Women at LSE

LSE Centennial Professor Mary Evans charts the history of women at LSE and the changing attitudes towards gender in higher education and society that occurred throughout LSE’s early decades. 
LSE opened in 1895 and among its famous founders were Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb. Much less well known among those who contributed to the funds for the School was Charlotte Payne Townshend, the wife of George Bernard […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Ellen Marianne Leonard: first woman President of the LSE Students’ Union. 

In 1907 the LSE Students’ Union elected its first woman President, also known as the Chairman of the Common Rooms Committee. Ellen Marianne Leonard (1866-1953) was a 41 year […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Adam Kuper looks back at  Audrey Richards: LSE alumna and anthropologist. 

Unprejudiced, unshockable, in many ways unconventional, Audrey Richards nevertheless operated unselfconsciously by the standards of her parents and their class.

Born in London in 1899, Audrey was the second daughter of Henry Erle and Isabel Richards. […]

Indy Bhullar, LSE Library, shares the story of the women behind Charles Booth’s Survey of London. Posts about LSE’s Library explore the history of the Library and its collections.

At LSE, we’re fortunate to have a fascinating collection of material from what is often referred to as the Charles Booth Survey of London. This survey and all the laboriously collected data which […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Margaret Gowing: LSE alumna, civil servant and academic. 

The historian Margaret Gowing (1921-1998) was the author of histories of the Second World War and the UK’s nuclear power and nuclear deterrent capacity. In a 1988 letter to LSE Director I […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Clara Cook looks back at Baroness Stocks: LSE alumna, economist and activist. 

Mary Danvers Stocks began to challenge the world around her when she was just a child. In 1899, when she was only 8 years old, she announced that she supported the Boers in their war […]

LSE’s History series for LSE Women: making history celebrates some of the notable women at LSE through the years. Sue Donnelly looks back at Christian Mactaggart: School Secretary 1896-1919. 

On 24 June 1943 a telegram arrived from Australia for LSE’s Director, Alexander Carr-Saunders, announcing the death of Christian Scipio Mactaggart who from 1896-1919 worked as School Secretary – not always with the title.

We know little […]

The Founders’ Room, or as it is more popularly known the Shaw Library, is much loved by students and staff past and present as a place to read, snooze or eat your lunch but how did this quiet haven on the top of the Old Building come into existence?

The Founders’ Room

The sixth floor of the Old Building was completed […]

Now home to LSE, 20 Kingsway used to house the Tea Cup Inn – a tea shop for suffragettes. Look closely and traces of the suffragettes, LSE’s early neighbours, can still be found around our campus today.

LSE moved to Clare Market and Houghton Street in 1902 to occupy the newly-built Passmore Edwards Hall – and was surrounded on all sides by suffragette […]

LSE accepted women students from its earliest days. For Women’s History Month 2015 we take a look at the women who stood at the front of the classroom during the early years of the School.

Gertrude Tuckwell

The first woman to appear in the list of teachers in the LSE Calendar is Gertrude Tuckwell in the School’s second year. Gertrude Tuckwell (1861-1951) […]

“The early spring months have always been sweet at Standish and the loveliest memories of my childhood gather round the first long days, when the dreary walks along the muddy roads directly after the midday meal, were replaced by the scramble among hyacinths and ferns, the gathering of primroses and violets and the building of grottoes in the hours […]

In 1898 the Library took in its first archive deposit when Beatrice and Sidney Webb donated the trade union papers they had acquired during the research for The History of Trade Unionism. It was always Sidney Webb’s vision for the Library that it should support researchers, rich in primary sources including archive materials. Following on from that first acquisition […]

Accounts of LSE’s foundation and early years are dominated by the personalities of the four people staying at Borough Farm on the morning of 4 August 1894 when Sidney Webb began to outline the idea of establishing a “London school of economics and political science”.  One often overlooked key player is the Irish heiress and Fabian, Charlotte Payne Townshend. […]

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and […]