St Hugh's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a women's college, and accepted its first male students in its centenary year in 1986. Prominent alumni include Theresa May, Aung San Suu Kyi, Amal Clooney and Heather Hallett, Baroness Hallett. It enjoys a reputation as one of the most attractive colleges because of its extensive gardens.Wintle, Justin (2008) Perfect Hostage. Random House, p. 177.
In its 125th anniversary year, the college became a registered charity under the name "The Principal and Fellows of St Hugh's College in the University of Oxford". As of July 2023, the college's financial endowment was £39.2 million. The college's Visitor is U.K. Supreme Court Justice Ingrid Simler, Lady Simler. In September 2025, former CEO of the Royal Society of Medicine Michele Acton became the college's Principal, succeeding Lady Elish Angiolini.
History
Founding and early years St Hugh's was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth (great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth) as a women's college. A large percentage of the young women who came to St Hugh's in the early years were the daughters of clergymen; most of the other fathers were professional, middle-class men. Its purpose was "to make it possible for women of modest means to live and study in Oxford...with religious teachings (Church of England) on the same lines as Lady Margaret Hall" of which Elizabeth Wordsworth had been founding principal.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2010; p. 2 Using money left to her by her father Christopher Wordsworth, who had been Bishop of Lincoln, Wordsworth established the new college at 25 Norham Road in North Oxford.Judy G. Batson, Her Oxford, Vanderbilt University Press, 2008. St. Hugh's: Life on a Shoestring, pp. 51–56. . She named the college after one of her father's 12th-century predecessors, Hugh of Lincoln, who was canonised in 1220, and in whose diocese Oxford had been.Penny Griffin, St Hugh’s: One Hundred Years of Women’s Education in Oxford (1986), pp. 17, 105
The college was initially accommodated in properties in Norham Road, Norham Gardens and Fyfield Road.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011; p. 9 The first principal being Charlotte Anne Moberly, its first students were Jessie Annie Emmerson, Charlotte Jourdain, Constance E. Ashburner, Wilhelmina J. de Lorna Mitchell and Grace J. Parsons. Students were required to ask the principal before accepting invitations to visit friends, and the college gates were locked at 9pm. Records show that rent was between £18 and £21 a term, depending on the size of the room, with fires being charged extra.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011; p. 14 At first tuition and lectures were arranged by the Association for the Education of Women, the first college tutor being Dora Wylie, appointed around 1898.Penny Griffin, St Hugh's: One Hundred Years of Women's Education in Oxford, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1986. Early History p. 25 . .
The college began to move to its present site in 1913, when it purchased the lease of a house called "The Mount" from the Rev Robert Hartley for £2,500. This house stood on the corner of St Margaret's Road and Banbury Road, and the freehold was owned by University College. The house was later demolished to make way for the Main Building of the college, which was constructed between 1914 and 1916 thanks to a gift from Clara Evelyn Mordan; the college's new library was named Mordan Hall in her honour.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011; p. 13 The first book was a copy of George Sale's 1734 translation of the Koran, which was given to the college by the then Bishop of Tokyo.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011, p. 12 In 1919, J. R. R. Tolkien began to tutor undergraduates at St Hugh's, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
The college soon took over other properties nearby. The leasehold of 4 St Margaret's Road was acquired in 1919; it became the first "College house". The leasehold of 82 Woodstock Road was donated to the college by Joan Evans in 1924, and 89 Banbury Road was purchased from Lincoln College for £7,000 in 1927. The college obtained the freehold to the main site in 1927, and a year later the first stage of the Mary Gray Allen building was constructed on what had been the tennis courts. The freeholds of 1–4 St Margaret's Road and 74–82 Woodstock Road were purchased from St John's College in 1931 and 1932 respectively. The college received a royal charter in 1926.
In 1936, to mark 50 years since it was founded, a "Group Portrait" was painted of Evelyn Procter, History Tutor; Edith Wardale, English Language Tutor; Elizabeth Francis, French Tutor; Barbara Gwyer, Principal; and Cecilia Ady, History Tutor by Henry Lamb. In the same year 1 St Margaret's Road was demolished, and a new library was built in the Mary Gray Allen building; it was named the Moberly Library after the first principal of the college (the library was extensively renovated between 1999 and 2000 and renamed the Howard Piper Library after a St Hugh's alumnus, after his parents made a large donation to the college).
