Editing St Hugh's College, Oxford (section)

=== 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1886 |url=https://www.firstwomenatoxford.ox.ac.uk/1886 |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=www.firstwomenatoxford.ox.ac.uk |language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Griffen |first1=P. |title=St Hugh's: One Hundred Years of Women's Education in Oxford|date=1986 |publisher=Macmillan |pages=15, 16, 17 |isbn=978-1-349-07725-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5vOvCwAAQBAJ&dq=st+Hugh%27s+college+oxford+not+as+expensive&pg=PA15 |access-date=13 May 2023}}</ref><ref>''St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2010''; p. 2</ref> 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.<ref>Judy G. Batson, ''Her Oxford'', [[Vanderbilt University Press]], 2008. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_stU5CyTGKEC&pg=PA51 St. Hugh's: Life on a Shoestring, pp. 51–56]. {{ISBN|978-0-8265-1610-7}}.</ref> 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.<ref>Penny Griffin, ''St Hugh’s: One Hundred Years of Women’s Education in Oxford'' (1986), pp. 17, 105</ref>

The college was initially accommodated in properties in Norham Road, [[Norham Gardens]] and Fyfield Road.<ref name="nl2011p9">''St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011''; p. 9</ref> 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.<ref name="nl2011p13"/> Students were required to ask the principal before accepting invitations to visit friends, and the college gates were locked at 9pm.<ref name="nl2011p13"/> Records show that rent was between £18 and £21 a term, depending on the size of the room, with fires being charged extra.<ref name="nl2011p14">''St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011''; p. 14</ref> 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.<ref>Penny Griffin, ''St Hugh's: One Hundred Years of Women's Education in Oxford'', Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1986. [https://books.google.com/books?id=5vOvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 Early History p. 25]. {{ISBN|9781349077250}}.</ref>

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.<ref name="nl2011p9"/> 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 Mordan|Clara Evelyn Mordan]]; the college's new library was named Mordan Hall in her honour.<ref name="nl2011p13">''St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011''; p. 13</ref> The first book was a copy of [[George Sale|Sale's]] translation of the [[Koran]], which was given to the college by the then Bishop of Tokyo.<ref name="nl2011p12">St Hugh's College Spring Newsletter 2011, p. 12</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zettersten |first=A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Q_GAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 |title=J. R. R. Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process: Language and Life |date=25 April 2011 |publisher=[[Springer (publisher)|Springer]] |isbn=978-0-230-11840-9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181017123753/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6Q_GAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134#v=onepage&q=lady%20margaret%20hall |archive-date=17 October 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

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".<ref name="nl2011p9"/> The leasehold of 82 Woodstock Road was donated to the college by [[Joan Evans (art historian)|Joan Evans]] in 1924, and 89 Banbury Road was purchased from Lincoln College for £7,000 in 1927.<ref name="nl2011p9"/> 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.<ref name="nl2011p9"/> 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.<ref name="nl2011p9"/> The college received a royal charter in 1926.<ref>[http://d307gmaoxpdmsg.cloudfront.net/collegeaccounts0910/St_Hughs.pdf at page 2]</ref>

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]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Henry Lamb Exhibition catalogue |url=https://messumswiltshire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Henry-Lamb-Exhibition-Catalogue-1.pdf |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=Messums}}</ref> 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<ref name="nl2011p9"/> (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).{{fact|date=March 2021}}