Education Trailblazer Died 100 Years Ago

by Ian Scott

Published in The Guardian, May 18, 2016

Mount Allison Wesleyan College, class of 1875.

The class of 1875, Mount Allison Wesleyan College, including Mount Allison's first female university graduate, Grace Annie Lockhart. Credit: Mount Allison University/2007.07, item 1190.

Mount Allison University

As student accomplishments are recognized at universities this month, it may be timely to reflect on the journey of Canadian women to gain an education. One hundred years ago on May 18, 1916 in Charlottetown, Grace Annie Lockhart died. As a young woman Grace stepped into the history books on May 25, 1875 at Mount Allison, when she became the first woman in the British Empire awarded a bachelor’s degree. A trail blazer from Saint John, NB, Lockhart was gradually followed by others and in the 20^th century women were sometimes the first member in their own families to attend university including Edna Jean White, a Newfoundlander who studied during the summers and skipped two grades in school to achieve an Acadia degree in 1931 while still a teenager. She was a youthful exception to her class of 110 which was 62%  male and 38%  female. Both Lockhart and White shared their knowledge and skills with others and became teachers.

Edna Jean White, Acadia University
graduation portrait age 19  

 The author Lucy Maud Montgomery saved her teacher’s salary for an entire year to pay tuition for additional study at Dalhousie College in 1895; she like White and Lockhart, married ministers and through their various community roles encouraged girls and boys to consider university study.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, Dec 31, 1896
Photo credit The Canadian Encyclopedia web version

The graduation lists of Canadian universities this month indicate the majority of graduates are women. Beginning with a single woman’s graduation in 1875, over the years the presence of women has continued to increase on Canadian campuses. In Canada in 1971, 32% of university graduates were female. By 1981 the figure was 46%  By 1991, females were 51% of the graduates and by 2001, the number reached 58%. By 2006, women accounted for 60% of recent university graduates. The total numbers of students (men and women) graduating rose 43% between 1992 and 2007, from 169,000 in 1992 to 242,000 in 2007, thus total number of both male and female students continued to grow even as the percentages gradually shifted.

 Higher education for women was a gradual process lead by the example of early adopters. Grace Annie Lockhart married fellow Allisonian, the Rev. John Leard Dawson, a Methodist minister with deep Prince Edward Island roots. Their children and grandchildren followed in their footsteps at Mt. Allison, where there is a National Historic Sites memorial recognizing Lockhart as the first woman in the British Empire to be awarded a bachelor’s degree. She is buried next to her husband in Tryon People’s Cemetery. Her granddaughter Shirley (Dawson) Grogan captured the humble approach of her history-making grandmother, “I don’t think my grandmother ever made a big deal of it.”                                    

A big deal, it clearly was!  Grace bravely opened a door for others to follow. As we congratulate all the men and women graduating this month, it is worth remembering those who dared to take first steps that allowed others to follow.