Aberdeen Ladies' Educational Association
The Aberdeen Ladies’ Educational Association (1887 – 1893) was an initiative for the higher education of women in late nineteenth-century Aberdeen.
The Association was one of several associations aimed at improving the higher education of women in Scotland in the late nineteenth century. It was founded in 1887 by a group including local lawyers and businessmen and Lady Christina Alexander Struthers.[1][2]
The Association established advanced classes given by professors at the University of Aberdeen in 13 different subjects across the sciences and humanities.[1] These classes were taken by 70 – 80 students per year in 1880 – 3.[3]
The Association’s other aim was to campaign for the introduction of local University examinations for both sexes, which had been introduced at the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews in the 1860s.[4]
The Association 'proved that women were mentally and physically capable of reaching the standards of male university students,'[5] but it faced several challenges, including the difficulty of drawing enough members in a small town and the work ethic of ladies who had enough leisure time to take up the courses.[6][7][2] It discontinued its classes in 1893.[1]
The University of Aberdeen admitted women to its degree courses from 1892.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "The Silver City Vault::Treasure 39: Aberdeen Ladies' Educational Association Minute Books, 1877-1886". www.silvercityvault.org.uk. Retrieved 15 November 2024.
- ^ a b Richardson, Shelley (30 November 2016). Family Experiments: Middle-class, professional families in Australia and New Zealand c. 1880–1920. ANU Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-1-76046-059-4.
- ^ de Carteret-Bisson, Frederick Shirley Dumaresq (1884). Our Schools and Colleges: Being a Complete Compendium of Practical Information Upon All Subjects Connected with Education and Examination Recognised in the United Kingdom at the Present Day, Collated from Original Sources. Vol. II: For Girls. Simpkin, Marshall & Company. p. 242.
- ^ Moore, L. R. (1977). "The Aberdeen Ladies' Educational Association, 1877–1883". Northern Scotland. 3 (First Series) (1): 123–157. doi:10.3366/nor.1977.0010. ISSN 0306-5278.
- ^ Moore, Lindy (1991). Bajanelles and Semilinas: Aberdeen University and the Education of Women 1860-1920. Aberdeen University Press.
- ^ Rayner-Canham, Marelene F.; Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey (2008). Chemistry Was Their Life: Pioneering British Women Chemists, 1880-1949. Imperial College Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-1-86094-987-6.
- ^ Bremner, Christina Sinclair (1897). Education of Girls and Women in Great Britain. Swan Sonnenschein & Company, Limited. p. 267.