Eva Lett: International Women’s Day 2024

Every year we mark International Women’s Day by reflecting on figures and time periods from our University’s history. The theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion. So, we took a trip to our University Archive to learn more about the early years of our first female Principal, Eva Lett.

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The first ‘Lady Principal’

The year is 1930, and Ripon College has just agreed to appoint its first ‘Lady Principal’, Miss Eva Lett. Born in 1887, she had previously lectured at St Hild’s College, Durham, in Medieval and Modern languages. She later became Principal at Osterberg Physical Training College, Dartford, before joining Ripon College.

After 68 years as a women’s teacher training college, the time was finally right to appoint a woman as principal. But Principal Lett entered a College set in its ways and haunted by past principals.

A time of change

In the year that Miss Lett was appointed, and in her first full year as Principal:

• Poor Law unions and workhouses were abolished.
• Yorkshire born Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
• During an Anglican Bishop’s conference, they voted in favour of using contraception within marriage, but only under specific circumstances.
• The first Highway Code was issued, but driving tests were not yet compulsory.

Society was changing and women had more opportunities than ever. But there were contradictions. Amy Johnson could fly solo from England to Australia, but legally she didn’t have to be paid the same as a man in any role. Married couples could use contraception in the eyes of the Anglican church, but universal suffrage (made law in 1928) was only a few years old.

A long and unbroken tradition

When Principal Lett joined Ripon College, she joined an established institution. Ripon College had its own traditions, rules and, predictably, its own problems. In the annual Alumni Magazine from 1931, she is reported as expressing ‘her privilege [at] joining a College with such a long and unbroken tradition.’ But was this ‘unbroken tradition’ also part of the problem?

In 1930, Ripon College was about to embark on an extensive building project: New Wing. It was the newest wing to be built on campus, but this development was one of necessity rather than planned expenditure. In 1929, East Wing had been condemned as unsafe. Some students and staff were left without onsite accommodation and many had to be housed elsewhere. Students were also left without a Hall, an art room and several classrooms.

Principal Lett inherited a large-scale project. But perhaps more challengingly, she still had to contend with the views of her predecessor, Principal Smith. One of Ripon College’s traditions was that Principals, on leaving their post, retained an active interest in the College.

‘A flying visit’

This interest was not from a distance. The College was overseen and managed by a College Committee, an early predecessor to a governing body. The Committee had regular meetings, although not every member attended regularly.  The Committee was composed primarily of clergy, local stakeholders and, seemingly, previous Principals. When Principal Lett gave her report to her first Committee, both Principal Smith (1908-1930) and Principal Garrod (1892-1908) were voting members. Only a handful of Committee members were women.

Principal Smith had also retired just 6 miles away. According to the 1931 Editorial in the Alumni Magazine, he often popped by for ‘a flying visit’. He could often still be found wandering the College grounds too. Likewise, Principal Garrod was also still a semi-regular visitor. For Principal Lett, it must have felt that the College was haunted by her predecessors.

A modernising influence

In his final address to the annual Alumni Magazine in 1930, Principal Smith aptly summarised the College’s modernity:

“My first letter in this Magazine was written before any of the present students were born…”

In other words, Principal Smith had been in post so long, an entire new generation had grown to adulthood. During this time, Ripon College did innovate, but in many ways, Principal Smith did not. In 1929, Principal Smith’s notes for his address to the College call study bedrooms ‘the latest fad’. Although he conceded that they will need to be adopted to keep pace with other colleges, his language clearly states his thoughts on improving the privacy of students. Likewise, when the issue of artificial lighting was raised in the late 1920s, the discussion was tabled for another time.

It could be argued that this lack of innovation, in what we now call ‘the student experience’, was due to financial constraints. Converting study cubicles into separate bedrooms wouldn’t be cheap. Likewise, installing electricity for the first time was an expensive and time consuming undertaking. Redecorating could also be an unnecessary expense; if it’s not broken, why fix it? But, if these projects were prevented by financial constraints, it is surprising then that by October 1931, they had all been completed to a high standard.

