The Writings of Constance Maynard (1849-1935)

Constance Maynard was the first Mistress of Westfield College and a pioneer of women’s education. She was a prolific writer,  keeping multiple diaries and an autobiography, as well as self-publishing many books and articles on education and religion. Her ‘Green Book’ diaries and unpublished autobiography have been digitised by the Archives at Queen Mary, University of London and are available to view online: http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/archives/digital/constance_maynard 

Maynard’s ‘Green Book’ diaries detail her ‘inner life’, her emotional response to events in her life and date from 1866 to 1934.  Her unpublished autobiography was written between 1915 and 1933, and covers her life from 1849-1927. It is written in the style of a reflective diary, and in it she explains her reactions to the events detailed in her diaries, and is open and candid about her private life.

Maynard’s personal writings provide a unique insight into the influence of religion, and attitudes towards women’s education and sexuality in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.  The writings reveal her devout faith, her experiences of joining the first generation of women students at Girton College, her role in the formation and early years of Westfield College, and her ‘romantic friendships’ with women.

The impact of being brought up in a deeply religious household is reflected in Maynard’s diaries, which detail the sermons she attended, her favourite psalms and bible passages, and her constant quest to be ‘good enough’ for God’s love. Her religious conviction and reasoning continued throughout her life.

Maynard looked towards her faith to rationalise her decision to further herself through higher education at a time when only a handful of women had done so before, and noted in her diary:

 ‘… and it must be right to educate & use any powers God has given me to the very best I can.[i][i]

 In her autobiography she recalled beginning her University studies, ‘Liberty, heresy, opposition, argument, new thought, new attraction, all had there been laid before me in sample, but now came “the real thing”, & I attacked the position with the courage of ignorance.’[ii][ii]

 In leaving her sheltered domestic life to join the first wave of women entering higher education Maynard was taking a radical step[iii][iii].  She described in her autobiography the stir caused at Cambridge by the presence of women students.

‘We were determined to preserve sweet & genuine womanliness amid all our experiences, to be unobtrusive in dress, and scrupulously modest & polite in manner, & looking back I think it was all rather wonderful that a dozen energetic lively creatures should, without the least external guidance, have been so thoroughly aware that the whole of this vast experiment depended on their corporate conduct.’[iv][iv]

 Reflecting upon the beginnings of women’s higher education, she noted passionately.

‘…[we] asked for nothing more but that women should be freed from the single disability of sex, & that English girls should be free, if they both could and would, to receive the same mental training as English lads had always had.’[v][v]

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