Bertha Phillpotts

Dame Bertha Surtees PhillpottsDBE(25 October 1877 – 20 January 1932) was anEnglishscholar inScandinavian languages,literature,history,archaeologyandanthropology.

Dame Bertha Phillpotts DBE
1921 portrait byPhilip de László
Born	(1877-10-25)25 October 1877 Bedford
Died	20 January 1932(1932-01-20)(aged 54) Cambridge
Nationality	English
Spouse	Hugh F. Newall ​ (m.1931)​
Academic background
Alma mater	Girton College, Cambridge
Academic work
Discipline	Linguistics
Sub-discipline	Scandinavian languages,literature
Institutions	Girton College British Legation, Stockholm Westfield College

Biography

Phillpotts was born inBedfordon 25 October 1877. Her father,James Surtees Phillpotts(1839–1930), was headmaster ofBedford Schooland instrumental in turning it from a relatively obscure grammar school to a top-ranking public school. Her mother, Marian Hadfield Phillpotts (née Cordery; 1843–1925), was a competent linguist. Having received all of her basic education at home, in 1898, Phillpotts won a Pfeiffer Scholarship toGirton Collegein theUniversity of Cambridge,where she studied medieval andmodern languages,Old NorseandCelticunderHector Munro Chadwick.She graduated in 1901 with First Class honours. She then obtained a Pfeiffer Studentship which enabled her to travel toIcelandandCopenhagento pursue her research. From 1906 to 1909, she worked aslibrarianat Girton College. In 1911, she won the Gamble Prize for her essayStudies in the Later History of the Teutonic Kindreds.In 1913, she became the first Lady Carlisle Research Fellow atSomerville College, Oxford.

During theFirst World War,she worked for some time at the British Legation inStockholm,on a largely voluntary basis. An elder brother, Owen Surtees Phillpotts, was Commercial Attaché at the legation. Bertha's services were requested by the head of mission, SirEsmé Howard,and she undertook both clerical and research work for him.

Her other elder brother,Brian( "Broo" ), was an officer of theRoyal Engineerswho served in theFirst World Warand was fatally wounded in action nearYpresin September 1917.Her younger sister,Marjory,captained the England Ladies Hockey Teamand marriedWilliam Sealy Gosset.

Bertha Surtees Phillpotts' Morris Cowley carFreda(here being driven by her cousin, Mary Clover), c. 1930

She was Principal ofWestfield Collegefrom 1919 until 1921, and a member of the College Council from 1922 until 1932. She became the Mistress of Girton College in 1922, succeedingKatharine Jex-Blake(1860–1951), who happened to be her first cousin (the daughter of her mother's sister, Henrietta Cordery andThomas 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 inTunbridge Wells.

However, she was elected to a research fellowship and continued to be an activeFellowof the college, commuting between Tunbridge Wells and Cambridge in her Morris Cowley car which she nicknamed "Freda".

In 1922, she was selected (as the sole woman member) to serve on the Statutory Commission for the University of Cambridge. She remained a member until she resigned from her post at Girton College in 1925. From 1926 until 1931, she was a member of the Statutory Commission for the University of London. From 1926 until her death in 1932, she was director of Scandinavian studies and university lecturer at Girton College.

Her extensive research work included translations of oldIcelandic sagasand studies on the influence of Old Norse andIcelandicon theEnglish language.She is particularly known for her theory of ritual drama as the background to theEddic poems.

In June 1931, when she was already in failing health, Phillpotts married a long standing friend and fellow Cambridge academic, theastrophysicistand educator,Hugh Frank Newall,FRS.

Death

Phillpotts died from cancer in Cambridge on 20 January 1932, aged 54.

Interred (as Bertha Surtees Newall) next to her parents in Tunbridge Wells Cemetery,her widower, Hugh Frank Newall is buried in theParish of the Ascension Burial Groundin Cambridge.

Honours

In recognition of her wartime service at the British Legation in Stockholm, Bertha Surtees Phillpotts was honoured in theOrder of the British Empirelist for 1918.

In 1929, she was promoted toDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire(DBE) for her services to education.She was the first female academic to be so honoured.

She was awarded an honorary Doctorate (Litt. D.) by Trinity College, Dublin in 1919.

Eponymous scholarship

TheDame Bertha Phillpotts Memorial Fundfor 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.

