Elizabeth Phillips Hughes
{{Short description|Welsh scholar (1851–1925)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Elizabeth Phillips Hughes
| image = Elizabeth Phillips Hughes.jpg
| alt = A newspaper image of a middle-aged white woman, in an oval frame.
| caption = Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, from a 1905 Welsh newspaper.
| other_names = Merch Myrddin (bardic name)
| birth_date = 12 July 1851
| birth_place = Carmarthen
| death_date = 19 December 1925
| death_place = Barry
| nationality = British
| occupation = Educator, college administrator, lecturer
| relatives = Hugh Price Hughes (brother)
}}
Elizabeth Phillips Hughes MBE (12 July 1851 – 19 December 1925) was a Welsh scholar, teacher, and promoter of women's education, first principal of the Cambridge Training College for Women.
Early life
Hughes was born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire,{{cite DWB|id=s-HUGH-PHI-1851|title=Hughes, Elizabeth Phillips (1851-1925), educationalist|author=Megan Lewis|access-date=26 February 2020}} the daughter of John Hughes and Anne Phillips Hughes.{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-37579|title=Hughes, Elizabeth Phillips (1851–1925), college head and promoter of education in Wales|last=Le May|first=G. H. L.|date=2008|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37579|access-date=2020-03-08}} Her father was the first medical officer in the Carmarthen.{{Cite news|last=O'Sullivan|first=Caitlin|url=https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabethphillipshughes-carmarthen-journal/|title=Birthplace of Education Champion Recognised|date=16 August 2017|work=Carmarthen Journal|access-date=8 March 2020|page=29|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430192604/https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabethphillipshughes-carmarthen-journal/|url-status=dead}} She was the sister of Methodist reformer Hugh Price Hughes.{{cite book|author=Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (London, England)|title=The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ag0iAQAAIAAJ|year=1995|publisher=The Society|page=135}} She had little education as a child, but later attended a private school in Cheltenham,{{cite book|author1=John Davies|author2=Nigel Jenkins|author3=Menna Baines|title=The Welsh Academy encyclopaedia of Wales|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ZEUAQAAIAAJ|year=2008|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=978-0-7083-1953-6|page=382}} eventually becoming a teacher at Cheltenham Ladies' College, under the mentorship of Dorothea Beale. She also attended Newnham College, Cambridge, beginning at age 30, and becoming the first woman in the university to take first-class honours in Moral Sciences.
Career
= At Cambridge =
In 1884, Hughes was appointed first principal of the Cambridge Training College for Women, later Hughes Hall, which was renamed in her honour.{{cite book|author1=Pam Hirsch|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2FiCvLK4ox0C&pg=PA203|title=Teacher Training at Cambridge: The Initiatives of Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes|author2=Mark McBeth|publisher=Psychology Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-7130-0234-8|pages=192, 197–198, 201–203}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabethphillipshughes-carmarthen-journal/|title=Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, first principal of Hughes Hall featured in Carmarthen Journal|website=Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge|access-date=2020-03-08|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430192604/https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabethphillipshughes-carmarthen-journal/|url-status=dead}} Under her leadership, the college expanded, became incorporated, and added faculty and facilities, including a library, a museum, and a gymnasium. In 1887 she was asked to join an Education Department committee looking at the "Pupil-teacher" system chaired by the chief inspector of schools, Thomas Wetherherd Sharpe. Only three women were asked: Hughes, Lydia Manley of Stockwell training college and school inspector Sarah Bannister. The committee's report resulted in a policy that caused the closure of the Pupil-teacher centres that had been established by the end of the century.{{Cite ODNB |title=Sarah Bannister in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75587 |pages=ref:odnb/75587 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-04-01 |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/75587 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}}
= International and wartime activities =
