Mistress of Girton College 1968–76

Muriel 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, coming up to Girton to read English
1927–30, achieving a First Class in both parts of the Tripos. She
remained at Girton as a Carlisle Scholar and subsequently Ottilie
Hancock Research Fellow 1930–35, obtaining a PhD in 1933. She spent a
year in Oxford before returning to Girton 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. In all, she wrote some seventeen books, including
works on Ibsen, Lowry and Conrad. She was appointed a University
Lecturer by Cambridge in 1948, a Reader in 1962, and Professor of
English in 1965 (the first female professor in the Faculty). 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, the College celebrated
its centenary (for which she wrote a history, That Infidel Place) and
the decision was taken to admit men. She retired in 1976 and became a
Life Fellow of the College.