by Barbara Morris (Author), Barbara Morris (Author), Edith Morley (Author)
Intended to 'relate my experiences to the background of my period and to portray incidents in the life of a woman born in the last quarter of the nineteenth century', Edith Morley's 1944 memoir, Before and After, was written a few years after retiring as the first female professor at an English university. Born into a middle-class Victorian family, she hated being a girl, but a forward-thinking home life and a good education enabled her to overcome prejudices and become Professor of English Language at University College, Reading, in 1908. An early feminist with a strong social conscience, she 'fought...with courage...and passionate sincerity for human rights and freedom.' Covering the vividly described setting of her late Victorian childhood, her student days with the increasing freedoms they brought, the early feminist movement, the growing pains of a new university and, much later, the traumas endured by refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, this absorbing memoir brings alive a very different era, one foundational to the freedoms we enjoy today.
Format: Unabridged
Pages: 120
Edition: Unabridged
Publisher: Two Rivers Press
Published: 07 Mar 2016
ISBN 10: 1909747165
ISBN 13: 9781909747166
Book Overview: Foreword by Mary Beard.
Her account of her personal struggles vacillates between self-deprecation and absolute confidence in the rectitude of her actions. It is abundantly clear that she was a very formidable woman. There is a quiet restraint in her description of the barriers she faced individually but she is keen to illustrate her refusal to compromise her commitment to women's right to participate in intellectual and public life on an equal footing with men. It is not always clear who she imagined the audience of her memoir to be; she defends the suffragettes and suffragists actions in a tone that feels directed to a somewhat less than sympathetic ear. One can imagine that as the first woman professor in the UK she must have become highly skilled at attenuating her arguments to win over her male colleagues and it seems to me that in part the memoir is engaged in a dialogue with them. Dr Rosie Campbell, Reader in Politics at Birkbeck, University of London.
When the first professors at the new University College at Reading were designated in 1907, Morley was left off the list of those honoured. Her description of the controversy is instantly recognisable, even now. She thought that her achievements were not quite up to the honour of a chair; but when she realised that she was the only 'lecturer in charge of a subject' who was not to be made professor, she took a certain fire in her soul - and refused to stay in her post unless she was 'promoted'. It remains a credit to the new University at Reading that it broke convention and gave Morley a chair. It is perhaps even more of a credit to Morley herself that she stood up to those conventions and claimed the recognition due to her. She would no doubt be disheartened to discover that - more than a century later - her female successors in the academy are still sometimes struggling to win their due rewards. Professor Mary Beard
Edith Morley broke new ground. Despite decades of social progress, her fight for recognition and equality with her male colleagues still strikes a chord with women in academia today. Her story motivates and inspires us to lead, and not simply follow, social change. Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor, University of Reading.
Remarkable - Mandy Garner, workingmums.co.uk
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