A long felt want

We don’t have much to look at when researching Principal Lett’s early years at Ripon College. Our University Archive includes minute books and Lett’s own corresponding notes. We also have access to alumni magazines from the time period. But by necessity all of these items are edited and brief. Lett’s own notes for Committee meetings are useful, but brief. This does mean that to understand what was happening at the College, you need to read between the lines.

In preparation for the October 1931 meeting, a year into her Principalship, Lett described the amount of work she’d overseen in the past year: ‘the whole of the main building was given up to electricians, plumbers, joiners, plasterers and decorators’ over the summer. New tennis courts had also been laid, and the New Wing was almost ready for use. The ‘latest fad’ of study bedrooms hadn’t quite been realised, and wouldn’t be until the 1950s. But Principal Lett’s actions created a ‘delightfully convenient’ College for students and staff to enjoy.

Principal Lett’s changes included:

• New staff sitting rooms
• A better location for the staff common room
• An office for the housekeeper
• Better accommodation for non-teaching staff, including domestic staff
• The installation of electricity across College
• Plenty of repainting and wallpapering
• Decorating the College with more homely touches, including fresh flowers

Principal Lett’s writing often sticks to the facts, but one short phrase hints at why these changes were so quickly actioned. Over the summer, in the area where domestic staff lived, a sewing room for household mending was created. Lett describes this simply as ‘a long felt want’. 

It would be incorrect to assume that this ‘long felt want’ wasn’t actioned because Principal Smith didn’t care about his domestic staff. In the last months of his Principalship, he successfully petitioned the Board of Education to grant a small pension to a domestic staff member. The staff member had worked at the College for decades, but he was becoming too old to continue working.

Nevertheless, it is plausible that some of the needs of staff and students weren’t met because they were not deemed as important, or as a priority. Principal Smith lived with his family in St Margaret’s Lodge. It’s likely he rarely used staff sitting or common rooms. If he did use them during the day, it was likely not in the same way as his staff; they had nowhere else to go, but he did. Likewise, as he likely didn’t do his own mending, the necessity of a sewing room might have escaped him.

A positive reception?

Reading between the lines, there was clearly some apprehension about the changes a new Principal might bring. The 1930 Alumni Magazine includes two references to Miss Lett’s character and qualifications from trusted sources within the Ripon College community. Miss Buysman had also been promoted to Vice-Principal, both as a way of rewarding her long service and experience, but potentially also to maintain College continuity.

But was this worry necessary? Apart from the Chaplain, Principal Lett had an all female teaching staff and a predominantly female domestic staff. Ripon College’s alumnae community was also composed of women who had all decided to undertake a teaching career. Whilst the alumnae community included some women who had left College as early as the 1860s, they were also pioneers in their field at the time. Their decision to earn their own money in a recognised profession, albeit less than their male contemporaries, might suggest they would welcome Principal Lett.

In fact, the 1931 Alumni Magazine praises Principal Lett’s ‘suggestions for improvements’ and how she had made herself ‘readily accessible to staff and students’. The fact she reportedly visited the Manchester Alumnae Association Branch in October 1930, so soon after starting in her new role, will also have won many over, if they even needed convincing. As the Alumni Magazine and the Alumni Association were, at this time, overseen by the College Principal, it’s possible that such anxieties over Principal Lett’s arrival and reception were not shared widely as you might expect. Principal Smith, after all, had successfully petitioned to remain in post until the end of the school year and had not begun to recruit his successor until Spring 1930.

‘No gloomy places’

Principal Lett’s first few years at Ripon College can’t simply be defined by how she modernised campus facilities. Neither can it be defined by her clear attention to details when considering the running of the College, or by her reception by the established College community. In a few short years, before the outbreak of World War Two and during the War itself, Principal Lett oversaw several important changes to College life.

Following advice from an early inspection, students were given more opportunities to work with and socialise within the local community. A play centre, where students could gain more experience with children, was opened in Ripon and run by students. The general lecture programme also became more modern, inviting and hosting a much wider range of speakers. New clubs and societies were established, and elements of student governance were introduced.  

