Helen Connon

Who was Helen Connon?

Helen Connon was an educational pioneer from Christchurch, New Zealand. She was the first woman in the British Empire to win any university degree with honours.

Born in Melbourne, in 1859 or 1860 to George Connon, a Welsh carpenter and his Scottish wife Helen Hart, she arrived in Dunedin around 1862, where she would be taught by Robert Stout. After the family moved to Hokitika, she was enrolled in a boys' school, because the local girls school was considered inadequate by her mother. When the family moved to Christchurch in 1874 the elder Helen pleaded with the then-newly arrived Macmillan Brown to enroll Helen as Canterbury College's first woman student. She matriculated in 1878, graduated with a BA in 1880 – the second woman arts graduate in the British Empire. She was beaten only by Kate Milligan Edger, also a New Zealander, who graduated on 11 July 1877.

When Connon graduated with an MA with first-class honours in English and Latin in 1881, she became the first woman in the British Empire to gain a degree with honours.

Connon and Brown married at Christchurch on 9 December 1886.