Emily Davies (22 April 1830 – 13 July 1921) was a visionary British feminist, writer, and education reformer who forever changed the landscape of higher education for women in the United Kingdom.
Best known as the co-founder of Girton College—the first residential college for women at Cambridge University—Davies led the fight to secure academic rights and degree-level education for women during the Victorian era.
Born in Southampton to a progressive family, Emily Davies was deeply influenced by 19th-century debates around gender roles and education. In a time when women were barred from university study, she emerged as a bold voice for equality, publishing essays and giving public talks on the intellectual capabilities of women and their right to formal education.
Her most groundbreaking achievement came in 1869 when she co-founded Girton College, Cambridge, alongside fellow reformers Barbara Bodichon and Emily Shirreff.
Girton was the first institution to offer women access to the same rigorous curriculum as men, including entry to university exams. Davies insisted that female students meet the same academic standards as their male peers, setting a precedent for future generations.
But her activism extended beyond academia. Davies was a key figure in the early suffrage movement and a founding member of the London School Board. She used her voice, pen, and political acumen to advocate gender equality in education, employment, and civil rights. Today, Emily Davies is remembered as one of the most influential pioneers of women’s education in Britain. Her legacy lives on not only in the halls of Girton College but also in every British university classroom that now welcomes women as equal participants. Her name remains a symbol of academic courage, feminist reform, and social progress.
