Writing in the margins: Mary Paley Marshall on International Women's Day 2022

 Mary Paley Marshall was Alfred Marshall's wife and the founder of the Marshall Library of Economics, after Alfred's death in 1924. She was the first female librarian and an accomplished economist and scholar in her own right. 

In 1871 Mary was one of the first 5 women admitted to Newnham College, where she spent 3 years studying for the Moral Sciences Tripos. Mary and a fellow student, Amy Bulley, were the first women to be allowed to take the men's Tripos. Even though Mary passed all her exams, as a woman, she was not permitted to graduate. Nevertheless she was invited to become the first woman lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and she soon took over the teaching from her former teacher, Alfred Marshall.

In 1876 Mary and Alfred became engaged and they were married the following year. Due to limitations on marriage for Cambridge Dons at that time Mary and Alfred relocated to Bristol, where Alfred was offered a post. Together Mary and Alfred wrote the Economics of Industry, which was published in 1879 under both their names. The book was highly rated by John Maynard Keynes and other leading Economists of the day. Alfred, however, disliked the book and allowed it to go out of print. There was no evident protest from Mary about this. Later Alfred's own seminal work, Principles of Economics, was published in 1890 under Alfred's sole name. However, we are in possession of one of the proof books and we can see how much Mary contributed to the editing of this great work from her handwriting in the margins.

Take a look at a digitised proof book of Principles of Economics in Cambridge Digital Library here:

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/marshall/1

When Alfred died in 1924 he left many of his books and donated much of his money to the library. Mary acted as volunteer librarian and looked after the collection for nearly 20 years, until she retired at the age of 87.

Throughout her life Mary enjoyed painting and produced a bound volume of watercolours, which was passed to the Marshall Library for safe keeping.

The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge - Exhibition Launch 15th October 2019

I was very privileged to be invited to attend the launch of the University Libraries new exhibition:
The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, which marks 150 years since the founding of the Cambridge's first women's college. It tells the stories of lives of women at Cambridge and the fight for equal educational rights.

You can read more about the exhibition, curated by Dr. Lucy Delap and Dr. Ben Griffin on the Cambridge University Library website.

I was lucky to be invited to the launch as the Marshall Library has contributed to Rising Tide exhibition by lending our Roger Fry portrait of Mary Paley Marshall 1850-1944, the first librarian, benefactor and founder of the Marshall Library of Economics. I am very proud, as Marshall Librarian, to see Mary hanging in pride of place along with other key portraits of Cambridge women in the University Library main corridor.

Mary Paley Marshall. Courtesy of the Marshall Library, University of Cambridge.

Mary Paley was one of the first women to study the Moral Sciences Tripos at Newnham College, as well as one of the first to take the exam. She was taught by Alfred Marshall, whom she later married. She was also the first woman lecturer in Economics. She could not graduate, of course, and, unfortunately died before women were granted this right at Cambridge in 1948. John Maynard Keynes and Austin Robinson commissioned this portrait by Roger Fry in honour of her work for the Faculty of Economics. She sat for this portrait in Keynes' rooms at Kings. This is actually the second portrait, which was accepted. The first portrait painted by Roger Fry was not a good enough likeness!

It was a great evening with some excellent speeches, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell gave a very moving speech about her discovery of pulsars, while studying for her PhD at Murray Edwards College (then New Hall) at Cambridge. It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet some amazing Women at Cambridge, past and present. I particularly enjoyed the story behind the "Behave Badly" badge: Lisa Jardine, a renowned historian who studied at Newnham College 1963-73 used to hand out these badges to women friends - those she though would benefit from them. One such badge was worn by Jane Tillier, first laywoman chaplin at Jesus College in 1984 and Jane used to wear it under her robes. The exhibition is on at the University Library until January 2020 and has involved Libraries and Archives from all over Cambridge - I thoroughly recommend visiting it.

Clare Trowell

Marshall Librarian