Lucy Cavendish

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Pioneer of women's education (1841-1925).

Lucy Caroline Cavendish (née Lyttelton; 5 September 1841 – 22 April 1925), also known as Lady Frederick Cavendish, was an English pioneer of women's education. A daughter of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton, she married into another aristocratic family, the Cavendishes, in 1864. Eighteen years later her husband, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was murdered in Dublin by Irish republicans (a victim of the Phoenix Park murders). After his death she devoted much of her time to the cause of girls' and women's education, for which she was honoured in her lifetime with an honorary degree, and posthumously when, in 1965, the University of Cambridge named its first postgraduate college for women after her.

Encyclopaedic excerpts from Lucy Cavendish; shortened for length and available under CC BY-SA 4.0.