Astrid Friis

Her mother died while she was an infant and her father emigrated to Australia a few years later, leaving his two daughters to be brought up by their paternal grandmother and two unmarried aunts.

Thanks to an inheritance left by her maternal grandfather, a successful brick factory owner, Friis was able to complete her education at Karen Kjær's School in 1913 and study history at the University of Copenhagen where she earned a master's degree in 1920.

It was thanks to Arup that she developed interest in British economic history, carrying out extensive research in London.

In September 1927, she earned a Ph.D. with her thesis Alderman Cockayne's Project and the Cloth Trad: The Commercial Policy of England in Its Main Aspects, 1603–1625.

[2] Her application in 1939 for a professorship in history at Aarhus University was not accepted, no doubt because the institution was not ready to admit a woman to the post.