Lady Margaret Hall (LMH)

LMH was founded in 1878 to right a wrong: the fact that a great university saw fit to educate men, but not women. The foundation of a college to remedy that injustice was, in the words of the writer Vera Brittain, “the quintessence of the whole movement for women’s emancipation, the context for the equal citizenship of the mind.”

 Nearly 140 years later LMH stands on the same spot. One hundred years after its foundation – in 1978 – the college opened its doors to men, as well as women. The college grew: they are now a community of 406 undergraduates, 241 graduates, 45 fellows and about 100 support staff.

Balliol College

Balliol College is a thriving academic community in the heart of Oxford. It exists to advance education at both undergraduate and graduate levels, to facilitate and to encourage scholarship and research at the very highest levels, and to promote excellence in learning, as one of the colleges within the University of Oxford.

Balliol College was founded in about 1263 by John I de Balliol under the guidance of the Bishop of Durham. After his death in 1268, his widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway (their son and grandson both became Kings of Scotland), made arrangements to ensure the permanence of the college in that she provided capital and in 1282 formulated the college statutes, documents that survive to this day.

Balliol is the oldest academic institution in the English-speaking world still on its original site and almost certainly the oldest co-founded by a woman anywhere.