Homerton College Records - Photographs

Collection of photographic material including photographs of groups, slides and of the college buildings and students: photographs of Homerton belonging to Eva Leatherhead 1911-1913; group photographs of staff and students 1922-1923; first Homerton American Summer School 1988; staff and students 1925-1927; photograph of the seniors 1915-1917; college photograph 1935; group photographs 1936-1938; group photographs 1938-1939; staff photograph 1991; 18 colour photographs of college summer party 1989; album of photographs relating to visit of Dr Albert Schweitzer 1955; album of staff and students 1932-1934; staff in early 1970s; geography class of 1947; group taken by the Homerton air raid shelter 1940-1942; box of slides staff, students and children's work 1960s; college photographs 1910-1931; aerial photograph of the college c 1969; photograph of students from 1948-1950 at Roll reunion in 1988; postcard of the college 1909; visit of Duke of Edinburgh 1982; Nan Grewe picking plums in the college orchard 1940; photographs from the 1960s; photographs from 1926-1927 including Senior netball team, the gardening and maths class and Junior 2nd Eleven on Hockey Day; black and white photographs taken for 1982 prospectus; physics laboratories 1956-1957; postcards of Homerton exterior 1912.

Homerton College was founded in 1695. It was one of several academies training ministers for nonconformist churches, at a time when the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge would accept only members of the Church of England. From 1768 several of these academies merged into new premises at Homerton Academy, Middlesex, then a convenient distance from London. The name of Homerton College was used from 1823. The specialised function of the college changed after 1836 when it was possible for nonconformists to sit degree examinations in the newly founded University of London. The London Congregationalists found a new purpose for Homerton College as a centre for teacher training for both men and women. It was Samuel Morely, a Victorian philanthropist who was instrumental in the establishment of Homerton as an independent college for the training of teachers. The surroundings of the College at Homerton, once a prosperous suburb of London, deteriorated towards the end of the nineteenth century. A new location was sought and found in the buildings of Cavendish College, Cambridge. The high Victorian Gothic buildings of the College date from 1876. Between 1896 and 1970 Homerton admitted only women students. Under the dynamic leadership of Mary Allan, its first woman Principal, Homerton gathered its reputation for academic and professional excellence. With the introduction of a three year teacher training course in 1960, Homerton expanded rapidly, with student numbers rising from 300 in 1960, to 540 in 1968. Dame Beryl Paston Brown, a graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, presided over a major building programme in the early 1960s which included a new library and dining hall. In 1976 Homerton was recognised as an Approved Society by the University of Cambridge. 1976 also saw the establishment of a four year Bachelor of Education honours degree, designed as a professional teacher training course. In the 1970s Homerton began admitting men as well as women to its postgraduate and undergraduate courses. August 2001 saw Homerton changing its legal and institutional status from a free standing Higher Education Institute to one moving forward to full membership of Cambridge University collegiate structure and, in that sense becoming a 'traditional college' within the Cambridge structure.

Access by arrangement with the librarian

Catalogued on Heritage IV available in the College Library

Description by Catherine Burke, Genesis Project Officer, 7 Feb 2002, amendments from Geoff Mizen, Homerton College. Submitted to the Archives Hub as part of Genesis 2009 Project.

Copying regulations available upon application

See also ARC/GRO, ARC/SLI, and ARC/BUI held at Homerton College Archives

'Homerton 1894-1994, One Hundred Years in Cambridge' Elizabeth Edwards (editor) and Peter Warner, Black Bear Press, Cambridge, 1994.