Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) King’s College Ladies Department (1895-1897) to Key Anti-Colonial Indian activist & First Governor of the United Provinces

Zahrah Ali is a graduated from a BA in History and International Relations

One of these instances was the debate over the appointment of art lecturer Vicat Cole over King’s College London’s other internal art teachers. The History of Queen Elizabeth College by Neville Marsh provides us with an extremely detailed history of the Queen Elizabeth College (QEC) which originated as an offshoot of the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London (1885) (later Women’s Department) called the King’s College of Household and Social Science, eventually in 1953 receiving a royal charter and changing its name formally. Marsh notes in relation to this debate that it was a key instance in which the ladies committee voiced that it ‘is not always the case that the lecturer who is the most useful with young men should be the most suitable for lecturing to ladies’ (Neville Marsh, 22). Whilst little is known beyond the scribblings of minute books which vaguely gloss over the incident, these small initial fragmentations and disagreements over appointments did prelude a general dissatisfaction with being part of the male-focused and catered university, leading for calls for greater autonomy on the part of the faculty seen in the transitionary paperwork and structure of the King’s Women’s Department and Department of Social and Household Sciences.

These small preliminary discourses shaped the culture of the Department of Ladies, before the shift towards an independent campus in Kensington, and those who studied as part of it. As a keen advocate for women’s rights especially pertaining towards women’s education throughout her career, it is without a doubt that Naidu would have been exposed to and attuned to these discussions and dynamics during her time at King’s. As an activist for independence and voting rights for women, her experiences in a male-dominated institution, in which a small ladies’ department was able to liberate itself and students through continuous advocacy for more and more autonomy until the 1908 Transfer Act, which established and integrated the Women’s Department into the University College London umbrella helping to more broadly reform and expand higher education for women in London. This may have shaped her political consciousness whilst at King’s- especially given the additional layers of being an international and Indian woman at a primarily white institution at the time. Although it is important to emphasise that non-white students were very much the minority in the department and college and thus this may have created other perceptions for Naidu at the time, unfortunately, we do not have any of her reflections on her time at the university at hand to explore.

However, engaging with Naidu’s possible experiences at King’s allowed me to reflect on my own experiences as a newly graduated member of the King’s community. As a woman of colour who has both studied feminism and feminist political thought during my time at university as well as written and engaged extensively with the current King’s Women in Politics Society and Women’s Clandestine Magazine, I became fascinated with Naidu and intrigued by how her time at King’s College London may have shaped her political thinking, writing career and commitment to women’s rights throughout her life. Of course, the landscape of King’s has shifted and changed massively since the late nineteenth century, but it is important to reflect on the legacies of women’s integration and the Ladies’ Department today. The creation of women’s spaces which I have been lucky to have been a part of at King’s, in which women are able to liberate, contemplate and grapple with institutional, internalized and structural biases that they deal with in their day-to-day lives is thanks to the efforts and experiences of the faculty and students of the Ladies Department, Women’s Department and of Queen Elizabeth College who created these spaces that are still very much needed and celebrated. This duality and evolving identity of integration into King’s College London and the pursuit of separation and independence is extremely interesting. Throughout my time at King’s, I have personally felt this association to not just King’s College London as a student of a wide and diverse academic institution but also to the smaller women’s spaces at King’s which were integral to my time here. The wonderful reflections of women, women of colour and feminist voices in these spaces which may not be heard beyond those smaller spaces are sacred for so many women at the university still to this day. Women’s spaces are extremely valued by those who feel safe within them and who are empowered by their existence. And so, from this personal reflection those back-and-forth debates over the status of the department through complex legalities, transitionary frameworks and opinions of students and faculty alike, in which they wanted to occupy space as members of the university but maintain their own crucial spaces is incredibly important in understanding women’s experiences and history at King’s.

Exploring the life of the women and faculty of the Women’s Department through to the establishment of Queen Elizabeth College is so incredibly important to understanding the wider history of King’s and the space women have carved out for themselves within it. Sarojini Naidu went on to be one of the most important poets and political/independence activists in India, and devoted her life to advocacy of women’s education, empowering women within the context of independence, supporting women’s suffrage and being one of the first women in India to lead a major political party (Indian National Congress 1925), is truly such a remarkable alumnus of the university. Although we do not have her personal reflections of her time at King’s and can only speculate how much King’s shaped her work, thoughts and life, as one of the first women of colour to grace our institution she most certainly had an impact and opened the door for so many women and women of colour studying here today.