Edith Morley

Born in Bayswater in 1875, Edited Morley benefited from a good education, thanks to her surgeon-dentist father and well-read mother. She obtained an 'equivalent' degree from Oxford University (the only type available to the few female students at the time) and was appointed Professor of English Language at University College, Reading, in 1908, becoming the first female professor in the United Kingdom. She is best known as the primary twentieth-century editor of Henry Crabb Robinson's writings and for her Women Workers in Seven Professions: A Survey of their Economic Conditions and Prospects (1914), published while she was a member of the Fabian Executive Committee. Before and After was written after her retirement in 1940. She was awarded an OBE in 1950 for her work in setting up the Reading Refugee Committee and assisting Jewish refugees in World War II. She died in 1964.