 1970 it moved to its current site on the corner of
Madingley Road
Madingley Road is a major arterial road linking central Cambridge, England with Junction 13 of the M11 motorway. It passes by West Cambridge, a major new site where some University of Cambridge departments are being relocated.
The road is desig ...
and Lady Margaret Road, near
Westminster College and
St John's College, which had provided some of the land.
In 1991 the college bought ''Balliol Croft'', a neighbouring house to its grounds and former home of the economist
Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist, and was one of the most influential economists of his time. His book '' Principles of Economics'' (1890) was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. I ...
and his wife
Mary Paley Marshall, with whom he wrote his first economics textbook. The building was renamed
Marshall House in his honour and used for student accommodation until 2001 when it was converted back to its original layout and used as the President's Lodge. Meanwhile, the majority of the college's buildings, including Warburton Hall and the library, were completed in the 1990s.
The college is primarily situated on a site just north-west of central Cambridge bounded by Madingley Road and Lady Margaret Road. It is currently based around three converted 19th century villas and a new eco-friendly and accessible Passivhaus building, with facilities including student accommodation, porters’ lodge, library, teaching rooms, dining hall, gym, social spaces and a large café/bar. The new accommodation building meets and exceeds the Passivhaus standard and 100% of the college's electricity is supplied by renewables. In 2022 the college received the Platinum Award for Green Impact, the highest award offered by the United Nations’ programme for environmentally and socially sustainable practice.
There is on-site accommodation for 235 students with a further 98 rooms (including 10 flats) owned by the college near its main site, primarily at its new student centre at 100 Histon Road which was opened in 2014. In order to provide more accommodation, the college also rents neighbouring properties from St John's College and at Mount Pleasant Halls, which together provide a further 114 rooms and flats.
Student body
Lucy Cavendish has over 900 students, approximately 40% of whom are undergraduates and 60% graduates. Students originate from over 85 different countries, making it a distinctly international college. The college website states that "Students from every corner of the UK mix with students from around the world. Students with '
Access
Access may refer to:
Companies and organizations
* ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network
* Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom
* Access Co., a Japanese software company
* Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...
' qualifications interact with students who have studied for
A-levels
The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational aut ...
and the
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...
.
The 2020 intake had 74% of new entrants that came from under-represented groups, compared to an average across the University of 64%. The 2021 intake has recorded an intake of 78% of new UK students from state schools or FE colleges compared to the University average of 70%. The 2022 intake has recorded an intake of 91.1% of new UK students from state schools or FE colleges compared to the University average of 90%.
Lucy Cavendish students are also called "Lucians".
Academic performance
The percentage of undergraduate/postgraduate students achieving 2.1 or 1st class honours degrees was 97% of all students eligible durin
2020
Clubs and societies
Students are encouraged to join some of the hundreds of clubs and societies across the university and in their academic department, in order to have a healthy life balance that makes them more successful as students and brings them friendships and contacts they wouldn't otherwise have had. There is currently an art society, two choirs, a sewing and knitting society, a student magazine, the
Lucy Cavendish College Boat Club, and teams for badminton, football and netball. There are societies based on the course (Tripos) such as Lucy Lawyers and the VetMed Society, with their programmes of talks, visits and social events.
Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize
The college hosts an important annual national prize for fiction, the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, open to women novelists over the age of 18 years who have not yet been published. It was founded by
Janet Todd
Janet Margaret Todd OBE (born 10 September 1942) is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Mary ...
. The Prize has launched numerous literary careers with a number of shortlisted writers seeing commercial success. Alongside the Fiction Prize, the college has run writing short courses with subsidies for those from low-income backgrounds, runs writing prizes for current students and prospective students, and supported the establishment of the innovative virtual “ Lucy Writers’ Platform” that provides opportunities for budding non-fiction writers, journalists, and others to build a profile. Fiction Prize winners include
Gail Honeyman
Gail Honeyman (born 1972) is a Scottish writer whose debut novel, ''Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine'', won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award.
Biography
Born and raised in Stirling in central Scotland to a mother who worked as a civil serv ...
''
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
''Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine'' is the 2017 debut novel by Gail Honeyman, and the winner of the 2017 Costa Debut Novel Award. The story centres on Eleanor Oliphant, a social misfit with a traumatic past who becomes enamoured with a sin ...
'' and
Claire Askew.
List of presidents
Notable alumnae
![Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge 003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Lucy_Cavendish_College%2C_Cambridge_003.jpg)
*
Noeleen Heyzer
Noeleen Heyzer (born 26 April 1948) is a Singaporean social scientist, diplomat, and United Nations official. She is the current United Nations Special Envoy on Myanmar, an office to which she was appointed by Secretary-General of the United Nat ...
