Changing Women’s Lives

Rosemary Murray (1913-2004) was the eldest of six children in a happy, talented and energetic family whose deeply-engrained attitude of service to the community she inherited. She studied chemistry at Oxford, becoming one of the first women at LMH to achieve a DPhil. in science, and began an academic career as a lecturer at Royal Holloway College. The charmed world of Rosemary's childhood and student days vanished abruptly with the outbreak of war. Enlisting in the WRNS as a rating, she served from 1942- 46, attaining the rank of Chief Officer. Post-war she was head-hunted by Cambridge University as Demonstrator in Chemistry combined with a Lectureship at Girton College. Here she became interested in women's education, witnessing the success of the long battle to allow women to take degrees and becoming a committee member of the Third Foundation Association, a movement to set up a third women's college. Eventually, when New Hall was started, she became its first Tutor-in-Charge, and later, President. She went on to become the first woman Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.