M. C. Bradbrook

Muriel Clara "M.C." Bradbrook (1909 – 11 June 1993) was a British literary scholar and authority on Shakespeare. She was Professor of English at the University of Cambridge, and Mistress[1] of Girton College, Cambridge.

Bradbrook was the eldest child of Samuel Bradbrook, superintendent of HM water guard, and his wife, Annie Wilson, née Harvey. She was educated at Hutcheson’s Girls’ School, Glasgow, and Oldershaw High School, Wallasey. She went to Girton College and read English at University of Cambridge between 1927-30, achieving First Class honours in both parts of the Cambridge Tripos. She remained at Girton College as a Carlisle Scholar and subsequently as an Ottilie Hancock Research Fellow between 1930 and 1935, obtaining her PhD in 1933. She spent a year at University of Oxford before returning to Girton College as Lecturer in English and Fellow in 1936. She remained in Cambridge apart from a period working in London for the Board of Trade during the Second World War. By that time she had already published five major works of literary criticism and throughout the 1950s and 60s she continued to publish on Shakespeare and the Elizabethans.[2]

In all, she wrote some seventeen books, including works on Ibsen, Lowry and Conrad. She was appointed a University Lecturer by University of Cambridge in 1948, a Reader in 1962, and Professor of English in 1965 (the first female professor in the Faculty of English). She held visiting professorships at numerous universities, including Santa Cruz, Tokyo, and Rhodes, South Africa, and received honorary degrees from many more. During her period of office as Mistress, Girton College celebrated its centenary (for which she wrote a history, That Infidel Place [3]) and the decision was taken to admit men. She retired in 1976 and became a Life Fellow of Girton College.

Works

Notes and references

  1. ↑ The Heads of the traditionally female colleges in Cambridge and Oxford are referred to as Mistress and those of the traditionally male colleges as Master.
  2. ↑ Muriel Clara Bradbrook (1909-1993) profile, girton.etianen.com; accessed 24 March 2016.
  3. ↑ M. C. Bradbrook, "That infidel place": a short history of Girton College, 1869-1969 (Chatto & Windus, London, 1969). ISBN 0-7011-1344-8

Portraits of Muriel Bradbrook

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by
Mary Cartwright		 Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge
1968–1976 		Succeeded by
Brenda Ryman
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