Student life was also much improved during Lett’s tenure as Principal. A trained nurse was hired to oversee the health of the College, and the quality of student food was raised to be closer to that of the staff. In 1935, the library was moved to a much larger space, with electric lighting and more space for studying. New furniture was commissioned, whilst carefully maintaining the old. In the case of the library relocation, new chairs, tables and bookcases were made to match the existing furniture. The existing bookcases were also adapted to fit the space rather than buying all new.

In short, Principal Lett had the same effect on College life as her decision to push for the installation of electric lighting. She was a new, and perhaps much-needed, modernising influence.  In her October 1931 Principal’s report, she writes that thanks to the newly installed electricity:

                “[there are] …no gloomy places in the College, the corridors and common rooms are brightly lit and the students can study along in their own cubicles…”

The 1930 Christmas Party

Principal Lett might have innovated in some areas, but in others she upheld College traditions. The College Christmas Party was an important annual event, and in 1930, something unique occurred. In the 1931 Alumni Magazine Miss Eliot, the editor, wrote: “The Christmas Party was a unique occasion – three Principals of the College had supper at the same table.”

Whilst Miss Eliot recounts the joyous uniqueness, we have a second account of this event. Published in 1963, for the College’s centenary, A.M Wilkinson’s Ripon College: The First Hundred Years shares a different interpretation of events:

                “…as Miss Lett sat down to supper between Canon Garrod and Canon Smith, she cannot have felt that it was an evening of pure pleasure. The old gentlemen would be quite at their ease, though Canon Smith, who had spent twenty-two years with his predecessor on the doorstep, may have felt a flicker of sympathy for the new Principal.”

Could the Christmas Party ever be a ‘pleasure’ when Principal Lett was sat between her two predecessors, who both retained a very active interest in the College, and therefore her work? We can’t help but feel that Principal Lett must have endured some level of ‘mansplaining’ at times from her well-meaning predecessors, especially in an era when Principal Lett still lived outside societal norms as an unmarried, career-minded woman.

“she had much to give”

Eva Lett died on 30 November 1945 after a short, but serious illness. In her reports from early 1945, she discusses her plans for the College’s future. It was a future that looked bright with the end of the war in sight. But it was not to be. Principal Lett resigned in August 1945 and relocated to be closer to friends and family in her final months.Due to the lateness of her resignation, Vice-Principal Buysman became Acting-Principal until September 1946.

Principal Lett’s obituary in the annual Alumni Magazine makes for poignant reading. It speaks about her devotion to Ripon College and how she gave her all to the College and its community:

“[She introduced the]… beauty of flowers, the fragrance of which, just at the right moment and in odd corners, filled the heart with sudden joy, or came as “balm of hurt minds”, or lay on the coffin of an old student living in the City, placed there by her own hand a day or so before her final collapse.”

Legacy

Eva Lett was the first woman to be principal at Ripon College. The pressure to perform, for her students to thrive, and for the College to succeed must have been great. She was the first principal to not also be a clergyman, and the first to not be married. She arrived at Ripon College with no support system and a full staff already in place. No doubt she faced opposition and microaggressions from those who would have preferred another man took the role. It is also likely that she faced opposition to her plans, especially from a College staff and committee that remained relatively unchanged in her first few years in post.

‘ She realized that, as the first woman Principal, she was on trial with the College Council who would have preferred a man; with her colleagues one of whom, Miss Buysman, had been a popular and distinguished member of staff for twenty-seven years; with at least half the students; and worst of all with these two formidable predecessors who knew much more about her job than she did herself’ – pg 77

But by 1945, she was an established and welcome figure at the College and within the local community. She had overseen both structural changes and societal changes. Principal Lett led the College through almost the entirety of World War Two with what her obituary called ‘inner serenity’ in the face of challenges. Her successor was another woman, Valentine Hall, who was followed by Ripon College’s final Principal, Marjorie Gage. Principal Lett showed that a woman could lead, and could lead well.

