A striking building with a mission which changed Britian.
 
Somerville College, Oxford was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall and renamed Somerville College in 1894. It began as one of Oxford’s first colleges for women and was deliberately non-denominational, which made it unusual in the religiously divided landscape of late Victorian Oxford.
 
The college was named after Mary Somerville, the Scottish mathematician, scientist, and advocate of women’s education who inspired its founding ethos. Its first students were not initially allowed to take degrees, but Somerville played a central role in the long campaign for women’s full academic membership at Oxford.
 
Interesting facts...
It really did shape education for women and the country as a whole. Somerville’s alumnae and fellows include Dorothy Hodgkin, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Iris Murdoch, Shirley Williams, and Vera Brittain.