Margaret Macdonald vividly remembers the excitement of studying in the young department of Mediaeval History in the 1960s… and explains why, after a career in school teaching, she decided to come back to do a PhD.…
Amanda DeGiorgis graduated with a PhD in Medieval History in 2008. She is currently a classified reference librarian at the Los Alamos National Lab, where she works with records cataloguing the history of the Manhattan…
Elaine Fulton graduated with a MA in Modern History in 1997, an MLitt in 1998, and a PhD in History in 2003. She has spent more than two decades as an educator at the University of Birmingham. Elaine Fulton spent “an…
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…
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 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…
Barbara Crawford lectured in the Department of Medieval History from 1971 until 2001. She had previously been both an undergraduate and postgraduate student at St Andrews, and was the first long-term woman staff member…
Edith Mary Johnston, MA 1951 PhD 1956 (later, Mrs Liik) As far as we know, Edith Mary Johnston (1930-2008) was the first female St. Andrews PhD historian to go on to an academic career. Born in Belfast, in 1930 to…
Elizabeth Alexandra Menzies, MA 1949, PhD 1954 (later, Mrs Johnson) Elizabeth Menzies (1928-2008) was the third woman to have been awarded a Ph.D. in History from St Andrews (although she seems to have been based at…
Edith Elizabeth Bruce Thomson, MA 1923; PhD 1928 (later Mrs Bracelin) Edith Thomson was the second woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in History at St Andrews. Her academic career appears to have been very similar to that…