Her Oxford

11. A Time of Sacrifice

161 11 A Time of Sacrifice W omen who attended Oxford between 1914 and 1918 had the university very nearly to themselves, for almost the entire undergraduate population entered military service. Some women students left to undertake war work before completing their studies , but most remained, yielding to pleas from university authorities that they could better serve their country by obtaining an education. Women students had never been so valuable to Oxford as now; without male students , their presence was necessary to keep the machinery of the university moving. The women students who decided to stay in Oxford, along with their principals and tutors, tried to do as much war work as their academic schedules would allow. Yet, as the war dragged on, they often felt guilty about remaining on the sidelines in Oxford, knowing that many British women, former Oxford students among them, were making significant contributions to the war effort. A State of War When war was declared on August 4, 1914, a number of Oxford women, both staff and students, were abroad, and some had difficulty getting back to England. In early August, Dorothy Sayers and a friend from Somerville had no sooner arrived in Tours with their chaperone than they found themselves stranded in a city mobilizing for war. It is surprising that they made the trip at all, given the war rumors that had been circulating, but it was now obvious to them that they needed to leave as soon as possible. Unfortunately, all the trains had been commandeered for the military, and they could not escape for almost three weeks, after which they had an uncomfortable journey home. Dorothy was in her element, however, and found the whole adventure exciting. Some students found it impossible to return to Oxford at all. One Somervillian who went home to Canada for the summer could not sail back to England because all Canadian ships had been requisitioned for the war. The Society of Home-Students saw a noticeable decrease in the number of foreign students who usually made up 162 Her Oxford part of its group. Many of the European students stayed at home, either by choice—to do war work in their own countries—or by necessity. Margaret Haig Thomas (Somerville 1904) was not stranded outside England when war broke out, but her experience only nine months later illustrated how perilous travel could become in wartime. Margaret, who assisted her father in his colliery business after her abrupt departure from Somerville (see Chapter 10), accompanied him on a business trip to the United States in the spring of 1915. They sailed for home on the Lusitania, a British liner, on May 1, even though they had learned from the German embassy that the ship might be attacked by submarines. The attack came at two o’clock in the afternoon on May 7, off the coast of Ireland, and the liner sank in fifteen minutes. As chaos reigned on deck and lifeboats were launched, Margaret had the presence of mind to retrieve her lifebelt and to unhook her skirt so that it would not drag her down in the water. She jumped overboard just as the ship went under and floated for hours in the cold sea before losing consciousness as night came on. She had no awareness of being rescued by the crew of a tiny steamer, whose crew members feared she was dead when they pulled her from the water. She woke up to find herself sandwiched between blankets in a small bed, completely naked. After the steamer docked at Queenstown, Ireland, Margaret disembarked clad only in a military blanket and the captain’s house slippers. To her joy, she was reunited with her father, who had managed to secure a place on a lifeboat. Although they wanted to get back to England as fast as possible, bronchial pneumonia kept Margaret in Dublin for three weeks, but she was alive, unlike more than a thousand of her fellow passengers. Oxford women who managed to return for Michaelmas term in the autumn of 1914 could already see the effects of war on the city and university . The most obvious change was the absence of undergraduates. A young Home-Student described her brother and his friends as “hurrying into khaki,” worried that it would all be over before they got their chance to see action.1 Men in uniform became a common sight in the town. Infantry battalions and Royal Flying Corps cadets were billeted in various...