The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Faces from St Hugh’s
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of 57,800 men and women who have shaped British history, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. With the Oxford DNB online it’s possible to search for people with links to St Hugh’s College, Oxford - as former students, tutors, and principals.
St Hugh’s in the Oxford DNB
St Hugh’s is a special place for editors of the Oxford DNB: the dictionary’s founding editor was Professor Colin Matthew (1941-1999) who taught history at the college from 1978.
The following is a selection of national figures with links to the college. Alongside Colin, you’ll find the college’s founder, Dame Elizabeth Wordsworth, the legal campaigner Gwyneth Bebb, Labour politician Barbara Castle, and the mathematician Mary Cartwright.
Others with a college connection include Anne Burns (Engineering Science, 1935) (1915 -2001), one of the first women to study engineering at Oxford, and an avid glider pilot until her sixties. And let’s not forget St Hugh himself!
Search for yourself
The Oxford DNB currently includes entries on 26 former students of St Hugh’s. You can find them all here; there are also 63 references to the college across the dictionary. Look for them using the Text search option and ‘St Hugh’s College’.
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Visit the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography website for more information.