After leaving Cambridge, Hughes lived with her younger brother John Arthur Hughes in Barry, but was hardly retired from her educational and reform interests. "I feel keenly that the world wants altering a good deal," she explained of her work. During a 1901 lecture and study tour of the United States,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46339249/women-should-help-to-rule/|title=Women Should Help to Rule|date=1901-08-02|work=The San Francisco Call|access-date=2020-03-08|pages=9|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46340018/english-teachers-views/|title=English Teacher's Views|date=1901-09-21|work=The Morning Journal-Courier|access-date=2020-03-08|pages=3|via=Newspapers.com}} she met Julia Ward Howe and Mary Tenney Castle,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46339687/famous-educator/|title=Famous Educator|date=1901-08-20|work=The Honolulu Advertiser|access-date=2020-03-08|pages=9|via=Newspapers.com}} and took an interest in prison reform; she was impressed by American provisions for juvenile detention and female probation officers. She stayed with Tetsu Yasui and Hannah Riddell, and met Umeko Tsuda, while she served as visiting professor of English, and advocated for physical education for women, at the University of Tokyo (1901–1902).{{Cite journal|last=Ikeda|first=Keiko|date=2014-10-13|title=British Cultural Influence and Japan: Elizabeth Phillips Hughes's Visit for Educational Research in 1901–1902|journal=The International Journal of the History of Sport|volume=31|issue=15|pages=1925–1938|doi=10.1080/09523367.2014.936393|s2cid=145548800|issn=0952-3367}}{{Cite book|last=Ikeda|first=Keiko|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Von8AgAAQBAJ&q=Elizabeth+Phillips+Hughes&pg=PA98|title=Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality|date=2014-03-05|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-32696-7|editor-last=Anderson|editor-first=Eric|pages=98|language=en|chapter=From Ryosai-kenbo to Nadeshiko: Women and Sports in Japan|editor-last2=Hargreavs|editor-first2=Jennifer}} She toured China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, attended the Women's International Congress,{{Cite book|last1=International congress of women (1899 : London)|url=http://archive.org/details/internationalco06womegoog|title=The International congress of women of 1899;|last2=International council of women|last3=Aberdeen and Temair|first3=Ishbel Gordon|date=1900|publisher=London, T. F. Unwin|others=Harvard University}} and spoke at the 1903 meeting of the National Union of Women Workers. During World War I, she was in charge of a Red Cross hospital in Glamorgan, and in 1917 was awarded an MBE for her wartime service.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46340161/members-m-b-e/|title=Members (M. B. E.)|date=1917-08-25|work=The Times|access-date=2020-03-08|pages=20}}
= Education in Wales =
Hughes had a lifelong interest in education in Wales, especially for girls. In 1884, she took a prize at the Liverpool National Eisteddfod for her essay, "The Higher Education of Girls in Wales".{{Cite book|last=Aaron|first=Jane|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h0iuBwAAQBAJ&q=Elizabeth%20Phillips%20Hughes&pg=PA164|title=Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing in Wales: Nation, Gender and Identity|date=2010-02-01|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=978-0-7083-2287-1|pages=164–165|language=en}} She published a pamphlet, The Educational Future of Wales (1894). In 1898 she became secretary of the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales. She helped to found a teachers' college in Barry in 1914. She was the only woman on the committee which drafted the charter of the University of Wales, and in 1920, she received an honorary degree from that university.
Personal life
Hughes was an avid mountain climber; she climbed the Matterhorn at age 48. She died in 1925, aged 74 years, in Barry.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1925/12/20/archives/elizabeth-phillips-hughes.html|title=Elizabeth Phillips Hughes.|date=1925-12-20|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-08|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} In 2018, her birthplace in Carmarthen was marked with a blue plaque. She was recently{{when|date=May 2022}} featured in advertisements for a Cambridge fundraising campaign.{{Cite web|url=https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabeth-phillips-hughes-features-in-the-new-dear-world-yours-cambridge-campaign/|title=Elizabeth Phillips Hughes features in the new 'Dear World… Yours, Cambridge' campaign|website=Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge|access-date=2020-03-08|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430192604/https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/elizabeth-phillips-hughes-features-in-the-new-dear-world-yours-cambridge-campaign/|url-status=dead}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Elizabeth Phillips}}
Category:People from Carmarthen
Category:Feminist studies scholars
Category:Hughes Hall, Cambridge