Name Bertha Phillpotts | ||
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Died 1932, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | ||
Dame Bertha Surtees Phillpotts (1877–1932) was an English scholar in Scandinavian languages, literature, history, archaeology and anthropology.
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Biography
Bertha Phillpotts was born in Bedford on 25 October 1877. Her father, James Surtees Phillpotts (1839-1930), was headmaster of Bedford School and instrumental in turning it from a relatively obscure grammar school to a top-ranking public school. Her mother, Marian Hadfield Phillpotts nee Cordery (1843-1925), was a competent linguist. Bertha was educated at home before going to the University of Cambridge. She studied medieval and modern languages, Old Norse and Celtic at Girton College between 1898 and 1902, and then travelled to Iceland and Copenhagen as a research student. She worked as a librarian at Girton College from 1906 to 1909, and in 1913 she became the first Lady Carlisle Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
During the First World War she worked for some time at the British Legation in Stockholm, on a largely voluntary basis. Her elder brother Owen Surtees Phillpotts was Commercial Attache at the legation. Bertha Phillpotts' services were requested by the head of mission Sir Esme Howard, and she undertook both clerical and research work for him.
Bertha Phillpotts was Principal of Westfield College from 1919 until 1921, and a member of the College Council from 1922 until 1932. She became the Mistress of Girton College in 1922, succeeding Katharine Jex-Blake (1860-1951) who happened to be her first cousin (the daughter of her mother's sister Henrietta Cordery and Thomas Jex-Blake, sometime Headmaster of Rugby School). She held this post until 1925 when, following the death of her mother, she resigned in order to look after her elderly father who was living in retirement in Tunbridge Wells. However she was elected to a research fellowship and continued to be an active Fellow of the college, commuting between Tunbridge Wells and Cambridge in her own car.
From 1926 until her death in 1932 she was director of Scandinavian studies and university lecturer at Girton College. Her research included translations of old Icelandic sagas and studies on the influence of Old Norse and Icelandic on the English language. She is particularly known for her theory of ritual drama as the background to the Eddic poems.
DBE
In 1929 she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to education.
Marriage
In 1931 she married an astrophysicist and educator, Hugh Frank Newall, FRS; she is buried in Tunbridge Wells. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.
Eponymous Scholarship
The Dame Bertha Phillpotts Memorial Fund for the promotion of Old Norse and Icelandic Studies at the University of Cambridge awards grants and scholarships for postgraduate students and other scholars in the relevant fields.
Portraits
Writings
Among Dame Bertha Phillpotts's published works are:
Works published about Dame Bertha Phillpotts include: