Eleanor Lodge

Eleanor Constance Lodge CBE (18 September 1869, Hanley, Staffordshire – 19 March 1936) was a British academic who served as Vice-Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 1906 to 1921 and then Principal of Westfield College, Hampstead, in the University of London, from 1921 to 1931.

Eleanor Constance Lodge, National Portrait Gallery

She was the youngest child, and only daughter, of Oliver Lodge (1826–1884), a china clay merchant, and his wife, Grace (née Heath) (1826–1879). Her siblings included Sir Oliver Lodge (1851–1940), physicist; Sir Richard Lodge (1855–1936), historian; and Alfred Lodge (1854–1937), mathematician.[1]

She studied History at Lady Margaret Hall until 1894. In 1895, Elizabeth Wordsworth asked her to come back to Lady Margaret Hall, where she became a librarian.[1] She then studied in Paris, at the École des Chartes and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1898-1899.[1] In 1899, she started teaching History at LMH as a tutor, and was appointed as vice-principal in 1906.[1] Although she expected to be appointed as the principal after Henrietta Jex-Blake retired, this didn't happen, and she decided to leave Oxford. She asked for a teaching job in Westfield College, London. She was in fact appointed as principal of this college, in succession to Bertha Phillpotts, in 1921.[1]

She was the first woman recipient of a D.Litt. by the University of Oxford, in 1928, which was awarded for her work in the field of modern history.[1] She was honoured by a CBE in 1932.[1] She died aged 66 on 19 March 1936 in Windsor, Berkshire and was buried at Wolvercote Cemetery, near Oxford.[1][2]