Dorothy Whitelock

Edward died in 1903 but despite financial struggles, Dorothy Whitelock was able to attend the Leeds Girls' High School.

[2] In 1930 she became a lecturer in English language at St Hilda's College, Oxford (tutor in 1935, full fellow 1937, vice principal 1951).

[7] Notwithstanding these successes, Whitelock found herself frustrated by a male-dominated academy which often favoured male scholars at the expense of talented female academics.

In the face of such opposition she was tempted to abandon the academy altogether but her close friends, the leading Anglo-Saxon historians Sir Frank Stenton and his wife Doris, addressed a series of supportive letters to her, encouraging her to persevere.

A key part of her work was lobbying for Oxford's women's colleges to have the same status as men's, finally achieved only in 1959.

[2] Whitelock retired in 1969,[10] but continued to publish scholarship and serve the academic community, chairing the Sylloge Committee from 1967 to 1978 and elected a President of the English Place Name Society from 1967 to 1979.