Achievement without fuss

Edward Shils, who had the idea of commissioning papers on some of the great women of Cambridge, and putting the papers together as a book, died in 1995. Carmen Blacker, herself a notable Cambridge woman, emeritus fellow of Clare Hall, and formerly a university lecturer in Japanese, completed the task, and contributed to the introduction. The result is a book that should be read by anyone interested in the nature of the Cambridge spirit, or in the women who carried forward a unique tradition of women scholars, from the days of the pioneers to almost the present day.

Perhaps the most striking thing is how the great Cambridge dynasties - the Darwins, the Cornfords, the Marshalls, the Butlers, the Chadwicks - recur. Though there were great, interlinked Oxford families - the Huxleys, the Mitchisons, the Smiths - they were not quite so predominant in the intellectual life of the university as a whole as were the families in Cambridge. Indeed, the recurrence of these family connections makes for a certain coherence in the book. This in itself is a fascinating sociological theme. Even if not related to the great families, the earlier of the dozen women presented here lived in a social environment that was cohesive, familial and, as it were, Darwinian. Only in fairly recent years has this domestic Cambridge atmosphere been partially diluted.

So much for the coherence of the collection. In other ways it is a somewhat uneasy conjunction of different styles, even of different purposes. Helen Fowler has contributed two essays, both extremely readable. The first, opening the collection, is on Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, the second principal of Newnham, and wife of Henry Sidgwick, the 19th-century moral philosopher and founder of the college. It is inconceivable now that the founder of a college should cause, or allow his wife to become its principal, however distinguished a mathematician she might be. But Henry Sidgwick, a strong supporter of higher education for women, had had a serious disagreement with Emily Davies, the founder of Girton, who had relied on his help in the early stages of her pioneering Woman's College, and he may have felt that only by having his wife as principal could he ensure that there were no further public wrangles likely to harm the general cause of women in Cambridge.

The source of the disagreement was that Davies, with great foresight, insisted from the beginning that her Girton women should take the very same examinations as male undergraduates, read the same subjects and be classed in the same class-list, even though appearing in the class-list did not carry entitlement to a degree. Davies, though herself no academic, was surely right in this; to introduce special women's triposes, with different examinations, would have postponed the entry of women into the professions indefinitely. Their qualifications would simply not have been taken seriously. Newnham soon came into line with Girton, but the rift between Henry Sidgwick and Davies was painful, and no doubt it was a source of satisfaction to the Sidgwicks to live in marital harmony within the college.

Fowler's second essay is on Frances Cornford, a poet, and the only nonacademic woman to be included among the portraits. In fact, in my view, her inclusion is a mistake. She was certainly a tremendously Cambridge figure, and married to an academic. But the purpose of the set of essays is obfuscated by the inclusion of someone who was related to Cambridge figures but not herself a contributor to the world of scholarship. Cornford belongs on the outside, rather as Virginia Woolf or indeed Frances Partridge belong, keenly interested in Cambridge, and knowledgeable about it at second hand; but not members of that uniquely Cambridge phenomenon, the Women's Combination Room, so different, in many ways, from the Oxford SCR.

Another anomalous essay is Hugh Lloyd-Jones's long piece on the classicist, Jane Harrison. She was, of course, an academic, and a key Cambridge figure, though widely disapproved of for her highly speculative theories about Greek religion, her inconsistencies, and her somewhat gasping style. But she undoubtedly deserves a place in the collection. The anomaly is that Lloyd-Jones, himself exceptionally learned in the field, seems to be writing more for those interested in different, and changing conceptions of the origins of Greek and other religions than for those concerned with women in Cambridge. A bit too much knowledge is taken for granted, and though the essay is intrinsically excellent and authoritative, it does not quite belong in this book.

Surprisingly, the essay on Mary Paley Marshall (another great bringer-together of Cambridge families) is that written soon after her death in 1944 by Maynard Keynes. Like all his biographical essays, it is immensely readable and perceptive; but it seems a waste not to have an up-to-date appraisal of the work and influence of the only economist among the dozen women portrayed.

Joan Mason has contributed two plainly, almost bleakly written essays on two influential scientists. The first, Marjory Stephenson, was a biochemist who worked mostly for the Medical Research Council, and was one of the very first women fellows of the Royal Society, to which she was elected in 1945, three years before her death. She was a part of the great flowering of biochemistry in Cambridge, and many of her pupils were elected to new chairs all over the world. Mason's second subject is Dame Honor Fell, the only one of the 12 whom I knew personally, since she was an honorary fellow of Girton, and one who talked with vast excitement, and, it seemed to me, remarkable intelligibility about her work on cell biology in the Strangeways Laboratory, of which she was in charge. The Strangeways had originally been set up as a hospital and laboratory combined, where patients suffering from little-understood diseases were used as research material, with their willing cooperation. The relevance of that work to advances in medical and veterinary knowledge inspired Fell in her lifelong enthusiasm for her research.

One cannot, of course, expect uniformity of style in a book by various hands, and on the whole the essays here fit well enough together, especially because of the overlap in some of the subject matter, different treatments of the same period in Cambridge being a positive advantage. Perhaps the most satisfactory, most elegant and appreciative is Janet Sondheimer's essay on Helen Cam, a medievalist who succeeded Eileen Power (also celebrated, in a good essay by Maxine Berg) at Girton in 1921, when proposals to admit women to full membership of the university had just been defeated.

Power is quoted as saying in a letter that she felt extremely bitter about the position of women in Cambridge; and as chance would have it, she took up a post at the London School of Economics in the same year - London University being far more advanced, in respect of equality between the sexes, than Cambridge, or even than Oxford. There must have been many academic women who shared her feelings. Yet one of the most remarkable characteristics of the women portrayed in this book is their patience, dignity and restraint in the face of constantly insulting and patronising attitudes among their male colleagues. Such admirable conduct was, I suppose, a function of their genuine dedication to their work, their delight in scholarship and research, and their generosity towards their pupils. And perhaps, above all, their devotion to Cambridge and all its traditions made them more able to live their lives there with humour and without fuss.

Baroness Warnock is a life fellow, Girton College, Cambridge.