ABSTRACT
In the global context, the admission of women as undergraduates to Australian universities occurred comparatively early and, with the exception of Melbourne University's medical program, no restrictions were placed on what they could study. Women could be admitted to any course offered to men, even to engineering or law. They were not taught separately from men as often happened elsewhere and from 1881, with Royal Charters granted by England, degrees awarded to women by Australian universities had legal authority throughout the world. Such a situation differed from England, where Oxford did not offer full degrees to women until 1920 and Cambridge only in 1948, despite a vibrant tradition of women's higher education established on the doorsteps of both universities in the late 1860s and 1870s. In Australia, battles for the right to university degrees had not involved women chaining themselves to gates demanding their rights, or petitioning all-male university councils, or otherwise making a general nuisance of themselves. In the history of Australian universities, this right is commonly seen as a natural progression through the actions of liberal-minded men.