,
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-s ...
and executive director of
UNIFEM
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, french: Fonds de développement des Nations unies pour la femme, ) was established in December 1976 originally as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the International ...
*
Rosena Allin-Khan
Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan (born 10 May 1978) is a British doctor and politician serving as Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health since 2020. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting since the 2016 ...
,
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
for
Tooting
Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross.
History
Tooting has been settled since pre- Saxon times ...
since 2016.
Honorary Fellows
*
Jackie Ashley
Jacqueline Ashley (born 10 September 1954) is an English journalist and broadcaster.
Early life
Ashley was born in St Pancras, London. She is the daughter of Pauline Kay () and Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, a Labour MP and life peer.
Sh ...
*
Carol M. Black
Dame Carol Mary Black, (born 26 December 1939) is a British physician, academic, specialising in rheumatology. She was President of the Royal College of Physicians from 2002 to 2006, advised the British Government on the relationship between wor ...
*
Margaret Burbidge
Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS (; 12 August 1919 – 5 April 2020) was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influentia ...
*
Shami Chakrabarti
Sharmishta "Shami" Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, (born 16 June 1969) is a British politician, barrister, and human rights activist. A member of the Labour Party, she served as the director of Liberty, a major advocacy group which promotes ...
(2 March 2017)
*
Jane Clarke
*
Dame Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...
*
Janet Neel Cohen, Baroness Cohen of Pimlico
Janet Neel Cohen, Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (born 4 July 1940) is a British lawyer and crime fiction writer. She is the daughter of George Edric Neel and Mary Isabel Budge. She was educated at South Hampstead High School, Hampstead, London, Eng ...
*
Anna Ford
Anna Ford (born 2 October 1943) is an English former journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She first worked as a researcher, news reporter and later newsreader for Granada Television, ITN, and the BBC. Ford helped launch the British ...
*
Edwina Dunn
Edwina D. Dunn, OBE (born May 29, 1958) is an English entrepreneur in the field of data science and customer-centric business strategy. Since 2014, she has been the Chief Executive Officer of the consumer insights company, Starcount. She is also ...
*
Cynthia Glassman
Dr. Cynthia Aaron Glassman of Alexandria, Virginia was a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs.
She served as acting chair from July 1, 2005 to August 3, 2005. She r ...
*
Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannah (born 1971) is a British poet and novelist. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 a junior research fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She lives with h ...
*
Judith Hanratty
*
Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
Helena Ann Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, KC, FRSA, HonFRSE (born 12 May 1950), is a Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. She was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2018.
Early l ...
*
Dame Pauline Harris
*
Queen Margrethe of Denmark
*
Jane McNeill QC
*
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
*
Dame Anne Owers
*
Pauline Perry, Baroness Perry of Southwark
Pauline Perry, Baroness Perry of Southwark (née Welch; born 15 October 1931) is an educator, educationist, academic, and activist. She is a Conservative politician and was for 25 years a working member of the British House of Lords. In 1981 sh ...
*
Nirmala Rao
Nirmala Rao (born 1959, Hyderabad, India) is a British academic and the current vice chancellor of Krea University. She also served as vice chancellor of the Asian University for Women, Chittagong, Bangladesh from 1 February 2017 and as Pro-D ...
*
Alison Richard
Dame Alison Fettes Richard, (born 1 March 1948) is an English anthropologist, conservationist and university administrator. She was the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the third Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge since the po ...
*
Dame Stella Rimington
*
Sarah Sands
Sarah Sands (''née'' Harvey; 3 May 1961) is a British journalist and author. A former editor of the ''London Evening Standard'', she was editor of ''Today'' on BBC Radio 4 from 2017 to 2020.
Early life and education
Sands was born in Cambridge ...
*
Ali Smith
Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born 24 August 1962) is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
Early life and education
Smith was born in Inverness on 24 Au ...
*
Veronica Sutherland
Dame Veronica Evelyn Sutherland, DBE, CMG (née Beckett; born 25 April 1939) is a former British career diplomat who served in the Diplomatic Service of the United Kingdom from 1965 until 1999, including a stint as Ambassador to the Republic ...
*
Dame Cath Tizard
*
Janet Todd
Janet Margaret Todd OBE (born 10 September 1942) is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Mary ...
*
Sandi Toksvig
Sandra Birgitte Toksvig (; ; born 3 May 1958) is a Danish-British writer, comedian and broadcaster on British radio, stage and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She has written ...
*
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin (née Delavenay; born 20 June 1933) is an English journalist and biographer, known for her biographies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Early life
Tomalin was born Claire Del ...
References
External links
Official college websiteAdmissions info for Lucy Cavendish CollegeLucy Cavendish College Students' UnionHistory of Lucy Cavendish College
{{Authority control
Colleges of the University of Cambridge
Women's universities and colleges in the United Kingdom
Educational institutions established in 1965
1965 establishments in England