
Anne Jemima Clough (1820-1892) was Newnham’s first Principal. She herself was educated at home, as was typical for women of her class. She founded and worked at several schools and campaigned for women’s higher education. When ‘Lectures for Ladies’ began at Cambridge, Henry Sidgwick planned a hostel for women students at Regent Street. At his suggestion, he asked Clough to be its Head. She began work in October 1871 with five students. The lectures and hostel soon became Newnham College, and Clough its Principal; a position she held until her death. Clough’s niece Blanche Athena would follow in her aunt’s footsteps to become a notable educationalist and fourth Principal of Newnham. A portrait of Blanche Athena also features in Newnham’s collection.
William Blake Richmond (1842-1921) was an important member of the Victorian Neo-Classical or ‘Olympian’ school. Born into a family of artists (and christened after the artist and poet of the same name), his Aesthetic style found a following among intellectuals and fellow artists; Charles Darwin, W. E. Gladstone, and William Holman Hunt also sat for him during the 1880s. Richmond was Slade Professor of Fine Art Oxford from 1878, succeeding his friend and mentor John Ruskin.
Richmond was well known during his lifetime for his work on the vibrant decorative mosaics at the east end of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A painting of Helen Gladstone, then Vice-Principal of North Hall (later Sidgwick Hall), was later commissioned from the artist for Newnham, and also features in this exhibition.
Richmond’s portrait of Clough was completed in 1882 alongside a painting of William Morris; Richmond had spent the previous summer at Morris’s house, Kelmscott Manor. The painting provides an arresting likeness of the sitter, and was described by Simon Reynolds, Richmond’s biographer, as perhaps his ‘most powerful image of a mature lady’. The portrait was given to the college by former students in 1883.