Elspeth King, curator
Elspeth King (1949-2025) graduated with a MA in Mediaeval History in 1971. Working at museums in Glasgow, Dunfermline, and Stirling, King was central to redefining the preservation of public heritage and social history…
Search by author: Aileen Fyfe
Alex Walmsley, charity trustee and defence consultant
Alex Walmsley graduated with a MA Honours degree in Modern History with International Relations in 1993, and then stayed to complete a PhD in Modern History in 1998. She has enjoyed a long career in the defence sector…
Patricia Allan
Patricia Allan lectured on American history in the Department of Modern History from 1971 to 1973 (while completing her PhD at Glasgow). She subsequently worked in the Law Faculty at the University of Glasgow. She…
Julia Smith
Julia Smith first came to St Andrews as a temporary lecturer in 1982-83, and returned as Reader in Mediaeval History in 1995 to 2005. She has also held posts at Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow and Oxford, as well as in…
Vanessa Harding
Vanessa Harding knew nothing about St Andrews until she arrived on the sleeper at the start of term in autumn 1970. ‘It looked like a nice place to be, and I knew people who were there. It’s the kind of decision you…
A brief history of women historians at St Andrews
From 1877 onwards, the innovative St Andrews LLA qualification enabled women from across the UK (and beyond) to be examined and certified to degree level, at a time when few universities were willing to award degrees…
The Challenges of Job-Hunting: Edith MacQueen in the 1930s
The career trajectory of Edith MacQueen – the first woman to obtain a PhD in History at the University of St. Andrews – poses a certain paradox: a woman of high academic standing, she possessed the right credentials…
Sue Hill remembers medieval history… with cucumber sandwiches
In the 1970s it was a truth universally acknowledged that most people from Dumfries Academy – my secondary school – went on to Glasgow University to study. I might very well have done the same (writes Sue Hill, MA…
Valerie Torgerson: an American in St Andrews in the late 1960s
Valerie Torgerson Waddelove graduated from St Andrews with an MA in Medieval History in 1970. This is an edited extract from her contribution to the Alumni Chronicle in 2020. How can it possibly be 50 years since I…
Janet Low (d.1962)
As far as we know, the first woman to teach History formally within the University was Janet Low. She was one of several people, men and women, appointed during the First World War as ‘Temporary Lecturers and…