This portrait by photographer Julia Hedgecoe (b.1938) is part of a series, Educating Eve, exhibited at the Arts Theatre in July 1998, at the time of the 50th Anniversary of the formal admission of women to the University. Many of the photographs were then shown at the National Portrait Gallery before being donated to the College. The portraits were on display in Newnham’s performing arts space, the Old Labs, for more than 20 years, and are now hung in the entrance to the Sidgwick building.
Jane Goodall (b.1934) is a renowned primatologist and environmental campaigner. She is recognised for her work to understand primates’ cognitive ability. As a young woman growing up in Britain in the 1950s, a career as a zoologist seemed an unlikely option. She attended secretarial college, before travelling to Kenya in 1957. There, she met Dr Louis Leakey, renowned palaeontologist, who was seeking someone to begin a study of chimpanzees. He arranged for her to have initial training in London, before she headed out on her first field studies in Tanzania. Goodall joined Newnham in her late twenties, working towards her PhD in Ethology from 1962 to 1966. She published numerous papers during this period, including one in the National Geographic. Her work revolutionised primatology, yet some have said that her greatest academic legacy is the many distinguished women scientists empowered by her example.
In 1977, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a non-profit organisation that empowers people to make a difference for all living things. Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of The British Empire in 2004, she received the French Legion of Honour and the UNESCO Gold Medal Award two years latter.
Julia Hedgecoe’s work spans a wide range of subjects, though portraiture has always been a strong element of her practice. She moved to Cambridgeshire in the 1990s and is one of the most prominent photographers in the region. A graduate of the Guildhall School of Photography, Hedgecoe was employed by The Observer, soon moving into freelance work for The Telegraph and many other newspapers and magazines. As well as the Educating Eve portraits, Hedgecoe’s work is shown at Newnham via an ongoing commission to photograph the College’s Professorial Fellows. In 2021, two new portraits for this series, of Professor Laura Itzhaki and Professor Róisín Owens, will go on display.