Edith Morley
Edith J. Morley | |
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University College, Reading University of Reading |
Edith Julia Morley,
Birth, childhood, and family life
Edith Julia Morley was born at 25 Craven Hill Gardens, Bayswater, central London, in 1875.[3][4] The house belonged to her grandmother, and the family rented it from her.[4] Morley was the fourth of six children to her mother Leah Reyser (1840-1926) and her father Alexander Morley (d. 1915), a surgeon-dentist.[3] She describes her oldest brother as 'an invalid'.[4] There were twenty-five years between the eldest and the youngest children.[4]
She recalled in her memoir that she had not liked being a girl, being impatient of the restrictions placed on her activities by Victorian notions of decorum, such as wearing gloves and a veil to preserve her complexion.[5][4]
The family home had nine bedrooms, and on Morley's 'coming-out dance' comfortably accommodated 250 people.[4] The family had a telephone installed in 1903 or 1904, which Morley notes was earlier than most of their friends.[3]
Education
From the age of five Morley was sent to a local kindergarten which was run by a natural history enthusiast, nicknamed 'Brownie' by the family.[4] She spent 'long and happy hours' at the Natural History Museum, London, recalling a memorable experience of being asked to tea by the Director and helping him and his assistant identify shells. She wrote that she 'was fully convinced that they needed my assistance', and was pleased that her brother hadn't been similarly invited. She described it as a 'delightful and wonderful experience and one which filled me with self-importance'.[4]
Morley received a comprehensive education. Her father wanted her to be educated at home by a governess, but she insisted on being sent to school.[4] She was sent to Boarding School for three years and was then educated at Doreck College, Kensington, for four years.[4] At the age of 14, she was sent to Hanover to learn German and to be 'turned into a 'young lady' and acquire some of the feminine accomplishments I refused to have anything to do with at home'.[4] Her teaching was entirely in German, and she learned German, French, English Literature, universal history and history of art. She was not instructed in Latin, mathematics, or science, noting that absence would also have been reflected in private schools in England.[4]
In 1892, she took a course at King's College London Ladies Department, where her abilities were noticed and it was suggested that she transfer to the Oxford Honour School of English and English Literature, alongside
Career
Morley began teaching at King's College in 1899, taking a class in Gothic and Germanic philology.[4]
The difficulties Morley experienced getting an education helped to shape her political views towards
Morley was an active although not an exhibitionist suffragist. She refused to pay her taxes in protest at having no vote and had her goods seized by the authorities. She also refused to take part in the 1911 census for the same reason and she spent the night of the census walking up and down the main street in Aldeburgh with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.[7]
In 1908 Morley was appointed Professor of English Language at
Awards, honours and remembrance
In 1950, she was made an
The University of Reading holds a collection of her papers, including correspondence (1914–1939), lecture notebooks (1893–1914), photographs, and a memoir entitled Looking Before and After, which was published posthumously in 2016.[13] In 2014, the university held her up as a role model during its celebration of International Women's Day.[5] An annual lecture was established in her honour.[14]
The Edith Morley Annual Lecture has been given by:
- 2015 - Laura Tobin and Rhianna Dhillon
- 2016 - Karen Blackett
- 2017 - Penny Mordaunt MP
- 2018 - Polly Vacher MBE
- 2019 - Laura Bates
The University of Reading's Humanities and Social Sciences Building was renamed the Edith Morley Building in 2017.[15]
Books
- The Works of Sir Philip Sidney (1901)
- Women Workers in Seven Professions: A Survey of Their Economic Conditions and Prospects (1914)
- Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, Etc., Being Selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson (1922)
- The Life and Times of Henry Crabb Robinson (1935)
- John Cunningham, 1729–1773 (1942)
- Edith Morley, Before and After. Reminiscences of a Working Life, edited by Barbara Morris, foreword by Mary Beard (Reading: Two Rivers Press, 2016)
Further reading
- Ludovic, Margarita. Another Time, Another Place (2012). This memoir includes vignettes of Edith Morley, whom the author met as a young refugee in Great Britain during World War II.
References
- ^ a b Whelan, T. "'I have confessed myself a devil': Crabb Robinson's Confrontation with Robert Hall, 1798–1800." Charles Lamb Bulletin (2003): 2–25.
- ^ a b c Law, Cheryl. "Morley, Edith Julia (1875–1964), literary scholar and suffragette", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ a b c d e Reading, The University of. "Papers of Edith Julia Morley - University of Reading". www.reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
- ^ )
- ^ a b c Edith Morley Papers, University of Reading Special Collections.
- ^ Fitzgerald, Tanya. Outsiders Or Equals?: Women Professors at the University of New Zealand, 1911–1961. Peter Lang, 2009.
- ^ Joyce, Robin Edith Morley: The First Female Professor in Britain", Women's History Network, 11 December 2016
- ISBN 978-0-7195-4246-6.
- ^ Cohen, Susan. "Crossing borders: academic refugee women, education and the British Federation of University Women during the Nazi era." History of education 39.2 (2010): 175–182.
- ^ Jones, Helen. "National, Community and Personal Priorities: British women's responses to refugees from the Nazis, from the mid-1930s to early 1940s." Women's History Review 21.1 (2012): 121–151.
- .
- ^ Oldfield, Sybil. Doers of the Word: A Biographical Dictionary of British Women Humanitarians Active Between 1900–1950. Oldfield, 2006.
- ^ "Before and After: Reminiscences on a Working Life, by Edith Morley". Times Higher Education (THE). 3 March 2016. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
- ^ "Annual Edith Morley Lecture". University of Reading. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
- ^ "Edith Morley: First female professor honoured at Reading". BBC News. 10 March 2017.