ABSTRACT
It is likely that Elizabeth Hughes’ close connections to Newnham College would have led her to expect support from O.B. for any venture connected with women’s education. He had, for example, been happy to give a lecture on Dante’s Purgatorio in Sidgwick’s series of lectures for women in 1877/ 78 and had been willing to give lectures on history to Newnham women.2
He had quickly decided that the women might just as well come at the same time as his lectures to men; nor did he think the contemporary system of chaperonage necessary, A letter home from a Newnham student in 1878 was ecstatic:
