Elizabeth Wordsworth

Who was Elizabeth Wordsworth?

Dame Elizabeth Wordsworth was the great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth. She was the daughter of Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, and the sister of John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury and Christopher Wordsworth, a liturgical scholar.

Educated at home, she learned several modern languages as well as Latin and Greek though her knowledge of science and mathematics was meagre.

She was the founding Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford as a college for female undergraduates, on Norham Gardens in North Oxford. In 1886 she inherited some money from her father and founded St Hugh's College also in north Oxford as a college for poorer female undergraduates. Today this is one of the largest colleges in Oxford University. She received an honorary M.A. from Oxford in 1921 and an honorary D.C.L. in 1928.

She was a prolific author, writing poetry, plays, biographies and religious articles, as well as writing and lecturing on women's education. She published the novels Thornwell Abbas, and Ebb and Flow, under the pseudonym of Grant Lloyd.