History
It was founded in 1849 by Elisabeth Jesser Reid as a higher education college for women
Among its early students and supporters were Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon), campaigner for women’s property rights and later founder of Girton College, Cambridge, Bessie Rayner Parkes, campaigner for equal opportunities for women in education and employment, Lady Byron, widow of the poet, founder of a school in Ealing, and a Unitarian convert, and Anna Swanwick, translator from German and Greek and a Bloomsbury resident (she lived in Tavistock Place in 1841 and Woburn Square in 1851), who ran a school for working-class girls in the Colonnade in the 1840s (Anna Swanwick: A Memoir and Recollections 1813-1899, compiled by her niece Mary L. Bruce, 1903)
Other supporters were Ann Scott, wife of Alexander John Scott, Professor of English at University College and the Ladies’ College, and Sophia De Morgan, wife of Augustus De Morgan, Professor of mathematics at University College and the Ladies’ College itself
Mary Ann or Marian Evans, later the novelist George Eliot, attended classes in 1850–1851, studying maths first with Augustus De Morgan and then with F. W. Newman, also of University College
Another early student was Dickens’s thirteen-year-old daughter Katey, who attended drawing classes in 1853–1854 from her home, Tavistock House in the north-east corner of Tavistock Square
Though Mrs Reid had made a loan of £1500 to start her College, she found in 1856 that its finances were precarious and was obliged to turn the loan into a gift
In 1853 the College council had decided to start a school to increase numbers and fee income
After Mrs Reid’s death in 1866, her three Trustees, Eliza Bostock, Jane Martineau, and Eleanor Smith, continued the College successfully, though they closed the school in 1868 after arguments with Frances Martin, who was inclined to turn it into an Anglican institution
The College was renamed Bedford College in 1859
The College became part of the University of London in 1900, and merged with Royal Holloway College in 1985
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What was reforming about it?
It was the first higher education institution for women in the UK
Following the lead of University College London, from which it acquired most of its (largely unpaid) Professors, it was non-sectarian
Its early students and subscribers included several of Mrs Reid’s friends, many of them Unitarians like her and several of them feminists campaigning for female education, suffrage, and married women’s property rights
Students of Bedford College were among the first women in the UK to take degrees when the University of London opened its degree examinations to women from 1878
Where in Bloomsbury
It began in the house at 47 (now no. 48) Bedford Square in 1849, and expanded into no. 48 (now no. 49) Bedford Square in 1860
The College’s founder, Mrs Reid, a wealthy Unitarian philanthropist, had lived at 6 Grenville Street since her marriage to Dr John Reid in 1821 (he died the following year)
Having moved out of the Grenville Street house in 1842 but kept the lease, Mrs Reid opened it as a boarding house for students of the Ladies’ College in 1852
The College itself moved out of Bloomsbury in 1874 to larger premises near Baker Street after the Bedford Estate managers had informed the Trustees that the leases on the two houses in Bedford Square would not be renewed
Website of current institution
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Books about it
Margaret Tuke, A History of Bedford College for Women, 1849–1937 (1939)
Linna Bentley, Educating Women: A Pictorial History of Bedford College, University of London, 1849–1985 (1991)
Archives
Its extensive administrative records are held at Royal Holloway, ref. BC; details are available online via the Royal Holloway archives catalogue (opens in new window)
There is a handlist: Claire Daunton and Elizabeth Bennett, ‘A Catalogue of the Archives of Bedford College (University of London), 1849–1985’ (1987)
The Elisabeth Jesser Reid Papers, also at Royal Holloway (ref. RF/100-RF/106), contain extensive correspondence between Mrs Reid and her early supporters, including Henry Crabb Robinson, extracts from whose diaries are also part of the collection; details are available online via the Royal Holloway archives catalogue (opens in new window)
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