Memorial Birdbath to Rose Sidgwick

Description:Rose Sidgwick (1877- 1918)

This memorial stands in the grounds of Birmingham Business School, formerly University House, in Edgbaston Park Road. It commemorates the life of <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1993">Rose Sidgwick</a>, a pioneer female academic, advocate for workers’ education and Internationalist.^{<small>1</small>}

Sidgwick studied with the Society of Oxford Home Students (SOHS, later St Anne’s College) and the Oxford Pupil Teachers’ Centre. She worked briefly as a tutor in History at Somerville College, Oxford, and in 1905 was appointed as Assistant Lecturer in History at the University of Birmingham. The Journal of Education noted this as a rare example of female success in open competition with men for such posts.^{<small>2</small>}

A discordant note in an otherwise progressive appointment was the prohibition preventing Sidgwick from delivering two lecture courses: ‘British Institutions’ and ‘Modern European History since 1789’.^{<small>3</small>} Instead, she lectured in Ancient History, despite having gained first-class honours in Modern History at SOHS and having a keen interest in contemporary society and politics.

Sidgwick established herself as a valuable staff member and developed an influence within the University and, more widely, within Birmingham’s progressive circles. In 1912 she was a founder member of the Social Study Advisory Board. By this time, Sidgwick had by-passed earlier restrictions and was helping to train social workers through instruction in the history and methods of local government.^{<small>4</small>} This concern with issues beyond academia also manifested itself in support for the Workers’ Educational Association [WEA] and through her work for Staffordshire Education Committee on which she served alongside <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1992">Margery Fry</a>.

Fry and Sidgwick had first met at Somerville College and renewed their friendship at Birmingham where Sidgwick supported Fry in running the university’s women’s Hagley Road residence. Sidgwick later helped plan the hostel’s new home at University House and took a greater administrative role after 1914, when Fry went to support the Quaker relief effort on the Western Front.

In 1918, Sidgwick represented the University of Birmingham on the British Educational Mission to the U.S.A. One of two women in a party of seven, she had a particular interest in assessing the contribution of female academics to American higher education. She worked tirelessly with the Mission to develop closer co-operation between British and American universities.^{<small>5</small>} After a successful but hectic tour of universities, Sidgwick succumbed to the influenza pandemic which was afflicting large parts of the world and she died of pneumonia in New York City on 28 December 1918. In her honour and in recognition of her interest in international friendship, American women established the Rose Sidgwick Fellowship to enable British women graduates to study in the U.S.A.^{<small>6</small>}

This fellowship and Rose’s library left to the WEA^{<small>7</small>} reflected her educational and internationalist concerns, while the memorial birdbath acknowledged her pastoral care for colleagues and students in University House.


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ Details of Rose Sidgwick’s life are taken from: E.H. Jones, 'Sidgwick, Rose (1877 -1918)', Dictionary of National Biography, OUP 2004; ‘Obituary – In Memoriam. Rose Sidgwick’ re-printed in The Mermaid vol.15, (4 April 1919) with slight alterations, from the Oxford Magazine (24 January 1919); ‘Miss Sidgwick dies here’, New York Times (30 December 1918)
² Quoted in British Bureau of Information (U.S.A.), ‘Visit of the British Educational Mission to the United States October – December 1918’ (1918), p.18
³ Faculty of Arts, no.1, minute 437, 14 March 1905 [UBSC}
⁴ Social Study Advisory Board Minutes, vol.2, 1919, pp.52-3 [UBSC]
⁵ The second female representative was Caroline Spurgeon, University of London, British Bureau of Information (U.S.A.), ‘Visit of the British Educational Mission to the United States October – December 1918’ (1918), pp.17-18
⁶ University House Section 24 [UBSC: Box 15 1997/28]: University House Association Report (1919), pp.2-3
⁷ This was housed at the joint University / WEA offices in Edmund St, Council Minutes, vol.13, minute 6690, 23 July 1919</small></font>