The College Archive
| Archivist: | Amanda Ingram |
| Hours: | Mon-Tue 8.00-3.30, Wed 8.00-11.00 |
| Email: | archivist@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk |
Access to the archives is by appointment only.
The St. Hugh’s College archive is comprised of two collections:
The first section is a traditional College archive containing material such as minute books, student records, papers relating to staff, fellows and alumni, a photograph collection and various administrative records. Of particular interest as primary source material is a collection of papers belonging to Jessie Emmerson, which includes a diary recording the first years of St. Hugh's and her University certificates. Extracts from this diary were reproduced in St. Hugh's Chronicle No.23 for 1950-1951.
Jessie Emmerson's Diary
Jessie Emmerson's Certificate for her First Examination
There are also collections of letters written home by Molly McNeill and Ina Brooksbank, both of whom were up during the First World War. Extracts from some of these letters are included in the 1986 centenary book, St. Hugh’s College: one hundred years of women’s education, by Penny Griffin, which also includes extracts from responses to a questionnaire sent out to prompt reminiscences of College life. The questionnaires are held in the archive and provide a fascinating glimpse of social and educational history over the decades. There is also the set of surveys sent out to obtain information about career patterns, etc., which forms the basis of another chapter in the centenary book and further enhances the value of the archive as a source of study for those working on the early history of women’s education in Oxford. The archive now also holds the questionnaires that were sent out in preparation for the 125th anniversary in 2011 which, together with the centenary reminiscences, provide an ongoing picture of College life.
The second section is very unusual for a College archive. It consists of patient records from the Second World War, when St. Hugh’s was requisitioned as a Military Hospital for Head Injuries, together with follow up research on brain injury that was conducted with the veterans. Unfortunately, however, we do not have any administrative records of the hospital or any papers relating to surgeons or other medical staff.
These patient files are subject to the normal period of closure for medical records but can be made available to close relatives of individual patients and to medical researchers in the appropriate field.