Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox residential college Lucy Cavendish College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1965 as a women's college and since 2021 has admitted both women and men.

The college is named in honour of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education.<ref name="whowaslucycavendish">Template:Cite web</ref>

History

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Lucy Caroline Cavendish, a pioneer of women's education

The college was founded in 1965 by female academics of the University of Cambridge who believed that the university offered too few and too restricted opportunities for women as either students or academics. Its origins are traceable to the Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges (informally known as the Dining Group) which in the 1950s sought to provide the benefits of collegiality to its members who, being female, were not college fellows.<ref name="dininggrouppapers">Template:Cite web</ref> At the time there were only two women's colleges in Cambridge, Girton and Newnham, insufficient for the large and growing numbers of female academic staff in the university.<ref name="bidderobit">Template:Cite news Template:Dead link Template:Cbignore</ref>

The college was named in honour of Lucy Caroline Cavendish, a pioneer of women's education and the great-aunt of one of its founders, Margaret Braithwaite.<ref name="whowaslucycavendish" /> First formally recognised as the Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society, it moved to its current site in 1970, received consent to be called Lucy Cavendish College in 1986, and gained the status of a full college of the university by Royal Charter in 1997.<ref name="cavendishstatutes">Template:Cite web</ref>

The first president of the college, from 1965 to 1970, was Anna McClean Bidder, one of the founding members of the Dining Group and a zoologist specialising in cephalopod digestion;<ref name="bidderobit" /> this accounts for the presence of the nautilus shell in the college coat of arms.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She was succeeded by Kate Bertram until 1979, Phyllis Hetzel (Lady Bowden), Dame Anne Warburton, Baroness Perry of Southwark, Dame Veronica Sutherland, Janet Todd and Jackie Ashley. The current and ninth president of Lucy Cavendish is Madeleine Atkins, who took up the post in 2018.

With effect from October 2021, Lucy Cavendish has admitted both women and men from the standard university age. The college gave as its primary reason for the change "to grow graduate and undergraduate numbers to support the University and the other colleges in making more places available for excellent students from under-represented backgrounds."<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> The mission of the college was to open the Cambridge door to talented and exceptional students from under-represented and non-traditional backgrounds. Lucy Cavendish, uniquely in Cambridge, became broadly representative in its UK student body of the UK's national society.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 4 December 2019 the college appointed its first male fellows.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> In the 2022 admission cycle, Lucy Cavendish became the first University of Cambridge college to admit more than 90% of its undergraduates from state schools. Today, the student community spans more than 85 countries, with over 93% of UK undergraduates from state schools.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

College site

For the first few years of the college's existence it occupied rooms first in Silver Street and then in Northampton Street. In 1970 it moved to its current site on the corner of Madingley Road and Lady Margaret Road, near Westminster College and St John's College, which had provided some of the land.<ref name="cavbldgs" />

In 1991 the college bought Balliol Croft, a neighbouring house to its grounds and former home of the economist Alfred Marshall and his wife Mary Paley Marshall, with whom he wrote his first economics textbook. The building was renamed Marshall House in his honour and used for student accommodation until 2001 when it was converted back to its original layout and used as the President's Lodge.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Meanwhile, the majority of the college's buildings, including Warburton Hall and the library, were completed in the 1990s.<ref name="cavbldgs">Template:Cite web</ref>

The college is situated on a site just north-west of central Cambridge bounded by Madingley Road and Lady Margaret Road. It is based around three converted 19th-century villas and a new eco-friendly and accessible Passivhaus building. The new accommodation building meets and exceeds the Passivhaus standard and 100% of the college's electricity is supplied by renewables. In 2022 the college received the Platinum Award for Green Impact, the highest award offered by the United Nations’ programme for environmentally and socially sustainable practice.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

There is accommodation for 235 students with a further 507 rooms near its main site.Template:Fact

Student life

Lucy Cavendish has more than 1000 students, approximately 40% of whom are undergraduates.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The 2022 intake has recorded an intake of 91.1% of new UK students from state schools or FE colleges compared to the University average of 72.5%.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Academic performance

The percentage of undergraduate/postgraduate students achieving 2.1 or 1st class honours degrees was 97% of all students eligible during 2020.Template:Citation needed

Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize

The college hosts the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, open to women novelists over the age of 18 years who have not yet been published. Its winners include Claire Askew.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sarah Harman,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Gail Honeyman and Sara Collins. It was sponsored by the Literary agency WME in 2024.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was founded by the academic Janet Todd.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

List of presidents

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	Name	Term of office
1st President	Anna McClean Bidder	1965-1970
2nd President	Kate Bertram	1970-1979
3rd President	Phyllis Hetzel	1979-1984
4th President	Dame Anne Warburton	1985-1994
5th President	Pauline Perry, Baroness Perry of Southwark	1994-2001
6th President	Dame Veronica Sutherland	2001-2008
7th President	Janet Todd	2008-2015
8th President	Jackie Ashley	2015-2018
9th President	Dame Madeleine Atkins	2018-2025
10th President	Girish Menon	Since 2025