Personality

Phillpotts possessed a lively personality and an intrepid spirit, as the following tribute by a Cambridge colleague shows:

Is there another woman head of a College, who not only is a yachting expert, but has had distinguished professors for her disciples in the art of sailing? On her first visit to Iceland a pony was the sole companion of her wanderings; and we know not which to admire most – her rapid assimilation of University affairs, when called to serve on the Statutory Commission, or her intrepidity in driving a motor, as to the manner born, through Bridge and Sidney Streets, as a novice with but four or five lessons behind her.

This telling observation was contributed after her death by Bertha's friendMary Anderson,Madame de Navarro:

Summer before last she came to stay with us at Blakeney [Norfolk], having motored in ‘Freda’ from Cambridge. She was already not well, and came for a rest. But hearing our son was racing his boat that afternoon she insisted on going in the Parthenia along with him... The Parthenia came in a long way first, and won the cup. Dame Bertha then leapt into another boat and came in second. The next day she was in another boat and was placed third. I then thought it time to reprove her for racing three times in two days – and she not well. But her only reply was, "Don’t! When you talk to me like that the buttons burst off my shoes!"... In appearance she was girlish, with a lovely head and a beautiful profile and hair. Her keen eyes and quick, almost bird-like movements but added to her charm. She was one who, for all her learning, her high sense of duty, had a gallant gaiety altogether her own.

An anecdote often narrated to her friends by Phillpotts illustrates her indifference to hardship and her sense of humour. In it she told the story of a night she and her brother Brian Phillpotts ( "Broo" ) had spent at the home of Þorvaldur Bjarnason, Dean of Melstaðir, in 1904. The story, later retold from memory byMarion Delf-Smith,one of Phillpotts' colleagues at Westfield College in London, concerned a stay in a remote house with the Dean, who provided them with a spartan meal of hard dried fish, sour milk, and ship's biscuits too hard to eat; the bed was infested with vermin; and she was visited in her bedroom by a pony which gave her a kick on the leg. Since the same meal was provided the following day, they escaped and made the lengthy journey to the nearest farmhouse in the hope of getting some food and sleep.

Photographs

• 
  Bertha Phillpotts boating at Bedford with sister Marjory, c. 1896
• 
  Bertha Phillpotts at Girton College, c.1901
• 
  Bertha Phillpotts c.1920courtesy Queen Mary's College, University of London
• 
  Portrait of Bertha Phillpotts at Girton College, Cambridgecourtesy Girton College, Cambridge
• 
  First page of letter, Bertha Phillpotts to her brother Geoffrey, 1904
• 
  First page of letter, Bertha Phillpotts to her parents, 1918

Writings

Among Dame Bertha Phillpotts's published works are:

• Kindred and Clan(Cambridge: University Press, 1913) (Reissued byCambridge University Press,2010.ISBN978-1-108-01050-4)
• The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama(Cambridge: University Press, 1920) (Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2011.ISBN978-1-107-69484-2)
• The Life of the Icelander Jón Ólafsson, Traveller to India(written inIcelandicin 1611 and translated and edited by Bertha S Phillpotts in 1923)
• Wyrd and Providence in Anglo-Saxon Thought(1928, reprinted inInterpretations of Beowulf: a critical anthology.R.D. Fulk, ed. Indiana University Press, 1991)
• Edda and Saga(1931)

Works published about Dame Bertha Phillpotts include:

• Gunnell, Terry. 1999. "Dame Bertha Phillpotts and the Search for Scandinavian Drama". InAnglo-Scandinavian Cross-Currents 1850-1914,ed. Inga-Stina Ewbank (Norwich: Norvik Press). pp. 84–105.
• Poole, Russell. 2002. "Two Students of Boethius". InNew Zealand Journal of French Studies.
• Poole, Russell. 2005. "Kindred, College and Scholarship in the Lifework of Bertha Surtees Phillpotts (1877-1932)". InWomen Medievalists and the Academy,ed.Jane Chance(Madison: University of Wisconsin).

Further reading

• Gunnell, Terry (24 May 2004). "Newall [née Phillpotts], Dame Bertha Surtees".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35207.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
• "Dame Bertha Newall".The Guardian.21 January 1932. p. 8 – viaNewspapers.com.
• "Dame Bertha Newall".The Times.21 January 1932. p. 14.Retrieved21 December2020.
• "Newall".The Times.23 January 1932. p. 1.Retrieved21 December2020.

External links

• Personal Papers of Bertha Phillpotts(biography at the University Library, University of Cambridge)
• Bertha PhillpottsatFind a Grave