Second World War At the outbreak of the Second World War the college site was requisitioned by the military for use as the Hospital for Head Injuries under the directorship of Hugh Cairns, the first Nuffield Professor of Surgery.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011 at page 20 Brick huts were constructed in the college grounds with space for 300 beds. Between 1940 and 1945, over 13,000 servicemen and women were treated at the college. Advances in medicine discovered at the hospital meant the mortality rate for brain-penetrating injuries fell from 90% to 9%. Staff and students were relocated to Holywell Manor, Savile House and St Hilda's College for the duration of the war.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011 at page 10
In 1943 the college acquired the leasehold of 72 Woodstock Road (known as The Shrubbery) from Dame Gertrude Whitehead for £1,500. It was used as a club for American soldiers during the war. In 1946, it was leased to the University of Paris as the Maison française d'Oxford, an Anglo-French educational establishment. One of the cottages in the grounds of number 72 was later leased by Barbara Gwyer after her retirement as principal.
1945 onwards
The college buildings were de-requisitioned in 1945. The hospital huts were initially leased as offices to university departments, including the Bureau of Animal Population, the Department of Zoological Field Studies and the Institute of Statistics, before being demolished in 1952. Agnes Headlam-Morley, a fellow of St Hugh's, became the first woman to hold a chair at the University of Oxford in 1948.
In 1951 the college purchased the freeholds to 85 and 87 Banbury Road and 9 to 13 Canterbury Road from St John's College. In addition, the freehold of The Shrubbery was acquired; this meant the college now owned the freehold of the entire -acre site. The college extended the Main Building in 1958.St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011 at page 11
The 1960s saw an extensive programme of building work at St Hugh's. The Shrubbery was converted into the principal's lodgings in 1963. Between 1964 and 1965 the Kenyon Building was constructed to provide accommodation for students (designed by modern architect David Roberts, the building has already been given a heritage listing). This was followed shortly after by the Wolfson Building, which was constructed between 1966 and 1967 and opened by Princess Alexandra and Harold Macmillan in his role as chancellor of the university.
The chapel was renovated in 1980; a new organ was installed. The following year, 78, 80 and 82 Woodstock Road were also renovated. The houses are now named SH Ho House, Ho Tim House and KK Leung House in recognition of the gifts from the three Hong Kong benefactors that funded the renovations.
Arrival of co-education
In 1964, New College made a proposal for the admission of women to the men's colleges, and by the early 1970s several Oxford colleges had become mixed to a limited degree in this way. In 1979, two women's colleges, Lady Margaret Hall and St Anne's, reciprocated by admitting men as undergraduates, while St Hugh's, which was already employing male college lecturers, decided to admit men as Fellows. Resistance to full co-education was led by those who predicted that it would have severely negative effects on women academics and who saw other advantages in women's colleges. Admitting men as undergraduates was first proposed to the governing body in 1980, and there was a majority for it, but it did not secure the required two-thirds majority. The college principal, Rachel Trickett, fought off full co-education at St Hugh's for some years, even taking her case to the national newspapers, and it was not finally agreed until 1986.Laura Schwartz, A Serious Endeavour: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh's, 1886-2011 (Profile Books, 2011), pp. 114–118 When Trickett retired in 1991, she was succeeded by the first male Principal, Derek Wood.Schwartz (2011), p. 22
A new boathouse was constructed for the St Hugh's Boat Club (jointly with St Anne's and Wadham Colleges) between 1989 and 1990. This was followed by the construction of the Rachel Trickett Building between 1991 and 1992 at a cost of £3.4 million.
Present day
Between 1998 and 2000 the Maplethorpe Building was constructed; the building contains conference facilities on the ground floor and student accommodation on the upper three floors. The building missed its planned opening date of summer 2000, meaning students had to be accommodated in B&Bs throughout Michaelmas term. In addition, a new main entrance was constructed at the back of the college on Canterbury Road.
Between 1999 and 2000 the library was extensively renovated. It was reopened by Betty Boothroyd and was renamed after Howard Piper, a Maths student of the college who, shortly after graduating, died in a rafting accident. Mordan Hall, an older library, underwent a major refurbishment, reopening in 2007.
There are statues of both St Hugh and Elizabeth Wordsworth on the library stairs. These were presented to the college as gifts for its Jubilee in 1936. St Hugh carries a model of Lincoln Cathedral, which would have been very familiar to Elizabeth Wordsworth, and has his other hand resting on the head of a swan, the famous swan of Stow. Elizabeth Wordsworth is depicted wearing her doctoral robes.
St Hugh's College celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011; a summer garden party was attended by over 1,200 guests. Aung San Suu Kyi sent a message to the college, saying "Happy moments are one of the pillars that keep the spirit uplifted during hard times. St Hugh’s and Oxford are inextricable from my happiest memories, those that I could draw on when the beauty of the world seemed dim. I so wish I could be with you at this very moment to relive old joys and to stir up new ones for the future. I would like to thank all my friends for the happiness we shared. To the present students of St Hugh’s I would simply like to say: Make the most of your time in this wonderful place."