After her death, the Eva Lett prize was established. It was awarded to a student who was deemed to have made a positive contribution to College life without holding office (such as Prefect, or later, Students’ Union representatives). A College building was also named after her, Eva Lett house. Today, although no longer part of York St John University, the building still retains her name as part of its official address.

Principal Lett’s legacy continued long after she died. The fact the Eva Lett Prize was for those positively contributing to College life highlights how she was remembered; Principal Lett did much to improve Ripon College and gave her all to its betterment.

An undistinguished time?

But has her legacy been overshadowed by the two post-war principals? Principal Hall led Ripon College through expansion and the early post-war years. Principal Gage saw change and upheaval, culminating in the merger of Ripon College with St John’s College in September 1975. Perhaps by virtue of enhanced technology and an increased idea of the College’s history, their contributions are better documented than Principal Lett’s. Likewise, because most, if not all, of the students and staff who knew Principal Lett are no longer with us, their stories and memories of Ripon College under Principal Lett have been lost. For example, we have few photographs of Principal Lett, and even in a book dedicated to Ripon College, Wilkinson does not dedicate much to her tenure, instead referring to it as ‘an undistinguished period of its history’.

But by what standard is she being judged? Although Wilkinson provides a helpful look at the history of Ripon College, her writing is inherently biased. She describes Principal Lett as ‘shy and diffident, and not yet used to consorting with the senior clergy’ before saying that ‘she did not find social contacts easy’. This is strange, since in the 1930 Alumni Magazine, Bishop George Rodney Eden, who was Chair of the Education Committee of the Church of England National Assembly writes ‘I have known her from childhood’ as part of her character references to the alumnae community. Likewise, could she really have found social contacts difficult when she came from a well connected family?

Even after her death, Principal Lett was clearly still on trial for the crime of being the first female principal, and one very unlike her two predecessors.

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Inspire Inclusion

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Inspire Inclusion. Principal Lett shows how women’s inclusion in the workplace, in education and more broadly still had a way to go in the 1930s. Whilst Principal Lett’s appointment showed a massive move towards a more inclusive society, she was still overseen by a College Committee primarily composed of men. Her students also were selected based on both their school marks, and their character reference. Students who couldn’t afford the fees, or the loss of income for their families, would not have been able to attend.

Moreover, despite being formally called The Ripon, Wakefield and Bradford Diocesan Training College, students did not represent the diverse populations of the area. Although a diocesan college, Ripon College had seen the need to, and accepted, non-Anglican students since the early 1900s. This was not extended to non-Christian students, of which there would have been many potential students in the local area.

A distinguished family

Principal Lett came from a well-connected family. An obituary even calls them a ‘distinguished family’. Her father was a physician and her sister Phyllis was a well-known singer before her marriage. One of her brothers, Sir Hugh Lett, was at one time the President of the Royal College of Surgeons.  In short, she came from a well-connected family. In today’s world, we’d say she had a very wide-reaching network.

Principal Lett also enjoyed a university education and was able to pursue a career in an era where this wasn’t often encouraged. This was a privilege many women born in 1887 could never achieve. However, despite her privilege she faced a community that was not inclusive in itself. As an outsider to the College community, she struggled to find acceptance, even after her death. Despite a poignant obituary in the Alumni Magazine, her contribution to the College was still being judged, and found lacking nearly 20 years after she died. No other College Principal is judged so harshly in Wilkinson’s book.

A return to the status quo

After Principal Gage retired in 1975, there would not be another female Principal until 1999. As for Vice-Principals, although our York campus had female vice-principals in this time, Ripon’s vice-principal from 1975 until the closing of Ripon campus was Revd. H Batey. After three women leading Ripon College, our Ripon campus reverted to a clergyman for its day-to-day overseeing. In the 139 years Ripon College, and later Ripon campus, operated, only 44 of those years had a woman as Principal. Likewise, in its 139 year history, clergy retained either the Principalship or Vice-Principalship for 95 years.

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This blog would not have been possible without the help of our fantastic team in the library and archives. You can find out more about their work on their blog.