Girton College, Cambridge. Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status by the university, marking the official admittance of women to the university. In 1976, it was the first Cambridge women's college to become coeducational. The main college site, situated on the outskirts of the village of Girton, about 2.5 miles northwest of the university town, comprises 33 acres of land. In a typical Victorian red brick design, most was built by architect Alfred Waterhouse between 1872 and 1887. It provides extensive sports facilities, an indoor swimming pool, an award-winning library and a chapel with two organs. There is an accommodation annexe, known as Swirles Court, situated in the Eddington neighborhood of the North West Cambridge development. Swirles opened in 2017 and provides up to 325 ensuite single rooms for graduates, and for second-year undergraduates and above. The college has a reputation for admitting a high number of UK state-school students, its community feel, and for musical talent. Several art collections are held on the main site, including People's Portraits, the millennial exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and an Egyptian collection containing the world's most reproduced portrait mummy. Among Girton's notable alumni are Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, former UK Supreme Court President Lady Hale, HuffPost co-founder Arianna Huffington, the comedian/author Sandi Toksvig, the comedian/broadcaster/GP Phil Hammond, the economist Joan Robinson, and the anthropologist Marilyn Strathern, also Mistress from 1998 to 2009. Its sister college is Somerville College, one of the two Oxford colleges to first admit women. The early feminist movement began to argue for the improvement of women's education in the 1860s: Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon met through their activism at the Society for the Employment of Women and the Englishwoman's Review. They shared the aim of securing women's admission to university. In particular, they wanted to determine whether girls could be admitted at Oxford or Cambridge to sit the Senior and Junior Local Examinations. Davies and Bodichon set up a committee to that effect in 1862. In 1865, with the help of Henry Tomkinson, Trinity College alumnus and owner of an insurance company with good contacts within the University, 91 female students entered the Cambridge Local Examination. This first concession to women's educational rights met relatively little resistance, as admission to the examination did not imply residence of women at the university site. At that time, students had the option of doing a Pass degree, which consisted of a disorderly collection of fragmented learning, or an Honours degree, which at that time meant the Mathematics Tripos, classics, natural or moral sciences. An Honours degree was considered more challenging than the Pass degree. In 1869, Henry Sidgwick helped institute the Examinations for Women, which was designed to be of intermediate difficulty. This idea was heavily opposed by Emily Davies, as she demanded admittance to the Tripos examinations. The college was established on 16 October 1869 under the name of the College for Women at Benslow House in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, which was considered to be a convenient distance from Cambridge and London. It was thought to be less risky and less controversial to locate the college away from Cambridge in the beginning. The college was one of England's first residential colleges for women. They worked with Fanny Metcalfe to develop the curricula. In July and October 1869, entrance examinations were held in London, to which 21 candidates came; 16 passed. The first term started on 16 October 1869, when five students began their studies: Emily Gibson, Anna Lloyd, Louisa Lumsden, Isabella Townshend and Sarah Woodhead. Elizabeth Adelaide Manning was also registered as a student, although with the intention of staying for a single term, and her step-mother Charlotte Manning was the first Mistress. The first three students to unofficially sit the Tripos exams in Lent term 1873, Rachel Cook and Lumsden, who both took the Classical Tripos, as well as Woodhead, who took the Mathematical Tripos, were known as The Pioneers. Through fundraising, E7,000 were collected, which allowed for the purchase of land either at Hitchin or near Cambridge in 1871.